She even orchestrated a mean spirited attack on young kids riding their bikes on their own property.
You wouldn’t be smiling either if your zygomatic arch had just got smacked with the business end of a broomstick!
Will she return the papers and begin to explain publicly why she supported the incompetent and criminal Culture of Corruption under the Three Dessicated Dinosaurs? I sure hope so.
The Voice of OC(EA) on Friday posted a story about yet another high-level crony of County CEO Tom Mauk bailing out of the creaky tub that is taking on water fast in the wake of the Carlos Bustamante sex-assault case. This person’s name is Alisa Drakodidas, and she was in immediate charge of the patsy who just got canned last week, and about whom I wrote about, here.
Deputy CEO Drakodadis, on far left at dump ground breaking. May be returning to landfill work soon.
Drakodidas was a Deputy CEO of Infrastructure (whatever that means) and apparently a close confidant of Mauk. She has taken a medical leave until the end of August, and of course is still being paid. She has got herself a lawyer, too, and according to Voice has sent the County a nasty letter blasting various individuals, including Supervisors, most specifically Pat Bates. According to the Voice’s source, the letter accuses Bates of getting one of her office flunkies a high paying job and generally botching things up. Other Supervisors, collectively, are blamed for interfering with contracts (I think this is probably code for doing favors for fund-raising lobbyists). It’s obvious that Ms. Drakodidas is not planning on coming back to work.
Apparently the County is not releasing any details of the letter via the Public Records Act, but it’s clear somebody at the County has leaked the general outline of this document. It must provide some interesting reading. Hopefully all of this finger pointing will result in a clear picture of why Bustamante was employed at all, and who let him get away with his twisted pervy sex attacks.
Cal Watchdog Editor’s note: This is the second part of a three-part series on how the homeless and mentally ill are treated in California. Part One was about the Kelly Thomas beating and death.
By Tori Richards
Welcome to 450 Bauchet St., a 10-acre compound in the heart of downtown Los Angeles that is the world’s biggest jail. Known as Twin Towers, it has a population greater than many small towns, with 3,911 inmates, 900 staff, and even its own hospital. But it also has another distinction: the world’s largest mental institution.
Housed in one wing and encompassing four floors, the mental health ward tends to approximately 1,200 inmates with psychiatric problems. Several hundred more of the most severe cases are located in the hospital.
California is now a state where the police — not doctors or counselors — are the front lines to millions of mentally ill who have no other recourse than to end up in the jails.
“Sheriff Baca has frequently commented that the mentally ill belong in a mental institution,” said Capt. Mike Parker. “In law enforcement we deal with things because other aspects of society have failed. You have a system not addressing the need. “In the end, law enforcement is the last stop. We’re not looking for that responsibility; it was given to us.”
A breakdown in the system has led to a large population of the mentally ill who turn to crime or simply wander the streets homeless, a recipe for disaster.
Just look at the case of Kelly Thomas, a 37-year-old schizophrenic homeless man who belonged in a mental care facility rather than on the streets.
Something has been bothering me, and I have a question: What is a waistband?
I don’t really know. It sounds like something that held up those stretchy green rayon pants old grandad wore.
I do know that it is the handiest thing imaginable for cops who, for whatever reason, have just plugged somebody. How many times have we read in post-shooting news articles that Mr. Sinister was “reaching for his waistband” when Officer Galahad, fearing for his own life, felt compelled to shoot him four or five times? Apparently a “waistband” is the place that bad guys stick their pistols, or knives, boomerangs, or whatever; or that’s the plausible place he they would stick ’em if they had ’em in the first place.
And how many times has the DA, investigating the shootings, given a pass to Officer Galahad or one of his brethren, due to the claim, often unsubstantiated, that Mr. Sinister was “reaching for his waistband?”
Of course it’s a little embarrassing when it turns out that Mr. Sinister was completely unarmed. Then you would think that the “reaching for waistband” defense would come up a little short. After all why would a bad guy reach for a weapon that wasn’t there?
But no! It seems that for a successful Reaching For The Waistband defense, a policeperson merely needs to chant the mantra and that establishes the defense. After all, how was Officer Galahad to know that Mr. Sinister was merely trying to pull his pants up?
You know, Larry Bennett really could have just left it alone. After dodging a final, humiliating meeting to certify the recall election that drove them out of office, at least one of the Three Bald Tires finally deigned to show up at Fullerton City Hall tomorrow morning to do the deed. It could have been done quietly with as little fanfare as possible. Actually only one of them even needed to show up.
But no.
Bennett seems to think the Three Dead Batteries need a sendoff appropriate to all the wonderful things these men have done for Fullerton. Friday he notified supporters of the Three Tree Stumps that there was to be a special council meeting, and that he hoped everybody would show up to let them know what terrific public servants they have been.
Bennett has likely spent the week-end making phone calls to drum up some folks willing to say kind thing about the Three Pea-less Pods. No doubt some will show up. And others are likely to show up now, too. People who recognize the disastrous misrule of these three characters:
Yes, I was the king.
Don Bankhead: dumb-bell, and self-annointed king of Fullerton, whose somnolent councilmanic career was punctuated with one Redevelopment boondoggle and union give away after another.
Crazy? Check. Rude? Check. Gone? Check.
Dick Jones, the southern fried lunatic and loud-mouthed bully who never came to understand that the authority to give orders doesn’t confer wisdom – or even relevance.
To all appearances it looked a lot like a street gang.
Pat McKinley: protector and apologist for the undeniable Culture of Corruption in the Fullerton Police Department that he himself had created. Those ladies weren’t like you. Aliens. Don’t rush to judgement.
Well, good bye and good riddance.
The sun had been warm and life was good. But all that changed.
And please take Larry Bennett with you. The tide is rising.
Yesterday the world was treated to the moving words of love and respect that Slidebar Rock ‘N Roll Kitchen proprietor Jeremy Popoff had for Kelly Thomas, the homeless man who was beat to death by members of the Fullerton Police Department last July.
Poor Jeremy! It must indeed have been heartbreaking for him to lose somebody he had known for years. Especially since he now acknowledges that the call that summoned police to the scene was instigated by a call from his establishment.
(Horrible screeching sound as needle is dragged across the LP)
Here are a few choice quotations from a Fullerton Stories article dated July 23rd 2011 about the Kelly Thomas affair featuring some trenchant observations by Mr. Popoff himself:
“I feel guilty having ever had any contempt for this guy, but if you had asked me about him a month ago, I’d have nothing good to say about him,” Popoff said. “I don’t want to say that it was justified, what happened. But man, Kelly scared people. We …. were always having to kick him out of our bathrooms or tell him to leave customers alone. Then he would yell at us.”
“He had long matted hair and a matted beard that stuck to his body,” Popoff said. “I wish there was something I could do or could have done a long time ago. My manager was in tears when she called me that night. She was really shaken up by it. “
Popoff said that the police have been good to the homeless in the area near his bar. “The cops have been really lenient with him and other homeless. He was allowed to get away with a lot more because he was homeless. The cops gave him a lot of breaks.”
“We’ve given him lots of stuff,” Popoff added. “[He was] not allowed to be here anymore because Kelly did not respect our customers.”
Back to Popoff: “The last thing I want is to be anti-PD or anti-Kelly. We live here, I’m a father. We support the PD and the residents and the community. Literally, most of my staff was very scared and intimidated by him. They were reluctant to ask him to move along,” says Popoff. “Two or three days before [the arrest] he was bumming cigarettes and the manager said to him ‘Kelly you can’t’ do that here, you gotta move on.’ And Kelly screamed back at him ‘don’t call me by my first name!’”
I just re-discovered this fabulous gem from February and thought it would be a timely reminder of the caliber of the Three Bald Tires and their Reign of Error.
– Joe Sipowicz
Ah! The gift that keeps giving: the cornpone brayings of crazy old Doc Jones, guaranteed to embarrass everybody in the room. Here’s a fun clip from last night:
This is the loud-mouthed buffoon the anti-recall crowd is defending as an experienced, honorable statesman.
Looks like Dick stepped on his own Jones. Again.
Well, we’ve been listening to this rude, bullying, bloviator for fifteen years and watched as he pushed around people who were afraid to push back. The times they are a-changin.’
The OC Republican Party went to bat for “Patdown” Pat McKinley when he ran for Fullerton City Council in 2010. With the help of his influential ‘pug friends like Dick Ackerman he secured the OCGOP Central party endorsement. Party volunteers even helped oversee Doug Chafee’s recount effort against him.
So what’s this we see, above? Oh oh. It looks like Patdown Pat is backing a Democrat, Sharon Quirk. Now that’s not very good, is it?
Right alongside old guard liberals Jan Flory and fellow massive pension suckateer, Chris Meyer.
And to Ed Royce, who created this twisted McMonster and foisted him on us all, all I can ask is: are you finally satisfied with the damage you’ve done?
Stand with Kelly’s Army and demand answers! From Ron Thomas:
Now that everyone knows the truth that I have been carrying inside of me for many months, please join me at the Fullerton City Council meeting Tuesday night May 15th at 6:30pm. The city council, and Cpt. Dan Hughes (the acting Chief) need to finally come clean and give us, the people, the answers that we have been asking for. First, how did Cicinelli get hired as a full time patrol officer with only one eye? With this knowledge, how come they let him endanger the public by letting him drive Code-3 for ten years without any left side vision? Why, after seeing the city video many times did the police department including Capt. Dan Hughes allow all six officers to remain on duty for six weeks until Kelly’s Army pressured them to take them off of the streets (Bruce Whitaker also made this happen)? Why is it that Capt. Dan Hughes STILL after seeing the City Video over 400 times (his admission) has not fired Joe Wolfe? No matter where you live, come out and demand the answers. Become part of Kelly’s Army and help us get justice for Kelly.
Even if you can’t physically attend, please show your support by accepting the invite. That way it will post to your page and others will become aware. We’ll also be posting links to the council meeting so you can watch it live.
Believe it or not, the other day the Liberal OC blog actually provided useful information that you won’t find anywhere else. Why? Most likely because the Democratic Party of OC is so lame it can’t maintain a decent website.
According to the Liberal OC the OC Democrats have come out in favor of the Fullerton Recall. Good call, Dems. Although they probably think getting rid of three Republicans is some sort of political accomplishment, the Republicans in question are so addicted to wasting money, giving the public employee unions everything they want, and generally demonstrating the drunken sailor behavior we normally associate with the Dems themselves, it wouldn’t seem like much of an accomplishment.
Still, it could be that the County-level Dems actually want to get rid of the creeps who cultivated a Climate of Corruption in the FPD that has seen a conga line of felonious behavior on the part of the cops, culminating in the beating death of a helpless homeless man last July. And that’s a good thing, especially since the Old Guard Democrats in Fullerton have been tomb-like in their silence in the wake of the Kelly Thomas murder and the series of civil rights abuses perpetrated by the cops that have come to light.
The Dems did endorse replacement candidates, too: somebody called Glenn Georgieff, a Paula Williams (neither of whom I have ever heard of before) and of course Doug Chaffee – the man who has been somewhat humorously referred to as the Fence Sitting, Cardboard Candidate.
