Category: Watch Your Wallet

Posted onChronic Failure

A Sobering Thought…

by 198 Comments on A Sobering Thought…

Here’s something that ought to give Fullerton voters pause as they contemplate the upcoming election in November:

Will the cruise feature an open bar?

The bitter bag of bile that got up and harangued the council the other night, Jan Flory, is running to resume a job she was fired from ten years ago. Mrs. Flory seems to believe that her election will be “a cruise” because she will have the backing of the police union. She is as wrong as she can be, and that’s saying a hell of a lot.

You see, Mrs. Flory has had her head stuck in the sand the past year as her pals in the FPOA have been exposed in one humiliating crime after another. Where Flory sees sweetness and light, reasonable citizens (not the claque of union stooges in the audience the other night) see a Culture of Corruption.

Will Mrs. Flory ever expound upon the doings of Albert Rincon the serial sex offender; or Kelly Mejia, the computer thief; or Vince Mater, destroyer of evidence; or April Baughman, property room thief; or Miguel Siliceo who sent the wrong man to jail for five months; or any the various cases, already filed, of physical abuse of citizens by cops in downtown Fullerton? Don’t count on it. Accountability is not one of Mrs. Flory’s long suits.

Which brings us to Flory’s own record on the Fullerton City Council, an eight year reign of error, characterized by an impressive effluvium of paranoia and vindictiveness.

During her tenure on the council she backed boondoggle after boondoggle as FFFF has painfully detailed on our pages. She approved massive development projects that included giving away air rights and streets that were bought and paid for by the public. For six years she approved an illegal 10% tax on our water to pay for the salaries, pensions and perks for her union allies and herself. In 1994 she stated publicly that she wished the completely unnecessary utility tax were doubled. She voted for the disastrous 3@50 pension benefit that has created a massive unfunded pension liability.

Fullerton voters will most certainly be reminded of her record, real soon.

In 2002 the voters had seen enough and drove this harridan out of office. Will 2012 be a cruise for Mrs. Flory?

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Posted onBehind Closed Doors

CSUF Giving Up on “University Heights” Fiasco?

by 178 Comments on CSUF Giving Up on “University Heights” Fiasco?
Those birds won’t be coming home to roost. Not if CSUF can help it.

A few years ago Cal State Fullerton decided to get into the housing business for its employees. Why public employees should get any sort of preferential treatment for housing is beyond me, but that’s the society in which we live.

Anyway, the whole thing turned out to be a massive disaster, but not an embarrassment, of course, for such things are not permitted in the lofty ether of educratic circles. FFFF posted about it here, and here.

Recap: the university made a deal with the Elks for land up on Elk Hill and sold a bond to build a bunch of cookie-cutter tract duplexes that were to be sold to professors and administrators, and such like, and subsidized by you and me. The only problem was that an underlying deed restriction required sale to others in the same category, an encumbrance that turned out to be a lot more than a mere nuisance, especially when real estate prices were plummeting all over the place.

The university also had the responsibility to make monthly payments to the Elks for their land, which were to passed on to lucky buyers: a sort of Mello-Roos arrangement, if you will.

The eggheads never made it to Egghead Hill

But nobody was buying. So the university opened up residence to any government workers. Still no sales. Finally they just started renting them out to anybody with a cleaning deposit and first month’s rent. Could it get worse?

Looks like it could. Persistent rumors suggest that CSUF wants out of the University heights disaster altogether by completely removing the deed restriction and just selling them off – individually or as a group – no doubt at fire sale prices. They obviously need the cash.

The losses on the original deal would be quietly swept under the rug – no doubt with diminishing fund balances bailing out the catastrophe.

And what for? According to an acquaintance at Western Law School, CSUF wants to buy their facility for $20,000,000, give or take, and metastasize across State College.

It’s pretty clear to me that the CSUF appetite for real-estate wheeling and dealing is insatiable, even as the CSU system teeters on the financial brink. It’s also clear that nobody is going to be held accountable for the University Heights quagmire. F. “Dick” Jones, the City mastermind, is recalled; his buddy, former City manager Chris is fatly pensioned off; Bill Dickerson, the CSUF architect of the fiasco is retired, too. CSUF President, the dopey Milton Gordon? You guessed it. Gone, as well.

Would it be asking too much for our State Assemblyman Chris Norby to demand an inquiry on what unfolded up on Elk Hill?

 

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Posted onBehind Closed Doors

THE BIG SACRIFICE: .6%

by 198 Comments on THE BIG SACRIFICE: .6198
The BS had a high caloric content.

Over at the Save Our Culture of Corruption website, the FPOA shares this rather interesting tidbit:

Last year, the Fullerton Police Officers Association along with City Employees and the Firefighters Associations agreed to cost savings, pension reform and more cuts, which totaled $1,065,000 per year in real dollars for Fullerton taxpayers and the City! (Italics added)

Now I have absolutely no idea what this means, or where that number comes from. It doesn’t matter. It was meant to look impressive and impress the masses with all the sacrifices and cost savings our wonderful police have made. You are supposed to glide over the fact that the number (whatever it means) includes all union employees in Fullerton, but that doesn’t matter much, either. As the lawyers say, I’ll stipulate that it’s a meaningful figure and not just some chunk of stray pastrami that fell out of Barry Coffman’s mustache.

And now for context, let us consult the City’s Annual Budget and contemplate that number in relationship to total projected City expenditures for FY 2011-12.

On page A-21 we note that the total General Fund expenditures will be $71,784,315. Do the math. Divide the alleged savings of $1,065,000 by that total and you get a pipsqueak 1.5%, and only a fraction of that attributable to the rank and file cops themselves. 1.5%. Feeling rosy yet? But it gets even more comical.

On page A-28 you will see that the total projected City expenditures from all sources, including the grants that pay for cop overtime, is a $178,800,088. Do the math, again. Now the percentage of alleged sacrifice compared to the total cost to run the City shrinks to a minuscule .6%. That’s 6/10ths of one percent, Pythagoras, even if the number is legit.

Wow, what a sacrifice! 

If you didn’t know any better you might credit the FPOA for their heartfelt concern for the taxpayers who employ them.

Now you know better.

 

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Posted onBehind Closed Doors

Sharon Quirk’s Problem With The Ladies

by 100 Comments on Sharon Quirk’s Problem With The Ladies
Those ladies weren’t like us…

The Voice of OC(EA) is reporting here about the protest held in front of the Old Courthouse by NOW, the OCEA and others demanding that the State’s Attorney General look into the sexual mistreatment of female County workers at the hands of Carlos Bustamante and his superiors.

You’ll notice that one of the “others” was our own Mayor Sharon Quirk. Well, okay.

GOD MODE ACTIVATED. Lookin’ out for the ladies, oh yeah!

But wait!  Almost immediately the name Albert Rincon sprung to mind. Who is Albert Rincon? He is the stand-up Fullerton cop that none of the FPD apologists ever want to talk about; the creep who was accused of serially molesting women in the backseat of his patrol car and who cost the taxpayers of Fullerton $350,000 to settle two of the cases.

Remember that these assaults took place during Quirk’s tenure on the council; and that Rincon, in response to numerous complaints from abused women, was merely required by his superiors to take patdown training classes; and that after the settlement was announced, Rincon was quietly permitted to walk away from the FPD – for entirely different reasons.

And what did the outraged Quirk do to investigate an institution that not only permitted, but virtually encouraged this predator? What did she do to bring justice to all the victims?

What’s that Sharon? We can’t hear you?

Next time she goes looking for female victims to stand up for, I humbly submit Quirk doesn’t have to look quite so far afield.

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Posted onBehind Closed Doors

Disband The FPD? Really?

by 220 Comments on Disband The FPD? Really?

The FPOA sure brought out their gang to lean on the City Council the other night. Geez, the whole union might have been there, maybe including the ones that have been charged with felonies by the DA and the ones currently the subjects of an array of civil lawsuits.

Their misinformation pitch that the item was all about disbanding the FPD and not merely soliciting information from the county’s Sheriff Department, helped divert attention from what really happened.

One of our perceptive FFFF commenters appears to have captured the gist of what occurred.

#203 by Down on the Farm on August 9, 2012

Good story, but wrong. The FPOA would be on the spot to start making concessions now, maybe even renegotiating a new contract. They aren’t very smart but I’m sure even the idiot Coffman could figure that out.

It wasn’t about disbanding the FPD. For the union it was all about maintaining the status quo for another three years.

This observation seems to ring true: that what the union was really afraid of was not future disbanding of the department and, a fortiori, their union, but rather that there would be no immediate pressure for them to start negotiating concessions now, instead of in two and a half years.

Which means maintaing the current gravy for another three years. So all that FPOA hysterical sturm und drang was really just a fight to keep things just the way they are. A victory? I guess it depends how you look at it.

 

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Posted onRepuglicanism

Fullerton Will Not Solicit Information From Sheriff

by 308 Comments on Fullerton Will Not Solicit Information From Sheriff

Last night the City Council voted 3-2 against asking the OC Sheriff to provide information about their cost to take over police services in Fullerton.

Chaffee and Quirk went with the public employee union pearl-clutchers, as expected, as did Greg Sebourn. Bruce Whitaker and Travis Kiger voted to seek additional information about providing public services, a reasonable position, you would think.

The Old Guard and the cop union turned this into a life and death issue, which maybe for them, it is. Even old Bankhead and Flory tottered up to speak. The idea of possibly saving millions means nothing to them, and never did.

Perhaps the most interesting this is that Sebourn’s vote puts the lie to the anti-recall goons who insist that the recall replacement candidates are lock-step puppets for anybody.

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Posted on"Dick" Ackerman

An Important Message From Sylvia!

by 177 Comments on An Important Message From Sylvia!

The Boys in The White Van have just intercepted this vital communication from former Fullerton Spokesholetress, Sylvia Mudrick to a whole gaggle of Old Guard acquaintances. Hmm. The Bushala Three? Right on! Check it out:

Hi – I have a big favor to ask!  As you probably have heard, at the Aug. 7 Council meeting, the Bushala  Three, encouraged also by Shawn Nelson, will direct Joe to get a quote from the Sheriff’s Department to take over law enforcement in Fullerton.

I’d like to ask you to – if you agree with keeping the FPD – contact
people on your email list and ask them to either call (714-738-6311), email (council@ci.fullerton.ca.us), or attend the meeting to voice opposition to the Sheriff being asked to take over the city.

Nothing is to be gained by bringing the OCSD on board, while much
would be lost – less manpower in the field and lack of the FPD’s familiarity with the city and its people.  Also, the OCSD has had its own hefty share of controversies.

I’ve never felt compelled in my nearly 27 years with the city to send
out this kind of appeal, but Fullerton is in a dire situation and needs help.  Hope you agree with the urgency here.

Thanks so much!
Sylvia Mudrick

Interesting that Sylvia thinks nothing is to be gained by gathering information about police service costs. But this sweet lady probably never cared a whit for the people that were paying her own inflated salary and benefits during her 27 year stint with the City, as she peddled mindless PR pabulum to the likes of Lou Ponsi and Barbara Giasone.

Well, we here at FFFF  believe that knowledge is power, and that the City Council would not only be remiss, but would be derelict in the duty to the citizenry if they didn’t explore options and collect information.

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Posted on"Dick" Ackerman

Council Candidate Supports OCSD Preliminary Analysis

by 50 Comments on Council Candidate Supports OCSD Preliminary Analysis

We are in receipt of a letter to the Fullerton City Council from a potential candidate named Jennifer Fitzgerald. This individual supported the Three Bald Tires in the recent Recall, but seems to have seen the light with regard to exploring all opportunities to provide cost effective services to the taxpayers and residents of Fullerton.

It remains to be seen what union spokesman “Dick” Ackerman will think about this missive, but hopefully this lady will show up to the council meeting to let him know.

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Posted on"Dick" Ackerman

Do The Math!

by 217 Comments on Do The Math!
There it goes…

The prospect of being replaced in a couple of years by the OC Sheriff’s Department has the cop union waking up in cold sweats. They have a website and everything, and have dredged up a repuglican fossil to pitch their woo to the citizenry via robocalls.

Their pretty pictures focus on historical images around Fullerton, ostensibly linking themselves to Fullerton’s century-plus history. However, one thing you will never hear from them is the cost to the Fullerton taxpayer, although they will no doubt be questioning any likely savings from bringing in the OCSD. But those saving could be huge – perhaps $10,000,000 or more. One of our commenters on another thread helped out with the rough numbers:

#64 by It’s Not Complicated on August 6, 2012

Fullerton PD costs each resident $264 dollars per year = $37,000,000.

OCSD costs each resident of Yorba Linda $183 dollars per year = $11,000,000.

Fullerton is 2.3 time bigger than YL. $11 mil times 2.3 = $25 mil. $37 mil – $25 mil = $12 Mil. Be conservative, say $10,000,000.

Good grief! Ten million bucks? I’d take even a small part of that, especially if it meant cleaning up a racketeering operation that has demonstrated zero remorse for its Culture of Corruption that has killed, beaten, robbed, perjured, falsely imprisoned, and sexually assaulted its citizenry.

We aren’t very nice, but we sure are expensive…

And then, of course, there’s the cost of cleaning up via legal settlement for all that FPD misbehavin.’ Added millions. You won’t be hearing about that from the FPOA, either.

So tell me again, what’s wrong with seeking a proposal from the OCSD?

 

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