Category: Small Stuff Adds Up

Posted onChronic Failure

The (Other) Case of the Missing Sidewalk

by 16 Comments on The (Other) Case of the Missing Sidewalk

Híjole. Here’s an example of the special treatment that a well-connected developer can get in Fullerton. At Harbor and Orangethorpe, a fast food-type developer has been allowed to monopolize the sidewalk for the last six months. The use of this public space probably saved him a few bucks on construction. How thoughtful of our city planners!

Of course, this sidewalk is heavily used by poor pedestrians, who can’t seem to muster an equivalent offering up at city hall. So they’ll have to walk around. Or up the middle of the lane, as the hesitant abuela does in this video.

It’s only a matter of time before someone is hit by a car. Is this a fair deal for people of Fullerton?

By the way, I’m told this is the future site of Jersey Mike’s, Chipotle, The Habit, and a Verizon store.

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Posted onBehind Closed Doors

Karma Can Be A Bitch

by 21 Comments on Karma Can Be A Bitch

The topic of drinking and driving has been in the Fullerton news the last few days. We all know the story involving City Manager, Joe Felz, by now so there’s no point in rehashing the details. Instead, I want to direct the Friends’ attention to the irony that surrounds us in life, sometimes almost like there’s some sort of cosmic plan.

Way back in August, 2012 at the start of the fall election campaign, Fullerton City Councilmen and candidates Travis Kiger and Bruce Whitaker, along with Greg Sebourn voted to turn back a $50,000 grant from the state to pay for those ridiculous DUI random checkpoints that are probably the least effective ways to corral drunk drivers.

The bars stayed open and the band played on...

Let’s let Fullerton’s in-house shrew, Jan Flory, herself a candidate that year, fill us in from an August 30, 2012 facebook entry:

OKAY, so let’s get this straight, our Tea Bagger councilmen (Kiger, Sebourn and Whitaker), voted to reject a $50,000 grant and send it back to the state because it was to be used for DUI sobriety checkpoints that they believe are unconstitutional. They did this without walking across the street and talking to Police Chief Dan Hughes, or Captain George Crum who wrote the grant application.

Whoops! They find out after the fact that $146,222 in additional grant funds were tied to the $50,000 for the sobriety checkpoints, soooo, if the $50,000 is rejected, then the $146,222 has to be turned back too. It’s not like our understaffed police department could use the money, right? Maybe they thought the state would know how to use the money better than we do at the local level. Massive miscalculation!

Miscalculation? Certainly, but not by Kiger, Whitaker, or Sebourn. The fact of entangling grant funding (if in fact it existed at all) was never shared with them by their own $200,000 City Manager, Joe Felz, or by $200,000 Police Chief Danny Hughes, both of who were just sitting there during the meeting. Why not? Possibly because they  had every reason to try to embarrass them and help get Flory elected. The consequent to-do with a MADD mob orchestrated by the FPD, and quite likely with the approval of Felz and Hughes themselves, was quite entertaining. Whether they knew about a link at the time, they sure found out fast, so fast that one might suppose a little back-room political shenanigans.

So now, let’s return back to late August, 2012 and hear again from the vinegary Flory as she regales us with her demagoguery :

(more…)

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Posted onBoohooism

A Streetcar Named Desire

by 101 Comments on A Streetcar Named Desire
It was bound to be a rocky ride.
It was bound to be a rocky ride.

Last week the ever helpful Fullerton City Hall scribe Lou Ponsi scribbled a story about how Fullerton needs a transit dedicated line from the CSUF area to the Fullerton “metro center.”

No, I am not kidding. “Senior” Planner Jay Eastman believes Fullerton has a metro center.

A cynic might conclude that the sole purpose of this venture is to more efficiently direct college kids into the open air saloon that downtown Fullerton has become.

Trolley? Bus? Light rail(!)? The world is Jay Eastman’s oyster, just so long as somebody else is picking up the tab. In this case the OCTA is going to pay 90% of the cost of a “study” to determine just what Fullerton needs: $270,000 worth, with us paying the other $30,000.

All of which goes to show that OCTA has an awful lot more money than they know what to do with.

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Posted onBig Brother

Just Wrong

by 347 Comments on Just Wrong

Here is a sly observer expressing his view that a Fullerton cop appears to be more like a soldier than a civilian policeman.

Naturally he is rewarded with a combination of arrogance, error, and attitude by “officer” Contino.

While it is true that Prime Minister Robert Peel established the first permanent and professional police forces in Britain, the use of that factoid to explain and defend a paramilitary organization behaving like an occupying army would be faintly ridiculous if the consequences weren’t so, um, deadly.

And speaking of Mr. Peel, while living in Tamworth, the versatile gentleman was credited with the development of the Tamworth Pig by breeding Irish stock with some local Tamworth pigs.

 

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Posted onChronic Failure

It’s A Boring Job, But Somebody’s Gotta Do It!

by 51 Comments on It’s A Boring Job, But Somebody’s Gotta Do It!

We’ve all seen Fullerton cops texting on the job – on motorcyles, in patrol cars, and at Starbucks, when in fact they are supposed to be protecting us from evil, hippy dope-smokers.

But wait a sec! What’s this? Chief Danny texting during  a Fullerton Council meeting?!

Well, I guess FPD “Detective” Ron Bair will soon be making another “Brown Act” record request!

 

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Posted onDowntown Fullerton

The Culture of Corruption Has NOT Changed!

by 162 Comments on The Culture of Corruption Has NOT Changed!

First off, I’d like to thank a good and courageous Friend for sharing this alarming video with us.

I’m still sort of shocked to hear what Fullerton police Lieutenant Markowski said to a group of folks who took the open house tour of the police department last Saturday. Apparently, when she comes to work on Mondays there’s a desk full of complaints from women who claim they were abducted, raped, kidnapped telling horror stories of what happened to them. And thank God she can go review the video cameras, and that not everybody that comes to file a report is truthful. (And of course not everyone who receives a complaint or writes a report is truthful, either, as we now know).

According to Markowski there have been many, many cases that she worked where women report, “he pulled me out of this bar, he pulled he into this alley, he pulled me into his car, he did this that. And then I review the video the downtown video cameras which obviously we maintain and I review the video and I can clearly see that she walked voluntarily out of the bar with this gentleman that she was all over him. I’ve been able to save a lot of men from being accused of things that they absolutely didn’t do whereas if we didn’t have that video evidence these guys would be sitting in here getting ready to go to jail for crimes that they absolutely didn’t commit so they work very well for investigators.”

The idea that a cop by way of a video camera is now acting as district attorney, judge and jury in cases involving women who want to file  charges against one of downtown Fullerton’s army of drunken gentlemen is alarming.

I also find it very disconcerting that Markowski  found it appropriate to regale her visitors with this particular story, given the history of FPD cop Albert Rincon. According to Markowski this false accusation against DTF’s menfolk happens all the time, and it is routine for Markowski, who seems to have a low regard for some of DTF’s female guests.

Of course it is ironic in the extreme that Ms. Markowski makes no mention of her cameras and the story they told about the Kelly Thomas murder, or the assault and false arrest (and later false prosecution) of Veth Mam at the hands of Kenton Hampton.

 

 

 

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Posted onOur Town

Fullerton Stories Posts Inside Information; Finally Gets Comments

by 116 Comments on Fullerton Stories Posts Inside Information; Finally Gets Comments

Fullerton Stories published a story here about Hampton, Blatney and Craig- the three who participated in the Kelly Thomas killing, being “cleared” by the FBI. The author also quotes an unnamed “source” that 12 to 18 officers received some sort of discipline as a result of their actions on July 5, 2012”.

Of course they got the year wrong. The cop defenders seem to have lost track of the fact that Thomas was killed fifteen months ago.

The article is full of quotations and “inside information” of the sort that normally falls under the heading of POBAR protected, unless, of course it can be used in a self-serving way. Here the whole point is to show that the three accomplices are squeaky clean and deserve to be back on our streets looking for trouble; and that the FPD has meted out discipline and cleaned its own befouled nest. Gee, one of them rolled Kelly on to his side to help him breath; Hampton even got tased, poor chap.

But hey, finally Fullerton Stories actually had some comments! And they reiterated how concerned they are for their family’s safety knowing that three cops who piled on Thomas and who did nothing to save his life are back to work. I’ll summarize the comments here:

Citizens of Fullerton are angry that three coward cops who assisted in the murder of an innocent man and who did nothing about are working the streets of Fullerton as if nothing had happened.

Apparently Acting Chief Danny Hughes is still more concerned with protecting his boys than the value of the life of a human being.

The real heroes in this community are the courageous people who have been protesting every Saturday in front of the police station to have the three fired!

Justice for Kelly!

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Posted onChronic Failure

Chaffee Spills The Beans

by 36 Comments on Chaffee Spills The Beans

In his desire to promote Chief Danny, Fullerton Council Mole, Doug Chaffee went a bit too far. First he indicates that six cops have been disciplined and some have been fired! Oh, oh. That’s a violation of POBAR, isn’t it? Our trolls are always saying so.

Will The Mole Man’s comments result in a lawsuit by the rogue cops? Let’s hope so. Little Doug can explain what he meant.

What is even more astounding is that Chaffee acknowledges fourteen disciplinary actions by “Acting Chief Danny,” an incredible figure when you consider that some of the bad behavior that we already know about hasn’t even been acknowledged. In other words, Chaffee admits that at least 10% of the force has been disciplined for behavior no doubt well known and protected by a great many more members of the force – including sanctimonious pricks like Jason Shone, the Internal Affairs sergeant.

Chaffee thinks it’s “remarkable” that corrupt cops got “disciplined.” Of course we have no idea what that means, or even if it’s true. What kind of twisted culture exists when the elected authority finds that disciplining bad cops is “remarkable?”

I don’t know about you, but to me that sure sounds like a Culture of Corruption.

 

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