Category: Watch Your Wallet

Posted onFullerton City Council

Fullerton’s Water Rep to Step Down

by 26 Comments on Fullerton’s Water Rep to Step Down

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.

Jim Blake

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.

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Posted on"Dick" Ackerman

The Sea Turtle Strategy

by 95 Comments on The Sea Turtle Strategy
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!

 

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Posted onBehind Closed Doors

WHERE’S OUR MONEY?

by 76 Comments on WHERE’S OUR MONEY?

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.

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.

They ain't very smart, but they sure is slow...

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?

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Posted onDead heads

FPD Alerts Public On Sex Offender

by 277 Comments on FPD Alerts Public On Sex Offender

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.

Antoine Dennell

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.

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Posted on"Dick" Ackerman

AWOL Sellers AWOL Some More

by 62 Comments on AWOL Sellers AWOL Some More

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?

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Posted onThe Crime Beat

A Year Without DUI Checkpoints

by 84 Comments on A Year Without DUI Checkpoints

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.

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Posted on"Dick" Ackerman

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

by 223 Comments on The Recall Campaign’s First Victory; When You’re Right, You’re Right.

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.

Smiling on the outside...

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.

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.

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.

 

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Posted on"Dick" Ackerman

A Peaceful Family Town

by 78 Comments on A Peaceful Family Town
Oooh, they's bad, bad men!

The anti-recall chuckleheads are trying to scare their few dozen elderly supporters with the notion that the Recall is some sort of scary thing that will upset the applecart in good, ol’ Stepford.

It's peaceful I tell ya!

The shameful fact is that Don Bankhead and Dick Jones turned downtown Fullerton into a boozy free-for-all with fights, rapes, and killings; and Pat McKinley sent in his goon squad of misfits, thugs, perjurers and killers to keep order in Jones’ “New West.”

Oh, no, not again!

Here’s the latest black-eye for Fullerton, a cabbie stabbed twice at Amerige and Harbor.

When are the folks of Fullerton going to wake up to the mayhem wreaked on their  peaceful family town by Mssrs. Bankhead, Jones and McKinley?

Real soon, I reckon.

 

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Posted onBehind Closed Doors

Howard Jarvis Will Challenge Fullerton’s Illegal Water Tax

by 74 Comments on Howard Jarvis Will Challenge Fullerton’s Illegal Water Tax

It looks like our city may be in for another lawsuit. Check out this letter that was sent from the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association just before Turkey Day (emphasis mine):

Mr. Joe Felz, City Manager
City of Fullerton
303 W Commonwealth Avenue
Fullerton,CA 92832

Re:  Water Department “In Lieu Fees”

Jack Dean, a friend of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, has brought to our attention that the City of Fullerton pads the rates charged to water customers in order to transfer funds from the Water Fund to the General Fund.  These transfers appear in the City’s Budget under Water Fund expenses and General Fund revenue as a 10% in-lieu franchise fee.  We believe the fee and revenue transfers are illegal.

If a private company provided water service to the residents of Fullerton, the City could charge the private company a negotiated franchise fee for occupying public rights of way with its pipelines.  That is not the case in Fullerton, however, as the City operates its own municipal water utility.  The rates the City may charge are governed by the California Constitution, which limits rates to just the amount required to provide service, and prohibits transferring rate revenue for use elsewhere.

California Constitution article XIII D § 6(b) states in relevant part: “(1) Revenues derived from the fee or charge shall not exceed the funds required to provide the property related service. (2) Revenues derived from the fee or charge shall not be used for any purpose other than that for which the fee or charge was imposed.”

We successfully litigated this issue several years ago in lawsuits against the cities of Roseville and Fresno.  The courts in those two cases ruled that a city’s utility enterprise can reimburse the General Fund for actual, documented expenditures incurred on behalf of the utility, such as the utility’s use of the City Attorney’s services, or the utility’s share of a common insurance fund.  However, the utility cannot serve as a supplemental source of revenue for the General Fund.  As the court in the Roseville case said:

“[T]he in-lieu fee violates section 6(b) of Proposition 218 in a more direct way. Roseville concedes that ‘[r]evenue from the in [-]lieu franchise fee is placed in [Roseville’s] general fund to pay for general governmental services. It has not been pledged, formally or informally[,] for any specific purpose.’ This concession runs afoul of section 6(b)(2) that ‘[r]evenues derived from the fee or charge shall not be used for any purpose other than that for which the fee or charge was imposed.’ It also contravenes section 6(b)(5) that ‘[n]o fee or charge may be imposed for general governmental services.’”Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn. v. City of Roseville (2002) 97 Cal.App.4th 637, 650.

By this letter we are formally requesting the City of Fullerton to stop charging the 10% in-lieu franchise fee, and to adjust its customers’ water rates accordingly.

If the City believes its 10% in-lieu franchise fee is legally defensible, then please consider this letter a request under the California Public Records Act for copies of the study(s) and/or accounting(s) that itemize General Fund costs on behalf of the Water Fund totaling exactly 10% each year.

Your response by December 10, 2011, would be appreciated.

Sincerely,

Timothy A. Bittle
Director of Legal Affairs

The tax became a big issue back in July, when a guy named Jack Dean from the Fullerton Association of Concerned Taxpayers pointed out the illegality of this water tax to the council (during an attempt to double water rates.)

Well, it’s been four months now, and Fullerton residents are STILL PAYING that illegal tax on every water bill.

Of course Bankhead, Jones and McKinley are waiting for the city attorney to find a way to squeeze that tax through a legal loophole, instead of rescinding it and refunding the money they’ve been helping the city steal from taxpayers since Prop 218 passed fifteen years ago.

How about a refund?
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