Friends For Fullerton's Future
FFFF supports causes that promote intelligent, responsible and accountable government in Fullerton and Orange County
We got some flak-back from some folks who tried to defend psuedo-journalist Norberto Santana of the union-sponsored Voice of OCEA that has become another sounding board in the Dem-for-Hire – ‘Pug-for-Hire, union promoting echo chamber.
So today we re-run the image of Santana with his financial impresario, union honcho Nick Berardino, in what appears to be the VOC(EA)’s Santa Ana office. And we invite you, our loyal Friends to provide your own captions.
Is there a limit to the extent one will shamelessly grovel in public? In case you didn’t see it, check out Frank Mickadeit’s column in the O.C. Register from a few days ago.
In this recent opus Mickey exhibits the fierce prowess that seems to drive journalism these days. Here is what Frank and his employers at the Register think the public wants to know all about; Frank’s lunch schedule:
Poignancy! Mick’s and Mike’s eyes meet across a non-smoke-filled room and Caroney waves his old buddy over to join him. Mickey describes his soul mate, characterizing Caroney as “smiling, buff, color in his cheeks.” He points out that if Caroney is lucky enough to avoid getting nailed with a witness-tampering charge he’ll be able to down endless shots of booze with his buddies with his freshly-won freedom (Frank doesn’t mention that he would be doing it on a $200,000+ per year taxpayer sponsored pension, but well, that would just be mean).
So what does the reader learn from this hard-hitting expose? That the Mickster is chummy and swills booze with some pretty notorious and questionable company, the kind of people that would bring into question his credentials. Not only does he shamelessly bring this to our attention, he even gives credit to Caroney for providing him with leads to “interesting stories!”
Interesting stories? The fact is that during Carona’s amoral reign of terror over the Sheriff’s Department Mickadeit gave him a free pass, and was, well, just damn glad to be there!
Now there’s truth in journalism! Can anybody take this guy seriously?
POST UPDATE.
OC Register (now OCEA) heart throb Jennifer Muir posted this piece today after having talked to Hide and Seek Harry Sidhu. Sidhu, who still does not live in our district claims “money is no object” in his fight to dethrone last night’s winner Shawn Nelson in a November run-off for the 4th District seat.
Aw, c’mon Harry. Are you really that dumb? You have nothing to pitch. The more money you spend to promote yourself, the more people will see what a clown, er assclown, you are.
You raised not one substantive issue during this last campaign. Not one. The pathetic “jobs, jobs, jobs” bullshit wasn’t swallowed by anybody. Go ahead. Spend a million. Spend two, or three. It won’t help. Like I said earlier today you can’t sell a car that has no wheels and no engine, no matter how slick you are. And Hairball, you ain’t even slick.
By the way Jen, did you bother to ask Hide and Seek Sidhu how the fortune already wasted on his slimy self accomplished so little? Or how this cipher thinks he’s going to beat a sitting supervisor who already kicked his ass by 12%? Thought not.
One of our observant friends passed along this iridescent pearl from Rob Reiner’s under scrutinized Tax and Redistribute OC Children and Families Commission:
July 15, 2010
The Children and Families Commission of Orange County was awarded the Certificate of Achievement for Excellence in Financial Reporting from the Government Finance Officers Association (GFOA). This achievement is the highest form of recognition among government finance and is given annually to promote high quality finance reporting in the public sector. More than 3,500 governments participate in this program each year.
This self-congratulatory item was no doubt scribbled by Chief Commission Wordsmith and $200 an hour toothbrush hander outer, Matthew J. Cunningham, and is typical of government accountants passing out accolades to each other.
Too bad nobody has done a real external performance audit, including investigating how exorbitant PR and lobbying contracts are being handed out to Commission member Bill Campbell’s political running buddies like Curt Pringle and Cunningham himself.
Well, not to worry. Something tells me that come 2010 Fringie Award time we’ll be recognizing the Commission with our own special brand of recognition.
Surely not the businesses that don’t sell booze.
Last year a few downtown Fullerton property and business owners lobbied the City Council to impose an tax assessment on downtown Fullerton. The purpose of this “Business Improvement District” was to raise money to clean up the mess introduced into Downtown by the numerous booze joints and illegal dance clubs.
The first step was predictable: hire yourself a “consultant” who will tell you what you want to hear. But the price tag was too steep and the promoters couldn’t get a clear majority of the Council to go along.
But apparently now Councilwoman Sharon Quirk-Silva has changed her mind about hiring a consultant to meet and greet and spread the BID propaganda.
The direction here is all too clear: build up some momentum toward the idea and then rely on the self-interested parties to vote their interest and hope that the other property owners don’t catch on.
Well I think this stinks. Why should all the downtown property owners pay to fix the problems caused by the bar owners and their out-of-control customers, not to mention a City policy that has enabled all these problems? And let’s not forget – former police chief and council candidate Patrick McKinley who liked to look the other way.
And why should the taxpayers keep footing the bill?
A quick perusal of the OC Children and Families Commission meeting for July 7, 2010 might be a bit misleading. Item six talks about a Strategic Communications Work Program and lists the “consultants” – really lobbyists and promoters whom we’ve seen before – Pringle and Associates, and O’ Haren, and the comically named White House Writers Group, that are lining up to line their pockets at the expense of hungry kids.
However, it’s not until you actually look at the agenda item staff report that you see our old friend Matthew Cunningham from Suite C described. Hiding something? The budget item is for “on call” services for a total of $30,000. I’m not sure what on call services amount to, but clearly Cunningham is still to be employed doing whatever it is he does for the Rob Reiner Tax and Redistribute Commission at the princely rate of $200 an hour.
The somewhat ambiguous phrase “a no-cost extension will be executed, and as necessary, modifications within the contract and budget authority” is appended. Apparently “Final” FY 2010-2011 budget actions take place in October.
Okay Friends, fight the gag reflex as you peruse this column written in something called The Washington Examiner under the by line of Hugh Hewitt, sanctimonious repuglican blabbermouth. I say “under the by line” because we recently disclosed how this allegedly literate yakmouth had stuff written for him by Children and Families Commission Scribe/Flack and $200 an hour Toothbrush Distributor, Matthew J. Cunningham, and it would now be risky to assume Hewitt writes anything for himself.
“Enough!” Hewitt loudly admonishes his ignorant readers at the end of his drivel. Ignorant? How so?
If they are reading anything attributed to this hypocrite they are almost certainly unaware that he serves on the biggest Tax and Redistributionist Commission in the history of California – the OC Children and Families Commission; and no doubt unaware that his words may very well be written by someone else – Cunningham, perhaps – his protege, and the fellow whose $200,000-a-year PR contract with the Commission Hewitt annually votes to approve.
Yuck.
If you needed any more evidence of the evident symbiosis between the The Voice of OC and it’s paymaster, Nick “Bullhorn” Berardino of the OCEA union you need look no farther this blog post by Norberto Santa. Please notice that 30 of the 31 comments are just pro-union/OCEA propaganda. 30 of 31.
Could Berardino be instructing his troops to frequent the union-sponsored blog just to keep the traffic up? Why not? It’s all one big, happy family, and The Voice never claimed to be objective – just non-profit.
In a post today (or was it yesterday? Aw, who the hell cares?) the Voice of the County Public Employee Union passed along a story they got from the LA Times (no link thanks, you punks).
Of course they are doing it for the wrong reason. Their story is all about how their paymaster Nick Berardino was made to look like a chimpanzee for publicly attacking Webster Guillory and getting dressed down by the County CEO. The implication is clear enough: Rackaukas won’t investigate criminal wrongdoing by politicians. True enough. But why haven’t we heard a single word from the Voice of OCEA about Democrat Tom Daly hiring friends and the relatives of campaign contributors; about County staff withholding critical information from the BOS regarding the purchase of a derelict building on Civic Center Drive; about the Children and Families Commission hiring political hacks for bloated PR and lobbying contracts; about a political operative getting $48,000 to “study” a sports hall of fame; about a candidate for supervisor who committed voter fraud by perjuring himself twice on official documents?
Well, you get the point.
Previously we noted the Fullerton Observer’s legal maneuvering in an attempt to add itself to the city payroll. Last week we found out that Sharon Kennedy’s court filing had been met with objections by both the Orange County Register and the City of Fullerton.
The City’s objection is based on the same points we brought up a few weeks ago – namely, the Observer is not printed within the city, it is not printed weekly and it doesn’t have a bona fide list of paying subscribers as required by law. That’s three strikes for the Observer.
The city calls into question Sharon Kennedy’s own filing, where we learn that the Observer boasts a whopping 598 paid subscribers and a monthly online distribution that rivals FFFF’s daily hits.
Next we have an objection filed by OC Register attorneys, which finds fault with the notice that Kennedy filed for her own hearing. The Register sums up the problem by saying “It is ironic that the Petitioner [Fullerton Observer] is seeking to publish important legal notices, yet cannot even publish its own Notice correctly.”
Kennedy pushed out her hearing to the end of July. I suspect she will drop it all together rather than suffer further embarrassment.
Bottom line: Kennedy’s dying cause here is to get the Fullerton Observer onto the city payroll. We’ve already demonstrated the paper’s inability to criticize city staff, engage in any kind of investigative journalism within city hall or participate objective reporting all while claiming that it is a legitimate newspaper. It’s hard to imagine any of these conditions improving should Kennedy’s paper wind up on the taxpayer’s dole.
