Friends For Fullerton's Future
FFFF supports causes that promote intelligent, responsible and accountable government in Fullerton and Orange County
Last Friday afternoon KFI’s John and Ken got hold of our post on the subject, and shared with their listeners the amusing notion that Matthew J. Cunningham of Red County fame actually got paid $200 an hour to listen to their show one day last year.
Here’s what they had to say.
More publicity for the OC Children and Families Commission. Well done!
It looks like we can add another skill to Clerk-Recorder Tom Daly’s public money squandering resume. As previously reported here, not only does Daly excel at wasting public money and doling out jobs to his contributor’s relatives, it appears that he also hands out no-bid contracts to campaign contributors as well. It turns out that the contracts are more of what we’re used to: highly questionable and unaudited relationships, and of course, ultimate failure.
Get a load of this one.
Between 2002 and 2007, Christopher Townsend, who is the president of Townsend Public Affairs, contributed a total of $2600 to Tom Daly’s campaigns. During this period, Townsend was awarded two $60,000 no-bid contracts for “consulting services.” Townsend was awarded these contracts without bidding because of their supposed know-how in obtaining grants from the California Cultural Historical Endowment. What for, you ask?
In late 2005/2006 the grant application was for $150,000 to go to “planning” the archives expansion in the old Courthouse building in Santa Ana. Apparently the contract and the grant application were approved solely on the authority of Daly himself – that’s right, no Board of Supervisor’s oversight.
The big problem was that the grant application was for a building over which the “Manager of the Year” Daly had no authority. Apparently it is controlled by the Harbors Parks and Beaches Department that lets the Clerk-Recorder use it for some of his functions. And seemingly they had no clue what Daly was up to.
Even though Daly got the grant he wanted, the County had to turn the money back in April, 2006 because of the inability of Daly to communicate what he was doing with the other County bureaucrats. The official excuse was “unanticipated space and stakeholder concerns.” Translated from Bureaucratese into English: Big Daly F-up.
Well, there’s $60,000 down the toilet.
Undaunted by failure, late in 2006 the indefatigable Daly was before the Board of Supervisors asking for another $60,000 no-bid contract with Townsend. The motive was the same, but by now Daly’s covetous eye likely rested on the wretched building at 433 West Civic Center, a $2.1 million liability that he would talk the Board into acquiring in 2007. We shared that mess with you, here. The second grant application ended up with a big goose egg, however the purchase of the money pit on Civic Center Drive proceeded headlong, full speed ahead.
Another $60,000 chunked into the water hazard.
Oh, dear me. Another Tom Daly fiasco; another example of incompetence and cronyism his pals in the media won’t touch; yet another mauve feather in the dismal repuglican headdress of Daly’s admirer, John Lewis (& Co.) who keeps insisting that the egregious Daly is some sort of “fiscal conservative.”
And good grief, we’ve only just scratched the surface. Be sure to stay tuned.
Apparently some Sidhu-supporting John Lewis tool calling himself “Grover Cleveland” has misappropriated my name and is making anti-Nelson squawkings over at the Mauve County blog that seems to have become a haven for the semi-literate backers and hackers of Hide and Seek Sidhu.
This is an imposter, make no mistake about it. Grover Cleveland was tough, smart, and honest – three adjectives that will never be applied to either Harry Sidhu or his leech-like campaign handlers who are only in it ’til Mother’s Milk runs dry.
Lying, carpetbagging, union stoogery? Guess again! Not Grover Cleveland. Plus, he would never support an assclown.
Geez, these dunces are too dumb and lazy to come up with their own blog handles.
The other day Orange County’s Most Hypocritical Repuglican (yes, that is one Hell of an achievement) Matthew J. Cunningham coughed up this Red County hairball in criticism of Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez:
How very congressional. And also ironic to listen to Loretta Sanchez speaking to a crowd of immigrants who came here seeking the American Dream,, even as she has been voting to make American more suffocatingly statist like the countries they left.
Is he really that breathtakingly unaware of the irony of the mouthpiece for the OC Children and Families Commission dumping on “statism.” Or could it be that he figures that whoever reads his post won’t know about his real day job; and if they do any comments revealing that fact will be deleted.
Aw c’mon Mr. C from Suite C, ‘fess up. You really, really dig suffocating statism; you profit from it and you shill for it. In fact, it’s just about your only real source of income.
Own it.
P.S. Wordsmiths “at the top of their profession” proofread their copy for embarrassing typos.
As a former abused doggie myself, I know what it’s like to be mistreated. Here is poor “Bella” yanked around as a stage prop by her owner, the infantile 57 year-old airhead Lorri Galloway – who insists on acting like a scatterbrained teenager.
Viewers were shocked when Galloway hoisted this poor girl into the air, putting all her goods on display (not my type, even when I was alive).
We all sort of got the impression that Ms. Galloway would soon be wandering off to her bedroom to have a tea party with her dollies; or maybe play house with the stuffed animals on her bed – Mr. Bonkers and Glenda the Giraffe.
Real nice manicure and coif, though (on Galloway and Bella). Now there’s a couple of high maintenance females.
In our series documenting the PR/lobbyist hungry OC Children and Families Commission we have shown how they have employed local political operative and Red County blog bloviator Matthew Cunningham to propagandize their myriad big-government good works.
We have seen how the preachy Mr. Conservative Republican was paid $200 an hour to do such things as update facebook pages, ghost write articles for liberal Democrats, and perhaps, funniest of all (in a sick sort of way) – coordinate toothbrush distribution to the Diocese. While he was at it, he amassed some mammoth paydays for his “Pacific Strategies” wordsmithing operation.
Of course you can’t really propagandize effectively unless you know what the opposition is saying. So enjoy this.
In January, 2009 Governor Schwarzenegger called for First 5 California to be eliminated in his 2009-10 budget. Regional commissions would have taken a 60% cut in funding.
KFI radio broadcasters John and Ken went on the offensive, and Cunningham was right there listening in at $200 an hour to formulate his defense of the Welfare State. Here’s the invoice entry:
As I said yesterday, it’s way past time to put this Commission under the control of the Board of Supervisors so that at least contracts and policy can be authorized by elected officials in a much more public forum. And maybe instead of fixating on PR the kiducrats can concentrate more resources on actually helping poor children instead of well-off, hypocritical Republicans.
You know, this post is just too good not to keep sharing with the Friends.
It appears that carpetbagging Precious Princess stopped making her ludicrous “Lorri in 4th gear” videos after the first one bombed so spectacularly.
Too bad. The spectacle of a 57 year-old woman doing her little dress-up teenybopper routine really is priceless.
The Desert Rat
Hardly anymore introduction is necessary. This clueless airhead wants to be a County Supervisor. True, the bar has been set pretty low in the past. But this is ridiculous. I’d rather vote for her little dog “Bella.” Too bad Bella is a carpetbagger, also.
Last summer we thought her “cute shoes” comment was indicative of a frivolous, unlikely candidacy. Now we know better. Oh, and by the way – shame on Anaheim for electing this idiot to their city council.
Enjoy, if you can keep your last meal down.
Just in case you missed the recent OCGOP showdown between Shawn Nelson and carpetbagger Harry Sidhu, we generously share a video clip showing Sidhu trying to to talk about defined contributions versus defined benefits.
Since this is the major problem contributing to government unfunded liabilities you would think a competent supervisorial candidate would be all over this – especially at a Republican nominating meeting.
Well see if you can understand what Yahoo Harry is talking about before stammering that he really doesn’t know anything about it! Enjoy this quintessential Sidhu moment.
Over at the Red County blog Cynthia Ward shares a fun hit piece on the 4th District claim jumping assclown from the 3rd District – Harry Sidhu. It basically sums up all we’ve been saying about Hide ‘N Seek Sidhu with regard to fake addresses, crazy ambition all out of proportion to any real ability, and only a passing familiarity with the truth. They were too nice to mention the perjury deal and the DA investigation, but that’s okay.
The best part, as Ms. Ward points out, is the map with the push pins showing offices that office hound Sidhu has been whoring around for in the past few years. The pattern sort of looks like a flock of geese flying south – which is where Sidhu’s campaign is heading. The piece archly notes that space precludes them from going back more than 3 years!
And then of course, there’s the giant, disembodied Sidhu head floating over OC, signifying massive ego and inflation with lighter-than-air gas. The voters never get tired of this:
Geez, I really love that pic. Almost as much as this one:
The public relations and tax revenue fixated OC Children and Families Commission needs oversight. How do I know? Because of the amount of money these people pay to PR types and lobbyists – who just happen to be pals of Commission members. Hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, in fact.
Last year the Riverside County Board of Supervisors addressed the same issue when their “First 5” Commission members were busted for distributing grants to their own organizations. Here’s a 2009 article from The Riverside Press-Telegram that talks about the problem. The solution proposed by the Riverside BOS was to subsume their “First Five” Commission into the County government structure.
Whether or not this sort of thing has been going on in OC is not known without a complete shakeout. But what is known is that the Commission has been paying for things like toothbrush distribution and facebook editing at a rate of $200 per hour – to a Matthew Cunningham, a pal of the current Commission Chairman, and a running board occupant of the John Lewis political machine.
Then there’s the small matter of the hundreds of thousands contracted for lobbying services to Phil Isenberg as well as our own local big-government gold digger – Anaheim Mayor for Hire, Curt Pringle.
It’s high time to place this Commission in a chain of command that puts ultimate responsibility in the hands of elected representatives – people who will have to account for grants and contracts awarded to political operatives, and to decide what sort of political lobbying, if any, is appropriate. And that would be the County Board of Supervisors.