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Posted onFullerton City Council

To Do #1: Council Vacancy Appointment

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Editor’s Note: We, like you, are a little tired of last minute complex topics tossed into an agenda dripping with staff’s obfuscation and drowned in legalese. We’ve recruited a former policy aide to provide FFFF readers with some perspective on current and emerging issues to be placed before the Fullerton City Council over the course of the next year.  Our retired insider published a list of 100 topics for discussion yesterday.

 This is the first post in a series to talk about policy impacting our budget and our lives.  Say what you’d like about FFFF’s motives, but if we don’t break this stuff down to talk about it, who will?

With that, here’s The Fullerton Bagman with Council’s first item to resolve next year.

Hello Fullertonians:

I’ve been involved in government for a long time. Sometimes it’s a great experience, sometimes it’s not. For those of you familiar with this blog’s coverage of The Seven Walls of Government, this is what we’ll be confronting directly.

I don’t expect anyone in Fullerton to actually scale all seven walls and affect change, but I will equip you with a bare minimum necessary to side-step staff reports and speak to the issue at hand.  Council may still ignore you, but at least you won’t be dependent upon drinking from their tainted well to quench the crushing thirst of ignorance.

Going forward, I and other members of the FFFF staff will provide you with a standardized one or two page summary of a critical issue facing Fullerton, free of bureaucratic interference and gobbledygook.

Issue #1: Council Vacancy Appointment

WHAT IS THE PROBLEM?

As a result of Jesus Silva winning election as District 3’s elected representative, he must vacate his current at-large elected seat. This results in four elected officials on a body with five seats.

All decisions require a majority vote (2 of 3, 3 of 4, or 3 of 5) of Council, with some votes requiring three votes specifically. With an empty seat on Council, some issues may not get resolved because of a 2-2 split or a 2-1 split in the case of a recusal for items requiring three votes.

In the case of a split, by law, the Council’s official action is to take no action.

(more…)

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Posted onFullerton City Council

Council’s 2019 To-Do List

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The transition to District elections is proceeding smoothly.

Well, the election is over. Silva won, Sebourn lost.  Zahra won in District 5. The circle of political life turns once more as light falls on a new day in Fullerton.

Now that all the sign waiving, sign stealing, and empty-promise making is done, let’s take a look at the problems these poor fellows signed up to solve.

We’ve listed 100 discussion items in 27 different categories that likely need to be addressed in the next year. Feel free to add your own.

Here’s hoping Fullerton voters elected people who are intelligent, responsible, and accountable.

  1. Council Vacancy Appointment/Special Election
  2. Major Organizational Change at the Police Department
    • Hiring a New Police Chief
    • Hiring Two New Police Captains
  3. Police Department Reputation and Morale Management
    • ex-Sargent Corbett Criminal Trial (on duty)
    • ex-Chief Hendricks Criminal Trial (not on duty)
    • Captain Oliveras Criminal Trial (not on duty)
    • ex-officers Cicinelli and Wolfe Civil Trial (on duty)
    • Open and Anticipated Civil Trials
    • Citizen Oversight of Police Department
  4. Infrastructure Management
    • Roads and Bridges, $100,000,000 shortfall
    • Water Lines
    • Impact of HSR and Transportation Center
  5. Water Rate Hike
  6. Hunt Library Sale/Long Range Plan
  7. Property Rezoning/Higher Density Development
    • Developer Fee Reorganization
    • Form Based Code (Downtown Core and Corridors-Lite)
    • Kimberly Clark Sale/Re-purpose
  8. New Permanent Fire Chief
  9. Labor Negotiations
  10. Lawsuits Not Related to The Police Department
    • City Liability
      • Traffic Accidents (this is most of them)
      • Public Injury (parks, sidewalks, etc.)
      • Employment/Discrimination (we’ve only heard rumors)
    • Land Use/Consent Decree/Compliance
  11. Downtown Gameplan
    • Paid Parking
    • Business Improvement District (BID)
    • Conditional Use Permit (CUP) / Administrative Restaurant Use Permit (ARUP) revisions
    • Code Enforcement
  12. West Coyote Hills
  13. City Attorney Rebid
  14. City Wide Overnight Parking
  15. FJC Football Stadium
  16. CSUF “Collegetown” Expansion
  17. Homelessness
    • Fullerton Shelter
    • Anti-Camping Code Enforcement
    • Church-Run-Shelter Code Revisions
    • County-Wide Permanent Supportive Housing Project
  18. The Budget
    • Sales Tax
    • Parcel Tax
    • Utility Tax
    • Outsourcing
      • Police
        • Jail
        • Patrol
        • Dispatch
        • Other Services (Parking, etc.)
      • Fire
        • North County JPA
        • County Fire
        • Paramedic/Ambulance Contract
      • Library
        • County
        • Private
      • Parks
        • Public-Private Partnership
        • Sale/Joint Use Agreements (i.e. School District)
      • Public Works
      • Water Utility
        • Sale to Private Ownership
        • Contract for management
    • CALPERS Participation
    • Long Term Staffing Plan
  19. Brea Dam Lease
  20. Street Cars
    • Harbor to Disneyland
    • Transportation Center to CSUF
  21. Marijuana
    • Illegal Dispensary Closures
    • Continuing Code Enforcement
    • Municipal Code Revisions to Allow Use
  22. Water and Drought Management
    • OCWD Participation
      • North Basin Plume
      • Poseidon
      • Additional aquifer extraction/recharge
    • MWD Participation
      • Twin Tunnels Participation
      • Long Term Water Rate Purchases
      • Colorado River Curtailment
  23. Hillcrest Park Phase 2 and 3
  24. Address Chronic Leak Culture
  25. Property Sales/Use
    • Basque Yard
    • Others
    • Redevelopment Wrap Up
  26. Fox Theater Parking Structure
    • Periphery Property Sale/Use
    • Parking Structure Building and Funding
  27. Mills Act
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Posted onBad Cops

Campaign Mail – Quirk-Silva’s Irony

by 19 Comments on Campaign Mail – Quirk-Silva’s Irony

It’s junk mail season and time to keep an eye on the nonsense being sent out by and for candidates and issues. One of the best pieces we’ve seen thus far in the cycle is this little nugget from the CADEM’s supporting Sharon Quirk-Silva for Assembly.

SQS Ford Irony
But just her?

They believe HER.

The irony and timing on this is pretty great considering that Quirk-Silva herself is being investigated by the State Assembly for political retaliation against Daniel Fierro, by way of trying to pressure fellow (D) Fullerton council candidate Ahmad Zahra into dropping Fierro as a client.

But they believe HER.

If you make a sexual assault claim against an SQS ally she’ll allegedly retaliate against you, as will her husband Council member Jesus Silva.

And yet they believe HER.

Riiiiight.

This is partisan schtick at it’s worst and I almost expect this to backfire spectacularly.

Where was this #IBelieveHer version of Sharon Quirk-Silva when Fullerton Officer Albert Rincon was being accused of sexually assaulting 7 women and costing the taxpayers of Fullerton $350,000?

Where was this #IBelieveHer Quirk-Silva when a judge said of that case:

“At the end of the day, the city put Rincon back onto the streets to continue arresting women despite a pattern of sexual harassment allegations. A reasonable juror could conclude based on these facts, that the city simply did not care what officers did to women during arrest,”.

For those of you wondering about the timeline on all this regarding Rincon and Quirk-Silva – from that same Oct 2011 article:

The Rincon case began in 2008, when Kari Bode and Gina Nastasi accused Rincon of groping them and exposing their breasts. They sued the department in 2009.

So where was #IBelieveHer Sharon Quirk-Silva when Officer Albert Rincon was allegedly molesting women on our city streets?

Oh. She was Mayor.

SQS Mayor Timeline

She was Mayor again in 2012 AFTER that Judge rebuked Fullerton for doing essentially nothing to an officer accused of at least 7 known alleged accounts of sexual assault under the color of authority.

And she seems to have done nothing. Apparently appeasing the police union was more important than Believing those women.

To make matters worse – Sharon Quirk-Silva just 6 short weeks ago, voted AGAINST SB1421 AND AB748.

After Jerry Brown sided against SQS and signed both of those bills into law, the ACLU stated:

“Together, SB 1421 and AB 748 will shine a much-needed light on police violence and abuse. Specifically, SB 1421 restores the public’s right to know how departments investigate and hold accountable those officers who abuse their power to frame, sexually assault, or kill members of the public. AB 748 will ensure law enforcement agencies throughout the state release police recordings of serious uses of force, including body camera footage, which are valuable tools for civilian oversight at a time of growing concern with police violence.”

SB 1421 is especially problematic for Quirk-Silva’s “#IBelieveHer” narrative in that it will make public some information specific to the powers of police officers, especially regarding sexual assault tied to the abuse of power to coerce a victim into sexual acts.

SB1421 directly addresses the problems with Officer Rincon and how it was handled within FPD and our city. Thus despite her firsthand knowledge of the problems being addressed by these bills from her time as our Mayor she opted to side with those who would abuse their power rather than the victims and the public seeking information about bad actors in uniform.

Yet they believe HER.

This is because Sharon Quirk-Silva apparently only “Believes Her” when the “her” in question can be used as a political cudgel against her opponents or to rally her more rabid base of supporters. When it comes to actually believing victims of sexual assault, in the end Sharon Quirk-Silva’ actions speak louder than her words. She can be counted on to run the gamut of doing nothing to actively, allegedly, trying to silence the victim and ultimately voted to keep information about official misconduct quiet.

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