Thanks to the City of Bell scandal, local governments are now required to report compensation figures to the state every year. The other day a reader shared that report with us.
This is the first time that we’ve been able to see pension contributions, insurance premiums, overtime, etc. added together for each of the city’s employees, showing us the full value (and cost to the taxpayer) of a job with the city of Fullerton.
Keep in mind that the city’s pension and retiree medical plans are severely underfunded even with these sizable contributions. That means these cost figures are actually understated.
Our new city council members recently received this unsolicited e-mail from former City Manager Chris Meyer:
Council Members, you might want to consider the attached article from Oakland on police commissions/ oversight, before you decide how you want to proceed. It is very instructive on the challenges you may face. Since the procedures for disciplinary action for police officers are embodied in their labor contract (which is subject the collective bargaining process under MMB, PERB; and other State laws, as well as long established city policy), and since the current contract with the optional extension, doesn’t expire until 2014, an oversight commission would be a ineffective, and generally useless until a new contract was mutually agreed upon, or imposed unilaterally on the POA.
Instead, you may want to focus on appointing a permanent Chief of Police for the time being, and see if the problems can be resolved that way. As to the Council appointing a Chief of Police, go ahead and give it a try. It will be interesting to see how the Chief interfaces with the Council, and implements both your individual, and collective agendas. You might want to ask Shawn, Sharon, or Pam what the closed session discussion was like when the most recent Chief was selected. You will note that in the City Manager Ordinance, that the CM is required to consult with the Council on the selection of the Chief. That means that at least three Council Members need to concur with the CM’s recommendation in order for it to happen, unless of course the CM is planning on looking for a new job. For all practical purposes at least four members of the Council need to concur, as no Chief candidate will take a job on a 3/2 vote.The Council also interviews the final three candidates for the job, and can direct the appointment. Generally the CM can work with any of the top three, so the selection is responsive to the Councils direction, and desires. Finally, ask yourself this question? Do you want to be responsible for the Chief’s actions. Remember that will require you to fall on your collective swords, as well as the Chief, if something like Kelly happens again. And, just a reminder, the Chief gets POBAR protection, and presumptive clause protection for medical conditions related to the incident, or the job, so you would be gone long before he, or she would, as you would bear the ultimate responsibility.
Chris Meyer City Manager, Retired
The part I love is the former City Manager trying to scare the new council members into the same craven cowardliness that tanked the last crew. Do you want to be responsible for the Chief’s actions?
Well, hell yes!!
Leaders lead. The poor, brainless bastards that just got recalled failed to lead. They let “the system” take charge; the result was a disaster. Comically, the otiose Meyer derives his entire screed on the premise that “things just happen.” But Meyer fails to grasp one basic truth: things just happen when nobody is in charge.
Typically, Meyer omits to remind the new council that hewas in charge as the Fullerton Police Department slid down the greasy slope of corruption. Typical? Yes, indeed. The old, corrupt regime never took responsibility for its actions. And a bloated pustule like Meyer could make $200,000 a year coaching his three sawdust-brained puppets to dodge the accountability they were elected to assume.
Although FFFF hasn’t been reporting much on County activities it’s pretty hard to overlook the latest management crisis in the County Hall of Administration, in which top managers appear to have hushed up a multitude of sex crimes and workplace harassment perpetrated by a creep named Carlos Bustamante. Bustamante is a Santa Ana city councilman, and until last fall, a high level bureaucrat in the OC Public Works Department. Mr. Peabody touched upon the mess, here.
Bustamante was arrested last week by the DA, fifteen months after an anonymous letter was received by the County. Apparently that complaint was actually given to an underling of Bustamante to investigate! It remains unclear who made that call, but his boss, the Director of Public Works is taking the hit for the team – so far.
Mauk.
Meanwhile a second complaint in August 2011, spurred the CEO, Tom Mauk to hire an outside lawyer to investigate Bustamante’s activities. The consequent detailed report, completed in September 2011, supposedly detailed some pretty greasy stuff. For some reason the Supervisors were not shown the report – except for Chairman Bill Campbell, who now amazingly claims he refused to read it, supervising apparently not being one of the requirements of a Supervisor. The report remained under lock and key as Bustamante was permitted to quit and given 3 month’s salary to (get this) – prevent him from suing the County! Blackmail? Who knows?
Finally, the report came to the surface after the County’s Internal Auditor, pursuing his own investigation (and after months of stonewalling by Mauk and his HR Director, Carl Crown) was permitted the IA to see it. At that point the jig was up and the Board was notified of the damning report. They immediately referred the matter to the DA for an investigation which culminated in a dozen felonies and four misdemeanors.
Remarkably, in the intervening months between March 2012 and now, Mauk has been permitted to keep his job despite the inescapable facts of incompetence, cronyism, withholding information from the Board, and of course, paying Bustamante $45,000 to go away without a ruckus. Sure sounds like a cover up, doesn’t it?
Boss Tweed, OC style.
Evidently the Board, or a majority of it at least, likes this kind of thing and thinks it’s just fine. Bill Campbell has publicly said so, claiming the Mauk was just trying to protect the County by covering up Bustamante’s behavior. Of course that begs another question: why did anybody put the County at risk by employing this scum-sack in the first place? For that you may direct your question right back to Bill Campbell, who has been Carlos Bustamante’s political patron over the years, and who, no doubt, presided, along with Mauk, over Bustamante’s weird and inexplicable assent to the top of County government.
A “closed session” was held by the Board on Friday to discuss what to do. Apparently doing nothing remains the Board’s path of least resistance as they have postponed taking about the matter ’til July 24th. They had better hurry up. The DA has said that he’s not done investigating and will now focus his attention on personnel with the Hall of Administration itself.
Last night the new city council killed the “in-lieu” franchise fee that illegally tacked on an additional 10% to our water bills. Redeeming their campaign pledges, Travis Kiger and Greg Sebourn led the charge, along with Bruce Whitaker. Doug Chaffee followed their lead, as did Sharon Quirk-Silva.
So after a year’s dilatory foot-dragging by city staff and a clueless council majority, the deal is done, effective July 1st, 2012. Future rate increases necessary for infrastructure maintenance will be treated, rightly, as a separate issue, as will any legitimate indirect and overhead costs from the City.
And Bruce Whitaker succinctly summed up the what happens to the money – $2.5 million a year – that is tacked on and skimmed off. 70% went to pay for non-water related salaries, benefits, and pension costs. The scam lasted for over forty years.
I offer my profound thanks to the council for doing the right thing.
Also invigorating was the minor tsunami of requests from councilmen for future agenda items:
Kiger: a study of nepotism in the police department; a fireworks referendum.
Sebourn: an independent audit of City Hall; a report on police disciplinary statistics.
Whitaker: discussion of disclosure to council of public records requests.
Doug Chaffee: discussion of direct council hiring (and presumably oversight) of the police chief.
It was refreshing and exciting to finally see a Fullerton city council take charge, direct policy issues, and deliver on campaign promises.
It looks like the repuglican phalanx has already started to dredge Laguna Lake for candidates to run in November to hopefully reclaim the Fullerton City Council for themselves, and maybe even rewrite the history of the Recall. Well, good luck with that.
It seems that one of their own kind, Jennifer Cowan-Fitzgerald has been making inquiries to important local elected officials about the possibility of a Cowan-Fitzgerald city council campaign. Who is this person? A lot more about that later. In the meantime, enjoy this snapshot of Ms. Cowan-Fitgerald’s front yard – just to show where this woman’s sympathies lay.
No Recall? Now that’s not very good, is it?
Apparently Ms. Cowan-Fitzgerald is not a fan of mine, or of our humble blog. Well, gosh. Was it something we said?
Suffice to say, I will do anything and everything I can to make sure we have no more of these unaccountable, irresponsible, mealy-mouthed RINOs foisted on us by Ed Royce and the dwindling repuglican crowd.
Or to be more precise, Loretta Sanchez has one and is sharing it with Quirk in the latter’s campaign for the 65th State Assembly seat. The location is 1660 West Lincoln Avenue, in Anaheim, and according to a Quirk supporter is part of a master plan – a message to the hard-working families of west Anaheim that legislative help is on the way – Sharon Quirk style.
The liberal OC blogs had announced a grand opening party for Sunday, 1:00 to 3:00 pm and one of our Anaheim Friends, lured by the possibility of free drinks and snacks, took a spin by HQ for the advertised open house. It was scheduled from 1:00 to 3:00.
Unfortunately our Friend says he didn’t get there until a little after 3:00. And guess what?
“I motored by at 3:10 or so. The place was a ghost town. That party was either cancelled or cleared out faster than you-know-what through a goose. I did snap a pic.
For some reason Sanchez and Quirk rented a place next to The Chain Reaction, an Anaheim night spot whose notorious parking problems and near-nightly events will wreak havoc on running a campaign office.
Anyway, we in Anaheim are likely stuck with Sanchez. But you in Fullerton can keep Quirk.”
As a dyed-in-the wool Democrat, Sharon Quirk, the liberal candidate for the 65th State Assembly can be relied upon to do the right thing: the right thing for our Democrat Governor Jerry Brown and the public employee unions that put him in power. And the right thing to do is to pass a budget in June that relies on billions of dollars in new taxes to be voted on by the electorate in November.
Now, Ms. Quirk has a website that is just about the sort of thing you’d expect from a typical say-nothing politician – long on platitudes and lefty endorsements and zero on actual issues. And when I say zero, I mean zero. Scour it. You’ll read vacant nonsense about policies hurting hard-working families, schools and infrastructure, and all about the evils of partisan bickering (code for I am not a total, complete liberal loon), but not a single specific issue or even one useful fact. I have to give her credit for some transparency, though; she doesn’t really even pretend she is saying anything – there isn’t even an issues tab with the fraudulent “coming soon” scam.
Still, it would be nice if she would take a position on perhaps the biggest issue facing the State today. Does she support Governor Brown’s budget and tax proposal? After all, her support of this proposal would certainly be indicative of her own tax and spend propensity on down the road. Most of her endorsers endorse it. If A=B and B=C, then A=C.
So I’d like to know. I’m pretty sure the people of Fullerton would like to know. And all those blue collar, blue dog Dems who live south of the I-5? I bet they would like to know if Quirk is just another one of those incompetent Democrats who long to go to Sacramento where their foolishness and crazy spendthrift ways have buried California under an ossified government and a crushing public employee pension liability.
So how about it Sharon? How about a statement on your website about where you stand on increasing State revenue to feed the unions that have endorsed you?
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.
Anybody who reads this blog knows that I have had a running battle with the Fullerton Redevelopments Agency, even going so far as suing the Agency to block its bogus expansion attempt into areas of west and east Fullerton that had no blight. That was just a fraudulent attempt to divert property tax revenue from legitimate recipients.
Now that Redevelopment has been killed off by the Legislature and the Governor, I really have to wonder what has and will become of that small army of government economic planners, boondoggle promoters, bribers, bagmen, design guideline perpetrators, and the rest, whose job it was to gin up sales tax revenue and property tax increment (usually at the expense of somebody else) while dictating land use development in Redevelopment project areas across California.
Lest anybody think I’m just grousing about an abstract problem, consider an article here in the OC Register that points out the exorbitant amount that Fullerton Redevelopment Agency wasted on administration.
Anyway, these folks were in the business of playing developer without taking any of the risks, and with a compliant city council there was never any fear of them being held accountable for their manifest failures.
Some of the former Redevelopment employees will be kept around to close things out. The rest? Who knows? In Fullerton, some of them have already been absorbed into the regular bureaucracy, to be supported by the General Fund – as if these people were simply interchangeable and indispensable parts. The message that move sent to the citizens of Fullerton is a really bad one – that the government has no appetite to shrink, even though a specific purpose has been ended.
