Watch Your Wallet Archives - Page 57 of 78 - Friends For Fullerton's Future

January 31, 2012February 16, 2012Dick Jones

Fullerton’s $100,000 Pension Club Increases Girth by 41%

Here’s a republication of a post from early November. It details the extravagant pension payouts bestowed upon Fullerton employees. Of particular note are the number of rank and file cops and firemen on the list. How did they get there? Courtesy of enormous salaries and of course the disastrous 3@50 formula approved by Council barnacles Bankhead and Jones. That single decision created a massive unfunded actuarial liability that is the legal responsibility of every citizen of Fullerton.

And there’s Pat McPension, the architect of the FPD Culture of Corruption, who makes $121K off of us each year for doing nothing.

This list will no doubt receive a lot of attention during the recall campaign

– Joe Sipowicz

Originally published November 4, 2011

Another year has passed and another set of City of Fullerton retirees have added to the growing unfunded pension liability that will plague us for generations. In fact, membership has swelled by a startling 41% this year alone.

The most notable new member is retired City Manager Chris Meyer, who has plopped himself in the second spot with a $170,984.52 per year reward for all the time he spent carefully overlooking the mismanagement of the Fullerton PD and the vast expansion of the city’s pension debt.

Meyer was spotted at yesterday’s anti-recall fundraiser, too. That’s no surprise to us, since Bankhead and Jones did attempt a retroactive pension spike in 2008 that would have sent Meyer’s own pension into orbit just a few years before his exit.

Name	Annual	Position
JAMES “JIM” REED	$ 173,524.32	Fire
CHRISTOPHE “CHRIS” G MEYER	$ 170,984.52	City Manager
KAREN LINDSEY-MACDONALD	$ 165,285.48	Police
GREGORY E MAYES	$ 156,047.40	Police
JOHN T PETROPULOS	$ 152,784.60	Police
GEOFFREY L SPALDING	$ 151,770.96	Police
JOHN S GODLEWSKI	$ 145,499.04	Community Development Director
DANIEL F CHIDESTER	$ 145,049.28	Fire
MICHAEL C MAYNARD	$ 144,678.00	Police
GARY M DOMINGUEZ	$ 143,618.76	Fire
ALLEN W BURKS	$ 139,186.44	Police
FRANK P DUDLEY	$ 139,120.44	Development Services Director
DOUGLAS L CAVE	$ 136,626.96	Police
ANTONIO H HERNANDEZ	$ 132,549.36	Police
H S HUNT	$ 131,591.40	Parks and Rec Director
STEVEN M MATSON	$ 130,359.84	Police
RONNY T ROWELL	$ 130,225.32	Police
GLENN L STEINBRINK	$ 129,608.16	Administrative Director
MARK H FLANNERY	$ 125,723.64	Director of Personnel
RICHARD W RILEY	$ 125,304.00	Fire
DAVID J STANKO	$ 125,147.04	Police
TERRY W STRINGHAM	$ 125,062.80	Fire
ROBERT E HODSON	$ 124,810.08	Director of Engineering
ROBERT “BOB” B RICHARDSON	$ 123,441.48	Police
GEORGE E NEWMAN	$ 122,964.60
DANIEL R BECERRA	$ 121,643.64	Police
NEAL R BALDWIN	$ 121,363.80	Police
DAVID M DUNCAN	$ 121,131.96	Fire
ALFRED R CASAS	$ 120,549.96	Police
PATRICK E MCKINLEY	$ 120,381.96	Chief of Police
PHILIP A GOEHRING	$ 119,719.92	Police
TERRENCE L SCHULZ	$ 118,629.84	Fire
BRAD A HOCKERSMITH	$ 118,629.48	Fire
BONNIE J CLANIN	$ 118,302.12	Police
JEFFREY E ROOP	$ 118,198.20	Police
DONALD R PEARCE	$ 112,341.96	Police
CAROLYN E JOHNSON	$ 111,509.88	Library Director
TIMOTHY JANOVICK	$ 111,069.12
KURT J BERTUZZI	$ 110,653.56	Fire
PAUL C TURNEY	$ 110,022.00
RONALD B GILLETT	$ 109,764.48	Police
LINDA J KING	$ 109,553.40	Police
ARTHUR D WIECHMANN	$ 108,368.40	Police
JONATHON E MCAULAY	$ 106,163.76	Fire
JOHN W PIERSON	$ 105,626.04	Police
VICKI L MAGLIOCCO	$ 105,533.40	Fire
GREGORY E ABERCROMBIE	$ 105,351.00	Police
WILLIAM D KENDRICK	$ 105,310.92	Police
RICHARD A HUTCHINSON	$ 104,986.56	Fire
HUGH L BERRY	$ 104,544.12	Assistant City Manager
MARVIN B WILDER	$ 102,941.64
MICHAEL L BURGES	$ 101,931.00
MICHAEL L FIELDS	$ 101,318.52	Police
CHRIS P HARRIS	$ 100,730.64	Fire
KENNETH R HEAD	$ 100,526.40	Police
Total Monthly	$568,146.80
Total Annually	$6,817,761.60

Source: CFFR Pension Database

January 26, 2012March 14, 2012Behind Closed Doors

So How Many Brady Cops Does Fullerton Have?

by Joe Sipowicz188 Comments

Bad Cops — Which is worse, ignorance or apathy?

Yesterday we published a post about a Fullerton cop named Vince Mater who had been identified in court documents as a “Brady” cop, a policeman whose veracity is so doubtful that the DA doesn’t dare put him on the witness stand.

And that got me thinking: are there other Brady cops on our payroll, and if so, how many?

I don’t know, and I can’t even find out. For some reason it’s a real big secret that’s carefully guarded. Of course it takes legal action by a defense attorney to get anything more than a cop’s name, rank and serial number. That’s the police state we have permitted to be erected about us, and that’s a helluvan erection.

On the other hand, simply knowing the actual total wouldn’t violate the sanctity of our Heroes. But, could it be that there are so many Brady cops the entire cop-superstructure would be threatened if the true number were made public? (Now we wouldn’t want the cops to lose public confidence in the police, would we?). Why isn’t it fair to speculate if we won’t be told?

What are the costs of having Brady cops on a police force, both in terms of civil judgments and inability to convict dangerous criminals? Who knows? My guess is that somebody like Pat McKinley, Don Bankhead or Dick Jones doesn’t know. Or care. After all none of these “esteemed” councilmen seems to care that a serial sex predator was knowingly left on the FPD.

Anyway, it sure makes you stop and think about it in light of the recent revelations of bad behavior by Fullerton’s boys and girls in blue. Could any of these fine, upstanding citizens be Brady cops? Could any Brady cops currently be on paid administrative leave, or even charged with a capital crime?

January 21, 2012Dick Jones

Doc HeeHaw Ain’t Skeered Of No Change

by The Fullerton Harpoon56 Comments

Here’s everyone’s favorite Fullerton council yokel F. “Dick” Jones robbing folks who are forced to listen of three minutes of their lives – precious time they’ll never get back. True there are none of the usual vertiginous rants about make-believe central Asian countries, Hitler, syphilis, or Galveston’s Red Light District; but I challenge you to follow a single thread woven into this rhetorical demolition derby.

I especially liked the irony of the Angry Big Gummint swerve there in the middle of the speech from this biggest of all Big Gummint boobs. Being afraid of change? Was that supposed to be some kind of joke?

And he doesn’t know the difference between a storm drain and a sewer? Really?

We now know Dr. Heehaw won’t pay twelve bucks for a car wash; and of course we already know this jackass is utterly clueless about why over 17,500 of his fellow Fullerton voters signed up to recall him.

January 19, 2012"Dick" Ackerman

Bulls Eye! Charges of Illegal Lobbying Leveled Against Anti-Recall Team Leader

by Grover Cleveland44 Comments

Well, really, are you surprised? You shouldn’t be.

Political fixer, bag man, phony charity rip-off artist, carpetbagging spouse, lynch-type mob manager, lobbyist and, not coincidentally, head of the Fullerton anti-recall effort, Dick Ackerman, is about to be haunted by the Ghost of Crookedness Past.

Vern Nelson, the editor of the Orange Juice Blog, and staunch defender of the OC Fairgrounds against a swindle set up by Toad-in-Residence (and, not surprisingly, Anti-recall campaign manager) Dave Ellis, will be delivering a challenge to the DA’s whitewash of Dick Ackerman’s role as an illegal lobbyist in the slimy attempt to sell off the Fair to a group of insiders composed of Fair Board members themselves.

The dirty deal took place in the summer of ’09 when Ackerman started making calls to legislators on behalf of enabling legislation (that he only admits he “helped write”) even though he, himself had been out of office for less than a year – in direct violation of State law. Predictably, our honorable DA gave Ackerman a clean bill of health in the fall of 2010; but Lo and Behold!, in early 2011 Norberto Santana of the Voice of OC uncovered Ackerman’s actual billing records! You know, those embarrassing records the DA didn’t bother to look for. These records indicate illegal calls to legislators – which is exactly what Ackerman apparently told DA investigators he didn’t do. Uh, oh! Dick’s in a wringer!

When Santana published his discoveries, DA spoksholetress Susan Kang was quick with the smarmy defense: we reached the conclusion we did based on the evidence we had.

Wow. It’s amazing what you can’t find when you don’t look!

Well, Nelson is now calling Ms. Kang’s bluff and challenging on our do-nothing DA to do his job by re-opening the Ackerman case.

A year has passed, but the Statute of Limitations hasn’t.

January 15, 2012January 16, 2012"Dick" Ackerman

The Shameful Water Triple (Er, Quadruple) Dip

by The Desert Rat78 Comments

UPDATE: Of course the comment from “Do the math” is right on the money. The 10% in-lieu fee is defined as a percentage of gross revenue – including the in-lieu fee itself! This tricky little dodge adds 10% of the 10% – an add-on of yet another 1% to the cost of your water bill! Uh, oh! Quadruple dip!

– The Desert Rat

Way back in 1970 the Fullerton City Council passed Resolution No. 5184 dictating that 10% of the gross revenue collected by the Water Department was a reasonable amount to cover ancillary costs from supporting City departments. Here’s the key language from the Resolution:

That an amount equal to ten percent of the gross annual water sales of the Municipal Utilities Department during the fiscal year ending June 30, 1970 is hereby transferred to the General Fund in payment for the services of the Finance Department of the City and of the City Administrator, the City Attorney and the City Clerk to the Municipal Utilities Department of the City as a part of the operating costs of the waterworks system of the City during the fiscal year ending June 30, 1970.

That at the end of the fiscal year ending on June 30, 1971 and at the end of every fiscal year thereafter, a sum equal to ten percent of the gross annual water sales of the Municipal Utilities Department of the City shall be transferred to the general Fund of the City in payment for the services, during such fiscal year, of the Finance Department of the City and of the City Administrator, the City Attorney and the City Clerk to the Municipal Utilities Department of the City.

What sort of justification proved that 10% of the water revenue in 1970 should have gone to the General Fund is anybody’s guess.

In 1982 the City Council passed an ordinance permitting itself the authority to collect an “in-lieu” fee from the water utility as a fixed percentage of revenue. Despite the name change, the City continued to add the historic 10% to Fullerton’s water bills, and rake it off directly into the General Fund – without so much as a second thought.

A bit confusing? Not really. The original justification for the fuzzy 10% figure was to reimburse the City for vague incurred costs; calling it an in-lieu fee never changed the inescapable fact that the 10% amount was supposed to pay for actual costs associated with running the waterworks. Either way, as of 1997 and the implementation of Prop. 218, that became illegal.

Flash forward to today, and peruse this year’s budget documents. The Water Fund is Fund 44. Check out the total column on the right.

Summary of Appropriations by Fund.

Notice the amount directly allocated in the 2011-12 budget to the City Manager and Administration: $1.7 million ($29,917 + $1,678,962).

Now let’s see some actual charges. Observe Fiscal year 2009-10, over there, in the left column.

Summary of Expenditures and Appropriations by Fund

Good grief! As you might have guessed (based on this year’s budget), in 2009-10 the City directly charged the Water Fund over $1.5 million for the City Council, City Manager, and Administrative Services; plus fifty grand for Human Resources, and $100,000 for Community Development!

And this means that those services that were originally being used to justify the 10% levy on our water bills are already being charged directly to the General Fund. Double Dip!

Of course it gets worse. We now know the 10% is a double dip; but hold on to your water bill. Because the directly charged costs for “administration” are considered part of the base waterworks cost; the automatic 10% in-lieu fee (which was supposed to pay for “administration” but that pays for nothing), is applied to that! That increase this year is at least $170,000, if you add 10% to that $1.7 million figure we saw in the first table. Triple Dip!

And that, Friends, is a triple gainer off the high board and right into the deep end of the pool.

January 13, 2012January 13, 2012Behind Closed Doors

Retirement on the Brain

by Grover Cleveland12 Comments

The bright morning of July 19, 2011.

Kelly Thomas was taken off life support only a few days before, the cops who did him in are patrolling the streets of Fullerton, and the public still believes FPD PIO Andrew Goodrich’s lie that cops suffered broken bones in some titanic struggle with a felonious, homeless superman.

Despite the recent string of FPD bad behavior that had been coming to light, Goodrich is upbeat. Great returns for CalPERS that might take the heat off from critics who deride the defined benefit pension plans for cops who get to retire at age 50! Nasty unfunded liability!

January 11, 2012January 11, 2012Behind Closed Doors

Getting Bloodied. Figuratively Speaking, Of Course.

by Grover Cleveland93 Comments

The real blood on the Transportation Center pavement hadn’t dried yet on July 7th. Here is FPD PIO Andrew Goodrich communicating with his soon-to-be vacationing boss, Mike Sellers.

Of course Goodrich is not interested in public information. He’s interested in perception and propaganda. “In-custody injury ” must be some sort of PIO code for “bludgeoned to death.”

January 10, 2012Behind Closed Doors

Register Finally Gets on With Board Fullerton Water Rip-off

by Joe Sipowicz32 Comments

File under better late than never. Teri Sforza of the Register has advertised Fullerton city government’s dirty little secret. Well, I guess it was really a big secret. Not any more.

A little MSM attention will help get the word out: F. Richard Jones and Don Bankhead have been ripping us off for 15 year by adding 10% to our water bills to pay for their perks and pensions. A $27,000,000 rip-off. Now that’s not very nice, is it?

January 10, 2012Fullerton City Council

Study Session at the Library

by Mr. Peabody25 Comments

In case you’re not aware, there’s a “study session” this afternoon focusing on the water utility. According to the press release, it will cover all aspects of the city’s water utility, including “the public notification process and the legality of the ‘in-lieu franchise/property tax’ transfer of funds from the Water Fund to the General Fund.” The meeting is open to the public and will take place at 4:30pm in the new conference center in the main library.

January 10, 2012January 10, 2012Behind Closed Doors

Sellers Examines His Package

by Grover Cleveland41 Comments

SellersbyEdcarrascoweekly — Suddenly it just wouldn't be worth it anymore...

It is now August 4th, 2011 – about a month since six of now-MIA Chief Mike Sellers’ cops participated in the brutal beating death of a homeless man – and in the middle of a full-bore campaign of obfuscation by his underlings.

Here is Sellers scoping out his contract and his “executive” benefits a few days before his doctor told him he was really, really “sick.” He is looking forward to “wrapping things up.” And how.

And then an inquiry into the IRS to get “squared away.”