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April 26, 2010January 13, 2011Behind Closed Doors

“Stop The Insanity!” Cries Anguished Red County Hypocrite

Over at the Red County blog Matthew J. Cunningham has gotten his lavender briefs into a self-righteous snarl over some guy named Tim Whitacre. Whitacre’s ostensible offense? Claiming that the Lewis Consulting Group is on Hide and Seek Sidhu’s payroll. In reality his offense was standing up at the GOP Central Committee meeting last week and reminding everybody that Harry Sidhu is an opportunistic carpetbagger.

You would think that somebody like Cunningham who pretends to be a political and social conservative, but who, in reality, has an annual contract with Rob “Meathead” Reiner’s Children and Families Commission of almost $200,000 a year would just clam up. But no. Silence is not in him. Instead he prefers to keep opining in his usual way: in a crab-wise crawl across the truth.

First you call your opponents insane (or tin-foil hat wearing, delusional, paranoid, etc.) Of course sane people don’t argue with the insane – but that never stopped Cunningham – who will keep jabbering away until the lights are shut off. Then you start carefully parsing out where your opponent is making stuff up, and has no proof, etc.

In this case the fake issue is whether Lewis is actually getting paid directly from Sidhu or not. Lewis must have informed The Jerb that he isn’t. So he then is safe in saying Whitacre has no proof that Lewis is. But Lewis is indeed working for Sidhu – one way or another. His payment may come later if he is working on spec – either in deferment or simply in access to Norby’s old office for the inevitable lobbying. As one of our commenters pointed out he may also be working on an IE against Shawn Nelson. In any of these scenarios some kind of disclosure by his partner Matt Holder should have been made at the Central Committee meeting.

So the gist of what Whitacre has to say is very much valid.

Cunningham finishes up by saying Whitacre has no proof that Nelson is the stronger candidate even though, ironically, he has no proof that Whitacre doesn’t. Of course you wouldn’t even need to have poll results to tell that Sidhu is a bumbling assclown who will be lucky to get 9% of the vote. Oh yeah, he’s also a perpetual office seeking carpetbagger. And a casual perjurer.

assclown — Coming soon to an elective office in your neighborhood...

Ah the faux outrage! Such a fun spectacle when it fails. And when you’re a hypocrite repuglican whose cover’s been blown, it’s only going to get tougher to pull off.

April 21, 2010April 21, 2010Harry Sidhu

Cunningham Talks and Talks and Talks. Anybody Listening?

by The Desert Rat10 Comments

Over at the RedCounty blog, Matthew J. Cunningham’s posts are becoming increasingly dronish and petulant – just like always seems to happen when an election nears.

His latest post about the OCGOP Central Committee endorsement of Shawn Nelson is a case in point. Apparently he wasn’t at this big event (could it be because he’s not yet ready to explain his huge windfall from The Meathead’s Children and Families commission?). So he’s getting his talking points from somebody who was – probably lonely Sidhu supporter and John Lewis partner Matt Holder.

You would think that when your bosses candidate gets wiped out 47-8 you would just keep your mouth shut and say nothing. But not our motormouth buddy – who goes on and on and on about how the thing is unfair and Nelson just won because he did better at the forum, how the questions weren’t good, how it was all due to political whipping and how Sidhu, not Nelson has been fully vetted through the last election cycle (? Nelson’s been through three!).

Not a single word from Cunningham about carpetbagging, perjury and perpetual candidacy! Did it not occur to Cunningham that maybe, just maybe the OCGOP Central Committee members were turned off by Sidhu’s voter registration fraud, and his two bogus addresses on top of his inarticulate, scripted performances.

Well, too bad for Cunningham and Lewis and Sidhu, but that genie is out of the bottle and ain’t going back in. So just accept it and quit yer bitchin’.

Anyhow, congrats from inside the electrified fence of the Desert Rat compound out on beautiful Screech Owl Road to Nelson for an important victory.

April 8, 2010April 8, 2010Dick Jones

Fullerton City Council Violates Own Policy

by admin16 Comments

On Tuesday the Fullerton City Council split from its own policy and procedures when it appointed Paul Webb to the OC Vector Board – to replace the ever- increasingly brittle Dick Jones.

The City Council’s policy has been to publicly advertise when a position is open for a committee or a commission. In this case, it should have either gone to Pam Keller who wanted to serve on the Vector Board or it should have been selected through an open and competitive interview process. Bankhead, Jones, and Nelson gave the job to Webb after an obvious behind-the-scenes arrangement. Once the obvious fix was in then Keller and Quirk went along for the ride. No bueno!

Anyway just for fun, listen to Paul Webb’s loopy statement about why he doesn’t have a conflict, and decide for yourselves if this is someone you think should represent Fullerton on a County board.

March 29, 2010OC's Fourth District

Liberal OC Trips Over Its Own Chmielewski

by admin12 Comments

The other night at the NUFF blogger forum, Dan C., the pompous co-proprietor of the Liberal OC blog held forth on the importance of fact checking prior to publishing something. See, with Dan, it’s all about credibility. Check it out:

And yet, just today Dan C. seems to have conveniently mislaid his own supposedly high standards. He wrote a post about Shirley Grindle filing a complaint against me for using an old political action committee in a new election. He put up a picture of a guy throwing a rock at a glass house. Hypocrisy, get it? Turns out that really was an apt image, but not in the way Dan C. meant it!

Ms. Grindle got it wrong, of course, as I have subsequently informed her. I already created the necessary committee for the 4th District election, but that didn’t stop Intrepid Boy Reporter #1 from passing along the false accusation – too damn lazy to go the California Secretary of State website to check! And guess who Dan’s first commenter was on this post? Yup, you guessed it! Intrepid Boy Reporter #2 – Matthew J. Cunningham, who was only to happy to hop onto the unsubstantiated post by his Blue comrade. He’s deep into credibility, too, you see.

A few comments into the thread Intrepid Boy Reporter #1 was forced to acknowledge the truth, but he lamely defended his post by claiming that the story was true – Grindle did file a complaint. Now if anybody had pulled this sort of cheap stunt on him or Jerbal, either one of them would have thrown a tantrum; but well, you know – the self-righteousness that pervades both of these establishment toadies make them perfectly unaware of their own hypocrisies. Or unconcerned about them.

And for Dan’s sake he better hope Shirley Grindle doesn’t start reporting Elvis sightings.

March 23, 2010March 23, 2010Behind Closed Doors

Gordo Has A Sense of Shame?

by admin7 Comments

Gordo2 — The rough surface belied the literary genius lurking beneath...

How else can I explain the weird post put up on the Mauve County blog by a guy called Thomas Anthony Gordon accusing me of “voter intimidation?”

You see I busted Gordo last week for being the guy who was circulating last minute petitions for Harry Sidhu’s carpetbagging effort to get himself elected to the GOP Central Committee for yet another district (69th AD) that he doesn’t live in. Sean Mill over at the OJ Blog has also done a post on the comical doings of Gordo.

Gordon responded by claiming that my publishing the petition forms was a species of intimidation. Imagine that! Sharing a public document – with the public! The horror! Does Gordon really think these worthy folks might be ashamed at promoting the circus carnie campaigns of Hide and Seek Sidhu?

Harry'sFriend — My loyal troops will follow me almost anywhere if the price is right...

And could it really be that the charming Gordon is really just ashamed at being found out to be the lackey of the perjurer Sidhu? Well, that would presuppose a sense of shame, as Joe Sipowicz would say.

Still he didn’t really believe anybody was going to swallow that load, did he?

March 20, 2010March 20, 2010Dead heads

Painting Yourself Into A Corner. Goofball Sidhu’s Strange, Shrinking World

by Joe Sipowicz10 Comments

Let’s set aside the whole trustworthiness, perjury, incarceration problems of Harry Sidhu for a moment. Well, not the trustworthy thing.

When I learned other day about Sidhu carpetbagging two different districts in the same election I was intrigued. See, he’s carpetbagging the 4th Supervisorial District as we all know. It turns out he is also carpetbagging the 69th Assembly District in order to try to get himself on the GOP Central Committee for that district.

The idea here seems to be to maximize Smilin’ Sidhu’s exposure to the electorate in the 4th District election, and hence get more votes for the universal Mayor Pro Tem.

My first thought was, gee, how much overlap is there between those two districts? How many Republican votes are there in that overlap, anyhow? Very many? But most importantly, if he gets elected to the Central Committee, what kind of living and lifestyle opportunities is that going to leave the rich dude and his family who really live in an “elegant estate” in the Anaheim Hills?

Yorba-Estate-111 — Swimmin' pools, movie stars...

The answer is not many. The only overlap is a strip of territory that extends north from where Sudhu is pretending to live now, through central Anaheim between Harbor Boulevard and East Street. It gets as far north as Sycamore. Much of this turf is commercial and industrial, and much of it, well, barrio. And all of it is pretty marginal for a guy who currently owns his own tennis court, swimming pool, aviary, and a boat called the The Taj Mahal. The shopping carts won’t impress visitors, that’s for sure.

Of course Sidhu could move into our friend Colony Rabble’s neighborhood and remodel a vintage home. But how likely is that? Harry better hope the pit bulls don’t get the peacocks.

If Sidhu wins a place on the GOP Central Committee, will he just stay put as a renter on Lucky Way (that so far hasn’t been very lucky for him)? Or, what seems a lot more likely, will he just immediately quit and head back to the hills?

Any way you slice it, it’s a pretty reasonable conclusion that his GOP Central Committee bid is just another Sidhu scam – a petty vote grubbing scheme in which the utterly arrogant Sidhu thumbs his nose at Republicans in the 69th Assembly District whom he has zero intention of representing.

If they really wanted to punish Sidhu, the Republicans in this District should elect him to the Central Committee – and roll out the welcome mat.

March 18, 2010March 18, 2010Behind Closed Doors

Love For Sale.Tender Young Love For Sale

by admin20 Comments

A few weeks ago I did a pretty tongue-in-cheek post about some guy named Thomas Anthony Gordon, a goon from Santa Ana who popped up out of nowhere with a gratuitous anti-Shawn Nelson post on the Mauve County blog. He criticized Nelson for being soft on criminals because he is a defense lawyer. I pointed out the bad luck since there was a guy in OC with the exact same name and body type as Gordon who had been busted a couple of times for driving on a suspended license – and opined about how that guy was probably in need of a defense lawyer himself.

At the time I believed Gordon was just prostituting himself for Lewis/Cunningham and hence, Tom Daly. I may have been wrong. That was before I understood the deep, moist crevices into which Harry Sidhu’s pocket change had fallen. Of course the common denominator, John Lewis, is still in the picture, although Daly quit the supervisors race to play catch with his kid.

Well check this out. Harry Sidhu, the perpetual office seeker has decided to run for the GOP Central Committee for the 69th Assembly district (which must surely be a record – carpetbagging two districts at the same time, what a hustler). Now for the fun part. Take a look at who was out circulating petitions on the very last day so Hide and Seek Sidhu could “qualify” for the ballot. None other than our old friend Thomas Anthony Gordon. Click on the pdf and take a look.

Gordo! And now we really have to wonder. Is Gordon actually on Sidhu’s payroll? If not, why not? Everybody else is!

Of course, if he is let’s hope he informed his bosses over at the Mauve County where they say they will fire you if you don’t disclose that fact that you are blogging for dollars!

March 16, 2010March 17, 2010Fullerton City Council

On the Agenda – March 16th, 2010

by Christian5 Comments

Back by popular demand…

March Madness of the Mindless is here.

Tuesday night’s Closed Session means Rob Zur Schmiede, everyone’s favorite redevelopment director, will be speaking with council regarding 324 W. Valencia Drive to negotiate the strong-arm takeover and redevelopment of the property.

Also, council will be discussing “Parameters of authority for negotiating salaries, benefits, and working conditions.”

In the open session we have the usual dog and pony shows of certificates and feel-good resolutions. At the top of that list is a man I remember from my Junior year of high school at Fullerton High, Wayne Daniels. He is one heck of a nice guy and a snazzy dresser for sure. But why exactly is the council giving him a certificate for being “The Tulip Man”?

There are no appointments on the agenda which is a little sad since the City could use some good people to help steer the staff and council away from stupid decisions.

There are a total of 19 items on to be discussed and/or voted on so sit back as I try to scrape off the layers of doublespeak to uncover the depth of waste we are about to endure.

The minutes and financial reports are items #1 and #2, respectively. We jump right in at #3 which is a massive reconstruction of Harbor Boulevard from Chapman to Berkley. This stretch of road is plagued with potholes, cracked concrete, broken curbs, general disrepair, and lumpy asphalt created by trucks and buses. As soon as the project is complete, I would imagine a utility company will come in and tear it up. At least that’s Murphy’s Law. This little paving effort is to run about $1,121,000. That’s a lot of asphalt… Staff reported that the low bidder isn’t the winner because they didn’t get their forms filled out completely or correctly and that they didn’t have sufficiently disadvantaged business owners that met the City’s requirements. The contract will be going to PALPA, Inc. DBA Excel Paving Company.

Item #4 is a brand new sewer for Riverside Drive and Raymond Avenue area. This section of fecal conduit will run us a mere $1,064,038.50. Several streets in this area received fresh asphalt just in the last year or so. You would think someone could plan it out a little bit so that we replace the broken and aging pipes and THEN replace the asphalt. But that’s Fullerton for you: placing the cart in front of the horse…

It looks like the airport is signing a new lease agreement with Cardinal Air Services and a long term lease for Frank Sator under Item #5. If you want to see some pretty slick shell games with public funds, check out the supporting documentation for this item. We, the city, take a loss but in comes OC Fire Authority to lease a portion of the area we are taking a loss on and then they make up the difference. The problem is that we are paying for OC Fire to lease the space through our taxes. Does this mean we are subsidizing ourselves?

Item #6 is all about John Shipman who as a member of the Community Development Citizen’s Committee showed up to some meetings and not others. After missing three in a row, he was booted for being absent too many times pursuant to municipal code 2.11.050. He is now appealing and wants to participate. Shipman, it appears, is a Keller appointment and some sort of teacher whose teaching assignment conflicted with the committee meetings.

Item #7 contains two resolutions for grant funding of Independence Park and the Fullerton Community Center. Each grant is worth $5,000,000 but you will need to chip in an addition $4,000,000 for the Independence Park project to make it happen. That’s like paving Harbor Boulevard from Commonwealth to Brea Boulevard! But I suppose the kids need a place to loiter… At the risk of expressing my own ignorance, once we pay for the project, how will we pay for maintenance? Maybe I should show up at the Park & Rec meetings so I’ll understand the funding.

According to item #8 and #9, a few people need special disabled person’s parking spots.

Item #10 seeks to make it illegal to park in the alley that runs north/south and is south of Valencia and west of harbor Boulevard. If you live in that area, be sure to show and express your feelings on the pros and cons.

It looks like the PD wants to buy some guns and ammo with the approval of item #11. They will be using asset seizure funds so, in theory, it won’t cost you a dime. What’s not included is the training to use these guns and the training for the armor to repair and service them. Training is expensive and necessary. There is no reason we cannot include the other costs incidental to the purchase. The details are: 14 guns for $18,812.92; ammo for $25,719.38; 36 gun safes $5,617.64. I assume the PD has other guns which will use the safes and ammo.

The FD wants some donations to be “accepted” by the council under item #12. The total amount is a whopping $650.00. Maybe the council should make a motion to allow the City Manager to “accept” on behalf of the city any donation under $1,000.00 so long as the manager reports them in the City’s financial reports.

Item #13 is titled “GOOGLE FIBER FOR COMMUNITIES PROGRAM”. It sounds intriguing but what is it? The summary states that Google is looking for communities in which to test ultra-high speed broadband networks to ultimately compete against the cable and telephone companies. Good idea! I know I have to pay extra for AT&T to NOT slow down my connection. It’s the same wires as everyone else except that if you pay the minimum, your connection is slower. Pay more and it get’s a little faster. FFFF has a few IT/ITS people who can explain better…

Thales Raytheon wants to donate six laptops to the Park & Rec for use at the Gilbert Community Center. Item #14 doesn’t state the total value. I would guess the laptops, if new, would be worth $1,000 each or more. I find it humorous that Parks & Rec have to justify why the laptops would be beneficial but the PD doesn’t have to say what the guns are for. In both cases it is obvious so why the extra ink?

Now you get to punch that gas pedal and really feel the wind in your hair! Item #15 seeks to change the speed limits on Sunny Ridge and Pioneer Avenue. The PD asked Traffic Engineering to conduct a traffic study. The results: RAISE, that is correct, the speed limit! Here is the breakdown:

Pioneer Ave (Sunny Ridge to Gilbert) Increase from 25mph to 30mph
Pioneer Ave (Gilbert to Parks) Establish a speed limit of 40mph
Sunny Ridge Dr (Malvern to Pioneer) Increase from 25mph to 35mph
Sunny Ridge Dr (Pioneer to Roscrans) Increase from 25mph to 30mph

All other speed limits remain unchanged.

Item #16 eliminates a bike path that isn’t complete due to OCTA Metrolink expansion which would not give bike riders enough room.

Posting public notices comes in as item #17. It looks like running the notices in the papers is a bit pricy. This item will give staff four places to post public notices. They are:

City Hall
Maintenance Services Yard
Museum
Main Library

Item #18 is the continuance of the aforementioned shell game. It involves leases on the airport property.

Lastly, item #19 is titled “LOCAL TAXPAYER, PUBLIC SAFETY AND TRANSPORTATION PROTECTION ACT OF 2010”. Californians to Protect Local Taxpayers and Vital Services Coalition is requesting that Fullerton adopt a resolution in support of this Act. It sounds nice but the reality is that our state assembly has to stop allowing our local coffers to be raided by Sacramento. This is a feel-good resolution with no teeth. It should be noted that MAJOR funding for this “coalition” comes from the League of California Cities. In other words, you and I have already paid them, their lobbyists, and whoever else has their hands in our cookie jar. The bottom of the website has this:

“Paid for by Californians to Protect Local Taxpayers and Vital Services, a coalition of taxpayers, public safety, local government, transportation, business and labor, with major funding from the League of California Cities (non-public funds and CitiPAC) and the California Alliance for Jobs — Rebuild California Committee”

Coming up:

March 23, 2010 – Special Meeting

2010/11 Budget Decision Packages

April 6, 2010 – Council Meeting

BID – Agreement with Urban Place
Fox Block Extension of ENA
Recovery Zone Designation
More strong-arm wrangling of property rights a.k.a. property negotiations

March 6, 2010March 6, 2010Behind Closed Doors

Another Day, Another Embarrassment For Sidhu

by Joe Sipowicz10 Comments

Reading Harry Sidhu’s list of endorsers really makes you pause. I checked out the list of “honorary host committee members” to his upcoming fundraiser.

Barbre2 — Harry and I are in complete agreement. Government is all about service. Self-service!

Oh, look! There’s Brett Barbre, the OC Municipal Water District creep who gouged County taxpayers for $48,000 to study an athletic hall of fame, and who kicked back a $1000 campaign contribution to Tom Daly – they guy who gave him the do-nothing job at our expense.

Easy Street — I think Harry has a bright future...even brighter than mine.

Look again and you see the name Chriss Street, the County Treasurer who yesterday was found guilty by a judge of breaching his fiduciary obligation by systematically plundering a business trust that was his responsibility. He was ordered to pay over $7,000,000 by the judge in the case. John Moorlach has called for his immediate resignation.

And Street had previously gotten into hot water by having hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of remodeling work done at his office without soliciting bids. How did he do that? He split up the work into dozens of small purchase orders. He also got County employees to dummy up fake bid solicitations after the fact. Chris Prevatt did a pretty good job describing the DAs subsequent whitewash, here.

What slimy rocks does Sidhu turn over to find these miscreants?

March 5, 2010March 5, 201072nd Election

More On The Duvall Saga: The OC/Sacto GOP Angle

by admin8 Comments

After my meeting with Mike Duvall the other day, I decided to see If I could learn anything more about the events of last summer that led to Mike’s ultimate resignation as the 72nd District State Assemblymen.

One of our good Friends happens to know a well-placed legislative aide who works in Sacramento and who, I was told, could help fill in some of the gaps. So I called this person.

According to this individual, it is not at all unusual for legislative staffers to request audio records of committee meetings; in fact it is a fairly standard practice. Thus, the fact that Jeff Miller’s aide requested a record of the meeting doesn’t signify any sort of prior conspiracy by Miller – or anyone else for that matter. My source logically pointed out that Miller, to a lesser extent, ended up getting painted by the same brush as Duvall.

Instead what this person says happened is that the embarrassing audio record did end up in the wrong hands – at least as far as Duvall is concerned. My source indicates that Duvall’s personal enemy Jon Fleischman did indeed come to possess a copy of the tape; and sometime between July 2009 and late August 2009 orchestrated the leak of the information to KCAL’s Dave Lopez and the OC Weekly’s Scott Moxley.

Although Fleischman’s motives were said to be personal, others such as OC Republican power broker Mike Schroeder were also aware of the impending ambush, according to my source, although Schroeder’s motives for participating in Fleishman’s scheme in some way or other were not made abundantly clear.

Schroeder and Fleischman. Who knew about the impending ambush ahead of time? — Schroeder and Fleischman. Who else beside Fleischman knew about the impending storm?

As with my interview with Duvall, I can not immediately confirm the veracity of my source’s information, and the journalists in question will surely not reveal their source(s). Still, our insider is indeed well-placed to know what happened and I confer a certain level of credence to the story.

What is still unknown is what other high-level Republicans knew of the tape, it’s impending release, and the obvious political fallout from that release. If indeed Fleischman was the mastermind of the Duvall ambush, it is very hard to believe he would dare to do so without the consent of at least some of the OC Republican ruling party bosses – folks such as Schroeder, Dick Ackerman, and even Party Chairman, Scott Baugh. Why these party worthies would prefer, or even allow a public scandal instead of a quiet resignation by Duvall is something we may contemplate at our leisure.

However, as I noted yesterday, discussion of the Linda Ackerman candidacy on the integrity platform seemed to appear on cue, if way out of left field, before the ink had even dried on Duvall’s letter of resignation.