Tom Daly Archives - Friends For Fullerton's Future

December 3, 2012About Us

Sharon Quirk, Poor Little Rich Girl and The Myth of the Union/Corporation Dichotomy

I was struck the other day by a post on the Voice of OC(EA) about Sharon Quirk that started out with Q complaining that there is now a target on her back by the GOP who want their Republican seat back. The rest of the post is the typical mush-drivel we’ve come to expect of the local media so I’ll let that pass.

What intrigued me was the absurdity of making yourself out to be a target by the very sorts of people who got you elected. What am I talking about? Check out this post from OC Political. Quirk got almost $300,000 funneled into her campaign account over the course of 18 days – laundered through various county Democrat Central Committees, including obscure Del Norte County – 800 miles away.

As expected, a lot of it came from public employee unions. But a lot of it also came from giant corporations like AECOM, Blue Shield, AEG, and of course, our good friends at Disney. So it would appear that Quirk was obviously looked favorably upon by these corporate behemoths, despite their subsequent attempts to distance themselves from their odd gifts to distant Democratic County Central Committees.

Which brings me to the point of this post.

The whining lefties are forever complaining that the lavish benefits, pay and massive pensions showered upon public employee unions are somehow a necessary counterbalance to all the misfeasance and excessive compensation of those greedy private business exec bastards. Of course it was always a false choice, but that falsity has never been made clearer by the fact of big corporations bellying up to Quirk’s bar.

The fact of the matter is that big corporations like big government. They are comfortable with it; they profit from it. Whether Republicans or Democrats are at the helm matters not a whit. Think big corporate subsidies, tax loopholes, and onerous regulations that chase small businesses out of business and you will start to get the picture. Big business likes balanced government budgets, and if that takes raising taxes on the rest of us, so be it. The very last thing they want is a small government advocate like Chris Norby. Think OC Business Council and you will understand that these people have no interest in anything other than a smoothly run plantation. You and I are the coolies that make the thing run for the benefit of our overseers.

Or to put it another way, the public employee unions and the big corporations both regard the taxpayer the same way: we are just pigeons to be plucked.

It’s actually rather amusing that Sharon Quirk is trying to gin up sympathy for her re-election against the big, mean Republicans, even before she is sworn in. Her dim-witted supporter may fall for that. She really doesn’t have anything to worry about.

Just ask Mickey Mouse.

September 16, 2011September 16, 2011Dead heads

The Monumental Misrule of Don Bankhead

by The Desert Rat76 Comments

Yes it’s been a long, long time. When he first climbed the steps to his throne and surveyed his Fullerton domain the year was 1988. Ronald Reagan was president.

Don Bankhead has been on the Fullerton City Council for 23 years. With a few weeks off for bad behavior – an unnecessary Utility Tax and subsequent recall in 1994 – this monument to sub-mediocrity has been demonstrating his dubious mental faculties every other Tuesday night since dirt was young.

I will always fondly remember when Dick Ackerman referred to him as Don Blankhead. Now how many times did Don hear that as his fellow Fullerton cops chuckled at the dunderhead behind his back?

So now let’s take a moment or two to review Mr. Bankhead’s singularly inept career in Fullerton.

Back in 1988 Bankhead tried to get the job of Fullerton Chief of Police. He failed when the council chose somebody else. Ironically, Dick Ackerman who was on the Council then, was well aware of Blankhead’s utter incompetence. And so, out of spite, he ran for the city council: Lo and Behold he won! On the city council he believed that no one would would laugh at him anymore. And he believed people would laugh with him instead of at him. He was wrong.

Bankhead also suddenly revealed what he never told anybody when he interviewed for the Chief job, or even when he ran for County Sheriff in 1990: that he was a virtual cripple from a series of earlier alleged mishaps that, if true, would have made Inspector Clouseau look like an Olympic gymnast. His scam made the news, but the nice people in Fullerton were too polite to say anything. But we all knew.

Throughout the 1990s, Bankhead supported every single Redevelopment subsidy, boondoggle and giveaway of public money to fly-by-night developers; here is my pithy summation.

In the past ten years he has smiled that dim, senile smile as he turned downtown Fullerton into a booze-soaked battle field that costs the taxpayers of Fullerton $1.5 million every single year, all to the benefit his cynical and parasitical “supporters.” He had the effrontery to claim that without his interventionist Redevelopment Fullerton itself would be a ghost town! He tried to lie his way out of that idiocy. It didn’t work.

or to put it another way:

A darling of the cop union he voted for the bank-breaking 3@50 pension formula that has created a massive and permanent unfunded liability for the taxpayers of Fullerton; he continuously voted for the illegal 10% utility tax on the water ratepayers of Fullerton, money that has gone to pay his own bloated pension.

Of course Bankhead was propped up every step of the way by his “public safety” union allies for whom he performed such acts of generosity with our money.

What Bankhead doesn’t want anyone to know is that in the course of his political career he has pulled down hundreds of thousands of dollars snoozing through footling meetings of various agencies and commissions about which he knows absolutely nothing – but for which he applied the same rubber stamp he has wielded so disastrously in Fullerton.

Although Bankhead is a Republican, and supposed to be some sort of conservative, the inescapable fact is that he is big-government in a big way. And if big-government could help him or his developer buddies score big, so much the better. After all who was really watching? FFFF, that’s who. Here we busted Bankhead for blowing $1200 staying at a four star Long Beach Hotel, on our dime – a mere 25 miles from his house in Fullerton!

This year, finally, the extent to which Bankhead has aided and abetted an incompetent and criminal police department has finally surfaced, and the extent of the damage this simpleton has caused Fullerton has become crystal clear.

Will Bankhead become the first man in California history to be recalled from the same office? Let’s work for it!

Don Bankhead, this is your life: a sad, belabored death march of cognitive meltdown, incompetence, lackeydom, and buffoonery. Fortunately your quarter century misrule is coming to a merciful conclusion. Fullerton is finally waking up and finally deciding that it wants real leaders – not clownish cartoons – on its city council.

June 17, 2010Harry Sidhu

The Voice of OCEA Welcomes Federal Political Crimes Unit

by Mr. Peabody5 Comments

SantanaHeadShot — Knows which side his bread is buttered on...

In a post today (or was it yesterday? Aw, who the hell cares?) the Voice of the County Public Employee Union passed along a story they got from the LA Times (no link thanks, you punks).

Of course they are doing it for the wrong reason. Their story is all about how their paymaster Nick Berardino was made to look like a chimpanzee for publicly attacking Webster Guillory and getting dressed down by the County CEO. The implication is clear enough: Rackaukas won’t investigate criminal wrongdoing by politicians. True enough. But why haven’t we heard a single word from the Voice of OCEA about Democrat Tom Daly hiring friends and the relatives of campaign contributors; about County staff withholding critical information from the BOS regarding the purchase of a derelict building on Civic Center Drive; about the Children and Families Commission hiring political hacks for bloated PR and lobbying contracts; about a political operative getting $48,000 to “study” a sports hall of fame; about a candidate for supervisor who committed voter fraud by perjuring himself twice on official documents?

Well, you get the point.

June 14, 2010June 15, 2010Orange County Government

$1.4 MILLION – THE COST OF CLERK-RECORDER TOM DALY’S CRONYISM

by admin25 Comments

Dear Friends, we have just received this essay from one of our long-time readers. Enjoy.

If the election for Clerk-Recorder had anything to teach us, it is that the best candidate doesn’t always win the election. And we wonder why we have the ineffective government we have. I guess all I can say is that we deserve the government we vote for.

As the County budget approval meeting approach we found even more government waste by election victor Tom Daly. If you look at the previous three years you’ll become aware of yet another way in which this inept “Manager of the Year” continues to waste the taxpayer’s money. In the past three years, Tom Daly has doled out more that $1.4 million for “temporary help” and “extra-help.” This is easily verifiable by looking at the County’s Proposed Budget Book for 2009-2010.

We have previously reported that Tom Daly likes to give non-competitive “extra-help” jobs to his friends and the relatives of campaign donors. But in a time in which the County is laying off employees and forcing furloughs on other agencies, Tom Daly is getting away with budgetary murder. His budget is at the same levels they were when recording and revenues were at an all time high. Property recordings have declined to almost half of the all time mark in 2005, yet Daly seems to believe he is still entitled to hire his friends and relatives of campaign donors at a whopping cost of $1.4 million. This essentially means the County General Fund is being deprived $1.4 million over the past 3 years.

How come? From what we have heard, most of his cronies are in non-essential jobs so if these useless bodies were to go home tomorrow, the department and the County would be just fine with more money in the General Fund. Tom loves to claim that he has reduced his budget by 26% but really that isn’t true – all he does is cook-up the numbers or overspends and draws from his piggy-bank account known as 12D. He is not supposed to use this fund for plugging his over-spending, but he does, and the County does nothing. He loves to claim that he has only 102 staff but if you count all the extra-help and temp help he is closer to 110 employees. Maybe someone needs to go to the state agency responsible for investigating this fleecing of the county.

Daly’s needs to give back more to the county General Fund; and he can start by letting go of his friends and crony’s relatives like Bruce Mathias, Jennifer Lowe, Steven Oftelie, Dulce Cuevas and a more; and not the extra-help that are not his buddies.

We will be watching who he lets go and hope that the Board of Supervisors deny his request for these extra-help and temporary help expenses. Hopefully with Shawn Nelson now elected to the Board, Tom Daly will be under more scrutiny. Let’s hope for the right thing to happen soon.

June 7, 2010June 7, 2010Orange County Government

URGENT (UPDATE): Message to Republican Voters… Clerk-Recorder Tom Daly is NOT a Republican.

by admin30 Comments

Daly Really2 — My nose gets longer with every lie, hehe...

POST UPDATE: DALYS NOW A DEMOCRAT PER DEMOCRAT VOTER INFORMATION GUIDE MAILER BELOW.

OK WHICH PARTY DO YOU BELONG TO TOM? PICK ONE ANY ONE JUST STOP LYING TO THE VOTERS.

Two-faced Tom Daly is busy lying to voters and is trying to pass for a Republican in slate mailers. By now I’m sure you have received a slate mailer describing Daly as the “Tax fighter who cut wasteful spending” or a “proven leader for reform” or that he “defeated a local utility tax”. Really? As the Clerk-Recorder? He even places his 15-year old portrait next to prominent Republican candidates or incumbents. He surrounds him-self with Repuglicans like John Lewis and Bruce Matthias. But no matter how hard Tommy boy tries to look Republican, we all should know that he is a pro-big government, free-spending, tax-wasting, lying, liberal Democrat and has been since his days in Anaheim. Remember, this is the guy responsible for the election of Loretta Sanchez!

True, Tom has the right to buy any slate mailer he wants to but has he no loyalty to his fellow Democrats. There are plenty of slate mailers he can be on that are owned by Democrats but Team Tom Daly knows better. He knows Orange County is a majority Republican county so Team Daly opts to play a Republican. It appears that Daly is willing to do anything, including lying to voters to win this election. If I were a Democrat I would be fuming! Tom doesn’t want you to know that he received money from unions or that he is endorsed by unions. He doesn’t even list any union endorsements on his re-election webpage. But if you scrutinize his campaign finance statements, you will see what a blue –blooded Democrat he really is.

Tom Daly is simply a two-faced opportunist willing to jump on any team to get the win. We recently became aware of a slate mailer in which Tom’s portrait is next to Democrat candidates like Jerry Brown, and Gavin Newsom. In the slate, he claims to be endorsed by none other than Loretta Sanchez and even Jose Solorio. The back-stabbing truth is that he doesn’t mention these endorsements in his re-election webpage.

Whether you are a Republican or a Democrat, I believe you would vote for the candidate who represents your party’s values and for a candidate who is proud to be part of your party. Tom Daly fails both ways. Let’s send him a message and vote the opportunist career politician out of office.

June 2, 2010Orange County Government

IS TOM DALY HIRING ILLEGAL ALIENS?

by admin26 Comments

That is the question of the day. We have previously reported here that Tom Daly likes to give jobs to relatives or friends of campaign donors. But this hiring takes the “Manager of the Year” to a whole different level. According to department insiders, Tom Daly hired the wife of a City of Anaheim employee who also happens to be a personal friend of Tom’s.

Even during these tough times at the County, Daly has been budgeting at least $200,000 per year for extra-help hires. Despite revenues and workloads being at their lowest levels ever, Daly feels it is more important to keep his friends employed than to protect the interests of the public. Extra-help employees are basically at-will employees and can be let go at anytime.

Not surprisingly, Daly hired his friend’s wife under this category which means no competitive recruitment was held to bring her on board.

Clerk-Recorder employees tell me they are upset because this person speaks very little English. Due to her lack of English skills, this person is given very menial work but is getting paid the same as others who do much more. Word has it this person doesn’t seem to posses any qualifications or skills or even a verifiable high school diploma, the minimum educational threshold for the county, but was even given a raise over all the other extra-help employees in the department. How does this happen? Loophole-finding Tommy boy allows the assignment to expire and then re-hires the person at a higher position thus earning higher wages.

Other extra-help employees have been told by department HR that per County policy they were not entitled to raises.

Even more disturbing is that Assistant Clerk-Recorder Renee Ramirez approached several staff when this person was being hired and asked them “do you know how to hire an illegal alien?”

Is this a liability for the County? Is Tom Daly opening himself to a lawsuit where the taxpayers will have to foot the bill?

This clearly demonstrates that Tom Daly feels he can do no wrong and that no one will hold him accountable. Let’s show this CAREER POLITICIAN that we are watching him and that we will vote him out of office sooner than he thinks.

June 1, 2010June 1, 2010Orange County Government

IS TOM DALY BUYING HIS STAFF’S VOTES?

by admin19 Comments

We were looking through Clerk-Recorder Tom Daly’s campaign expenditures and stumbled upon a very interesting expenditure or shall we say “more monkey business”. In his statements, Tom listed a $275.37 payment to current Clerk-Recorder employee Rosa Chavez for “refreshments for 80 staff” since he knows they hate both him and his minion Assistant Clerk-Recorder Rene Ramirez.

This payment is very suspicious and it appears that Daly is working his staff for votes. Why would he pay an employee out of his campaign funds for something that was done at his work place? As we all know, campaign activity is to be kept out of your county work place especially if you are the elected official. Someone call Shirley!

The more interesting thing is that since this payment was made to Rosa Chavez, she has been promoted to a supervisory position. Is Tom Daly rewarding Rosa Chavez so she can rally the troops to vote for him? This is a total conflict and disregard for all the rules.

Or perhaps this is a desperate attempt by “Manager of the Year” Tom Daly to win over his staff who is praying that he gets voted out due to his lack of leadership and commitment to the department. After seven years of neglecting his staff and hiring his friends, Tom Daly is now realizing that he has dropped the ball. Like your typical career politician on election year, he is now trying hard to win over a staff that has little respect for him and his assistant Renee Ramirez. Has he acted late? I guess he will know the answer this June 8^th.

May 30, 2010May 31, 2010Orange County Government

GOP Repuglican Represents and Supports Democratic Candidate

by Greg Sebourn8 Comments

Why is John Lewis, whose own partner, VP Matt Holder, is an alternate on the OC GOP central committee supporting, endorsing, and working for a Democrat? It isn’t as if this was some up and coming blue-dog Dem that has a chance of converting to the red side either. This is the notorious Tom Daly whom FFFF has been reporting on for several months as perhaps the most egregious and dubious waster of public funds that OC tax-payers have seen in a long time, maybe ever!

Clearly John Lewis isn’t doing it because he believes his own rhetoric…or does he? This mailer/advertisement says Daly is a “tax fighter has cut wasteful spending…” I suppose John Lewis has missed the news: Tom Daly has cost OC taxpayers millions upon millions of dollars of needless spending for the sole purpose of satisfying donors, their friends, and their families.

No, I think Lewis got that memo. In fact, I think Lewis is a big part of that waste, though I don’t have any tangible proof. I have only heard the rumors about Lewis hanging around the OC Hall of Administration looking to get into the budget meetings of Daly, et al. But the new security system makes it tough to sneak in and grease the wheels of department heads. Less the contrary be shown, these are still just rumors.

Regardless, why is this former California GOP State Senator working for Daly? According to his website, Lewis has worked on sports facilities. Does that include sports museums and sports hall of fame like what Daly has been working on? One can only guess.

The only reason I bring any of this up is because the OC Register did a short piece on this. In the article, Lewis says he doesn’t know why OC Assessor Webster Guillory’s photo was not included in the ad. That seems like a big OOOPS for a firm who touts being consultants to guys like Congressman Ed Royce and Assemblyman Chris Norby. The “mistake?” seems like something a high school intern might make, not a big time GOP (sometimes Democratic) consultant might make. So what gives?

And I haven’t even mentioned Sandra Hutchens, who, according to the Press Telegram, hired Gilliard-Blanning as her political consultant. I tell you, some of these “Republicans” sure get around. Maybe Guillory should call Gilliard so he can get his face out there to voters. Until then, here is Webster Guillory.

May 26, 2010May 26, 2010Orange County Government

The No Account County

by Grover Cleveland5 Comments

One of the things we here at FFFF stand for is the idea of government accountability.

So naturally we were pretty sore when we saw the memo from County CEO Tom Mauk to the Board of Supervisors downplaying the disastrous purchase of the money pit at 433 W. Civic Center Dr. here.

Dark-Clouds-looming-500x375 — Those clouds seem to be getting darker

Mauk finally produced the smoking gun—three years too late—an RDMD analysis estimating the needed cost to make the building functional. The amounts reached into the millions but for some reason this critical information, which was known to staff in June 2007, was withheld from the Board. Any guesses as to why?

View the memo

Evidently Mr. Mauk is not interested in accountability. But we are, so please take note of the names of the people in the County Clerks office and the RDMD who were copied on this June 2007 memo. They are:

Phil Brigandi, Paul Lanning, Jean Pasco, Bob Wilson, Clark Shen, Mark Browning, Tony Ferrulli, Tony Mason, Michael Stein.

See any familiar names ? Jean Pasco in particular stands out since she was the clerk employee who acted as liaison with the Board in the matter of the building at 433 W. Civic.

This is not the story of an inadvertent error; no this was a deliberate attempt to mislead the Board of Supervisors and the evidence lies in the statements contained in the staff reports that deliberately mischaracterized the condition of the building and that were in fact untrue.

Hopefully the Board of Supervisors will be more interested in finding out what really happened and why crucial information that staff had been aware of for many months was intentionally withheld from them.

May 25, 2010May 25, 2010Orange County Government

CLERK-RECORDER TOM DALY LIES (AGAIN) TO BOARD OF SUPERVISORS AND COUNTY CEO

by admin6 Comments

In a May 12^th memo sent to the Board of Supervisors by County CEO Tom Mauk, it was confirmed by Mauk that Clerk-Recorder Tom Daly was less than truthful with regards to the acquisition of the $2.1 million money-sucking building that he decided splurge on with tax payers’ money.

Mauk says that “…it has become apparent to me that the Board was not provided with all the information known to staff at the time given the June 29^th RDMD A&E memo among RDMD and Clerk-Recorder staff.”

In that sentence, Mauk confirmed what we have known for a very long time… that Tom Daly is deceitful and that he believes it’s OK to lie to the public and the Board of Supervisors.

Tom Daly lies so much that he can’t keep his lies straight. For example, in the same memo Mauk was told that “Since the acquisition of the property, the thirty-four spaces have been utilized and saved the County approximately $26, 100 a year due the ability to reduce the number of parking spaces the County leases from the private sector.”

We received several calls from Clerk-Recorder employees indicating that only one Clerk-Recorder employee parks at that parking lot. Guess who it is? Low and behold, it’s the wife of Disneyland’s Manager of Government Relations Chris Lowe. As reported in a previous blog post here, Disney has contributed to Tom Daly’s campaigns since 2002. Apparently the scampaign contribution not only led to a job for Lowe’s wife but also prime parking space. This has several long-time Clerk-Recorder employees fuming.

The truth about the parking lot is that it is being leased by Daly to a private company. The parking management company leases the parking lot and pays the Clerk-Recorder Department about $1,500 a month to manage the lot for profit. Any revenue above the $1,500 mark is kept by the company.

Does this sound like a fair trade off? Daly spent $2.1 million of tax payers’ money for a return of about $18,000 annually and 34 parking spaces. The math doesn’t add up! Daly is really putting his English major from Harvard to work here.

Look at the photos. The lot is clearly marked for public parking for $5 a day. This is a blatant lie to the Board and to CEO Tom Mauk.

The other baldfaced lie is that according to the memo, the department has reduced the number of spaces leased from privately owned parking lots for its’ employees. Since 2008, Tom Daly has been leasing about 17 spaces from Mike Harrah’s parking company Sycamore Parking Concepts to the tune of about $1,200 a month or $14,400 a year. This lot is located behind the run-down YMCA building on Civic Center Dr.

The best outcome for the money sucking building is that it be sold. If the tax payers are lucky they will recover the cost of the property and break even. However, the condition of the building is horrendous, per the memo. So I find it odd that Tom Mauk would say that “…having the property in our inventory is a positive outcome.” Is Tom Mauk covering for Tom Daly? Or did good-old friend of Tom Daly, Rob Richardson, write this memo without clearing it with Mauk or even verifying the information given. All Mauk or Richardson had to do was take a little stroll to the parking lot across the street and see that it is public parking.

Tom Daly is a red-faced liar and deserves to be voted out of office. Daly and company are running a misinformation campaign not only to voters but to the public, the Board of Supervisors and CEO Tom Mauk. Supervisor John Moorlach needs to call for audits of the Clerk-Recorder Department to see what other lies are uncovered.