Here’s a youtube clip made by Recall Election replacement candidate Matt Rowe. It contains a very useful reminder of why ex-police chief and the creator of the FPD Culture of Corruption, Pat McKinley, is incapable and unwilling to fix the mess he made.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nd9BMYzScdw
The opponents of the Fullerton Recall, just like their predecessors in 1994, keep yammering about the “proper” use of the recall process. According to these worthy folks, the power of recall is only to be exercised in cases where an office holder has perpetrated malfeasance in office. Their argument is self-serving. And wrong. Here is what the State Constitution actually says, clearly and succinctly:
CALIFORNIA CONSTITUTION ARTICLE 2 VOTING, INITIATIVE AND REFERENDUM, AND RECALL SEC. 13.
Recall is the power of the electors to remove an elective officer.
And that’s it. The rest is all about the technical procedure of doing it. There is no discussion of when recall is appropriate or when it may be used. None. From this terse definition we may reasonably infer that any use of recall is appropriate when the electorate deems it to be so. But what about malfeasance in office? That’s why we have a criminal code!
Of course it hardly needs to be pointed out that the Fullerton Recall has several great reasons to get rid of the Three Dithering Dinosaurs, including failure to lead, creating and tolerating a Culture of Corruption in the FPD, backing an illegal tax on your water for 15 years, and of course, let us not forget, all those insider deals to cronies and campaign contributors in which they gave away streets, sidewalks and government subsidies worth millions.
Anyway, next time you hear somebody like Molly McClanahan or Jan Flory cluck-clucking about this, be sure to to ask them if they’ve ever even bothered to read the State’s Constitution.
When FPD Acting Chief Dan Hughes was handed the keys to the front door, wishful thinkers proclaimed the dawn of a new day for a department reeling from humiliating self-inflicted wounds.
His supporters claimed that Dan, for some mysterious reason, was going to bring decency and reform to a department whose members had, within the short space of seven months been exposed as thugs, perjurers, thieves, con men, sex perverts, destroyers of evidence, thieves (again and again), etc., etc. Despite a 30-year FPD career and various job titles that closely tied him to this band of miscreants, Dan is Different, his defenders said. Somehow. A veritable Galahad, in fact.
Even when Dan denied a Culture of Corruption in the FPD and said such an idea was disseminated by liars or ignoramuses, his supporters clung to the idea that Dan is Different.
But Dan’s latest decision may provide cause for pause. According to the folks at FullertonStories Hughes has replaced the otiose Andrew Goodrich with yet another union member, Sergeant Jeff Stuart, to be an official department spokeshole and Face of Fullerton. Really? Has Hughes learned nothing from the misinformation peddler, Goodrich. Maybe not. Or maybe he likes the idea of the FPOA getting the first, and often the last shot at misleading the public.
Haven’t we had enough of public information officers whose loyalty to their own tribe is far greater than that to their employers? To me this just looks like more of the same ‘ol same ‘ol: another opportunity to do the right thing has been passed over by Acting Chief Hughes, who is acting more and more like Chief Sellers all the time.
For some months now trolls have been bragging about the impending promotion of FPD Sergeant Andrew Goodrich to lieutenant, presumably because such a promotion meant that all the half-truths and outright lies peddled to the public by the cops’ otiose Public Information Officer proved the inefficacy and futility of the protests by those who thought Kelly Thomas, despite being schizophrenic, homeless, and dead, deserved the basic civil right of not having a public employee lie about him.
I take a different view. To me, the promotion of a worthless, dissimulating, union hack like Goodrich just goes to reinforce what we have known all along: there is a deeply ingrained Culture of Corruption within our police department; a department that not only tolerates criminal behavior such as assault, sexual battery, false arrest, perjury, theft, fraud, and murder, it seems to encourage these affronts to the very public its members have sworn to serve.
Consider the case of Goodrich: although the comical Gennaco report says there is no evidence to suggest Goodrich deliberately lied to the public about the facts surrounding the murder of Kelly Thomas, there is absolutely no doubt that he disseminated false information, and then never retracted it. If this is not tantamount to an outright lie, then I don’t know what is.
We also know of the tortured way in which Goodrich dismissed the obvious perjury of Hampton and Nguyen in the fraudulent Veth Mam prosecution, and the cavalier callousness of his statement in the wake of the false five-month incarceration of Emanuel Martinez.
Well, friends, the character of Goodrich is evidently the barometer of success in the FPD. And to the apologists for their new Acting Chief, Dan Hughes, a proud veteran of the force for thirty years – and vociferous denier of any Culture of Corruption – all I can say is I pity you. I really do.
From mid-February 2012. Always good for a repeat.
– Joe Sipowicz
Yesterday FFFF shared some Fullerton crime statistics that were really pretty damn shocking. Contrary to what council candidate and now beleaguered councilman Pat McKinley claimed and claims, crime not only did not decrease every year in Fullerton, but in the years 2005-2009, it skyrocketed spectacularly.
Here’s the ugly truth, derived from FBI crime statistics, probably a more reliable source than Mr. McKinley’s fantasy world of self-serving make-believe.
Uh, oh. Now, that’s not very good is it? Ol’ Doc Jones’ Galveston was better run by the Italian Mob and it had open gambling and a red light district!
Of course everyone knows the reason for the spike in crime is the crazy shooting gallery Jones and his colleagues created with all the bars masquerading as restaurants they approved in downtown Fullerton; and don’t forget all the illegal bootleg night clubs they ignored, then actually subsidized.
Chillingly, the trajectory of crime in Fullerton coincides perfectly with the spike in the FPD Culture of Corruption that led to beatings, wrongful arrests, and perjury by our own cops. And nobody in City Hall seems capable of grasping the perverted correlation. The cops were given a free hand to fix the mess the politicians made downtown. Soon the entire department was infected.
Speaking of Doc HeeHaw, here he is taking credit for creating his monster. Pay particular attention as Jones documents the crimes committed and the need to to get hard, and tough, and mean.
Jones got one thing right. He just doesn’t recognize human behavior.
P.S. Will some public-minded citizen please take this crime chart to the Council meeting next week and read it out loud for the benefit of Jones, Bankhead and McKinley?
According to the OC Weekly’s Brandon Ferguson, here, a rock band called “Lit” has made some sort of comeback album and will be joining other groups in a summer tour. Why is this relevant to Fullerton? Because one of the members of this illustrious ensemble is none other than Fullerton’s Slidebar empressario, Jeremy Popoff.
Ferguson dispatches Lit with quick aplomb. Apparently the album is called The View From The Bottom which seems pretty darn appropriate.
Now, I admit that being something of an old-timer at 37, I had never even heard of Lit until Jeremy Popoff popped off in connection with the Kelly Thomas murder; and so I defer to Ferguson’s musical opinion. However, if the noise emanating from Popoff’s establishment in violation of the Municipal Code, here, is any indicator, I have to say that I appreciate my former ignorance.
Friends, long time community activist Steve Baxter wrote a must-read letter that was published in one of Fullerton’s up-and-coming blogs, The Fullertonian. Enjoy!
For a period of time I knew the man six Fullerton officers killed last July. His name was Kelly Thomas and I liked him. As I was walking to my car in the Fullerton Ralphs shopping center, a man, when seeing my “Justice for Kelly” button, said to me that if I cared this much about Kelly when he was alive, he would still be alive. I was pretty baffled at that statement, but then I saw the “NO RECALL! FULLERTON IS NOT FOR SALE” sticker on the back of this big boy’s Jazzy Jeff scooter and it all made imperfect sense. “Hey brother,” I yelled, “just because you …..” That’s as far as I got before I knew it was not worth it. Besides, you don’t look very dignified yelling at someone who is relegated to a scooter.
I know that Kelly was loved by his family, and I know that Kelly was welcome to stay at any number of relatives’ homes, and for periods of time, he did. I know what six of our police officers did to him, and I know how Dick Jones, Don Bankhead and Pat McKinley, the three councilmen now facing a recall, reacted publicly to his death. Their lack of urgency, their lack of outrage, and the insensitive treatment to Kelly’s family, after what in my mind may be the most shameful 10 minutes in this city’s history, rises well beyond what even I expected from these three men. I’ve witnessed their disdain for the victim and his supporters firsthand at many council meetings. I witnessed it again watching TV interviews, where their ignorance was broadcast across the county. These old mens’ desperate need for order trumped any need for truth. They lied and tried to spin the story at every opportunity, at times to ridiculous proportions. Dick Jones even tried to diminish Kelly’s injuries by saying he had seen worse in Vietnam. When the DMZ becomes the go-to reference point for downtown Fullerton, we have a serious problem. In light of this, the “NO RECALL! FULLERTON IS NOT FOR SALE” signs mean nothing to me.
In a stunning reversal of previous statements, Fullerton’s acting police chief, Dan Hughes, today admitted to FullertonStories that something is terribly wrong in the department. Here are some of the highlights:
“When it was just a couple of things that got out we knew we could get by just avoiding the questions and denying everything, or even going with the old ‘a couple of bad apples’ dodge. Goodrich and Lou Ponsi were working like a well-oiled machine. But when new incidents kept coming to light, and coming, and coming, it became progressively harder to cover that all stuff up,” he said with a slight groan.
“I smiled, I stood in front of the flag, I acted indignant, and believe me, I appreciate all you did to help,” he added with a wistful smile. “You guys were great.”
“Finally, covering up just became a full-time job and I knew it was time to admit the obvious: there is a inbred Culture of Corruption in my department, and frankly, I don’t have either the desire or the ability to clean it up,” he said.
“I’ve been with the force for almost thirty years, including running the operations of the patrol function. If anybody is responsible for the sad state of this department it’s me. Rincon, Ramos, Cicinelli, Mater, Mejia…” he said in a whisper that trailed off into a series of quiet sobs. Regathering himself he concluded “therefore, I will resign as soon as another Acting Chief can be uncovered.”
Last fall anti-recallers wanted folks to believe that everything in Fullerton’s great and it was just a wholesome family town. Of course the facts are that City Councilmembers Bankhead, Jones and McKinley have turned downtown Fullerton into an all night free for all of drugged-up, boozing, fighting, defecating thugs from who knows where. And of course an out-of-control gang of badged thugs was deployed to try to keep the other thugs in line.
All of this is just a long preamble to advertise the fact that another shooting took place in Downtown Fullerton early this morning, in the parking structure in the 100 block of east Wilshire Avenue.
Who benefits from this mayhem besides the liquor peddlers? Ask Bankhead or Jones or McKinley next time you see them.
For those who really and truly want added proof of the fiscal irresponsibility of City Councliman Don Bankhead, here he is casting his vote to pay $6,000,000 to move a perfectly good McDonald’s restaurant about 200 feet to the east.
Bankhead’s only arguments? One, that he’s already wasted a bunch of money on this titanic Redevelopment boondoggle; and two, that without the relocation the titanic Redevelopment boondoggle might be harder to build!
Fortunately (somewhat) wiser heads prevailed, although nobody in City Hall ever admitted that the monstrous “Fox Block” was just a plaything for the Redevelopment staff, a source of government handouts to the so-called ‘developer,” and had absolutely nothing to do with the restoration of the historic Fox Theater.
Really and truly, Bankhead has been supporting massive boondoggles, huge corporate subsidies and crony capitalism for the better part of 25 years. High time to hit the road.