Tag: Appointment

Posted onBehind Closed Doors

Fullerton’s Council Beauty Pageant

by 11 Comments on Fullerton’s Council Beauty Pageant

Ike-Pageant

After some debate, a short delay and a little snapping by Jennifer Fitzgerald, a council majority opted to hold a beauty pageant to decide which crony will get to join them on the dais.

The city is accepting applications for contestants who are interested in the job of city council without the need to actually convince the citizenry to vote for them.

We won’t know who all is running until the application process ends but we’ve already heard some names and most of them are terrible if you care about the city budget or basic math skills.

In the ongoing process the council will pretend to view and vet the candidates in an “open and transparent” process which means closed door meetings and private wheeling and dealing with a dash of favors and/or threats for good measure.

There will be a “candidate forum” sponsored by the Neighbors United for Fullerton but really it doesn’t matter who you like or what they say to the public because the council is making this decision regardless of your thoughts or opinions. You have no real voice in this process despite empty promises to the contrary.

Let us not kid ourselves, despite applications being due by Wed, 23 January and the NUFF forum being on the 28th, this will be a done deal long before you get a chance to even know who’s all in the running and who can twirl a baton the best.

The meetings are already happening and the deals are already being struck – hence Fitzgerald, Flory and the Flor-Bots all shilling for Flory back in December before this process even started.

You can apply if you’re a masochist or you can just show up to the forum and council meeting to watch the slew of candidates take 8 boilerplate questions about the roads and zero about pension reform and overspending. Overall don’t expect the public face of this charade to matter much in the actual decision making process.

However if you want to pretend like you have a chance to be on city council and believe you have what it takes to beat back the leviathan and fix our structural deficit then all you have to do is fill out a few pieces of paper to apply. Apply Today. The more the merrier.

Cheerocracy

Read More
Posted onAhmad Zahra

A New Council Member on Tuesday?

by 18 Comments on A New Council Member on Tuesday?

18Dec2018 Council Meeting

The agenda is online (HERE) for next Tuesday’s council meeting and the one major item of note, item #3, is the possible appointment of a council member to fill out the remainder of Jesus Silva’s abandoned at-large seat.

Item 3 States:

3. On December 4, 2018, Council Member Silva was sworn in as the District 3 City Council Member. This created a mid-term vacancy in Council Member Silva’s prior at-large City Council seat which expires in December 2020 and requires the City Council to consider the legally available alternatives for filling the vacancy.
Recommendation by the City Clerk’s Office:

  1. Appoint a qualified individual to the fill the vacancy through the remainder of the term, either through direct appointment or following a process for applications and / or interviews and / or other steps as determined by City Council.

  2. Direct Staff to prepare resolutions to call a special election to fill the vacancy for the remainder of the term for consideration at the next City Council meeting.

  3. Continue discussion to the January 15, 2019 City Council meeting.

This agenda item, according to City Manager Domer, was written intentionally vaguely so that council can do whatever they want on Tuesday. If they want to just appoint somebody on Tuesday, solidifying the premise that they’ve already been wheeling and dealing behind closed doors, then they can appoint whomever they want. If they want to take a different path, such as an election, they can direct staff to start that process as well.

This item will be somewhat fun to watch because of how it played out up to this point. It only matters because Silva beat Sebourn. As for the ability to appoint a crony to fill out Silva’s seat, that was passed 3-1-1 with 2 (R)s swinging into the Yes column on 16 October 2018 and again 3-1-1 with Fitzgerald ($R), Whitaker (R) and Silva (D) voting for this move on 06 November (election day) 2018.

Direct Appoint Council Vote

If another liberal (D) ends up on council after Tuesday, the (R)s in Fullerton will have nobody to blame but their own council majority. A council majority that this vote could cost them.

UPDATED: Corrected the 06 November vote. A previous version claimed it was 5-0 when it was the same 3-1-1 as the 16 Oct meeting.

Read More