FFFF supports causes that promote intelligent, responsible and accountable government in Fullerton and Orange County
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.
When I was a kid, liberals were all about civil rights, social justice, anti-police corruption, women’s rights, etc., etc., etc.
Maybe professorial tenure, home mortgage interest deductions, and appointment to a City Community Service Commission or Bicycle Committee tends to make one complaisant. I don’t know.
In the wake of the Kelly Thomas murder at the hands of the FPD, and the revelation of a potential serial sex offender in FPD uniform, Fullerton’s liberals have been silent as a graveyard. A great letter to the Fullerton Observer by a guy named Steve Baxter sums up the situation to perfection.
Maybe this silence marks the difference between a statist liberal and what is now being called a “progressive.” I don’t know.
But one thing I do know: the first category includes our esteemed Congressional She-Bear, Loretta Sanchez, whose district includes south-central Fullerton, as well as some of the locations where women allege they were sexually assaulted in the backseat of an FPD patrol car!
Here’s an e-mail from one of the recall petition signature gatherers who re-enforces the ugly truth that Ed Royce isn’t our only congressional problem.
I was at the Stater Brothers today with my recall petition and I had an interesting conversation with a 50-ish red-headed woman who happens to work for Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez. I asked her if she was interested in signing my petition to recall our City Councilman and Mayor and was sort of shocked when she declined. As she was putting away her groceries I asked her what Ms. Sanchez position was on the recent events that had occurred in Fullerton, and she told me that Ms. Sanchez was staying out of the matter because it didn’t involve her constituents. I said that that was odd because I had voted for her in the last election and that I live in West Fullerton. She said that Loretta’s district only encompassed a sliver of Fullerton and that where Kelly Thomas was beaten to death was out of her district!
I sort of left it at that, however when I got home and checked the district map for Loretta Sanchez I saw that not only is my home in her district, but the site where Kelly Thomas was beaten to death is maybe 200 feet from the boundary.
Is there any way that you guys can inspire this champion of women’s rights to engage in what’s going on here in Fullerton? I got the distinct impression that Loretta Sanchez was looking to stay out of the fray and distance herself from what’s going on in her district, and I think that it’s important that she get involved or make a statement on what her position is pertaining to violations of Kelly Thomas’s civil rights, as well as the violation of the these recent allegations of sexual assault under color of authority by members of the the Fullerton Police department.
Best Regards,
p.s. I’ve changed my political affiliation to “decline to state” on my voter registration so there is no love lost on Loretta.
It’s pretty obvious that Ms. Sanchez has seen her main chance in trying to ignore things in Fullerton and hope like hell that no one will ever associate her with what was done, or in her case what hasn’t been done. Comically Ms. Loretta found time from her busy schedule to attend the Fullerton Library re-opening – a building also not in her district – while 500 feet away people of good will were protesting the murder of a helpless homeless man at the hands of the FPD.
Disgustingly, Sanchez seems a lot more interested in the civil rights of Vietnamese women (who live eight thousand miles outsider her district) than with her own constituents.
Sanchez could get the Department of Justice fired up with a phone call. But even that smallest of gestures would require a modicum of courage.
Hmm, we’ve already seen how eagerly council members can run to the trough under the pretense of acting in the interest of our beloved city — remember how Bankhead and Keller each racked up hotel bills at $400 per night on the city’s dime just to stay in the remote city of Long Beach?
$1200?? I didn't even open the mini-bar!
Well, now it’s about to happen again, only it’ll no doubt cost us more money this time around. Renown pit-bull reporter Lou Ponsi posted this in the O.C. Register the other day:
“The City Council last week named Mayor F. Richard Jones as a voting delegate and Councilman Don Bankhead as an alternate to represent Fullerton at the League of California Cities annual conference Sept. 21-23 in San Francisco.”
We're here on important business!
Since F. Dick has been doing such a bang-up job of representing Fullerton lately, I guess we should be grateful he’s willing to go all the way to San Francisco on our behalf. And let’s not forget that Bankhead has his back in case Hee-Haw can’t make it.
Ahh, San Francisco... One of our favorite road trips!
Well, if ol’ Doc sidles up to the hitchin’ post in S.F he may well have an awful lot of explaining to do, because at least in Fullerton, the summer of love it ain’t!
Giddyup! Now open up that Golden Gate, I'm a-comin!
The City Manager has called an emergency meeting of the City Council this morning at 9:00, a mighty odd time to hold a public hearing. The ostensible purpose of this emergency is to hire an outsider to evaluate the condition our FPD condition is in.
It’s pretty obvious that this decision could have waited until the next scheduled meeting. So what’s the emergency? Maybe City Manager Joe Felz and the Gang of Three are trying to look like they are finally, really and truly taking things seriously. And maybe they prefer dealing with Kelly Thomas related humiliations at nine o’clock in the morning to avoid hundreds of angry commenters.
Fail to the Chief...
The really pathetic aspect of the abject failure of leadership in Fullerton and this desperate and transparent effort to defuse a recall is that the real emergency existed on July 5, 2011 and was completely unknown to our oblivious City Council, including the supposed law enforce experts Pat McKinley and Don Bankhead. Or maybe they knew and just didn’t care. After all, McKinley was police chief from 1993-2009 and has admitted he hired all the cops who have made Fullerton famous lately; and Bankhead has been on the city council since 1888. Oops. I mean 1988.
Has it really been that long?
F. Dick Jones has been on the council for 15 years; will he not take responsibility for the state of affairs he created?
Hail no!
What about the ever-compassionate Sharon Quirk? She has been on the council for seven long years. How many police-related monetary settlements has she approved?
Knitting socks as fast as she can...
Well, there you have it. An emergency. But its an emergency created by world-wide attention to the Fullerton Police Department’s culture of corruption, not by the corruption itself.
Well, go ahead and have your emergency meeting, folks. You can run but you can’t hide.
Yesterday teachers launched another demonstration along Harbor Boulevard to promote higher taxes (yours) to pay for higher pay and bennies (theirs). FFFF was once again on hand to remind folks of the hundreds of teachers in Fullerton pulling down more than 90K for nine month’s employment.
Yes, my jaw is retractable.
KFIs John and Ken were there too to engage in an intelligent conversation with the protesters as only they know how to do. And guess who was there to defend the indefensible? That’s right – Pam Keller – the prototypical Fullerton Boohoo out of whose mouth hardly anything intelligent has tumbled in living memory. But that has never kept her from opening it. Wide.
Hey Pam, your'e on the clock collaboratin', right?It's all about the kids you idiot!
Yesterday Norberto Santana of the Voice of OC (EA) did a post on a report by a group called OCCORD that accused the cities of Santa Ana and Anaheim of “rubber stamp” planning. Among other things the planning commissions in these towns were identified as living preponderantly in small enclaves and it notes the undue influence of out-of-town developers.
I’m having a little trouble separating the message from the messenger. See, the troubles are real all right. We’ve seen the same operation in Fullerton, as with the creeps who are trying to ram Amerige Court and the hideous Jefferson Commons down our throats. Our electeds got their drinkies, and their boat rides and their thirty pieces of silver from slimers like Steve Sheldon; and we got the shaft. Yet while I can’t disagree with thing the obvious OCCORD conclusion that development in Anaheim and Santa Ana is all tied up by goons with financial ties to people like Kurt Pringle and Miguel Pulido, I have to wonder what it is OCCORD is really promoting.
A quick trip to OCCORD’s website rewards visitors with a list of boardmembers and contributors that reads like a veritable who’s who of leftist, labor, and low-income housing advocates. Here’s what they say they are about:
In Orange County, California, top-down economic development policy and institutionalized anti-immigrant sentiment have served to exclude low income, immigrant communities from government decisionmaking processes, and in many cities, rapid demographic changes have created a political environment in which people are increasingly disconnected from their elected representatives. As a result, income inequality is growing faster in our region than in the nation as a whole, and our sense of community is declining.
I notice with satisfaction the name of Lorri Galloway who not only has approved just about every developer-wet-dream megaplex put in front of her in Anaheim, but also supported SunCal’s mammoth project on Anaheim Boulevard with its sham veneer of “affordable housing.” And that may be a telling.
What else will she pull out of her cookie?
So what’s the real deal? OCCORD seems to be promoting authentic, popular participation in land use decision, of the sort promised by Pam Keller when she first ran for Fullerton City Council in 2006. Pam ended up voting for a bunch of megaprojects, herself, so maybe the whole thing is just some sort of make-people- feel-good-about-looking-like-they’re-trying-to-do-something-anything, scam. Or maybe they actually want “immigrant communities” to have input into decision making land use processes – especially the development of subsidized housing projects.
I think the mistake of swapping “top-down” development policy driven by developers, and that driven by the professional houseacrats and do-gooders, and social conscience hand wringers is a distinction without much of a difference. Overbuilt, overbearing, subsidized, architectural monstrosities built on public debt are bound to follow either way. Will OCCORD ever come out against the idiotic Redevelopment housing policies and ethnic cleansing pogroms? Not likely if there’s a jaw-droppingly expensive “affordable” project of some kind, any kind, at the end of the bureaucratic rainbow.
Friends, we just received this e-mail from one of our readers who calls him/herself “Disillusioned Ex-hippy.” We publish it verbatim, although the images are our contribution.
I have it on excellent authority that Pam Keller and her posse threw a going away party for themselves the other evening in which pity pots on which to sit were handed out at the door. I was invited but chose not to attend.
Well, I’m not sad. Good riddance. Keller accomplished next to nothing in her four year term. That’s why a lot of us are celebrating her departure – even many of us who supported her in 2006. In fact she turned her back on her promises to Fullerton about developers and their undue influence. That’s was just a big lie.
The sun did not shine, it was too wet to play...
And BTW, Pam the meanie blogs aren’t the the cause of divisiveness in Fullerton. What is the cause of divisiveness is a city council that just ratifies the decisions put in front of it by the staff; a city council too lazy, too stupid, or too supine to think and act for itself – unless a weird, erratic outburst is called for.
One of our Friends observed this banner near the intersection of Harbor and Brea today giving thanks to mercifully soon-to-be former council member, Pam Keller.
How touching. A “job well done.”
But, really? Since we can’t count on the Yellowing Observers and Pam’s Dingbat Posse to give an accurate look back on Keller’s four years in office, I will oblige by helping out a little.
First we’ll give credit where credit is due, and acknowledge her support of Prop 215 and the law of the State while the other four cowards on the council showed their true colors.
And now I’m done reciting Keller’s accomplishments – the wrong end of one 4-1 vote.
And lest you forget, I’ll remind you about some of her dubious activities on the council. How about the lobbyist boat ride and dinner care of slimeball Steve Sheldon and her subsequent support of the completely indefensible “Jeferson Commons” monstrosity? And let’s not forget her support of the equally god-awful Amerige Court, brought to us by contributors to her Colloborative. Both these votes were a total sellout to her supporters and her 2006 campaign promises as she came to realize the challenges of “governing.”
Speaking of the Collaborative, is there really any need to rehash the manifest conflicts of interest, the mobilizing of Collaborative grantees for political purposes, of gad-abouting taking credit for other people’s efforts? There, I just did it.
My favorite Keller self-besoiling was the twelve hundred bucks of public money she wasted going to the 2008 League of Cities meeting in far-off Long Beach, as cavalier a waste of taxpayer dollars as you will ever see.
And only this year Keller crowned her career by supporting the fraudulent, carpetbagging campaign of Harry Sidhu for 4th District Supervisor.
Not much to show for four years work, but of course commenters are welcome to augment the list of any real accomplishment on Keller’s part. Now don’t get me wrong. Keller’s lack of any really achievement is in no way different than any other councilpersons anybody can remember, so at least she’s got that going for her, legacy-wise.
Well, now she can assume her idiotic grin and bat her eyes for the benefit of the Fullerton School District trustees – as they consider renewing her contract and her, ahem, peculiar role as Philanthropist on Our Dime.
Looking down from doggie heaven on you folks I get some interesting perspectives on things. Like right now Fullerton has not a single female liberal running for the city council.
Back in 1982 & 86 it was everyone’s fave featherhead, Molly McClanahan; in 1988 it was Maryevelyn Bryden, a humorless old bat who was trounced by the still marginally cogent Bankhead; in 1992 it was my former broomstick wielding mistress, Jan Flory, who was chain-whipped by the incomprehensible Julie Sa; in 1994, 1998, and 2002 Flory ran again and actually won a couple of times. In 2004 and 2006 Sharon Quirk and Pam Keller emerged, right on cue to claim their liberal XX chromosonal birthright. In 2008 it was the hapless Karen Haluza.
But now, in 2010? Nobody. The closest thing the Fullerton liberal crowd can point to is Doug Chaffee. And he isn’t a woman.
But wait! All is not lost! There’s always the hand-picked Ed Royce candidate and darling of the Dick Ackerman/dim-bulb Federated Republican Women crowd: Patrick McKinley.
On September 7, Jan Flory gave McKinley $200 – more than she spent on dog food for me in ten years. McKinley’s website also boasts the endorsement of McClanahan, too. So what gives?
Are the Fullerton Dems so sad and pathetic that they have to go along with Royce and Ackerman tools, the same repuglican goons who have worked so tirelessly for decades to undermine Democrat candidates and electeds? Remember that Ed Royce was the sole creator of Leland Wilson who knocked off the liberal beloved Flory in 2002.
And you know, now that I come come to think of it, I have to wonder if these endorsements don’t say just as much about McKinley as they do Flory and McClananhan. Hmm.
