Watch Your Wallet Archives - Page 59 of 78 - Friends For Fullerton's Future

December 21, 2011Behind Closed Doors

A New Acting Chief

The old one lasted four months and the one before that hightailed it for the tall grass when the going got tough. Boy did he get going.

Anyway, the new man is 28 year FPD veteran Captain Dan Hughes, who was the boss of all those rogue cops we’ve been telling you about lately, so that’s a real bad sign right there. Was he part of the report write-and-rewrite perpetrated by the killers of Kelly Thomas? Such things are not for the public to know, and you can bet your last nickel City Manager Joe Felz hasn’t got the huevos to find out. Hughes also got kudos from folks for tearing up the “excessive horning” tickets of which he was seen orchestrating the issuance. ¡No bueno, numero dos!

Anyway II, the OC Weekly’s Brandon Ferguson tells about it here. Follow his link to the vapid Fullerton Chamber of Commerce website where its writer manages to scribble twelve paragraphs on Fullerton’s police chief carousel without a single word or even oblique reference to murders, perjury, assaults, sexual battery, theft, fraud, etc., etc. Too bad the Fringies® are over, or else we’d wave a real winner there in the stoogery category.

December 16, 2011December 16, 2011Boohooism

Rudy Busted By SEC; FSD Has Egg on Face

by Joe Sipowicz68 Comments

US PRESSWIRE Sports Archive — Rudy says thumbs up, way up, to suckers, who are born every minute.

The idiots who run FSD agreed to pay some chucklehead named Rudy Ruetigger $2000 as a motivational speaker at an August management retreat. We reported about that, here.

Ruetigger, a shameless self-promoter actually talked somebody into making a fictional movie account of his pathetic football efforts at Notre Dame.

Despite immediate ridicule, the FSD stuck to their guns.

Those guns backfired blanks today as it was reported that Rudy was a stock scammer who’s been busted by the SEC.

What sort of lessons were learned by FSD management at this retreat? Maybe Superintendent Mitch Hovey or one of the pathetic Trustees who voted for this will travesty will stop by and enlighten us.

December 16, 2011Behind Closed Doors

Jim Blake and the MWD Culture of Waste

by Mr. Peabody20 Comments

blake_01 — The wine flowed like water. Or was it the other way around?

In our previous article about Fullerton’s MWD rep-almost-for-life Jim Blake we received an interesting comment from havegunwilltravel, one of our frequent semi-coherent trolls describing Jim Blake as some sort of wealthy philanthropist who has been slaving away for free on the MWD Board of Directors. Here is his/her comment:

Jim Blake, as the City’s MWD representitive gets no pay, and no pension, and no benefits. And doesn’t even ask for mileage reimbursements. He could by and sell Tony Bushala, 100 times over, and still have a pile of gold. So get your facts straight.

But check out this OC Watchdog article by Teri Sforza about the massive amount of expenses racked up by MWD directors. Oh, oh. There’s Mr. Moneybags Blake piling up over $10,000 in “travel” in less than two year’s worth of toiling in the MWD salt mines. I’d love to see those receipts!

Living high on the public hog is par for the course to certain self-entitled folks who seem to think their “service” justifies all kinds of self-indulgence – reflected in behavior like parking in handicapped spaces when you’re not supposed to.

Remind you of anyone?

December 15, 2011Fullerton City Council

Fullerton’s Water Rep to Step Down

by Greg Sebourn26 Comments

Amid Fullerton’s water rate debacle the City’s representative on the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California announced Tuesday that he is stepping down. After representing the City of Fullerton for 24 years on the MWD Board of Directors, Jim Blake says he is done.

It is rumored that Fullerton’s retired city manager Chris Meyer is looking to be appointed as Blake’s replacement but that will require a majority vote by the Fullerton City Council. Since City Council Members Bankhead and Jones appointed Meyer as City Manager in 2002, there is little doubt that they wouldn’t give him the MWD nod as well.

However, with Fullerton’s water rates under scrutiny and an illegal tax being batted about City Hall for justification, you have to wonder how much of the water mess can be attributed to Meyer- not to mention the rest of the City’s countless woes.

An appointment of Meyer to the MWD Board might bring further outcry to City Hall, something the new Mayor might wish to avoid. Since August the Council members have been cussed at, cursed at, sworn up and down, and yelled at. They are now being held accountable for their general lack of leadership by a campaign to recall three members, Mayor Pro Tem Pat McKinley, and members Don Bankhead and F. Dick Jones.

Many believe that the appointment should be filled by a current council member so that they can be held responsible by Fullerton voters for their actions on the Board. Currently, Blake is answerable only to the Fullerton City Council.

If the appointment is to be held by a non-council member, then the process should be open to ALL candidates equally like any other council appointment to a commission or committee.

Whoever is appointed will be tasked with a massive budgetary shortfall that rivals Sacramento’s. The appointee will be asked for double-digit rate hikes and even more spending. They need to know the water industry and even more about public policy and long-term investment solutions. They need to know Fullerton and not just through the myopic eyes of service clubs.

Fullerton deserves an accountable and credible representative on the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California.

December 10, 2011December 10, 2011"Dick" Ackerman

The Sea Turtle Strategy

by Joe Sipowicz95 Comments

RecallTurtles — Their odds didn't look too good.

Some creatures in Nature’s realm need to mass produce their potential offspring. It’s a numbers game. Sea turtles lay thousands upon thousands of eggs in desperate hope that at least a few will return to the sea and grow up to be happy sea turtles.

In politics, the act of desperation is reflected in blind mailings to all voters in the vain hope that a few voters will respond. Yes, it sure is desperate. In the reptilian campaign to save the scaly hides of the Three Dithering Dinosaurs desperation has set in, all right. You might call it a last gasp.

Here’s a very expensive mailer they just sent out to everybody, anybody, trying to get folks to rescind their signature on the pro-recall petition. But they have zero idea who has signed the petitions. Talk about desperation! Just to show how inept the Three Sluggish Sloths’ handlers are, they even sent one to – Tony Bushala!

If you happen to get one of these in the mail you can do the Recall a favor. Write in: Go Screw Yourself, Ackerman, and mail it in. See, Pat McPension, the kook who hired all those crooked Fullerton cops, and who makes almost $20,000 a month in retirement, has to pay for the postage!

Recall Reply Mail Contest!

Show the anti-recall committee your creative writing skills by scratching something fun onto their reply cards. Take a picture, upload it to www.tinypic.com and post it in the comments before you mail it away!

December 9, 2011December 9, 2011Behind Closed Doors

WHERE’S OUR MONEY?

by Mr. Peabody76 Comments

For years and years the City of Fullerton has been adding ten percent to the cost you and I pay for our water and re-directing this money to Fullerton’s General Fund; the fund that pays for City Councilmen Jones’ and Bankhead’s pay and perks, and that also pays for Fullerton’s pensions, including the mammoth pension pulled in by Councilmember and former Police Chief Pat McKinley.

Forget for a moment the fact that California’s Constitution prohibits governments from charging more for services than they really cost, and consider Proposition 218, passed by the voters in 1996. It says that the government can’t dress up taxes and call them fees. It requires justification of such charges and public transparency. Justification and transparency, two commodities in real short supply in Fullerton.

The 10% “in-lieu fee” that the City has been adding (and hiding) in your water bill total is, and always was a fraud, and illegal.

Don n' Dick — Who wants to put lipstick on the pig?

Coincidentally, our asinine councilmember, F “Dick” Jones was first elected in 1996. And that means for every year of his rude, loud-mouthed tenure on the Fullerton City Council he has been approving this rip-off. Of course his sleepy pal Don Bankhead was trudging right along side him every crooked mile of the way.

Since the gross rater revenue runs into the tens of millions every year, the 10% rip off has sure piled up. I estimate the total to be somewhere between $25,000,000 and $30,000,000 since 1997 alone. That’s a lot of dough, and I really have to wonder, will Jones, Bankhead and now McKinley offer the water ratepayers of Fullerton a refund of this misdirected money?

Why not?

December 8, 2011Dead heads

FPD Alerts Public On Sex Offender

by The Fullerton Harpoon277 Comments

Well, here’s the information provided by Andrew Goodrich & Co. about some dude who needs to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life.

Everybody’s supposed to be scared. At least this loser did his time.

Too bad Pat KcKinley’s boys never bothered to alert the women of Fullerton that a serial molester of women, Albert Rincon was prowling the streets of Fullerton preying upon precisely those women McKinley would characterize as not credible. See, Rincon was one of Fullerton’e Finest. Really.

And he was actually put back on the streets after a little sensitivity training.

December 7, 2011"Dick" Ackerman

AWOL Sellers AWOL Some More

by Joe Sipowicz62 Comments

Here’s a news bit from our pal Lou Ponsi about Sort-of-Former Police Chief Sellers requesting another 30 day add-on to his medical leave – the one that started the night angry residents bombarded him with abuse for his dereliction in the Kelly Thomas killing.

It makes you wonder what the Three Dithering Diplosaurs think, given the fact that they’ve been taking (well-deserved) abuse in the months following Seller’s two hour ordeal and hasty retreat.

Anyway, it just goes to show how coddled out supposed “heroes” truly are. Here’s an assclown making over $200K a year, more than the Secreatry of Defense, and he wilts like an old lettuce leaf under a little pressure. And of course the taxpayers are stuck paying this zombie almost twenty grand a month to sit on the beach. Great system, huh?

December 7, 2011December 7, 2011The Crime Beat

A Year Without DUI Checkpoints

by Travis Kiger84 Comments

Last year this blog exposed the DUI/drivers license checkpoint con that was being operated by the Fullerton PD, here. The checkpoints allowed the PD to stop and interrogate hundreds of innocent drivers while boosting their own overtime pay, sucking up impound fees and filling the pockets of their friends at the impound yard, all under the false pretense of catching drunk drivers (a task handled much more efficiently and constitutionally by DUI patrols.)

A year ago the final checkpoint event was quietly cancelled and we haven’t heard a peep since, lending credence to our assertion that the checkpoints have always been ineffective and wasteful…so much so that nobody’s even noticed now that they’re gone.

Well, there’s one group who probably noticed: those two-dozen cops who are now missing out on the easy overtime pay. Standing around, drinking coffee and causing traffic jams just doesn’t pay like it used to.

December 7, 2011"Dick" Ackerman

The Recall Campaign’s First Victory; When You’re Right, You’re Right.

by Joe Sipowicz223 Comments

And I was right. But enough about me. Last night the Three Gasping Gastropods chose Sharon Quirk-Silva to be Fullerton’s mayor in 2012.

In meeting that can only be characterized as bizarre, the repuglicans did the heretofore unthinkable: make a Democrat mayor in her re-election year. The visceral pain that must have caused anti-recall handler “Dick” Ackerman” is a wonderful bonus gift of the Recall. See, Tricky Dick is courting what’s left of the old liberal rear guard and the Recall gave him no choice but to promote Q-S. Ha! Suck on that, Dicky Boy.

First came public comments, Part 1, with the usuall brow-beating of the Three Triceratops, plus a special guest stars, Pam Keller. The goofy grin and air-headed air of self-importance reminded me of just how grateful we should all be that she bid the council adios.

The Colonel — Ah said, that there was sum bad chicken...

Then some business items which o’ Doc Heehaw blew through so fast you would have thought he was either double parked or was anticipating an urgent case of diarrhea. Then the elections of mayor, and mayor pro tem. I wonder what Ed Royce thinks about this since any elevation in stature for Q-S means the greater likelihood for an eventual Congressional challenger for him.

As anticipated the Trio of Broken Bivalves elected the youngest, and sprightliest of their gang, Pat McPension, to be back-up mayor. The fact that McKinley believes it’s not dangerous for cops to fondle women in the backseats of their patrol car seems not to have been a deterrent to his promotion. Bruce Whitaker was nominated by Q-S, to her credit. The vote was 3-2.

mckinley-she-bear — Lookin' out for the ladies, oh yeah!

And then the sublime. Public comments were re-opened. The reading of Marisa Gerber’s article on the sad state of affairs in the Fullerton Police Deapartment followed; a litany of law-breaking and head breaking that sums up what the department became under Jones, Bankhead and McKinley’s over-long tenures. It’s now on the public record and McKinley can no longer hide from the truth: under his command, or lack of same, the police department sank into an undeniable Culture of Corruption.