Transparency Archives - Page 3 of 22 - Friends For Fullerton's Future

October 7, 2021October 8, 2021Ahmad Zahra

Housing Scam Averted

Here at FFFF we like to praise our City Council when they do something smart; when they don’t we smack them on the snout with a rolled-up copy of the yellowing Fullerton Observer.

Well, Lo and Behold! On Tuesday, last, the Council voted 3-2 to shitcan a horrible scam cooked up by California’s houseocrats to reward developers and speculators by taking over market rate housing at The Aspect apartment project and control rents – for people who make between $102,000 and $123,000. Yes, you read that rightly, Friends. According to our experts, if you make more than that, by definition, your housing is “market rate.” The perniciousness of this scam cannot be overemphasized. A new term has been cooked up to describe these unfortunate six-figure po’ folks: the Missing Middle.

The way this scheme works is that the City cuts a deal with the California Statewide Community Development Authority – a perfectly opaque agency, to be sure. The CSCDA floats a bond, the proceeds of which will buy out the existing owner, rewards up-front the agents and speculators who put the rancid deal together; management will be left in the hands of other parasites who are in on the deal, too. Did I mention that the sale price may well exceed market appraisal? Well, why not?

The funniest part of this may have been the revelation that the complex has a 98% occupancy rate – an astounding number – people who can ALREADY afford to live there! And these good folks will be the recipients of the small lowering of rents – or be forced to move out if they don’t have a long-term lease..

A reasonable person may well wonder why ANY of this is necessary, and the answer from the government Wohnungen uber alles crowd will be so crammed with feel-good bullshit that you know right away it’s a scam.

One of the problems is that because the apartment project is now owned by the government the property owner (CSCDA) pays no property tax; in order to sweeten the deal on The Aspect, the promoters promised a “Host City Fee,” essentially an annual tribute to the City. Meanwhile other entities are just shit-out-of-luck.

The enormity of this nonsense is pretty significant; all one has to do is look to Anaheim – a pay to play town where the City has spent gargantuan amounts buying up big apartment projects and rewarding the lobbyists like Curt Pringle, who skim right off the top of this sort of crap.

Well, finally, back to council meeting. Councilmembers Whitaker, Dunlap and Jung were adamantly opposed to this, to their credit. Not surprisingly, Zahra and Quirk-Silva who petitioned to put this item on the agenda were all-in for it, babbling phrases like “outside the box” and “innovative thinking” and brushing aside concerns about unknown details full of devils.

Thanks to Jung, Dunlap and Whitaker, and of course shame on Zahra and Quirk-Silva who were very clearly in the pocket of whichever lobbyist was promoting this idiocy.

October 3, 2021October 3, 2021Transparency

Adam Loeser, Dishonest Fire Chief

by David Curlee33 Comments

The last time I wrote on this topic, I pointed out that Fullerton/Brea Fire Chief Adam Loeser is a union puppet, using his authority as fire chief to advocate for the interests of the IAFF fire union.

What I didn’t tell you at the time is he flat out lied in his agenda letter to the City Council. The real reason, the more pressing reason, for seeking cancellation of the automatic aid agreement with the City of Placentia is to settle a dispute the union clowns filed with the California Public Employment Relations Board (PERB). In the first agenda letter, he said the City Council should cancel because, “The current Automatic Aid Agreement between Fullerton and Placentia and its corresponding Memorandum of Understanding outline specific deliverables and capabilities. The City of Placentia has not sufficiently met many of these deliverables and capabilities to the satisfaction of the City of Fullerton Fire Department.”

Nowhere in there did he mention the pending litigation before the PERB that forces the City Council to vote on this matter to determine if the matter will proceed to a PERB hearing or not. If the City Council does what Loeser and the fire union want, the union has agreed to drop the matter before the PERB.

An honest public servant would have included this vital information in the initial agenda letter. I’m even told members of the City Council had no idea the PERB dispute existed until a couple weeks ago, even though it was first filed over a year ago.

Don’t take my word for it, compare his agenda letters. The first is the September 21, 2021 letter and the second is the October 5, 2021. (Note: the matter was continued from the September meeting, so this concerns the exact same issue)

October 5, 2021 version:

To add insult to injury, Adam Loeser put this item on the Consent Calendar where it can be rammed through without discussion – unless the public, or a member of the City Council, requests it to be “pulled” for discussion. The Consent Calendar is used for routine matters that don’t warrant discussion, such as approving the minutes from the prior meeting. This is not a routine matter, automatic/mutual aid agreements are amended or cancelled like this maybe once every 30 or 40 years.

Loeser, in his usual arrogant form, first lies to the public. The second time around — after he was told to fix the agenda letter, by you know, telling the truth — put it on the consent calendar in hopes he won’t have to explain himself.

These types of self-serving public servants are the worst of the worst.

August 25, 2021August 25, 2021A Step in the Right Direction

Redistricting A’ Comin’

by The Fullerton Harpoon13 Comments

Early on the morning of August 18th our City Council voted to appoint an advisory committee to consider drawing a new district map for Fullerton council seats. The Council decided to keep final approval for themselves.

You may recall that the City voters adopted districts in 2016 as part of the legal settlement with minority groups. That map was cooked up behind the scenes by Jennifer Fitzgerald with the assistance of downtown bar owners whose aim appeared to be splitting up downtown into 5 parts, three of which were each connected to their main body by tenuous electoral tissue. Naturally, the one and only map went along on the ballot with the question of having districts at all. Amazingly, all the councilmembers, including Bruce Whitaker went along with the sham, gerrymandered map, whose ostensible author, Jeremy Popoff, was Fullerton’s worst scofflaw bar owner.

The process of redistricting is almost always a charade with just enough public participation to look sort of legit. This time will be no different. It’s bound to consume staff time and require the services of a friendly consultant and a subscription to web-based demographic software.

It’s hardly necessary. Fullerton naturally divides into clear-cut areas of “communities of interest” both geographically and ethnically. So here’s my suggestion for a new map. I offer it humbly to the Friends, and the deciders, free of charge.

Consolidation, compaction, clarity. Northwest, North Central, East, South Central and Southwest. Gee, that was easy.

June 9, 2021June 9, 2021Ahmad Zahra

A Manfro All Seasons

by Joe Sipowicz15 Comments

Who is Eddie Manfro? I asked myself the other day. Name sounds familiar.

See, I had seen the name pop up on a Fullerton City Council agenda as somebody who was involved as a participant, along with our former City Manager, Ken Domer, in carrying on labor negotiations with the City’s labor unions.

Hmm. Where had I heard that name before? Then it hit me. He’s the former City Manager of Westminster, who quit last year to become some sort of “human resources” expert whose supposed abilities were now for sale. Apparently Ken Domer was in the market for Manfro’s “expertise.” If the thought of a couple of bungling bureaucrats negotiating on your behalf makes you a little uneasey, well…but, I digress.

Here’s why I remember Eddie Manfro: he’s the City Manager who willingly participated in the Dick Jones scam in Westminster, where our ethically plugged-up City Attorney pretended to be a city employee to qualify for the CalPERS pension system and even went so far as to submit fraudulent time cards to line up with the sham. I believe these are all crimes.

And Eddie Manfro went along with the scam; and now, surprise, he is getting work from another agency in Dick Joneses stable of fine municipalities.

How did Eddie acquire this gig, that’s what I would like to know. And when for God’s freaking sake is Fullerton’s City Council finally going get rid of the incompetent, corrupt, and utterly self-serving, the Dickensianly awful, the I Can’t Believe It’s a Law Firm® of Jones and Mayer?

May 17, 2021May 17, 2021A Step in the Right Direction

The Dead Kennedys & Others

by Joe Sipowicz26 Comments

Now that the City of Fullerton’s retaliatory lawsuit against FFFF bloggers Joshua Ferguson and David Curlee has finally done its inevitable Zeppelin Hindenburg act, some folks who promoted and nurtured the despicable assault on freedom are already trying to rewrite their participation.

Kimberly Barlow, Esquiress of the lamentable law firm of Jones, Mayer and Gecko is saying she’s just “happy the City got its documents back” another disingenuous swipe at Ferguson and Curlee who never deprived Barlow of anything; her “happiness” is costing us $750,000, at least , but she forgot to tell the reporter this inconvenient fact.

Ahmad Zahra the hapless, preening poseur, and insufferable boohoo gasbag is now claiming that he was a “fan” of settling this lawsuit, a statement completely unsupported by any fact as the City continued its legal harassment of FFFF.

Then there’s Sharon Kennedy, the (former, supposedly) proprietor of the Fullerton Observer. In a comment string at their blog, Kennedy is now denying her involvement defaming our bloggers and pretending that her involvement was strictly objective. Unfortunately for her, the facts suggesst a slimy collaboration with the City and Jones, Mayer and Gecko. Her “expert” who claimed that she hired him, produced an opinion that was a joint statement to the Observer and an official Declaration to the Court in the case. How that happened and who, if anybody remunerated this self-styled expert is unknown – so far, but it looks suspicious as all Hell. Commenters are questioning Kennedy, but she isn’t answering. And naturally, the expert conveniently backed up the long-since debunked statement of the City’s own “expert.”

Kennedy can claim innocence all she wants, but her track record of venom toward this blog and really toward anybody else whose honesty threatens the well-being of government employees is well-known, and the malice might be pretty easy to prove in court if anybody cared to hold her accountable.

Well, the rats can scurry off the SS Jones, Mayer and Gecko as quick as their little legs will hurry them along. But the facts are incontrovertible and somebody, and soon, is going to have to pay the proverbial piper – just like the taxpayers are going to have to pay for the horrible and intentional malice of City Hall and its lawyers.

May 8, 2021May 9, 2021Ahmad Zahra

The Trail of Tears

by Mr. Peabody20 Comments

From 2000 and 2010. The idea may have been bad, but it sure was old.

You have to hand it to government bureaucracies. They never give up on stupid ideas. But why should they? With all the time in world, huge amounts of money given to them by others, and with zero accountability, what is there for them to lose?

Specifically, I am talking about an item on the May 4th Agenda, dutifully approved by the City Council, to take $1.8 million in State grant money and $330,000 in Fullerton park money to design and build what they are pleased to call The Union Pacific Trail, Phase II.

Of course we all know that Phase I was a total waste of money – a weird “equestrian trail” (complete with pony railing) that has never seen a horse, that was attached to the poisoned and fenced off UP Park that dies a merciful death at Highland Avenue.

Our crack Deputy Parks Director, some person named Alice Loya pitched the item to a less than bedazzled Council, making sure to point out that the area was disadvantaged, an irony certainly lost on City bureaucrats whose job it has been to un-disadvantage this neighborhood over the past 50 years.

Let me share a paragraph from the staff report, that, as usual, is so full of lies to rationalize the scheme that one wonders if the City staff would ever pursue this nonsense if they had to use City funds to pay for it:

The proposed project will transform an existing 50 to 80 foot wide, blighted corridor into a greenbelt trail providing alternate transportation, linking the Transportation Center and several parks, including Independence Park at its terminus. This proposed trail aligns with the Hunt Branch Library to the west, providing potential future linkages. The total cost of the project is estimated at $2.1 million.

Hmm.

Lie Number One: Alternative transportation? What the Hell does that even mean? Walking?

Lie Number Two: the trail would not link anything to the Transportation Center since it would terminate at a narrow sidewalk behind the Ice House that includes a 90 degree turn. And of course just a week ago, or so, our very same staff tried to sneak through an idiot scheme to cut off the UP right-of-way completely with their private event center on the Poisoned Park site.

Lie Number Three: the proposed extension does not link “several” parks. It would indeed terminate at the Independence Park parking lot but the only other “park” it would touch is the fenced off Poisoned Park that nobody even wants.

Almost as good as a lie Number Four: the proposed trail would be virtually impossible to link to the “aligned” Hunt Branch Library, nearly a mile away, because gosh darn it, the rail siding is still being used by…the railroad. But what the Hell let’s throw out the chimera of “connectivity” to fool the dopes on the City Council, right? It’s always worked just fine in the past.

Almost as good as a lie Number Five: when has the City ever built anything on time and on budget? That proposed cost would sky rocket, of course, as Fullerton’s army of staff, consultants, and design professionals hump the “greenbelt” into submission. Remember the wooden steps at Hillcrest Park and the elevator-from-Hell at the Depot?

Maybe it looks better when the sun goes down…

But what wasn’t said was much more important than the propaganda ink spilled to promote this idiocy: nobody will use this “trail” since it passes through sketchy industrial zoned property, completely empty at night, and would remain, just like it is now, an attractive nuisance that the taxpayers will be on the hook to maintain out of the General Fund.

Dunlap-Jung — Can these two help bring some accountability to Fullerton?

On the bright side, members of the new Council commonsense majority pointed out that Staff was already devising a top-secret Specific Plan for the area, and gee, wouldn’t it make sense not to piecemeal things like Planning Director Matt Foulkes tried to do on the ill-fated aquaponic farm/event center? They did treat the item as still very provisional, but FFFF knows better – we know that government money once available, will be spent, most likely on something nobody outside City Hall wants.

Naturally, Councilman-in-search-of-camera-opportunity, Ahmad Zahra scrounged up some of his usual misguided acolytes to beat the drum for this utter waste of $2.1 million bucks. After all, this project would be mostly paid for with “free money” of the sort “progressives” love to accept, then waste. We need look no further than the $1,000000 Core and Corridors Specific Plan, paid for by the State Sustainability Commission, that was quietly abandoned, never to see the light of day. And ironically, the old UP Right of Way passes right through the middle of two of the C&C Specific Plan Areas, suggesting to me, at lest, that the City is not, and never has been interested in the well-being of the part of Fullerton accept as something to play with.

April 23, 2021April 24, 2021A Step in the Right Direction

Is Domer Dunn?

by Joe Sipowicz32 Comments

Domer-Decorations — Hitching to Ridgecrest…

Last Tuesday the Fullerton City Council majority finally got sick and tired enough with their hapless City Manager to tell him to take a hike. The votes to oust Ken Domer came from Bruce Whitaker, Nick Dunlap and Fred Jung.

Cop coverup artist, drug warrior, IT wizard, this talented cat can do it all…

Insiders are suggesting that his temporary replacement will be none other than Police Chief Robert Dunn.

The Council is meeting Tuesday to discuss a replacement appointment.

And when you think about it, the only real question is why it took so long.

By any measurable standards, Ken Domer was not very good at his job. He took too long to address the City’s structural budget deficits, and when he did, his solution was to raise sales taxes – taxes not even aimed at our horrible infrastructure.

Under Domer we saw the deliberate ignoring of noise code violation enforcement and the effort to dilute the relevant codes. We saw the the aiding and abetting of a permit applicant who forged official planning documents. We saw idiotic and unsupervised vanity construction projects. We saw stupid things like the recently killed “aquaponics farm” and the connivance required to begin a Specific Plan without any input from the community or even the City Council.

We saw a string of “consultants” hired out of the blue to perform tasks that Domer and his highly paid staff should have been able to do in their sleep.

Why the underqualified Domer was ever hired in the first place will probably always remain a mystery, except that it makes perfect sense that Jennifer Fitzgerald, our former Mayor-for-hire, wanted someone who would reliably do what she wanted without asking any embarrassing questions.

Along with walking legal catastrophe, Dick Jones, Domer was certainly complicit in the vindictive lawsuit waged by the City against FFFF bloggers, a disastrous strategy that will cost the tax-payers plenty.

Measure S Covid Lie

But it was the ill-fated and duplicitous Measure S sales tax scam that really iced the cake. It was designed as a rescue for the pay and pensions of Fullerton’s full-time public employees, who, during the pandemic, have continued to enjoy pay and benefits while many of Fullerton’s residents and business were suffering the cruelty of a real world unprotected by the largesse dispensed by government union-friendly politicians.

Well, Domer is gone, but it would be a waste of time and tears to mourn his departure. He is getting a month’s pay and benefits up front worth $25,000. And then he will begetting 9 months’ pay and benefits courtesy of a contract extension granted just two month before last November’s election by Fitzgerald and her council cronies Ahmad Zahra, Jan Flory, and Jesus Silva. That’s another $25,000. Per month. And the bonanza of Domer’s pension spike in Fullerton will be a cost borne by all of us for a long, long time.

The people of Fullerton have been awful good to the Domer family.

April 18, 2021April 18, 2021"Dick" Ackerman

Joe Kerr Clears Up Mystery!

by Joe Sipowicz6 Comments

Former OC 4th District candidate for Supervisor, Coto Joe Kerr, has decided his latest campaign for Supervisor needed a little more clarity. Maybe this was because his website failed to indicate which of the seats he was going for this time. This announcement identifies his target: the 5th DIstrict.

We remember Coto Joe running to represent us in 2018 even though he had to fake a couple of addresses to do so. We busted him using some dude’s address in Brea first, a la Linda Ackerwoman; then he rented an apartment in Placentia while running his campaign from poolside at his Coto de Caza baby mansion – still a resident of the 5th District.

Well, at least this time he can say with truth that he lives in the district he wants to represent, although truth doesn’t seem to be much of factor in Joe’s political ambition, one way or the other.

Now the 5th District can decide if it wants to elect the former union president and massive public pension beneficiary. Good luck with that.

April 8, 2021Chronic Failure

City Hall Proposes Screwing Residents, Yet Again – Stimulus Edition

by Joshua20 Comments

Fullerton recently was “awarded” more Federal Debt ($25Trillion and counting) by way of a $34,000,000 stimulus with the requisite strings attached. While it’s true that this $34M could pave a lot of roads, fix a lot of infrastructure and solve a lot of problems – City Hall wants this money to be used solely for salary & pension needs.

At Tuesday’s City Council meeting the pitch was made to “make whole” the staff who so bravely took a 5% pay cut when budgets were put into peril by the State mandated lockdowns in response to covid-19. This item was continued until the money is actually in hand.

Despite the item being continued, let us do away with this nonsense right here and now. Government is not supposed to be a job’s program. The entire purpose of government is to accomplish things the government won’t let us accomplish alone such as policing powers, infrastructure and the so forth.

When the government CEASES those activities, they don’t “deserve” your tax money. They haven’t earned it. The entire lie of the “social contract” is predicated on you paying taxes and getting things in return and we have a clear cut case of you getting nothing from much of staff and them still demanding their tribute.

The best example of this is the Parks Department. As far as I can tell, all of the parks were closed back in March of 2020 due to State mandated lockdown orders. The play equipment was roped off, all events were cancelled, youth sports went on hiatus, etc etc. There seemed to be zero actual parks activity going on in Fullerton for the better part of a year. Sure, the City laid off the part timers but what was the rest of staff doing?

Fuckall apparently because at Tuesday’s Council Meeting, City Manager Ken Domer ALSO wanted to get approval on a $236,000 “Parks Master Plan”. He manipulated the staff reports to bury the important point that the Parks and Rec Commission unanimously voted 5-0 against this “Master Plan” with a member of the Planning Commission voicing opposition as well.

Alas, we need a “Master Plan” because staff doesn’t know how to contact people online, hold surveys, get feedback and figure out how to do their jobs.

The audacity here is rather stunning even to a cynical individual such as myself.

Despite having a year sabbatical from actual work where staff spent their days attending pointless Zoom meetings to pad their hours, they couldn’t be bothered to spend any of that year figuring out what was wrong with our parks department.

They took a 5% pay cut from the City and took a near 100% work cut for themselves. Now they want their 5% back because they are hero and deserve, meanwhile we’re still not fully back up and running as a City AND they want us to continue to outsource their jobs because, well, screw you, that’s why.

To add insult to financial injury, City Hall didn’t bother to help most of you out. Did they pro-rate your business licenses since it was the threat of their police keeping your business closed? No. Did they cut you a break on your property taxes? Of course not. Hell, the schools refused to educate your kids and still demanded you pay up but that’s a different post for a different corrupt bureaucracy.

The point here is that government is a trade of taxes for services. That’s the deal. It’s City Council’s job to make sure that we residents get our end of the bargain at the best rates possible and while too many on council refuse to understand this basic principle of government – their ignorance (or willing corruption) doesn’t change the dynamic of how this is supposed to work.

If City Hall is closed, salaries need to reflect the lack of services and hours being delivered to the residents of Fullerton. If parks and events are closed, likewise the same reductions. If the City is enforcing State mandates that shutter businesses and lower capacities, the City needs to return a percentage of the taxes and fees extorted out of these businesses who are being handcuffed and given nothing in return.

It’s long overdue that City Hall realized that their job is to do their jobs and not simply collect a paycheck while dicking over the residents who fund those very checks.

Let us not forget to mention that some economic illiterates here in Fullerton are actually proposing back pay for the jobs that weren’t being done. You may have lost your business, may be facing eviction once evictions are allowed to resume, may have lost customers and clients – but hey – it’s City Hall who had to do nothing for a year that’s really suffering.

As for that $34Millions in BidenBucks – money is fungible. If Fullerton can screw us on in lieu water fees to prop up the heroes for a generation and then shaft us on the return of stolen money – council can cut & shift funding so that this money goes to where the Feds demand without the citizens of Fullerton getting shafted once again in favor of, as Ken Domer would have us believe, apparently useless staff.

April 7, 2021April 11, 2021Ahmad Zahra

Elizabeth Hansberg and The SCAG Cartel – Part 4 – Why It Matters

by Joe Sipowicz10 Comments

You may ignore SCAG, but the lobbyists don’t…

Many people tend to dismiss the visionary dreams of large, regional government consortiums as either too impractical, too complicated or too abstruse to either worry about or even pay much attention to. Those people are wrong.

As we have seen, these agencies have long tentacles and provide funding, or pass through funding, to promote the Big Plans they have for us. And that money goes to pay people we wouldn’t give a dime. Worse, their housing needs projections are so wildly unrealistic that if implemented would destroy the suburban fabric of towns across Southern California.

Which brings us back to Elizabeth Hansberg, whose brainchild, People For Housing, sends folks around to local planning commissions and councils to promote high-density housing projects that promise no concomitant benefits to the communities in which they are crammed. And as we have seen Hansberg’s “non-profit” has received somewhere between $50,000 and $100,000 from SCAG to promote its agenda of a high density housing jamboree – based on a claim that says we need another 13,000 housing units in Fullerton.

The problem is that Hansberg is on our Planning Commission. The Chair, in fact. The bias, if not outright conflict of interest toward high density housing is cemented by her pecuniary reliance on SCAG. And thus planning in Fullerton is compromised. Think I’m exaggerating? Think again.

Hansberg was selected by our staff to be part of a collection of high-density housing enthusiasts who amusingly called themselves “Project Champions” and have participated in an idiot document called the Fullerton Housing Game Plan. And within this document is concrete evidence of what these people want to do in Fullerton. It’s called the Rail District.

Now this idea is not new. Apparently our crack staff have stolen both the boundaries and even the name from local business guy Tony Bushala who’s been trying to promote a sustainable, mixed use plan for his vision of the Fullerton Rail District. But no. The SCAG-Hansberg plan is all about high-density housing, not livability or sustainability.

Half a mile of high-density housing courtesy of SCAG

And here’s the proof: a plan drawing from this hitherto secret draft Specific Plan, already developed without even being shared with property owners in the area or even members of the City Council. And guess what? The Specific Plan is being paid for by SCAG. And SCAG is also paying to develop a plan to change the Poison Park within the site to an aquaponic farm, ditching the promised park and tying up valuable land in the process. And finally, SCAG grant money is also being eyed by the City bureaucrats to plan a half mile trail along the abandoned Union Pacific right-of-way, an idea so stupid that not even Ken Domer’s predecessors tried it.

It’s very clear that the giant thumbprint of SCAG is placed squarely on these hairbrained and even dangerous ideas. And with the enthusiastic support of their local auxiliaries like Elizabeth Hansberg, they are well on the way to entangling Fullerton in “plans” that will finish off our crumbling infrastructure and add 100,000 new traffic trips to our streets everyday.