From the “John and Ken” webpage at the KFI website (photo caption by me):
FULLERTON RECALL!
Recall Councilman Pat McKinley, Mayor Pro Tem Don Bankhead, and Mayor ‘Dick’ Jones! These three idiot city council officials need to be held accountable for letting the Fullerton Police Department become a cesspool of corruption, full of rogue cops who murdered Kelly Thomas.
Give them the political death penalty and remove them from office!
Location:Fullerton along Highland Ave., between Amerige and Commonwealth
We will be there Wednesday, October 5 from 3-7 PM with recall petitions for you to sign!
Show up, sign a petition and stay for the show! Only Fullerton registered voters can sign the petition, but everyone is welcome to come.
Fullerton residents wishing to sign the petition or gather signatures can learn more at www.fullertonrecall.com.
Click HERE to watch Pat McKinley defend the policemen on CNN!
Word has it that Mayor Pro Tem Don Bankhead was not so happy to see volunteers gathering signatures to recall him from office outside of Ralphs supermarket on Harbor Blvd. earlier this week.
Petition gatherers say that he and the Mrs. suggested that they shouldn’t be there and were then seen to be speaking to a store manager inside. A couple of days later the signature gatherers were told by both the manager of Ralphs and the manager of the shopping center that they were not welcome there, and had to leave. Volunteers collecting signatures in front of Albertsons on Raymond Ave. were told the same thing.
Fortunately Fullerton Recall Coordinator Chris Thompson knew that petitioners have the right to collect signatures on some private property as long as they are not causing a disturbance. The California Supreme Court upheld this right in something called Pruneyard vs. Robins, that basically holds that any place that is normally open to the public, like a mall or shopping center, is covered by free speech rights, even if it is private property.
Thompson called the city of Fullerton and had none other than City Manager Joe Felz and the city attorney confirm that the signature gatherers had a perfect right to collect signatures in front of both Ralph’s and Albertsons. Thompson then met with police officers at Ralphs, who agreed. One of them even gave the signature gatherers his card and told them to call him if they had this problem again.
Don Bankhead, who has no problem giving away millions of dollars in public land to developers is suddenly bothered by a couple of people collecting signatures in front of a busy supermarket. I guess he hasn’t learned much since the last time he was recalled from the Fullerton City Council 17 years ago.
We have received approval from the Fullerton City Clerk of the three recall petitions for Don Bankhead, Dick Jones and Pat McKinley.
I would like to give credit where credit is due and thank City Clerk Lucinda Williams for getting our petitions approved with three revisions in nine business days. I spoke to a number of people who had been through this process on recalls and I would guess there are not too many examples of getting one recall petition, much less three, approved in that timeframe. Thank you Lucinda for doing both a good job and the right thing!
Recall Petition – Pat McKinley
Recall Petition – Don Bankhead
Recall Petition – Dick Jones
Again, if you have not already communicated with us on your desire to be a Signature Gatherer, ESPECIALLY IF YOU ARE A REGISTERED FULLERTON VOTER, please send an email stating your interest to chris@fullertonrecall.com.
Many people have asked about online signature gathering, but that is not allowed. If you wish to sign the petition, please either find a signature gatherer at your local supermarket, the Kelly Thomas Protests or events, the Thursday Fullerton Market or email chris@fullertonrecall.com Tell your Fullerton Friends!
If you are a Registered Fullerton Voter then YOU are absolutely the KEY to this recall. You are the only people qualified as legal “signature gatherers” who can sign the bottom of our petitions. You will be the team that takes down McKinley, Jones and Bankhead for their lack of leadership and transparency leading to and following the death of Kelly Thomas.
If you are available to do any signature gathering, we would like to ask you to attend a meeting this Wednesday, August 31st, 7:00PM in the church located at 112 E. Walnut Ave., Fullerton, CA 92832. There is plenty of public parking adjacent to the South side of the railroad tracks across from the train station. Walnut Street is accessible via Lemon or Highland, but not Harbor. Food and refreshments will be provided, so feel free to come hungry.
At this meeting, we will be doing the following:
- Identifying leadership for signature gathering teams and even for other roles in this campaign
- Initial signature gathering training
- Summary of all of our excellent reasons for recall which should appeal to the left, right center, libertarian and anyone else who advocates for honest, transparent government.
- Showing off our Signature Team Stations
The petitions have been filed with the City of Fullerton and we are awaiting approval. Our best guess is that we are one to two weeks away from receiving the go ahead from the city to begin signature gathering.
Please RSVP to chris@fullertonrecall.com.
Yep, there sure is.
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.
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.
F. Dick Jones has been on the council for 15 years; will he not take responsibility for the state of affairs he created?
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?
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.
Awhile back Grover Cleveland posted on how the Fullerton City Council’s creation of a mess downtown led to the rise of an FPD goon squad to quell the crime wave. The only problem was that the FPD goon squad added to the crime wave. Here’s a reminder. An innocent bystander is beat up and arrested. Later he is tried for assaulting a cop to which Fullerton cops Kenton Hampton and Framk Nguyen swear in a court of law. Only problem is it didn’t happen, but that didn’t stop the FPD and the DA from trying to put an innocent man in prison.
Word has it that Don Bankhead has endorsed Hieu Nguyen for Clerk-Recorder, joining Dick Ackerman’s anti-Norby jihad. This is a slap in the face for the lone councilman who supported Don’s quixotic bid for Sheriff back in 1990. Ackerman supported Brad Gates, who easily turned back the Bankhead challenge.
Don was first elected in 1988 with the promise that he–like Norby–would back Molly McClanahan for Mayor (an Ackerman/Catlin/LeQuire triad had blocked her for years). That broke the annual mayoral controversy and restored the rotation that continues today. So Norby and Bankhead began as buddies. Norby even endorsed him as late as 2002, much to the ire of some longtime loyalists.
For Don, though, it’s still all about his being recalled by Fullerton voters. Norby opposed the utility tax passed by Bankhead, Catlin and McClanahan which led to their recall in 1994. He’s been sore ever since. Norby did not actually support the recall, but his later hiring of organizer Bruce Whitaker is a constant reminder of the utility tax/recall fiasco, foisted on Fullerton by then-City Manager Jim Armstrong.
Other Hieu backers with grudges against Norby include: La Habra Councilman Tim “Taxman” Shaw (mad at Norby for pulling his endorsement when he supported the 1/2 cent LH sales tax hike), State Sen. Mimi Walters (mad at Norby for supporting Harry Sidhu against her), Ackerman (mad at Norby for beating his hand-picked council candidates) and Cynthia Coad (mad at Norby for beating her for Supervisor in 2002). It ain’t no secret, the Republican party is the party of grudge holders.
The fact that County Counsel is actively opposing the proposed redevelopment expansion further fuels Bankhead’s bile. Perhaps, Bankhead thinks the County should just lay down and let the RDA steal the County’s money for that all-important Commonwealth blight fight. But, it appears the recall is what really keeps galling Mayor Donahieu.
If county bureaucrat Hieu Nguyen thinks Dick Ackerman can help his Clerk-Recorder campaign, he’d better think again. There is one word for Ackerman-backed city and county candidates: LOSERS.
Is it just bad luck? Or does Dick choose weak candidates he can control after they’re elected? The problem for him is that they don’t get elected!
Look at the record of Dick’s choices, dating back over a quarter-century:
- 1982: Ackerman backs insurance agent Jim Williams for Fullerton City Council. Williams loses to Molly McClanahan.
- 1984: Dick endorses realtor Merrill Braucht for the open council seat. Braucht loses to Chris Norby.
- 1988: Dick supports Dan Baker for an open council seat. Baker loses to Don Bankhead.
- 1992: Ackerman goes 0-for-2 in ’92. His hand-picked candidates Jim Blake and Jack Beddell place 5th and 6th.
- 1994: Ackerman vocally opposes the recall of Buck Catlin, Bankhead and McClanahan. That trio had rubber-stamped an unpopular new utility tax foisted by City Manager Jim Armstrong. The recall easily passes, all three leave office and the tax is repealed.
- 1996: Dick endorses fellow legislator Mickey Conroy for Third District Supervisor. Conroy loses his cool—and the election–when he flips his opponent the bird during a debate. Brea School Board Member Todd Spitzer wins handily.
- 2002: Like 1992, Dick goes 0-2 in 2002. He actively supports Supervisor Cynthia Coad’s re-election and is featured prominently in her mailers. Coad loses to Norby. Later that year he backs accountant Chuck Munson for Fullerton City Council. Munson is buried by Shawn Nelson.
To be fair, there is one current Council Member who was elected and thrice re-elected with Dick Ackerman’s support: Dick Jones.
Is Fullerton ready for a John and Ken invasion? The Tax Revolt 2009 Facebook page has announced a huge protest to be held in Fullerton, as follows: Click here for details.