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Category: Pam Keller
Pam Keller is a councilmember in the City of Fullerton. Pam is also Executive Director of the Fullerton Collaborative and a former Fullerton schoolteacher.
The recent edition of the Fullerton Observer did some boohooing and hand wringing about whether or not Pam Keller will get to be Fullerton’s next mayor here . The little article points out some of the nefarious goings on in Fullerton Past and the current council’s refusal to adopt some sort of mechanism to ensure that everybody gets a chance to be mayor.
We believe the person who should be Mayor of Fullerton is the person who can get two other colleagues to vote for him/her. That’s pretty simple. If they can count to three it’s their turn.
Fullerton’s lefties know that come reorganization time (1st meeting in December) local Repuglican bigwigs like Ed Royce make it a point to lean on fellow Repugs (In Name Only) like Bankhead and Jones to keep the gavel away from the Dems. But that’s the way it goes. It’s called politics. Fullerton’s “progressives” like to play politics too, but they just won’t admit it. We wonder if they would be so energetic in the defense of Shawn Nelson’s turn to be mayor.
Is Pam Keller qualified to be mayor? Well, let’s face it – if Jones and Bankhead can do it, so could an orangutan.
Yes. Yes I can...
But we’re still waiting to get some straight answers from Pam and her Collaborative about who foots their bills, and why the money is drip-dried through the FSD; and we were chagrined, although not surprised, to hear her inane defense of the indefensible blight scam behind the recent Redevelopment expansion vote. So maybe she isn’t the best person to be the face of Fullerton.
Last night the Fullerton City Council voted to give the County of Orange $4,000,000 of your money. Right now. Right out of your pocket.
Well, there she goes. Say good bye.
So what’s the reason for this unusual generosity? It was because the County was threatening to sue the City over the diversion of property tax increment from the County through the bogus establishment of an expanded Redevelopment project area where no blight exists as required under State law.
The City lawyers, Rutan & Tucker,sure must have felt they had a lousy case – because they cooked up a deal behind the scenes to buy off the County with a ton of up-front cash plus some hinky lease back deals on down the road. Ultimately the total payout will be $25,000,000. We shared news of the the payoff meetings here . The County knows the Redevelopment expansion is fraudulent, because it has already made that argument publicly; but apparently there are at least three votes on the Board of Supervisors to take the deal and help out a fellow government agency. The County will formally go for the gold next week.
The City Council vote was utterly predictable with Pam Keller, Don Bankhead, and Dick Jones cheer leading the payoff. Dick Jones in particular excelled himself in ignorant idiocy. We’ll soon be showing the Friends clips of Fullerton’s City Council in action.
To their credit, both Shawn Nelson and Sharon Quirk-Silva voted against an action that both robs the taxpayers of Fullerton and violates a basic ethical standard. The other three broke the law, and they know it. But they’re not out of the woods, yet. A court will decide the matter.
You will never see me taking money from developers...
Green?
We’ve been sharing information (when we find it) with our Friends about the unusual – well, unique, really – relationship between the Fullerton Collaborative and the Fullerton School District. Fullerton City Council woman Pam Keller is the Executive Director of the former, but remains an employee of the latter. We’ve coined a term for the process – “contracting-in.” It’s such a rare strategy that we’ve never actually seen it in use before.
Many of our Loyal Readers’ eyebrows have been caused to arch by the possibility that Pam Keller might have been soliciting donations for The Collaborative that actually went to pay FSD for her own services. And those eyebrows got even closer to hairlines when speculation began that Pam may have been soliciting donations from interests that had business before the City of Fullerton.
Today we share the 2009-2010 agreement between the Collaborative and the FSD – agreed upon by the Board of Trustees unanimously and without discussion as a “consent calendar” item.
Notice the asterisk in item #1 of the Collaborative’s responsibilities. It leaves open the possibility that the District may give the Executive Director a raise – and stick the Collaborative with the bill! Now we ask you – what kind of an organization would agree to an open-ended codicil like that in a contract? We’ll help out: one in which the Executive Director (who is also a board member), is the direct beneficiary, that’s who!
We also note in the 2009-10 FSD budget documents a throw away line stating that the Collaborative kicked in extra money to the FSD. It’s noted in that little box at the bottom of the document (below). Now why would the Collaborative do that? What kind of “charity” gives additional money back to a contractor? Possibly a charity whose fund-raiser’s efforts are so successful that a surplus exists which could be kicked back to the District to pay for that raise described in item #1 of the agreement. Of course we’re just speculating here.
But, none of these speculations would be so thought provoking if the Collaborative’s mission weren’t so fuzzy, and if it had major expenses other than the cost of hiring a government employee to be its Executive Director/fund-raiser. But the mission is so loose as to be practically meaningless, and the cost of the Executive Director consumed most of its budget in 2007.
All of this really ties back to the fundraising issue and who actually gives money to the Collborative. But it’s perfectly clear now that the funds – donations, fees, whatever – that go into the Collaborative, go to pay Keller – via the FSD; the question of additional “revenue” given to the FSD by the Collaborative opens up a new issue for people who contribute to this endeavor and who might start wondering why the Collaborative can’t be run by its own employee, or better yet, by volunteer labor.
We’ve been tracking the doings of Fullerton City Council member Pam Keller lately, with particular interest in her job as Executive Director of something called the Fullerton Collaborative, an outfit with fairly fuzzy goals whose biggest expense in 2007 was Pam Keller herself.
We’ve gotten a little bit of blow back from some Keller supporters who just don’t seem to understand the problem we’re having with a City Council member who might just be voting on projects whose applicants are also contributors to her Collaborative, and hence, pay for her services.
To help illustrate our point we helpfully provide an example. On their website, the Collaborative lists St. Jude’s Medical Center as a member here . Well, members pay dues, and those dues go to the revenue that pays for an Executive Director. Now let’s say (for the sake of argument) that St. Jude’s had some important business before the City of Fullerton. Oh. Wait. No need to suppose.
In December of 2007 the Fullerton City Council voted to approve a general plan amendment, a zone change, permits, and associated CEQA documents that permitted St. Jude’s to expand on the west side of Harbor Blvd – adding a massive new medical building and a gargantuan parking structure here . The vote was 5-0 (check out pages 5 & 6) – meaning that Keller voted to approve a huge project in an already heavily congested area proposed by a key member of her Collaborative, a member whose contributions that year went into the kitty that paid Keller’s salary. We see that as a huge conflict of interest – even if her relationship might somehow be legalized by the fact that she was really an FSD employee in disguise. The fact that the approval didn’t hang upon Keller’s vote offers us little comfort. What if it had – as in the case of the recent Redevelopment expansion?
If this same type of behavior had taken place with private developers, well, you can see the problems that would arise. Oh. Wait. St. Jude’s is a private developer.
There's a lot more to me than meets the eye...and a lot less, too.
It’s always nice to know who is who. And when somebody gets up in public to opine on a subject, it’s particularly useful to know what relationship exists between the speaker and somebody – like a staff member, or a city council member- who is promoting a specific item on a public agency agenda.
While we are always promoting the importance of what is said rather than who said it, there’s no denying the fact that having people get up and speak, no matter how stupid or uniformed they are, helps sway councilmanic opinion; and when the council persons aren’t the brightest bulbs on the tree to begin with, it’s just that much more effective.
Here’s a story: somebody named Lee Chalker showed up at the hearing for the Redevelopment expansion hearing and spoke in favor of the expansion. She even got her name in a Barbara Giasone article on the subject here . Now, none of us had ever heard of Lee Chalker before despite her having lived in Fullerton for 35 years. We wonder if she really knew what she was talking about since her stated concerns about bad roads and drainage suggest current deficiencies in the Engineering Department rather than Redevelopment issues.
A little research on Lee Chalker reveals a member of a church called “University Praise” that is affiliated with an organization called OCCCO. What is that? The “Orange County Congregational Community Organization” – a group with a fairly nebulous remit, but that seems to organize its efforts around helping poor folks organize to get things from the government.
What’s really interesting about OCCCO is that in 2007 it was a major beneficiary of Pam Keller’s “Fullerton Collaborative.” In fact, the Collaborative forked over $25,600 to OCCCO for something called “community organizing.” Well, that makes sense, we suppose, since a “Community Organization” should have something to do with community organizing. What they did for the $26K is less important than the connection with Pam Keller herself, who was able to vote on the Redevelopment expansion only after City staff redrew the boundaries around a piece of property that Keller has some sort of interest in. And of course she voted in the affirmative.
We also note that in the Collaborative’s facebook page here we find that Chalker was being installed as a new board member in the Collaborative at just about the same time.
So did Collaborative Executive Director Pam Keller mobilize a gaggle of her pals in the Collaborative and/or the OCCCO to attend the meeting and shill for the illegal Redevelopment expansion? Who knows? Sure looks like it.
The larger point here is to understand the interrelated nature of all sorts of groups in Fullerton who actually have a very small number of aggregate members, but who can be relied upon to show up periodically at hearings to promote some cause or other near and dear to the heart of some bureaucrat or councilmember. Their numbers give moral support to councilmembers who either lack conviction or are afraid of standing alone.
Is there anything wrong with this sort of mobilization of support? No. But when some of the members of these claques have financial interests at stake (which happens all the time, too) it gets a little dicey. People who want to understand what’s going on are well advised to figure out who these people are and why they are there. In the end it is the content of what they say that counts. But it’s fun to know who the players are. And if you happen to see a procession of people march to the podium to sing the praises of this or that project, you can bet that they were asked to be there. And you have to wonder: if applauders are dragooned into service to help promote some scheme or other, just how good or necessary is it really?
Need a program to tell the players? We’re working on it.
We’ve spent much of the week examining what we could find out about Pam Keller and her “Fullerton Collaborative.” As a Fullerton City Council member she has cast some votes that even some of her devoted supporters have found, well, mystifying. These include the gargantuan “Jefferson Commons” and the mammoth “Amerige Court” messes. Only a crappy economy has stalled these excrescences from going forward, although several historic, mid-century modern buildings have been destroyed to clear the land for Jefferson Commons.
Pam has made a great big deal about not taking developer’s money, and her 2006 campaign manifesto talks about protecting the citizens of Fullerton from the nasty developer special interests that want to “shape our future.” It still sounds like a lot of campaign drivel, but it was clearly intended to appeal to a certain profile voter – just the sort of voter who should now be appalled at those approved projects.
Our series started out with a giggle over her “Woodstock” fundraiser aimed at ex-hippies who could break out their ratty denims and tie-dye T shirts and kick in $1000 to be a “Jimi Hendrix Fan Club” member. The fact that the party nearly coincided with the one year anniversary of her vote to approve the Amerige Court project propelled the conversation in that direction.
The discussion took another turn when we also noticed that Keller’s Fullerton Collaborative is supposed to combat childhood obesity – so it seemed disconnected that she would vote to move a McDonald’s right across the street from Fullerton High; except that the move frees up land for another massive housing project!
The mention of the Collaborative began a look-see into that group. We discovered that Pam is an employee of the Fullerton School District – not the Collaborative, which is convenient – for her – since she can pursue her philanthropy on the public payroll. We remarked that the money that goes to pay the FSD for Pam’s services constitutes the majority of the Collaborative’s expenses, and that in 2007 it operated in the red.
We also discovered that the Collaborative website makes no mention of who its “donors” are, which is pretty weird for a charity and even weirder for people who donate to them; and this led to all sorts of unpleasant speculation about the possibility that private interests in Fullerton that have business with the City might be donating to the Collaborative.
As speculation mounted about the possibility that land developers might be donating to the Collaborative – developers like Steve Sheldon and the Pelican/Laing boys – we picked up a couple of other interesting tidbits, such as Fullerton City Departments being “members” of the Collaborative where their boss runs things (from FSD Trustee Minard Duncan); and then that Pam Keller attended the now infamous Newport Harbor drinkies boat ride and dinner hosted by Steve Sheldon for Sharon Quirk; a boat ride also attended by the Amerige Court developers who paid $1000 a piece for the privilege. Our Friends wondered if Sheldon gave Keller a freebie and whether that fact had been divulged anywhere.
Finally, FFFF blogmeister Travis Kiger issued a challenge for Pam to reveal who the donors to the Collaborative have been. And Pam responded by saying she would take it up with the Collaborative board (of which she is a member) at their meeting next month.
Well, that’s it so far. It’s been interesting digging into theses topics and others seem to be interested too: we have generated our highest visitor and page view numbers ever.
And rest assured, Friends, we won’t be letting go of this story any time soon, so stick around for the continuing saga!
In government circles there is a concept known as “contracting out.” The idea is pretty simple. Certain services can be provided by the private sector at a fraction of the cost the government can manage. Things like tree trimming and janitorial services spring most readily to mind, but there’s no reason that any government function can’t be compared with the private sector for cost savings. Liberals hate the notion because it means smaller, less wasteful government.
It appears the Fullerton Collaborative has come up with a new wrinkle: contracting in. It pays a government agency, the Fullerton School District, for one of its employees, Fullerton City Council member Pam Keller, to act as Executive Director. Since the Collaborative also shares the same address as the District we assume they provide a desk and a telephone and a computer, too.
If we apply the notion that it generally costs more for the government to do something than a private citizen, we really have to wonder why the Fullerton Collaborative thinks it’s a good idea to have the School District provide this service. Common sense suggests that they could get a better deal by simply hiring Keller – or anybody else – directly, and cutting out the expensive bureaucratic middle-man. This may be a great deal for Keller, but what’s in it for the Collaborative? Of course some of our more cynical commenters have opined that the Collaborative is Keller!
Our guess is that most folks associated with the Fullerton Collaborative work for, or regularly importune the government at some level for something or other, and can’t quite bend their minds around this idea.
Yesterday on our blog, our own intrepid Travis Kiger requested that Fullerton City Council member Pam Keller reveal the names of the parties that have made donations to the Fullerton Collaborative since she first became a candidate in 2006. He also sent the request personally to Ms. Keller who kindly responded.
Here’s the correspondence. First, the request by Travis:
I believe that you are a good person, but I am not able to explain some of your recent council votes. As you probably know, one of our bloggers has been researching your compensation arrangement with the Fullerton Collaborative. For reasons explained on today’s blog post, we are requesting full disclosure of all donations to the Fullerton Collaborative.
We will not back down from this request. I strongly believe that transparency is in the best interests of the public.
Furthermore, if there are any corrections that you feel need to be made to facts posted on our site, please let me know. This is an important discussion to engage in. If you remain silent on this issue, we can only make the assumption that something is wrong and we will amplify our call.
Thank you,
Travis Kiger
Friends for Fullerton’s Future
And Pam Keller’s response:
Good Afternoon Travis,
I will be happy to bring your request to the Fullerton Collaborative Board of Directors at our next meeting which is in September.
Thank you,
Pam Keller
Well there you have it. Let’s hope the board does the right thing – for itself – if for no one else – and let’s see who pays the bills, including the contract with FSD for Keller’s services. We will certainly stay on top of this issue and let the Friends know whatever we find out.
Yesterday the Shadow exposed some dubious inner workings at the Fullerton Collaborative. We thought something was up since Pam Keller’s penchant for passing bad development projects while proclaiming that she does not take developer money seems madly disjointed. A little digging revealed that a large piece of her non-profit’s donations go right back to Pam’s pocket as payment for her extensive “collaborating” skills, but only after being carefully funneled through the Fullerton School District.
Next came the anonymous whispers – Pam doesn’t take developer donations, but does the Fullerton Collaborative? If so, things aren’t looking so good for Pam’s claims of honesty and transparency.
In light of these findings and on behalf of the public, we request that Fullerton Councilmember Pam Keller release all donation records for the Fullerton Collaborative dating back to the start of her 2006 campaign.
Many non-profits choose to disclose funding sources as a gesture of accountability. Any foundation being run by an elected official should be even more inclined to disclose financial data. Furthermore, if the elected official is being paid by the non-profit, full disclosure is a necessity. Pam claims to believe in the transparency of government, so let’s see if she has a problem showing the public who signs her paycheck.
Some will jump to Pam’s defense because she is generally well-liked. Being friendly and personable is not a reason to give any politician a complete pass. Put your personal feelings aside for a moment. That’s a difficult thing for many people to do and that’s probably why Pam has made it so far without scrutiny. We are merely investigating the motivations behind a politician’s choices. It’s hard to argue that the public is not better served by more transparency.
Pam Keller likes to talk a lot about her role as Executive Director of something called The Fullerton Collaborative. We didn’t use the word “job” because we’re not sure yet how much actual “work” goes into the function.
We do know that the Collaborative seems to be run by, and for the principle benefit of Pam Keller herself.
Here is the first page from the Collaborative’s 2007 tax filing:
Note that the Collaborative’s expenses exceeded its revenue by 13k, covered by a surplus from the year before. Notice also that the corporation’s address is the same as the Fullerton School District’s headquarters on West Valencia Drive. This latter fact is explained on page 4:
The Collaborative has an agreement with the FSD to provide an “executive director” for 44K. That’s Keller. The only explanation for this is that this way Pam gets to remain an FSD employee with salary and benefits thereof, while doing her good works and self-promotion as a professional do-gooder on the taxpayer’s dime. Instead of a telling folks she’s a public employee, she gets to pretend that she’s the employee for a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization.
Notice that the cost of Pam is the Collaborative’s main expense in 2007. The only other significant expense is a $26,000 contract with something called OCCO for “community organizing.” Rusty Kennedy’s do-nothing Human Relation Commission is in on the gravy to the tune of $4400 for “leadership training,” whatever that may consist of.
Since Keller is listed on the Collaborative’s website as a board member, we wonder whether she’s actually negotiating and voting on her own contract with the FSD. The dialog in the room during those discussions might be fairly amusing. And we also wonder if anybody else on the board is auditing that relationship for vendor performance management. Hmm.
We are a bit curious as to why public funds are being sluiced through this rather elaborate piping in the first place. And we wonder, given the fact that FSD Board member Minard Duncan is listed as a “member-at-large,” how closely the FSD negotiates and manages that contract itself. There is something called The Government Accounting Standards Board; are their rules being adhered to regarding accounting and public disclosure of their financial relationship with The Collaborative?
Of course we are also very interested in where The Fullerton Collaborative gets its funds, especially which private donors, if any, are contributing the wherewithal to cover the FSD contract that pays for Fullerton City Council woman Keller’s services. The Collaborative’s website is strangely silent on the identity of its donors; most charities boast about their benefactors, who generally like to be boasted about.
When we find out we’ll be sure to share the information. And if we can’t find out, we’ll let let our Friends know that, too.
