No News Is Bad News Archives - Page 4 of 12 - Friends For Fullerton's Future

July 17, 2019July 17, 2019About Us

Breaking News: Fullerton Threatens Local Blog – Again

The city is threatening to sue us… again.

Let’s have a look at the newest letter from the city (PDF HERE) before getting into why this is happening:

Dear Ms. Aviles:

VIA CERTIFIED MAIL RETURN RECEIPT REQUESTED

As legal counsel for the City of Fullerton, I write, pursuant to California Government Code section 6204 et seq., to notify you, as legal counsel to the owner(s) and/or operator(s) of the Friends for Fullerton’s Future (FFFF) blog, that the City of Fullerton has reasonable grounds to believe that owner(s) and/or operator(s) of the FFFF blog are in unlawful possession of records belonging to the City of Fullerton. The records were taken and used by FFFF blog owner(s) and/or operator(s) without the City’s authorization and fall within the definition of “record” under California Government Code Section 6204(a)(2), as well as the definition of “public records” under California Government Code § 6252(e), and are described as follows:

Any and all records obtained from the City of Fullerton’s Dropbox account (https://cityoffullerton.com/outbox) that were not directly provided by the City to Joshua Ferguson or any of FFFF’s agents or associates through an emailed link, including, but not limited to, records contained in a folder named “prl 919 – Josh Ferguson.”

Therefore, pursuant to Govemmentt Code section 6204, within twenty (20) calendar days of receiving this notice, the owner(s) and/or operator(s) of the Friends for Fullerton’s Future blog are hereby directed to either:

(1) Return the above-referenced records to the City of Fullerton, as previously requested; or

(2) Respond in writing and declare why the above-referenced records do not belong to the City of Fullerton. Ifthe owner(s) and/or operator(s) of the Friends for Fullerton’s Future blog do not deliver the above-described records, or do not respond adequately to this notice and its demand within the required time, we will immediately thereafter petition the Superior Court of Orange County for an order requiring the return of these records.

We further note that the FFFF blog has posted many of the confidential City documents after receipt of our office’s June 13, 2019 cease-and-desist email. (A copy of that email is enclosed herein). Many, if not all, of the confidential City records posted to the FFFF blog are explicitly exempted from disclosure under the California Public Records Act, would not have been provided to Mr. Ferguson or FFFF agents or associates in response to a Public Records Act request, and could only have been obtained without the City’s express authorization. Such records posted to the FFFF blog are confidential and exempt from disclosure pursuant to the following authorities:

“Preliminary drafts, notes, or interagency or intra-agency memoranda that are not retained by the public agency in the ordinary course of business, if the public interest in withholding those records clearly outweighs the public interest in disclosure.” Cal. Gov’t Code § 6254(a);

“Records pertaining to pending litigation to which the public agency is a party, or to claims made pursuant to Division 3.6 (commencing with Section 810), until the pending litigation or claim has been finally adjudicated or otherwise settled.” Cal. Gov’t Code § 6254(b);

“Personnel, medical, or similar files, the disclosure of which would constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.” Cal. Gov’t Code § 6254(c);

Law enforcement investigative records. Cal. Gov’t Code § 6254(f); and

“Records, the disclosure of which is exempted or prohibited pursuant to federal or state law, including, but not limited to, provisions of the Evidence Code relating to privilege.” Cal. Gov’t Code § 6254(k), which includes the following privileges:

o Attorney-client privileged records. Cal. Evid. Code 950 et seq.; Roberts v. City of Palmdale, 5 Cal. 4th 363 (1993);

o Attorney work product. Cal. Civ. Proc. Code § 2018.010 et seq.;
o Peace officer personnel records. Cal. Penal Code § 832.7 et seq.; and o Confidential closed session information. Cal. Gov’t Code § 54963.

FFFF’s unauthorized access and misuse of the City’s clearly privileged and exempted documents constitute a violation of California Penal Code section 502, which grants civil remedies (including compensatory damages, attorney’s fees and potential punitive damages) to any persons or entities injured by any violations thereof. See Cal. Pen. Code § 502(c), (e).

As such, unless FFFF complies with the demands set forth in the City’s June 13, 2019 cease and desist letter within 24 hours, the City will have no choice but to pursue all criminal and civil remedies available to it under the law.

Bruce A. Lindsay

Fullerton Cease and Desist 2 Page 01

What is this all about?

For those in the cheap seats we at Friends For Fullerton’s Future broke news story after new story by publishing documents that the city didn’t want disclosed and tying those documents to local events and items of public interest. Those stories include, but are not limited to:

The city settling with a police officer to sidestep disclosure laws regarding police misconduct.

The results of a Body Worn Camera audit for a School Resource Police Officer who had, what appears to be, child pornography on his (or perhaps department issued) cell phone.

An insurance payout for an accident that destroyed a city vehicle.

Likely fraud by city employees costing over $50,000 worth of waste/theft.

Possible Accounting fraud within the city budget used to hide salary costs.

A city council member specifically targeting one businesses.

Massive Police Overtime abuse that went on for 6 years.

Evidence that the city is lying and violating the California Public Records Act.

And more, and more, and more, and more, and more, and more, and more and more.

In short, they’re mad that we’re doing what journalists are supposed to do daily. We’re using information to piece together stories in order to inform the public.

These latest threats are meant to serve as a chilling effect to silence people who would dare impugn the character of Fullerton with facts the city wants obscured. I’m hesitant to head to city hall or go to council meetings lately knowing that the city is targeting me personally for the use of free speech on this news site / blog. And that’s really the point of these types of threats – to silence dissenters.

How will we respond to this latest salvo by the city? I reckon we’ll confer with our legal counsel and act accordingly.

July 13, 2019July 13, 2019Bad Cop

Suicide by Cop vs. Murder by Cop

by Joe Sipowicz49 Comments

17yo Shot on Freeway

For some people the release of video showing the “justified” July 5th shooting of a female teenager by a Fullerton policeman is cause for celebration. Well, we can store that information in the Sad Troll folder and move on. Really, though, one must linger over the sad state of affairs when the FPD has to broadly publicize the fact that their man didn’t kill anybody illegally, with malice or by incompetence.

What a difference eight years make, right? For on July 5th, 2011, and in the months following, the FPD made every effort to hide, lie about, obfuscate, deflect, and misdirect information in the wake of their illegitimate killing of the homeless man, Kelly Thomas.

Has the FPD opened a new chapter in its relationship with the public that supports it?

Maybe. I don’t know, but I doubt it.

When there is exculpatory evidence, it seems, the police are only too happy to release information; thus, within one week of the recent event, the dead teenage girl’s demise was the subject of an FPD press video, complete with slow motion footage showing what happened. And yet when police actions are reckless, incompetent, or even criminal, the PR apparatus retreats into the bunker and cannot say a word.

This is the twisted legacy of former Chief Pat “I Hired Them All” McKinley and the goon squad he imported from the LAPD.

What we have here is failure to communicate…

As we saw with McKinley’s second successor, Chief Danny “Galahad” Hughes, when something bad goes down the department has taken the position that the best medicine is not overdue reform, clean-up and real accountability, but a stiff dose of community relations and departmental tours. This, even as Hughes himself participated in the most dubious undertakings.

We aren’t very nice, but we sure are expensive…

Maybe someday police departments like FPD will come to realize that covering up for bad police work is itself bad police work; that the public that pays for their salaries, benefits and early “retirement” ought to be served instead of abused; and maybe, just maybe, people in California will start getting honest answers and timely, truthful information instead of phony or non-existent “internal” investigations, shifting stories, and outright deception from the police.

July 2, 2019September 9, 2020About Us

Fullerton Observer Fails at Local Journalism

by Lonnie Machin33 Comments

I’m glad to see that Woodward and Bernstein over at the Fullerton Observer have decided to deviate from their usual city council puffery in order to run a two–part summary of the Mueller Report. Lord knows not enough people are covering THAT story in the media. It sure shows the local journalist chops at work in the local media to… rehash what the entire global media establishment won’t shut up about.

Observer Mueller

Normally I wouldn’t take time out of my day to poke fun at the Observer but I need to point something out for the sake of clarity. If you search for the Observer on Google or go to their About Us page they ask for money from people in order to… wait for it:

“Protect local journalism –”

I’m pretty sure this website has broken more local news in Fullerton in the last few weeks alone than the Observer has in a decade and we got hit with an ethically and legally dubious Cease and Desist letter from the “City Prosecutor” for our efforts.

When we were being threatened by City Hall where was the Observer? They’ve been silent on the whole issue because of course they have been. They likely won’t report on anything critical of the city we’ve published without us identifying our sources but no source info is needed for that Cease and Desist letter and yet still radio silence.

Sadly, as has been the case for far too long, if the Observer isn’t crying about the liberal cause-de-jour they’re spending their column space blowing smoke up the skirts of city bureaucrats and avoiding any issue that might shed light on how things actually function in our local government. It may be a bad look to call one’s staff “journalists” if you function more as a local government PR firm.

Maybe after the city follows up on their anti-First Amendment threats against this blog, and one of our contributors, the Observer will have raised enough money to “protect local journalism” in order to actually write about the issue. But don’t hold your breath.

June 24, 2019September 9, 2020Chronic Failure

Did City Employees Steal Over $50K of Equipment?

by Lonnie Machin20 Comments

CNG Fullerton

Another day, another story of alleged theft/fraud of city property here in the city of Fullerton finally coming to light.

“In late January 2017, Julia James contacted me about some questionable purchases charged to Facility Superintendent Bob St. Paul’s City-issued procurement card. I asked Tim Campbell to review the purchases for calendar year 2016. His review revealed several purchases charged to the CNG Fund that did not appear to be CNG-related. Based on the preliminary findings, I asked Tim to examine Bob’s P-card purchases for 2014 and 2015 as well. Over the three years, Bob used his P-card to charge the CNG fund slightly less than $12,000 for several dozen purchases. Many of these purchases had no clear relation to CNG operations; for example, there were multiple purchases for clothing, flashlights, tools, and canopies, some of which appeared to be for personal use. Most of the purchases were initiated by Public Works Analyst Trung Phan, the CNG operation’s manager.”

This time around it looks like the protocols and oversight in the city were so lax that over the course of years employees were able to use their city issued purchasing cards to buy over $50,000 worth of stuff that was of no use to the city.

“It took the audit team about a week to complete the additional review and inventory. When the team finished, the value of questionable purchases increased to at least $50,000.”

Former employees Bob St. Paul and Trung Phan allegedly worked together to charge items to the CNG (Compressed Natural Gas) station on Basque and Commonwealth and when the city tipped them off that they were under investigation – it appears they returned as much as possible in the dead of night and so no real investigation was done and no prosecution was possible.

‘While playing the archived video, we found several instances of Trung arriving at night, briefly stopping at the CNG station, and then unloading items from the back of his personal truck and taking items into the storage area.Bob was also observed returning an item very early in the morning.The incidents took place after Dennis and I counseled Bob and Trung regarding the P-card purchases, but before they were placed on leave.”

That video evidence was actually found out purely by accident which would be comical if it wasn’t so sad.

On top of purchasing things of no use to the city and absconding with them, only to return them in the dead of night, Trung also allegedly manipulated his payroll to get unjustified overtime.

“The research revealed that Trung charged overtime several times a month, claiming he had to come in after hours to reset the station’s equipment. This contradicted with indications by Fastech’s maintenance technician, that the equipment rarely failed.”

That nobody in the city up the food chain knew the efficiency or status of the CNG station and what the vendor even did, as evidenced by an employee able to fake overtime for unneeded work, is another damning indictment on city hall.

The culmination of all of this was yet more settlement agreements coming out of corruption or malfeasance on the part of government employees and not a word to the people of Fullerton. It’s just $50,000+ of your money that was wasted so why tell you anything?

What all was purchased? How much money was wasted? How long did all of this go on and was anybody else involved? The world will never find out. Why? Because:

CNG Investigation Halted

“We halted the internal investigation when the employees made the decision to resign. As such, I am not anticipating a final report.”

That’s right. The city decided they didn’t want to know the full extent of the issue once they were able to settle with the employees in question and successfully sweep this issue, like so many others, under the rug.

We here at Friends for Fullerton’s Future had inquired about this issue when we were first alerted to it and the response at the time from the city was as follows:

“Regarding #2 of your request, the records you have listed are exempt from disclosure pursuant to Government Code section 6254(b), (c), (f) and (k); Government Code section 54963, Evidence Code Section 950 et seq., Code of Civil Procedure section 2018.010, and Government Code section 6255 (personnel, law enforcement investigative files, Brown Act, litigation, attorney-client privilege and attorney work product).”

So much for an open and transparent government. Once again we were all left in the dark while simultaneously being forced to pay for the useless purchases, admin leave and billable hours required to settle this nonsense.

Speaking of the settlements, the one with Trung, likely the same or similar with that of St. Paul, has the boilerplate Paid Leave (vacation) nonsense and other such niceties. The best part though, as usual, is as follows:

“Employer agrees not to defame, disparage or demean Employee for anything he did or may have done in the course and scope of his relationship with Employer.”

Lord help the next employer these two end up working for in the future which in the case of Phan is the CA Department of Transportation. I guess the city helped him to fail upwards.

You can read the settlement agreement with Phan Trung [HERE].

The report about the entire incident is as follows:

June 17, 2019September 9, 2020Bad Cops

What Happened to School Resource Officer Jose Paez

by Lonnie Machin35 Comments

Paez

Something untoward may have been happening at Fullerton High School and the entire community appears to have been once again kept in the dark. Your children may have had their privacy invaded & may be the victims of somebody they were told to trust.

We’ve received what looks like part of a Body Worn Camera audit and it shows some very questionable information.

Highlights are as follows (emphasis added):

Father reporting his 13 year old daughter having inappropriate relationship with 16 yr old boy. Paez takes photos of text messages from father’s phone with an iPhone.
Returned to a home, asked teenage boy and girl if he could get their mother’s phone number. He wrote it on an envelope he was holding with name “***”.
Texting on freeway while driving to CHOC with a suicidal teenage girl in backseat.
With an iPhone he takes 13 photographs of text messages between 422 victim and suspect from victim’s phone using an iPhone. Unsure if his own or PDs.
While investigating Snapchat Hacking report, he takes picture with iPhone of victim girl’s phone screen that has text messages and what appears to the girl in the shower. Girl is 17 years old. At 8m 30s he asks the girl to take screenshots of the conversation (presumably the one he had just photographed) and send it to his work email so he can add it to the case. Why did he take photos with phone?
Talking with an 18 year old woman – about some sort of sex crime involving her ex-boyfriend . He tells her there was mention of a sex video. She said it was deleted. He asked to see her phone to confirm the video was not there. She tells him she has “inappropriate” pictures of herself on her camera roll. He takes her phone and scrolls through the pictures. He spends 4 minutes 20 seconds scrolling through her phone.
Talking to teenage boy about oral sex video on his phone. Stops recording before interview is over. Next video is 2 hours later with boy’s mother in the room.
Talking to girl who took videos and pictures of herself and her boyfriend having sex. Paez pulled the video from his own iPhone to show her. (Not sure if work phone)
Takes picture of a teenage boy he is interviewing at a school. Appears Paez adds a caption to the image and sends it to multiple recipients.
Takes photos of juveniles phone text messages. Unk if work phone or personal.
(17-68541) Paez investigating one juvi with another juvi’s nude pictures on phone. On this case he called CSI to take photos of the images he discovered on the phone.
Interviewed a female teacher wearing a skirt. Had his BWC on his belt. Of the 200+ videos I watched of his, this was the only time I’ve seen footage with BWC on belt. Had pretty clear view, under the table they were sitting at, of her knees to hips. Fortunately, nothing “candid” was captured on his BWC. I checked audit trail and discovered he watched the video only once about a month later. Interestingly, the video that preceeded this one was deleted. The deletion occurred because the category was changed, by Paez, from “Arrest” to “Radio Calls”, which changed the deletion schedule from August 29, 2019 to March 04, 2018. Attached is the audit trail for the deleted video.

Make of all of that what you will but quite a bit of it seems like questionable behavior at best.

It is interesting that Officer Paez was able to delete files from the system by changing categories. It would be enlightening to know how often this happens at FPD. That there seems to have been no oversight on this process up this point is problematic to say the least.

Fullerton Officer Jose Paez may or may not be with the Fullerton Police Department anymore, we’ve seen no confirmation either way, but we do know that he was a School Resource Officer (SRO) at Fullerton High School.

This is confirmed though an March 2, 2017 article in the Fullerton Union High School Tribe Tribune.

Paez Tribe Article

We also know that this status as an SRO is no longer current based on FPD’s website about the School Resource Officer program.

FPD SROs 2019

I understand the premise of innocent until proven guilty, but unfortunately, Fullerton PD does not — as they parade names and faces on social media to brag about their arrests while they themselves hide behind the Police Officers Bill of Rights and other such laws. I’d love to give officers the benefit of the doubt but they, through their unions, fight tooth and nail to stop disclosure of criminal acts amongst their brothers and sisters in blue, and enough is enough.

It’s possible that Officer Paez did nothing wrong and I’ll leave that up to the readers to demand answers from City Hall, Fullerton High School and FPD. It seems inappropriate at best to be using a Body Worn Camera to potentially video record under a teacher’s skirt, under a table, or taking screenshots and photos of underage nudity on a phone that might not even be department-issued.

It should be remembered that just a few days ago I showed Christopher Wren was terminated, partially, for having a nude photo of himself on a department-issued phone. Now square that with the above. I’ll share more as I know it and hopefully somebody can demand and get answers as to what is going on over at FPD and City Hall.

April 19, 2019September 9, 2020No News Is Bad News

A Fullerton Staffing Question

by Lonnie Machin27 Comments

Hero Pay

The Fullerton Firefighters are pushing a narrative that they’re understaffed and underpaid on social media, so let’s talk about it.

We constantly hear about how underfunded, unpaid, underappreciated, undereverything our Police and Fire Depts are from the “Hero Deserve” crowd and the opposite side likes to point to pay rates, pension spiking, double dipping, medical presumptive, lies about early death, OT abuse, CalPERS costs and other fiscal rebuttals.

But what we almost never talk about is how we actually implement service and if we do things in a smart, fiscally sound or even common sense way in our departments. Our City Council won’t touch these issues because they’re petrified of the unions spending campaign money against them or they’re colluding with the unions in order to get those sweet, sweet endorsements.

Since council won’t discuss these things openly I figured we can do it ourselves before dropping numerous records requests.

Therefore for the sake of starting discussions I’ll drop two topics;

If our fire engines, with a crew of 4, have a max of 2 Paramedics on board and 85% (per their statements) of their calls are medical then what do the other 2+ crew members do during the majority of these calls? Are they glorified Uber just taxiing the paramedics around? What do they do at the hospital? How much time do these non-paramedics spend doing crowd control and the like?
Every time I see a police stop or call where the police department is at a scene I see multiple vehicles on scene. To the casual observer it seems that there are multiple units at every stop seen. I understand the premise of needing or wanting backup but why not drive around in pairs so you have backup with you at all times instead of needing to wait for it and waste the resources (gas, etc) on another vehicle?

Does anybody have stats on these things? How many calls for FFD are actually medical? How many calls does each crew actually respond to and what do they do on scene? How much OT is accumulated for passive activities?

How many calls does FPD respond to and how many of those calls require backup? How much backup typically responds? What’s the response time for this backup? How is this different for traffic stops versus calls for service?

I think as the city prepares for budget meetings with so much of our budget going towards salaries and pensions these numbers should be discussed and be as transparent as possible. If we need to pay people more to retain them we need to make sure we’re getting the most bang for our buck and the best, most logical and fiscally sound, service possible.

Anybody want to dive into these questions?

March 19, 2019September 9, 2020Ahmad Zahra

Elevators to Nowhere – The Death March Isn’t Over

by Lonnie Machin5 Comments

It may have been expensive, but it sure was unnecessary…

Two years ago FFFF ran a series of posts based on the observations of “Fullerton Engineer” about the ludicrous elevators addition to the existing bridge at the Depot. Nobody wanted this project except for city staff and only because the dime was somebody else’s. And so a strange bureaucratic odyssey began with fits and starts of activity to waste $4,000,000 of transit money doled out by distant agencies. Then in 2017 the monster was shocked back to life with an infusion of $600,000 of Fullerton’s own cash. Ouch. Let’s let our Friend, Fullerton Engineer take it from here:

It appears as if the depot elevator project is grinding to a conclusion: the elevator foundations and steel are finally done and the traction elevators are almost complete. Are congratulations in order? Not quite, although I suspect there will be a victory celebration and ribbon cutting and back-pats all around when the City Council takes its first expensive elevator ride.

A construction sequence that should have taken perhaps seven months has dragged on for two years. That’s right – two years. No one in charge seems to have offered any explanation, probably because no one in authority has ever asked for any. As I noted in the spring of 2017, the request for more money was shrouded in double talk and obscurantism. Somebody was hiding something.

Over the past two years as I have driven by the site it was more likely that I saw no one working as when I did. So what were all those people who were being paid, and well paid, to oversee this fiasco doing? Who knows? Have delay claim change orders ever been processed? Have they been rejected? Is a lawsuit coming or is it just going to end in a feeding frenzy on a complicit public agency? PRA requests may shed light on this disaster, if in fact they are not ignored by the city’s lawyer.

Don Hoppe, our former City Engineer has disappeared into a well-pensioned retirement. His replacement, a professionally unqualified bureaucrat will take no heat for this embarrassment. It’s no-fault government where the taxpayer foots the bill.

— The Fullerton Engineer

December 10, 2018December 10, 2018Bad Cops

Another Possible Cover-up by FPD

by Joshua21 Comments

This involves some rumors. Proceed accordingly.

Roseler-Stabbing-Investiation

A few months ago an unnamed Fullerton Police Officer was allegedly stabbed in Placentia by an unidentified “Hispanic male”. Four agencies swarmed (Placentia PD, Fullerton PD, CSUF State Police & OC Sheriff’s) and a suspect was picked up, had his info blasted on social media and in press releases — only later to be cleared and released.

Carerra-Arrested

This is where all four agencies left things and no new information has been publicly presented.

Here are the relevant news stories.

Per CBS (22 Sept):

The Fullerton Police Department, Orange County Sheriffs Department and Cal State Fullerton Police Department, made an extensive search of the area.

Officers detained and later arrested a parolee named James Carrera, a 19-year-old Placentia resident. Carrera was booked on an assault with a deadly weapon charge.

Police did not know if the officer was targeted but they said Carrera was out on parole for weapons violations and possibly knew the officer.

Per OC Register (23 Sept):

The victim was released hours after being treated at a local hospital for non-life-threatening injuries, according to Fullerton Police Lt. Tony Rios. He said the injured officer was at home recovering the day after the attack and is expected to return to duty in the next few days.

“I spoke to him this morning and he seems to be doing well,” said Rios. “He’s a strong young guy and he should be back soon.”

Per KTLA (23 Sept):

Investigators described the attacker as a Latino man in his late-teens or early-20s, of thin build. He had short, black hair and wore a baggie, black T-shirt.

Rumors lately have it that the officer made up the “Hispanic Male” and has been put on admin leave with nary a word or apology by the cites or agencies involved. Apparently now we’re hiring Leopold “Butters” Stotch’s mom at Fullerton PD:

SomePuertoRicanGuy

Alas, that might turn out differently because ultimately Mrs. Stotch confessed. Instead we now actually know, thanks to diligent records requests, that the officer in question is one Nathan Roesler.

Roelser Got Stabbed (more…)

October 9, 2018September 9, 2020Behind Closed Doors

Doug, Dunn & Domer: Protecting Pilfering Paulette?

by Lonnie Machin32 Comments

Paulette Stolen Sign — Caught Red Handed

Fullerton can be a funny town with funny stories.

Consider if you will a version of Fullerton where Doug (Chaffee), (Acting Chief) Dunn & (City Manager) Domer have come to an agreement.

In exchange for not referring the Mayor’s wife to the District Attorney’s Office and not investigating the true extent of just how many signs Paulette stole, the Chaffees agreed to suspend Paulette’s campaign. They’ve agreed that she’ll stay out of the public eye through the election.

Doug will also skip the next Council meeting and the city will make no public statement on the matter until December. All parties agreed this was the best way to minimize impacting Doug’s campaign for Supervisor.

That wouldn’t be so hard to believe. That level of corruption feels about right for these idiots in the town we call home.

Even we have a hard time with the next part.

Apparently, Doug, Dunn, and Domer agreed to send a city vehicle to collect Paulette’s various sign caches. The collection is substantial and the triple alliance can’t decide if they’ll move the signs to the city yard to be reclaimed by their owners or to destroy them.

Keeping a crime quiet is one thing. Using city resources to cover it up? Well. That’s quite another.

How does your version of Fullerton align with this potential reality?

In any case, this clearly needs to be taken up by someone well outside Doug’s reach. It’s clear that Doug has influence over Fullerton’s management, but he may also control the purse strings of county officials soon. That means we can’t trust that favors haven’t already been exchanged with the District Attorney and Sheriff offices.

Stealing signs may be Petty Theft, but using government resources to cover up a crime is not. We hate to make a federal case over something so insane, but if Doug, Dunn & Domer really are colluding to cover up Paulette’s crime to benefit Doug’s campaign, that’s serious business.

In any case, this much is clear: we’re owed an explanation. Has Paulette and Doug’s property been searched? What about their cars where videos show her putting the stolen property? Did Doug, Dunn & Domer meet? If so, when and where? How long did the meeting last?

So far, the city has said nothing. Not one word. Not one iota of acknowledgement. Nothing from PD. Nor the Mayor. Nor the Council. Not even the City Manager. Not a word has been uttered publicly from anybody.

Even for Fullerton, that’s odd.

The County has been equally as silent. Our DA is too busy campaigning to make sure this is handled in an expeditious and honest fashion.

We think that all this silence means that at least part of this ~~leak~~. . . hypothetical . . . might be true. Here’s why:

In Fullerton we’re accustomed to our city hiding behind disclosure laws to “protect the city from liability” while managing to only protect bad apples from being thrown in the waste bin. We watched it after the Kelly Thomas murder and we watched it again with the Felz Sappy McTree coverup. We’ve seen it countless times before and since.

Our rotating crop of City Council members, City Managers and staff just default to incompetency, lies and dubious readings of the law out of habit. It’s the natural state at City Hall.

Keystone Cops

Usually POBAR (the Police Officer’s Bill of Rights) can be blamed for a lot of this when a cop is involved.

Sometimes we’re told nothing for no reason whatsoever (How did that Parks & Rec vehicle end up on it’s roof and who was to blame?).

But this time is different.

Just yesterday a City Council candidate, Paulette Marshall Chaffee, dropped out of the race for the District 5 seat on council because she got caught red handed being a thief.

Paulette Sign Thief — Oops, She Did it Again

Her pity-me-party dropout letter is nonsense and we all know she’d be at the candidate forum tonight were it not for the videos we posted here to FFFF.

This time, there’s no scapegoat. There’s no underling for the Chief of Police to blame, there’s no entry level parks employee to take the heat, and there’s no crazy homeless person to label as the problem.

This time, it’s the very rich Mayor’s wife. The Mayor who’s about to become a County Supervisor and control the very large budgets for some very powerful people.

Maybe we’ll get lucky and somebody at City Hall will do the right and honest thing and tell us what’s happened so far and what’s happening.

We’ll have our eyes on the city yard otherwise.

September 14, 2018September 14, 2018Bad Cops

Does Fullerton Have a Leak Problem?

by Joshua6 Comments

Word has reached me that Fullerton might have leak problem – and that problem is that City Manager Ken Domer is quite mad that people would dare tell the public the things he intends to hide from us.

Such things as our Chief of Police and a Captain being caught up alleged Felony Battery on an EMT charges.

Or that one of our now former officers is being indicted for his cover-up work on the Joe Felz DUI incident.

When I first heard the rumors that Domer was hopping mad about the “leaks” coming out I brushed it off as hearsay. Then I heard it again from a different source. And again. And again still.

At this juncture I’m willing to chalk this rumor up as “Credible but without citation”.

If our city management would worry more about what their own staff is doing and the corruption therein and would be honest about it we wouldn’t need to rely on leaks from anonymous sources. And without those leaks, Domer would have nothing to be mad about in the first place.

Ultimately if he is mad it’s because he believes himself to be a part of the Ruling Elite above we the chattel and is more worried about appearances than solving problems.

The funny part for me is that I’ve tried to cultivate leaks within the city to no avail. All of the people who know me in City Hall are smart enough to not tell me anything for fear of guilt by association.

Yet here we are breaking stories of corruption and malfeasance and we get these leaks at FFFF because enough employees are fed up with the nonsense happening in Fullerton and FPD.

I salute the people who have sent us information because one of the last things Fullerton needs these days is a continuing culture of cover-ups. We respect your privacy and value the contribution to improving accountable, intelligent, and responsible leadership in our town’s government.