Archive for category Bruce Whitaker
IF YOU WANT TO BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY AND SLEEP LIKE A BABY AT NIGHT YOU MUST PUT THE TRUTH FIRST.
Posted by Joe Imbriano in Bruce Whitaker, JOSHUA FERGUSON on August 3, 2017
BY BARRY LEVINSON
FULLERTON CIVIC LEADER AND ACTIVIST BARRY LEVINSON
THE TRUTH
IT IS WHAT I TRULY BELIEVE IN. WELL IN THE CASE OF STATE SENATOR CANDIDATE JOSHUA FERGUSON’S RESPONSE UNDER THE FFFF ARTICLE “THE WHITAKER RECORD” HE TOLD THE TRUTH. I BELIEVE ALL PEOPLE SHOULD GET CREDIT FOR THEIR TRUTHFUL STATEMENTS MADE ON THE RECORD. HERE ARE HIS COMMENTS, WHICH I TOTALLY AGREE WITH.
The Whitaker Record
August 3, 2017 Joe Sipowicz Comments(25)
Joshua Ferguson (comment)
“Okay, I’ll bite.
You’re mad because you can’t get a good wine so what do you do?
Apparently you sit on the sidelines and complain that you can’t get good wine as it gets worse and worse each year. I’d rather try and make wine. That’s EXACTLY why Napa is world renowned for wine. Delusional people set out to make a change.
You can consider me delusional all you want but I’d rather be delusional than a defeatist.
I would have never thrown my name in and would have eagerly supported Whitaker if I thought he’d fight. But he won’t and he hasn’t.
We have serious allegations of police misconduct & obstruction of justice in the Felz case alone. Whitaker is Mayor. What has he done to get to the bottom of it?
Be precise about the actions in this case. I’ll award bonus points for source citations.
As a reminder the former police chief allegedly obstructed justice on his way out of the door. The DA allegedly ignored it owing to political favors.
Do we need to put a ribbon on the tee before the bat is swung? We can’t swing it for the council. The whole council is complicit in this corruption but the Mayor has the power to put things on the Agenda. He doesn’t. I see a new higher paid chief from a problematic department. That’s it. Where’s the oversight? Reform? Investigation? Anything?
Oh I know. Despite the council being 3-2 (R) he doesn’t think he can accomplish anything so its better to do nothing.
Put it on record. Put reform and an investigation on the agenda and make the opposition take a pro-cover-up position. Make them make the pro-corruption vote. Do something. Be the voice you ran to be and fight for us and if you won’t don’t be surprised if allies get fed up and try to use their own voices you seem intent on ignoring.
Newman is being recalled because he lied to voters and opted to rob us blind. I’m not about to vote for somebody else who will sit silently owing to a minority position while we still get robbed.
I’ve had enough of (R)s who say they’d do the right thing if only they had power. Fight for the right thing or you’ll never get the chance.”
That concludes Mr. Ferguson’s remarks. As I stated in my title of this article, I give people credit for telling the truth in a public forum. Ferguson has been supportive of Mayor Bruce Whitaker and an ally in the past. The fact that he was willing to look at Whitaker’s public performance to judge whether he is worthy of Ferguson’s support is admirable. Two fellow conservatives Sean Paden and David Curlee, still in my opinion see Mayor Whitaker thru rose color glasses.
Click the photo to understand more about Bruce’s sycophant Paden.
Paden goes out of his way to support him no matter what the facts state. Blind allegiance in politics is extremely dangerous.
The big question is whether I would vote for Ferguson. There are a few issues that I would need to hear more from him on. I have seen him in a few instances, in my humble opinion, put saving taxpayer dollars ahead of the overall benefit to the community. I am a fiscal conservative and hate to see any taxpayer monies wasted but government has a role and sometimes monies need to be in fact spent for the benefit of the overall community.
In conclusion, my answer as of August 3, 2017 is that I would give his candidacy serious consideration. It is early and we may not know the names of all candidates who will throw their hats into the ring.
But the bottom line, I appreciate very much Ferguson’s above comments concerning Bruce Whitaker and see it as his taking an independent second look at a former ally. It takes a certain amount of courage to distance yourself from someone you used to support wholeheartedly.
Finally, as Ferguson said above…”Okay, I’ll bite.” ` I am glad he did.
BARRY LEVINSON
IT IS GETTING HARD TO EVEN GET LIP SERVICE FROM OUR FULLERTON CITY COUNCIL MEMBERS, BRUCE WHITAKER, GREG SEBOURN, JENNIFER FITZGERALD, DOUG CHAFFEE AND JESUS SILVA. By Barry Levinson
Posted by Joe Imbriano in Barry Levinson, Bruce Whitaker, Jesus Silva on August 2, 2017
Barry Levinson
Responding to my comments at the June 20, 2017 Council meeting, Council member Fitzgerald stated the following:
“Well, I want to point out to the public while we are entering into a five-year contract with Mr. Domer, he will be an at-will employee and anyone who read the staff report would have seen that.”
What Ms. Fitzgerald conveniently and I believe intentionally left out to mislead the public is that a typical at-will employee, which means an employee who can be terminated at any time without cause is not usually entitled to a severance package. But in the case of Mr. Domer, his contract guarantees him immediately that the city would owe him a severance of not 1 week or 1 month or even 3 months additional salary but a full 6 months in additional salary if he were to be removed from his post at anytime during the life of this five-year contract. In addition the contract stipulates that on day one he will receive 2 weeks of unearned vacation time and 1 week of unearned sick time. This is also unheard of for an at-will employee.
Once again, Ms. Fitzgerald is more interested in misleading the public than serving them.
In response to my criticism on the total lack of action concerning the Hillcrest Park Stairs, Council member Sebourn gave a tardy and very incomplete update that he had requested documents relating to the stairs on June 20, 2017. If you were truly serious about taking action, you would have received all the information you wanted in a matter of a few days not six weeks.
How many more months are we to wait to learn that the city has no intention to sue the contractor and certainly no intention to hold any city employee accountable for signing-off on a 1.7 million dollar project with very obvious and numerous construction defects.
It is becoming clearer and clearer that the city has no intention to sue the contractor and certainly no intention to hold any city employee accountable for signing off on a 1.7 million dollar project with very obvious and numerous construction and/or design defects. We learned that some of the problems not specifically identified and downplayed according to Parks and Recreation Director Hugo Curiel are being addressed now. Director Curiel actually stated that is was common practice months after the job was completed and paid for by the taxpayers to have a contractor fix issues.
Fullertonians any well run city first has a final city inspection prior to making any final payments to the3 contractor. The fact that so many defects existed after its completion tells me that whoever signed off on this project should be held to account or maybe the city never did a final inspection prior to paying the entire cost of the project. We simply do not know because our city council has chosen to keep the taxpayers in the dark.
So what is the status of the stairs today? Thanks to the incomplete and vague answers by the council and staff we really do not know. More corrections are to be done but we do not know, which corrections are to be addressed. What about the design error to put large wooden posts into the concrete caissons making replacing any of them an extremely expensive and unnecessary undertaking? My guess is that this important and expensive issue has not been addressed and will not be addressed by our phony and incompetent council. But what you can be sure of is that when one or more of those wooden posts needs replacing and they will, we the taxpayers will be on the hook for 100% of the unnecessary cost.
We the public is expected to accept once again our city squandering our taxpayer monies on very expensive substandard workmanship. The city council spent $1.7 million dollars on this substandard stairway. I guess as Mayor, we can add this as just another one out of so many of Mayor Bruce Whitaker’s failures.
The last council meeting, council added insult to injury by voting for a new police chief with 40% of the council not present. How incredibly arrogant that all the city council members do not believe it is proper for them to listen to their constituents before deciding on a new police chief. On top of that, Mayor Whitaker actually stated that he believed that the pertinent questions asked by the public did not need to be discussed by council prior to the vote. How low can they go? With this council it is not measurable.
ANOTHER DOG AND PONY SHOW CONDUCTED BY MAYOR BRUCE WHITAKER AND OUR CITY COUNCIL IN APPOINTING OUR NEXT POLICE CHIEF DAVID HENDRICKS. By Barry Levinson
Posted by Joe Imbriano in Barry Levinson, Bruce Whitaker on July 22, 2017
Barry Levinson
Mayor Whitaker prior to the vote by Council to appoint David Hendricks as our next police chief called him Chief Hendricks. Isn’t that putting the cart before the horse Bruce Whitaker?
It is also a very strong Indication that Mayor Bruce Whitaker and the rest of the City Council already knew that nothing said by the public commenters would or could alter their votes. Yes he was their selection behind close doors but shouldn’t there be a final decision made by council after hearing from the public at the Council Meeting. If you have decided amongst all of you that nothing anyone said at the Council Meeting would change your minds then what Is the purpose of the public comments other than a dog and pony show.
Dog and Pony show ringleader Bruce Whitaker
Question No. 1: If you did decide among yourselves that no comments at city council would sway your vote is that not a Brown Act Violation mayor Whitaker?
Question No. 2: Why wasn’t the vote for a new police chief postponed until all five council members were in attendance?
Another indication of the dog and pony show was the reading of two letters by Jennifer Fitzgerald and Greg Sebourn welcoming Mr. Hendricks as our new Police Chief prior to the final vote by the council. We are then told that Fitzgerald’s and Sebourn’s approval of Mr. Hendricks do not count as votes due to their absence from the meeting. I think it is a slap in the face of the community that such an important decision would be made with 40% of the council absent. I guess both Sebourn and Fitzgerald did not care that they were not giving the public a chance to persuade them not to vote for Mr. David Hendricks. The Fullerton City Council’s arrogance is there for all to see once again.
They all ignored the facts that Long Beach PD has a very troubled and disturbing history of major problems including millions of dollars paid out from lawsuits generated by bad behavior such as excessive force by several Long Beach Police Officers and it was stated by a public commenter that all of them that were identified for the record were still on the force. The fact that Mr. Hendricks was in charge of internal affairs for the Long Beach Police Department and he spent his entire police career with that department only makes these facts more disturbing. Does he believe that it makes sense for the city to approve multi-million dollar settlements for the bad acts of certain police officers and then allow them to remain in the force? I am sorry but that is the definition of a corrupt and broken system. That milks the innocent public dry of millions of dollars that could be much better used for infrastructure or properly maintaining our parks. This is the status quo apparently in both the Fullerton and Long Beach Police Departments. Police officers commit bad acts, we the innocent public/taxpayers are held financially accountable but not the officers who are guilty of these acts. I guess when are Human Resources Director stated that one of the things they liked about Mr. Hendricks was that he was a good fit with Fullerton Police Department maybe they were thinking that both departments have made the public pay out millions for their employee’s bad acts while the employees in actuality usually only get an extended paid vacation i.e. paid administrative leave. Again we the innocent public is held to account but the officers usually get off scot-free. Where is the fairness to the taxpayer in such a corrupt system of dealing with the financial consequences of these lawsuits? What a totally broken and corrupt system and not a peep about this by our Mayor Whitaker or any other of our council members. This is just another example of how our city council has once again totally failed us as our elected representatives.
The spirit of Pat Mckinley is alive and well
This shows the contempt the city of Long Beach, Fullerton, and other cities have for its citizens. You have millions of tax dollars going to pay for wrongdoing by police who in many cases are still on the job. The taxpayers, not the police who commit these bad acts pays the victims in some cases millions of dollars and then we as taxpayers have to continue to pay for their salaries and benefits after we the taxpayer not the officers have to pay to make the lawsuits go away. And they have the nerve to be called public servants. Are you kidding me! We the taxpayers are used and abused by those cities that demand that we pay for the public servants’ misconduct.
After two public speakers Sean Paden and David Curlee made important and relevant comments specifically about the millions of dollars paid out by the City of Long Beach in the past few years alone due to police misbehavior and the issue of Mr. Hendricks getting his college degree from an unaccredited college, this is what Mayor Whitaker incredulously stated immediately after they were finished. Bruce Whitaker was quoted as saying as follows: “I DON’T KNOW IF ANYTHING NEEDS TO BE ANSWERED FROM PRIOR TWO COMMENTERS?
Council had not discussed these extremely important issues at all. Yet Mayor Whitaker states that he doesn’t believe either of these issues needs to be addressed by the city council members or the city attorney or the city manager or by any other city employee. How about Mayor Whitaker you require the person you are about to give the highest paid Fullerton employee total compensation package by tens of thousands of dollars to answer both of these questions sir? You Mayor Whitaker and the rest of the council are a complete disgrace to our community. Not a whimper by Whitaker or any of them about giving out a five-year contract. Back in 2012, Whitaker spoke out against giving Dan Hughes a five-year contract. Question: Was your initial objection to giving Dan Hughes a five-year contract genuine or political grandstanding? I ask this relevant question since this time phony Whitaker was totally silent. I guess now that he wants to run for higher office he is perfectly fine with five-year contracts and totally ignoring all the problems within the Long Beach Police Department. WHAT A GUY AND FURTHERMORE, WHAT A POOR EXCUSE FOR OUR ELECTED REPRESENTATIVE!
It appears that two of most ardent of Bruce Whitaker’s supporters, Sean Paden and David Curlee have become a political liability to Mayor Whitaker at this late date. Maybe now both Sean and David finally may realize that Whitaker used them. Even if they now understand they were used by Whitaker, the timing is very unfortunate as both of them helped Whitaker to get reelected to a third term on the city council.
Appointed Mayor Bruce Whitaker deserves to be recalled from the Fullerton City Council and to never be placed in a position of authority either elected or appointed ever again. But instead of doing the right thing, he will be busy running for Newman’s State Senate seat. What a guy!
Is Linda Whitaker losing her mind? How does she call Bruce Whitaker anti S.C.A.G. when as a council member, he appointed a S.C.A.G. Senior planner as his first choice to the planning commission?
Posted by Joe Imbriano in Bruce Whitaker, sean paden on July 20, 2017
Fullerton’s puppets and their masters Tony Bushala, Jennifer Fitzgerald, Bruce Whitaker, and Greg Sebourn: just another reason why trusting or believing them is a fools errand.
Posted by Joe Imbriano in Barry Levinson, Bruce Whitaker, The DCCSP on July 15, 2017
When your word means almost nothing, it can be repurchased for really cheap. Jennifer Fitzgerald’s sure has and for a measly $850 a month. After publicly proclaiming that she would not take her stipend as a council member back in 2012, with no public announcement she has officially began drawing a paycheck from the city again since March 11, 2017. 
Why this turn of events? Well it sure looks like Pringle might be cutting her loose from her cush gig as VP of Pringle and Associates. So potentially there goes that income stream. Curt Pringle’s plan to have an insider on our council to ram through the DCCSP was thwarted by Barry Levinson and others. Why no public statement with all the pomp and circumstance announcing she is back on the dole like when she declined her stipend as a council member is anyone’s guess but for this Biola grad that has all the people up on the hill and the EV Free crowd hoodwinked, there is meaning in her actions. I guess her free public service is over but then again we always knew it was never free in the first place. Fitzgerald has cost this city dearly with her horrendous voting record on massive raises and expenditures as our roads and infrastructure remains in ruin.
Fitzgerald dropping her head in shame as Barry Levinson exposes the council ‘s unanimous vote that amounted to protecting pedophiles with the repeal of the Fullerton law that Barry helped write.
Well it looks like she won’t be pulling down the $165,000 salary as a county supervisor either with the dagger coming from Ed Royce endorsing the worthless forced vaccinator and forced irradiator Young Kim for supervisor. Looks like Fitzpringle won’t be getting her county benefits, the county pension and it looks like the gig with Pringle is soon to be off the table as well. Not that long ago, she was actually looking at the possibility of making $350,000 to $400,000 a year as both a county supervisor and a VP at Pringle and Associates. Well that was all contingent upon her delivering the goods as a council member involving massive development projects that would have destroyed Fullerton forever.
So no County Supervisor and possibly no more VP at Pringle’s office. Why has all this befallen our council member? Is it because she was unable to put the screws to the residents and get the tens of thousands of high rise apartment units built for her bosses and her developer friends? Is it because she has become a public relations nightmare for Curt Pringle? Is it because she has drawn too much attention with her connections to the biggest influence peddler in Orange County and so much so that the light of day was finally shone on these dastardly plans to turn the area in and around downtown Fullerton into downtown LA? Perhaps.
Fitzpringle up on the dais drinking aspartame, brominated vegetable oil, ester of wood rosen.,…… and all from a BPA lined can that lets some of that aluminum get into the solution
You will remember back in 2012, if you were paying attention, that the free pass given by Tony Bushala and with the assistance and support of Tony Bushala’s close friend Shawn Nelson, she was elected to the Fullerton City Council. Within a few months she was appointed to the Vice President position at Curt Pringle and Associates. Tony Bushala, whose family owns close to 40 million dollars in properties in Fullerton had just finished purchasing the election in 2012 by spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to install his boys Kiger, Whitaker, and Sebourn on the city council.
Tony’s tools he bankrolled to get elected in 2012 along with Fitzgerald who was given a pass.
Adding Fitzgerald gave the developers 4 votes and the entire council stacked the planning commission with stool pigeon plants that passed the DCCSP.
Gambino, Silber, Johnson, Shanfield, Han and Alvarez all voted to pass the DCCSP
Bushala’s handpicked bag man, Bruce Whitaker,
made sure his plant on the planning commission purposely missed the vote.
The insubordination of establishment operative Kevin Pendergraft
With all of Tony Bushala’s plants on the council such as Travis Kiger, Bruce Whitaker, and Greg Sebourn, Fullerton would have been poised for massive development as people were distracted by the attention being diverted to the police department’s misdeeds. It was the perfect cover. Bushala ran his blog for another year NEVER ONCE MENTIONING THE DCCSP. He then shut his blog down in early 2013 and opened back up after the 2016 election and to this day has NEVER MENTIONED THE DCCSP.
Behind the scenes, the DCCSP was passed by the planning commission and being gift wrapped and cooked to order by Bushala’s plants working with City staff and developers to rezone a plethora of commercial properties and turn them into ten story high rise housing buildings on hundreds of acres of arterial street frontage and in and around downtown Fullerton. This would have turned Fullerton into a gestapo run gridlocked version of Manhattan blended with the Bronx.
Well fortunately, it looks like the DCCSP is totally dead now because Bushala is turning on Fitgzerald after 5 long years of sitting and waiting for his development payday that never came. The DCCSP would have made his SOCO walk development earnings look like a box car bet on a 5 dollar crap table. Now after 5 long years after he remained totally silent on everything this woman did to pull Fullerton further down the fiscal drain and try to turn it into a high rise hell hole, Tony has turned his tools and phonies against her. Mind you he never exposed her for what she was before she was elected in 2012, never exposed her during her nearly disastrous 4 year tenure on the council from 2012 to 2016 and then still remained silent protecting her during the entire 2016 election cycle so she could get re elected.
Remember when Fitzgerald vowed publicly not to accept her council member stipend because she stated that there is nothing that says public servants should receive renumeration? Well, as of March 11, 2017, she began drawing her $850 a month for her work on the council. So now she is going to cost the taxpayers of Fullerton around $40,000 over the next four years.
Well at least we saved Fullerton from the developers and we saved $40,000 from 2012 to 2016 but it is too bad she was allowed to give away tens of millions of dollars in police, fire and city employee raises, benefit increases as well the approvals of pork projects while hundreds of miles of streets are in ruin.
Well we know her word means nothing and we also know that Fullerton is safe from the massive development agenda for now because of the light of day people like Barry Levinson shed on the dirty deeds of Fullerton’s political creeps. More to come as we wait for Fitzpringle to finally become Fitzgerald again.
WHY IS IT THAT THOSE CLOSEST TO THE FFFF WEBSITE ONLY KNOW HOW TO DEFAME ANONYMOUSLY USING THE MOST VILE LANGUAGE OF THE GUTTER? IT IS THESE SAME PEOPLE WHO ARE BACKING PHONY WHINING POLITICIAN BRUCE WHITAKER FOR THE 29TH DISTRICT STATE SENATE SEAT. By Barry Levinson
Posted by Joe Imbriano in Bruce Whitaker on July 12, 2017
Barry Levinson
If a psychiatrist were to review the collective rants of the FFFF hard core anonymous supporters (probably no more than 3 or 4 people maximum and probably named Tony B. and Chris T.) he/she would diagnose them with anti-social and bullying behaviors, uncontrollable tempers and a severe phobia against telling the truth.
In other words if you do not have anything honest or intelligent or even remotely factual to say, then go say it on your own disgusting site.
These FFFFer’s are the main backers of Bruce Whitaker for State Senate. That alone should disqualify Whitaker as a serious candidate. But if you regularly read the FullertonInformer.com you know there are almost endless specific reasons not to vote for this phony politician. This is Whitaker’s backdoor way to try to earn a high six-figure salary on the government dole. First he stated he was interested in running for Orange County Supervisor, now he changes course to run for State Senate. He obviously does not care if he is a county elected official or a state elected official as long as he collects his large six figure check plus benefits, which in each case would be for a part-time job. This is simply his way to finally get a big paycheck. He actually should wave his salary and benefits as the good limited government person he so often claims to be. But he has not and he will not do that of course. How does that tie into his so-called limited small government positions? It doesn’t.
Whitaker’s excuse for getting nothing accomplished except fireworks is his claim that he is only one person out of five Fullerton city council members.
Attention to Mr. Whitaker, the entire time he has been a council member his party, the Republican Party has held the majority of seats, either 3 or 4 members out of five seats. Yet he now wants to be our State Senator where 2/3 of the Senators are now Democrats. Question to Mr. Whitaker. Your continuing excuse for your failures to get anything accomplished was when in fact your party had a majority the entire time you have been in office. How in the heck will you get anything accomplished in the State Senate when you are in the minority? I can hear it now…more whining and excuses by Whitaker if the people in the 29th Senate District would be foolish enough to place him in the State Senate.
This guy wants to shovel even more of it in Sacramento
P.S. Remember it took him 8 months to replace me as his appointee on the Park and Recreation Committee after he dismissed me without giving me any explanation. For eight long months he left that position empty with no explanation for his refusal to fill that position. That was a clear dereliction of duty by Bruce Whitaker. Now he wants to bring his many failures and his phony political message to a bigger stage. What a guy!
Let’s Take A Closer Look At The Friends For Fullerton’s Future Website Part II. By Barry Levinson
Posted by Joe Imbriano in Bruce Whitaker on July 5, 2017
Barry Levinson
In my opinion, it is very clear that the FFFF blog exists for one and only one purpose. It was to help ensure that Tony Bushala made millions off of his Fullerton commercial properties. The easiest way to make that happen was for the city to come up with a way to get all major high-rise, high-density buildings virtually approved in advanced throughout all the major roads within the city. That vehicle was the Downtown Core and Corridor Special Plan (DCCSP). For the key to the DCCSP was to allow the City Manager who at that time was none other than Joe Felz total approval authority for all DCCSP projects.
ex city manager Felz
Step One is that Bushala does everything in his power to get his people elected to the Fullerton City Council. That explains in my opinion his support for Bruce Whitaker, Greg Sebourn and Travis Kiger. Then he abruptly shuts down the FFFF shortly after the 2012 election. His Tony’s Phonies helps him to continue to lead an effort to misdirect the public with other issues while remaining quiet about the DCCSP.
Kiger, Whitaker, Sebourn, and Fitzpringle are Tony’s tools
Tony’s Phonies were very active in their opposition against College Town but the much bigger nightmare, which would have been the DCCSP they were eerily quiet about. On the surface that dichotomy makes no sense at all. But I believe the answer is very simple Fullertonians.
Tony Bushala was primed to make millions if DCCSP passed but I believe he had little or no financial interest in College Town. Therefore Tony’s Phonies spoke out against College Town often but were quiet as a church mouse as it related to the DCCSP, which would have created high-rise nightmares off all major roads within Fullerton with only Joe Felz, the city manager an unelected bureaucrat needed to approve all of the projects. If the DCCSP passed, there would be No Planning Commission recommendation needed, there would be No City Council vote needed for these very many projects but most importantly the people of Fullerton would have absolutely no say in any of these many major developments in our city going forward.
The crony, phony money would have flowed into city coffers and into the pockets of special interest developers and property owners such as Tony Bushala, all at the great expense of the quality of life for existing Fullerton citizens. All they needed was the one-time passage of the DCCSP. The biggest boondoggle ever created by our Fullerton City Government in its entire history.
Bushala spent hundreds of thousands of dollars for the recall so he could buy the council majority
Now you have a good idea why the FFFF, the City Council and those consultants representing developers hate me so very much. For the time being at least, I spoiled their multi-million dollar scheme for both the developers and the city via the Park and Recreation Dwelling Fees for the tune of $11,700 for building each and every residential unit regardless of their size. This is one of the major reasons why the city has been pushing so darn hard for high-rise high-density development.
In Fullerton Government all you have to do to understand the machinations of the power players is to…FOLLOW THE MONEY!
Once you do follow the money you realize like I have that nobody on the city council, nor their puppeteers have clean hands.
I report, you decide!
Protecting Corruption, Malfeasance and Wrongdoing Was Once Again In Full View For Anyone Watching The June 6, 2017 Fullerton City Council!
Posted by Joe Imbriano in Bruce Whitaker, Greg Sebourn on June 7, 2017
The Scandal, Which Is The Hillcrest Stairs, Was Never Mentioned By Anyone On The Fullerton City Council Dais. The City Council has failed to take any action to get monetary damages from the contractor and designer of those stairs and has also failed to start an internal investigation as to who within the City of Fullerton approved that very shoddy and structurally substandard stairway. Therefore we can thank Mayor Bruce Whitaker, Council members Greg Sebourn, Jennifer Fitzgerald, Doug Chaffee and Jesus Silva for another fine example of their total dereliction of duty as our duly elected city representatives. For truly with elected representative like them, we don’t need any more enemies. By Barry Levinson
Fullerton Community activist Barry Levinson
Why won’t the council protect us? Why won’t the council act in our best interest? Could it be that to expose the guilty would expose our council members as well? Joshua Ferguson gave a very good pictorial presentation of the numerous problems but has not asked that our City council take action against those responsible for the many problems with those very expensive stairs.
Joshua cozying up with Bruce Whitaker
Why? He actually spoke again at the June 6th meeting and did not once even refer to those stairs? What he did do was give the city council members another way to extend their ability to continue to not provide the citizens of Fullerton with its basic services from the General Fund.
Seaborn
Instead I would surmise working in tandem with Greg Sebourn and Bruce Whitaker,
Ferguson
Ferguson proposed diverting or siphoning off much need park dwelling fee monies away from the desperately needed expansion of greening up Fullerton with more parks. How is that a good idea?
Sebourn thinks its a good idea
The fact is the neglect of these parks has been covered up for years and now, right on cue Greg Sebourn made a motion to put just that on the agenda.
No explanation as to why for decades are city has not provided adequate funds from our general fund to do routine maintenance for our parks but willing to rob from Paul to give to Peter instead thereby not having to answer to the malfeasance of our city council for decades of neglect of our city parks. This is not acceptable considering Greg promised to do a top down audit of all city departments when he was elected in 2012.
Then there is the scandalous issue of those Hillcrest Park stairs to be received and filed in the dustbin of our city council.
CODE VIOLATIONS GALORE that should have resulted in a lawsuit and pink slips for the inspectors that signed off on them
Fitzgerald loves the shoddy workmanship
Well I heard directly from the mouth of our Appointed Mayor in a recent interview, Bruce Whitaker, who is no stranger to ignoring alleged malfeasance, who without hesitating to the interviewer’s question stated that he would seriously consider running for Josh Newman’s seat if the recall makes the ballot.
TAX AND SPEND DEMOCRAT NEWMAN
I have a loud and strong message for Bruce Whitaker. How about taking care of at least one of our many problems here in Fullerton before you seek higher office?
Whitaker
Because I find it ludicrous and very arrogant on your part to think that you deserve to be elected to higher office when you have accomplished literally nothing after 6.5 years as one of our council members. You have repeatedly cried to the public that you are only one man and therefore do not have the support to get things accomplished. Well here are some hard facts for Whitaker to swallow. The whole time you have been on the city council you have had a REPUBLICAN MAJORITY SIR!
6 YEARS OF FAILURE TO LEAD
In the State Senate the Democrats would outnumber you 2 to 1. If you can’t persuade your fellow Republicans to get anything done having the majority on your side, how in the heck will you possibly get anything done in the State Senate? I have given Fullertonians written detailed supportable example after example after example of how Whitaker has failed his conservative limited government base of support. The latest example is of Whitaker’s failure to take any concrete steps; pun intended to solve the obvious problem of Hillcrest Park steps! As I have pointed out before our Mayor is all talk and no action. In other words a typical slick phony politician out for only number one. I guess that means leaving no room for the good people of Fullerton.
A PROCLAMATION TO ALL FULLERTON RESIDENTS. MY POSTINGS ARE HAVING THEIR IMPACT AGAINST THE FORCES OF CORRUPTION IN FULLERTON. IT IS PRECISELY BECAUSE I AM INFORMING THE PUBLIC ABOUT THE TRUE NATURE OF OUR CITY GOVERNMENT, OUR FULLERTON POLICE DEPARTMENT AND OUR CITY COUNCIL THAT HAS FORCED A FEW TO CRAWL OUT OF GUTTER AND TO MAKE TOTALLY FALSE AND UNFOUNDED CLAIMS AGAINST ME! BY BARRY LEVINSON
Posted by Joe Imbriano in Bruce Whitaker, Fullerton politics, FULLERTON PRAVDA, Tony Bushala, Who's who in Fullerton politics on May 29, 2017
P.S. THIS MEANS TWO THINGS FULLERTONIANS. FIRST IT MEANS THAT OUR MESSAGE IS GETTING OUT TO MORE AND MORE PEOPLE. SECOND IT MEANS THAT THE CORRUPT FULLERTON GOVERNMENT LEADERSHIP AND THEIR SPECIAL INTEREST SUPPORTERS ARE GETTING VERY WORRIED THAT THEIR PLANS TO DESTROY FULLERTON, AS WE HAVE KNOWN IT MAY NOT COME TO FRUITION.
Here is an excellent example of the depths my enemies will go to try to ruin my reputation straight from the on-line comments of the recently dug up from the ashes Friends for Fullerton’s Future website approved by Travis Kiger
Travis Kiger-administrator FFFF
“The City Attorney explained it to you Barry..remember?
“Barry was let go from P and R due to him repeatedly harassing an employee who was just this side of suing him and the city for not protecting her from Barry. But Barry lies and says he has no clue why.”
The comments quoted above directly from the Friends for Fullerton’s Future website are a total and complete lie. The city attorney explained absolutely nothing to me and I did not harass any city employee or anybody else for that matter.
How very sad and very disgusting at the same time that it was none other than current Appointed Mayor and my former friend Bruce Whitaker who stated this falsehood for the first time in the July 2016 Fullerton Observer approximately 5 weeks after he informed me that he would remove me after stating that he considered doing this for months. For the record , he never gave me an explanation then or did he to this day every contact me with a direct explanation from him. What a guy!
Here is Whitaker’s shameful totally false defamation of me as follows: “The (Fullerton) Observer asked Council member Whitaker for his reason for removing his appointed commissioner. He sent the following response:” ““Faced with an imminent employee action which would have likely generate substantial cost to the City, to avoid that action, I opted to remove the commission member. That member’s term would otherwise have expired in December 2016. As you know there had been an effort by Council members in October 2014 to remove that same appointee from the P&R commission which failed on a 3-2 vote. An involuntary removal required four votes.””
What Whitaker so deceitfully left out was that he voted against removing me and said at the time that there was no evidence to support my removal but that it seemed to be nothing more than a political vendetta against my activism by then Police Chief Dan Hughes and members of the City Government. What a guy you are Bruce. Can you be any more deceptive than with that quoted statement sir from the Fullerton Observer? Here below are your exact words on the City Council dais. You paint a totally different picture on that night of November 4, 2014 as follows:
Now for the readers I can’t tell you how many times in the past after I spoke out on some problem facing Fullerton during a Fullerton Council meeting that Council member Whitaker would call me immediately after the meeting to thank me for my great input and to keep up the good work. I never ever received any criticism for any of my service to the community as a Fullerton resident activist at City Hall or for my service of almost 6 years (well into my second term) as Whitaker’s appointee to the P&R Committee. Funny that he has never mentioned any of this false storyline to me. I guess this would be another example of his failure to do his fiduciary responsibility for the good people of Fullerton. Because if there were any bit of truth to this, if I were his boss, I would have immediately discussed the accusation with him. The first time I hear this total fabrication is indirectly thru the Fullerton Observer article over five weeks after he removed me.
To the anonymous writer of this complete defamation, please give me your full name and address and I will take appropriate action against you. For you are a low life, a coward and a liar all wrapped together in one disgusting human being. (Please note that the only difference between the actions of Bruce Whitaker and the anonymous person commenting on the FFFF website is the fact that Bruce Whitaker gave us his name.) Please also give me the name of the employee that you allege I harassed!
To the administrator of the FFFF website (which was Travis Kiger and I suspect still is), I demand that you give me the IP address of the person who spewed out those defaming comments. I would ask you to do this on your site but you have already seen fit to block any more of my comments. So much for your so-called libertarian beliefs.
Fullertonians please take note that this is all that the phony and corrupt people supporting our corrupt city hall have as a defense. When they can’t handle the truth and when the heat gets too high, they turn to libel, slander and defamation. In other words, they have nothing to defend themselves, for you can’t defend yourself from the truth and the facts. So they make up totally false allegations in an attempt to assassinate someone’s character, namely mine in this case.
Is Bruce Whitaker telling another tall tale or worse?
I seriously doubt you will come out from the shadows because you know you are not being truthful and do not want to get sued. I have asked Bruce Whitaker to provide details to his false character assassination story. He has remained dutifully silent. What does that tell you about our Appointed Mayor?
There are some very morally bankrupt people participating and defending our city government. It it contemptuous that there are allegations given anonymously with the person allegedly harassed by me conveniently not identified, nor the nature of the alleged harassment. It is very simple that you can’t provide a name that does not exist. Your allegations are so, so dishonest, baseless with absolutely no specifics whatsoever. I deal with facts and if you can’t live with the facts I suggest that you change your behavior. I am putting those responsible for the FFFF website on notice that going forward I expect that you either do not post these defamations or respond to the defamations that they are to be ignored without the weight of any evidence.
FFFF’s Travis Kiger eating his …….
Why would these miscreants go to such lengths to defame me, when all I have done is to speak the truth and give the facts? For you see Fullertonians if that were not the case many of these big money special interests would have already filed lawsuits against me. They had nothing before and they have nothing now, but to lower themselves by defaming my character. All I can say when you read or hear these lies….Remember the Source (when they actually give the source, which is very infrequent).
Here’s Bruce Whitaker shovelin’ more …….
It is so very sad that Bruce Whitaker had a golden opportunity to make a difference if only he meant a small portion of the things he told his supporters and constituents. He failed us miserably over the past six and one-half years as a council member and now finds it necessary to defame me without any proof for any of his defaming remarks.
Barry Levinson
WHY ONLY HIGHLIGHTING UNFUNDED PENSION COSTS BUT IGNORING ALL OTHER FULLERTON CITY COUNCIL FAILINGS BY MAYOR BRUCE WHITAKER, COUNCIL MEMBER GREG SEBOURN, JENNIFER FITZGERALD, DOUG CHAFFEE AND JESUS SILVA IS A BIG MISTAKE AND CERTAINLY WILL NOT HAVE THE DESIRED EFFECT OF FULLERTON GOVERNMENT REFORM BY BARRY LEVINSON
Barry Levinson
There is absolutely no doubt that the biggest financial calamity facing California taxpayers created by our elected officials is the public pension unfunded liabilities followed by the public employee retiree health care unfunded liabilities.
Yet I have been making the point for some time now that as citizens we can’t ignore all the other falsehoods, misinformation and out and out lies given to us by our California elected and appointed officials at all levels of the government and expect to make real headway with pensions.
Why do I say this? It is rather simple really. How do you expect to get an honest handle on pension costs, when we allow our elected and appointed officials to mislead us on just about every important issue facing us today. You want objectivity, transparency, and honesty concerning pensions while letting our officials literally skate on almost everything else. Either we hold all of them accountable and that means they start being honest with us on everything or we throw all of them out and get elected officials who finally have our interests at the forefront of if not everything, at least most official actions they take as our duly elected representatives.
The fact that citizens who only address the big money issue of pensions and actually give cover to those who mislead and lie to us on so much else makes those citizens part of the entire problem and not part of the solution. You can not be honest with pensions and dishonest with everything else and expect a better outcome for both the taxpayers and the citizens of this once great state of California. There is nothing good to come out of supporting your crooked politician because he/she throws us a bone once in a blue moon. Unfortunately, the bone usually is hollow as well. It is usually political grandstanding and not real. So highlighting nothing other than skyrocketing pension costs will not get us where we need to be….which is for once getting a more honest, transparent government led by elected officials with equal parts integrity and courage.
So when will you pension writers start to call out the phonies who say they are for pension reform while lying to us on so many other very important issues and at the same time accomplishing little or nothing in the pension arena either.
A good start in the City of Fullerton would be to ask for the resignations of all Fullerton City Council members,
Whitaker,
Sebourn,
Fitzgerald,
Chaffee
and Silva
for their repealing a very good law based on false information and assumptions.
It was Fullerton Ordinance 3149, the Child Sex Offender Residency Restriction Act. Now formerly convicted child rapists, molesters, etc. can live right next door to any school, park, pre-school and day-care center in Fullerton thanks to each and every council member going along with a deceitful false premise provided by none other than Fullerton City Attorney, James Touchstone. That false premise was that the Fullerton ordinance covered all sex offenders when in fact it explicitly stated that it dealt specifically with only child sex offenders. The fact is that in no California court has the residency restriction of just child sex offenders every been adjudicated or challenged. The question then remains why would all five council members take action to benefit pedophiles while at the same time making it less safe for our children?
City attorney Dick Jones
It is a question that we the citizens of Fullerton deserve a complete and honest answer to! But I can guarantee that will never happen and that is precisely why they all need to be thrown out of office.
A VERY NECESSARY AND EXTREMELY IMPORTANT OPEN LETTER TO MAYOR BRUCE WHITAKER’S EMAIL RESPONSE TO JOE IMBRIANO BY JOE IMBRIANO AND BARRY LEVINSON
Posted by Joe Imbriano in Bruce Whitaker, Fullerton politics, FULLERTON PRAVDA, Greg Sebourn, Jesus Silva, Pedophile protectors on the Fullerton City Council on May 18, 2017
| receive and file issue |
Well it is obvious Mayor Whitaker that you should have known that the Milliman actuarial consultant was in attendance at the May 15, 2017 Fullerton City Council meeting because it was highlighted as the first sentence under Agenda Item No. 5 as follows: “John Botsford of Milliman, the City’s consulting actuary, will present the City’s updated actuarial analysis of Other Post-Employment Benefits (OPEB) liabilities.” Your claim that you had no idea that the consultant was present for the council meeting is ludicrous and ridiculous on its face.
You are telling us that you didn’t even read the agenda as Mayor when in fact it is your responsibility along with the City Manager to put out the Agenda itself. What are we the good people of Fullerton to make of your statement that you did not even read the Fullerton City Council Agenda prior to your leading the city council meeting? You are either totally incompetent or not being truthful with us. There are no other legitimate explanations for your behavior and statements. Shouldn’t you, Mr. so-called Fiscal Conservative, be aware of the costs to the taxpayer to bring that high priced consultant back again after you would have probably spent a few thousand taxpayer dollars to bring him down here for the May 15th meeting already?
Greg Sebourn made the motion to send the consultant packing
When Doug Chaffee is the only voice of reason on the council, you know we are in trouble
Why would you vote to postpone an agenda item that had already cost the city possibly thousands of dollars for this May 15th meeting, which required only the council’s action to Receive and File the item? In other words really no substantial action at all! Why would Greg Sebourn make a motion to postpone a Receive and File item to the next meeting and all of you very quickly concur with him?
Jesus Silva pondering the facts
In all cases when a motion to postpone an agenda item is being considered it should be necessary at the absolute minimum for that council member making that motion to explain why it is necessary to postpone the agenda item, especially at the very last moment as was the case here. The way this was handled was totally derelict by all of you. It demonstrated that you did not care about the great inconvenience you were willing to put the consultant and those Fullerton residents that were at the meeting or at home staying up to that late hour to hear this agenda item. We say shame on all of you for trying to avoid an agendized issue that obviously was embarrassing for all of you. Once again your action shows your complete disregard for the public.
Mayor Whitaker, you even added insult to injury by trying to skip public comments on this issue. How many times have you been mayor, Mr. Whitaker? We believe this is at least your third time. You keep on digging a bigger and bigger hole for yourself and it would take a Houdini like effort to now dig yourself out of this in our opinion.
You claim you quickly reversed the decision? No the city employee had to correct you and point out that it would be a great burden for this person to come down from the Bay Area and present at a later date. Not to mention your silence on the increased cost to the taxpayer by the councils original vote to postpone the item. He was there I assume based on your requested date and time. You have embarrassed yourself with this action and people who are paying attention will have plenty to discuss between now and the next election about your failings and we intend to lead those discussions.
The people of Fullerton more and more know the games you play. It is becoming a more and more common event for you and your fellow council members to mislead and or not to provide proper information on the important subjects we are dealing with.
We are also confused why David Curlee, Josh Ferguson and Tony Bushala, all present at the meeting had nothing to say on this item? They are people that highlight financial issues and they were all completely silent on a 35 million dollar unfunded liability. David Curlee and yourself have made it a point to discuss the propriety of $300/$400 a night city employee hotel bills in the recent past, yet now not a peep from either of you on a 35 million dollar unfunded Fullerton liability that will be have to come from us the taxpayers.
Finally, Greg Sebourn states that he will put on the agenda a discussion on having the city attempt to get a refund from the staircase contractor for obvious shoddy and substandard workmanship. Yet Sebourn never actually made a motion to get this on the agenda for the next meeting or for any meeting for that matter. Was this just political grandstanding by Sebourn? Why as Mayor and self proclaimed fiscal conservative, Mayor Whitaker did you not make that motion yourself?
How does it feel to remain silent on false claims about our Ordinance 3149, the Child Sex Offender Residency Restriction Act and then based on those false statements repeal a very good law. When will you or any member on the Fullerton City Council dais acknowledge what we have proved that City Attorney James Touchstone provided false information to justify his recommendation to repeal the Fullerton Ordinance? You stated that your votes are all appropriate. You call basing your vote on a previously proven misstatement of fact appropriate voting? You know with regard to that, you don’t have a leg to stand on. Mayor Whitaker, the guilt and the shame of your facial expressions when Diane and we were discussing this issue was so very telling. You voted along with all of your colleagues to repeal a Fullerton law based on a faulty presentation that helped to keep our children safe from pedophiles. You have repeatedly ignored the proof and evidence we showed all of you that the justification for your actions was based on falsehoods about the status and the language of Ordinance NO; 3149. Once again we say shame on all of you. It is hard to imagine a more damning set of circumstances that you now own concerning your action to intentionally lesson the safety of our children based on information you all knew was false. Shame on all of you.
WHY I BELIEVE THAT SUNRISE VILLAGE CAN ONLY BECOME HIGH-RISE, HIGH-DENSITY HOUSING WITH THE CORRUPT HELP OF OUR CITY COUNCIL? BY BARRYLEVINSON
Posted by Joe Imbriano in Bruce Whitaker, Fullerton politics, FULLERTON PRAVDA, Fullerton's downtown core and corridor, Greg Sebourn on April 27, 2017
Barry Levinson
Sunset on Sunrise Village: 600-800 high density wood framed death trap housing units coming to Sunny Hills
Posted by Joe Imbriano in Agenda 21, Bruce Whitaker, Fullerton's downtown core and corridor, Greg Sebourn, Joe Felz, Who's who in Fullerton politics on April 18, 2017
Sources to the Fullerton Informer have confirmed that the Sunrise Village Shopping center in Sunny Hills has been slated for development. The location of the proposed development lies on corner of Euclid and Rosecrans and is on the southeast leg of the fault. This property is in direct proximity to not one, but two dangerous fault lines.
http://maps.conservation.ca.gov/cgs/fam/
The Sunny hills branch of the Banc of California is set to close soon along with the rest of the businesses in the center. Just when you thought things couldn’t get worse for Fullerton, the thought of destroying another shopping center is before us once again. The job killing machine backed by the hacks in the chamber of commerce are running roughshod all over Fullerton and it has taken aim at the corner of Euclid and Rosecrans.
Don’t let the corsage fool you.
I have never seen a chamber of commerce so hell bent on running businesses out of town by bulldozing commercial properties. Well they tried the same crap in Raymond hills running the Polly’s shopping center into the ground making secret deals with developers last year but we blew the lid off of that and stopped it all the while CITY OFFICIALS DENIED IT WAS EVEN HAPPENING.
Beloved Polly’s Pies could still close to make way for massive highrise Section 8 housing project
They are not turning water into wine Ladies and gentlemen, they are turning the vital commercial property into housing and lots of it. Look around. Jobs are leaving Fullerton. Our commercial real estate inventory is dwindling fast and what is replacing them unlike single family homes, will have a half life.
You see when commercial property is turned into this, the jobs leave forever.
Over time these projects will become projects literally. They will become housing projects as the rents will always end up needing to be subsidized and we all know what happens when the voucher programs are expanded. The crime rate increases commensurately with the subsidies. You don’t do this to a middle class bedroom community.
10-15-or 20 years from now?
So you may ask yourself why is it that Fullerton cannot attract businesses and yet other neighboring cities can? It is simply because the long-term leases are not available due to the backroom deals with City officials, the investors and the property owners. Why are we selling off and bulldozing commercial property left and right? Maybe you ought to ask these people who continue to support candidates who engage in backroom deals and policies that are destroying Fullerton.
Curt Pringle developer operative Jennifer Fitzgerald has plenty to be ashamed of folks
Developer shill Bruce Whitaker
Planning commissioner Bennett
Establishment political operative Robyn Nordell with her pal Nelson-the gift that keeps on giving Fullerton the wrong leadership
Developer’s friend Greg Seaborn
This is their legacy to you and your children
The reason these commercial properties are being run into the ground is because the deals have already been made with city officials. Yes folks the die has already been cast.
No one in their right mind would risk evicting their tenants unless they knew the payload was on its way. These kinds of business decisions in an honestly run city are risky at best. Think about this. If you knew you had to overcome all kinds of obstacles at the municipal level to rezone your commercial property into an apartment complex such as hearings, noticings, EIR’s, commission meetings, approvals, plan checks, zoning, and of course the City Council, then would you risk kicking out out your tenants? Would you cut off your income stream completely or purchase a property not knowing if your plans for zone changes would not be guaranteed?
Well if you knew it was a foregone conclusion that you were going to get what you want from City officials, of course, you directly pass the craps table and parlay the whole thing on the rigged roulette wheel. That my friends is what is going on in Fullerton. Our city government is corrupt as hell and so is our press. Look who they backed in our last election.
Sunset on the Sunrise Village
More unemployment, more traffic, more pollution, more ruined roads, more everything except what Fullerton residents need most, jobs and shopping centers.
The wrecking ball will be very busy at this corner.
Lots of room here to build them stack em and packem high density housing units right next to an earthquake fault.
How many units can they stick on top of this Ms. Halluza?
The fact of the matter is that there is an active earthquake fault very close to where they are going to build 5 STORY WOOD FRAME UNITS.
Get ready to do battle with the phony and corrupt leaders you recently elected, with their rubber stamp appointees to the various commissions as well as the city employees whose salaries you are floating to exercise all of us through their endless line of insincere dog and pony shows. The developers are coming to Sunny Hills and with a vengeance folks.
They are going to turn this corner into
Remember when a shopping center is gone, it is gone for good along with all of the convenience it offered and the jobs it provided. Get involved and let the city officials know that they have no right to rezone any more commercial property mixed use residential or residential until they find the hundred million dollars that is missing that should have gone into fixing our roads and do something about the traffic.
And don’t blame me, I tried to warn you.
East Fullerton is Toast : The Fullerton College Town plan is back
Posted by Joe Imbriano in Bruce Whitaker, College Town, Doug Chafee, Greg Sebourn, Jesus Silva, Ryan Cantor on March 28, 2017
Fullerton’s corrupt city government tried to pass COLLEGE TOWN last year-an ill conceived corrupt East Fullerton plan to pack Cal State Fullerton with ten thousand more students on financial aid and out of state tuition rates in new apartments that no one will be able to afford unless the government is paying for them. They need the high priced enrollees to pay for the massive deficit that Cal State Fullerton is facing in terms of its payroll and benefit obligations. The solution is simple. Build upwards of 4000 ten story apartment units and fill them with students who will fetch three times the tuition rate. Yes fill the classrooms and apartments to the brim and sell the seats to the highest bidders. Guess who will be picking up the tab? Yes import 10,o00 more students that the government will pay three times the tuition as residents, that will edge out your children’s ability to attend and build them free housing that the government will pay for. Nice example of how your taxes are being used to screw you over and ruin your neighborhood. Folks that is what corrupt government does. Fullerton is run by corrupt people. Look no further than our roads.
The College Town plan calls for the closure of a freeway off ramp, the closure of Nutwood east of State College all the while to put in ten story buildings adding 4000 apartments. They will bulldoze Big Lots, Smart and Final, the 99 cent store, all the fast food restaurants east of State College and leave East Fullerton with no grocery stores and they expect us to take this laying down? The planning commission tried to pass the DCCSP a few years ago that would have lined hundreds of acres with 10 story high rise housing adding upwards of 100,000 more people to Fullerton. We stopped that too. Look folks, you cant make this stuff up. You have no idea how close this town came to looking like gridlocked Glendale a few years back while most of you were asleep.
Councilmember Greg Sebourn’s wife’s brother- Planning commissioner Mr. Gambino giving me the evil eye in February-This guy voted to pass the DCCSP that almost ruined Fullerton for good.
The DCCSP, College Town, and other schemes are alive and well ladies and gentlemen. They are just on ice for now and in some cases, one vote away from adding 100,000 people to this town. Fullerton is an Agenda 21 city with a Curt Pringle lobbyist named Jennifer Fitzgerald developer operative running around masquerading as our Mayor ladies and gentlemen. Wake the heck up people. Fitzgerald needs to go along with all the establishment hacks like Royce, Nelson, Bennett, Seaborn and Whitaker that put her there and give her pass after pass because they all have their hands in on all of this Kabuki theater on the council that is destroying Fullerton. College Town is coming back folks and they are going to ram this down your throats if you don’t get mad as hell and wake up. The City is ONCE AGAIN SEEKING INPUT ON THIS MONSTROSITY SO THIS MEANS IT IS TIME TO GET BUSY.
Well I warned you folks that this plan was going to be on ice and be resurrected at some point in the future. That old Planning Commission may have put it down temporarily but it is now going to be brought back. I fought hard against this nightmare last year and we were granted a reprieve but only for a short time.
The new council has stacked the deck on the planning commission with pro-development rubber stamps.
Establishment operative Ryan Cantor and pro-development big government rubber stamp plant Christopher Gaarder
We have a new planning commission and the ones installed to rubber stamp these line items will do just that. I warned them last month not to bring these items back. Well, they are going to push the envelope once again. I told them to not even think about it back in February. They don’t care. They were handpicked for a reason folks and that reason is to get projects through.
This massively destructive development for our beloved East Fullerton neighborhoods is headed back to the table. Well it is time to wake up folks. The city council will pass this nightmare when it is brought before them.
Curt Pringle is Jennifer Fitzgerald’s boss. Fitzgerald, Chafee, Seaborn, Silva and Whitaker all installed big development hacks to the planning commission back in January and Fitzgerald and Whitaker both took developer money during the last election.
This is not Ryans first adventure. As a Wireless radiation danger denier, he likes to make fun of my cosmology and the wireless sterilization agenda that is underway in our schools. He worked closely with Joe Felz and Chris Meyer to bamboozle the library board into handing over the Hunt Library for a firesale to Grace Ministries (pending council approval) We will see how he fares on planning.
The Upcoming College Town Proposal for Fullerton and Why It Deserves to be Voted Down
Quite frankly I was hoping to hear some positives for the citizens of Fullerton as it relates to the College Town proposal. Charles Kovacs provided the presentation of the project at a Park and Recreation Committee meeting. It was a Receive and File item, i.e. no recommendation of the project was sought from the committee by the city.
You see I had heard a number of negative issues relating to project such as additional traffic and a loss of a major thru street, Nutwood, and the associated on ramp from that street to the 57 Freeway.
Anyone who has lived in Fullerton for the last few decades knows that traffic has gotten progressively worse. As the city’s population and multi-story buildings have increased, the city has failed to keep up with its road system and its road maintenance as well. The results are that it now takes twice as long to drive across town as it did a mere decade ago.
Therefore, when another major building project gets announced, which includes reducing street access rather than improving our streets, one has to look at this with a jaundiced eye.
However, to be fair I hoped Mr. Kovacs would provide additional information about the project that would highlight some real positives for the city and also some major street improvement plans to handle the additional cars that would be added to our existing roads.
Well the positives that Mr. Kovacs provided our committee frankly were less than impressive. In fact in my opinion, they were almost nonexistent. Namely, a few new restaurants, (which based on past restaurants in the area I expect would be dominated by more fast food joints and a relatively small new grassy space where part of Nutwood Avenue used to be.
What Is The City Manager Thinking?
So if there are real negatives about the project such as greatly increased traffic and very few if any real positives for the people of Fullerton, why is the city pushing for this project so heavily? The one word answer is this…MONEY! All the city has to do is to keep approving high-rise buildings and the money desperately needed to bail out the city for past and current overspending and mismanagement comes rolling in.
You see that for every dwelling unit, no matter how small, each developer must pay an upfront Park dwelling unit fee of…$11,700. The College Town Plan calls for 3,400 residential units plus commercial and retail space as well. The 3,400 units alone, represents $39,780,000 (3,400 residential units x $11,700/per unit) in additional fees/taxes to the city. When our existing road system is already overburdened, you do not have to be a traffic engineer to know that adding thousands of additional cars will only make our traffic problems much worse. In addition to the increased number of cars, the closing of an important access to the 57 Freeway will only add to the traffic and congestion problem.
What out of control spending you may ask?
A $200 million unfunded pension liability/deficit (conservative estimate) and additional millions in retiree health care deficits. On top of all this, the city council with the votes of Fitzgerald, Flory and Chaffee last June 16, 2015approved a $2.8 million 2-year city budget deficit. They then later that year approved to spend additional millions in the form of a 6% raise to begin at the start of the new contracts for our safety workers. This does not include the hundreds of millions of dollars needed over the next decade to deal with our dilapidated roads, sewers and water pipes.
But not to worry because Council member Fitzgerald stated at the June 16, 2015 meeting the following: “And if it were not for the state increasing our PERS Rate we would have a balanced budget today.” How incredibly misleading of our current Mayor to make that statement? I say that because she strongly infers that the PERS rate increase was not at all caused by the city council but by the state. In fact, the exact opposite is true. The large PERS rate increase for the city, i.e. the taxpayers, was primarily caused by a previous vote in 2002 by a past Fullerton city council (including Ms. Flory), to retroactively greatly increase the Safety pension benefits to the current 3% a year at 50 years of age with a minimum of 30 years of service or a whopping 90% pension benefit for life. Ms. Fitzgerald is either greatly misinformed as to the cause of the PERS Rate increase or is not being honest with the people of Fullerton.
Council member Fitzgerald at the same June 16, 2016 meeting thought that the Park dwelling fee increase from $10,600 to $11,700 per dwelling unit was reasonable because the rate had been the same since 2008. This was the same thing we, the Parks and Recreation Committee were told by Director Curiel. Had I known the whole story, I would have been against this $1,100 dollar increase. What Ms. Fitzgerald and Director Curiel failed to mention to the Council and P and R Committee, respectively was that in 2008 that same fee was raised from $3,827 dollars to the aforementioned $10,600 dollars for an incredible 206% rate increase year over year.
It would seem that the goal of the majority of our city leaders is to collect vast sums of additional revenue in the form of additional fees and taxes so that the city does not have to reform the pensions as promised us and make other tough decisions going forward.
The Fullerton special interests win big and the citizens of Fullerton loose big. But you thought the city council and the city manager worked for the citizens. Well unfortunately, apparently not this city council and not this city manager.
Barry Levinson calls out the self-serving, disingenuous, deceitful and deplorabe Fullerton City Council
Posted by Joe Imbriano in Bruce Whitaker, Doug Chafee, Fullerton politics, Greg Sebourn, Jesus Silva on March 22, 2017
Fullertonians are simply tired and disgusted with the self-serving, disingenuous political games that are played out at our council meetings. Just since the beginning of this year alone, this council has disgraced itself and shown that all too often your votes do not support the very people that you are charged to represent. Here is a partial list of your recent deceitful and deplorable actions.
- We witnessed the false claims of our Mayor Bruce Whitaker who brought back settled business in the form of changing our election schedule. This will result in allowing Greg Sebourn to run for re-election in 2018 in the third district after serving his full four-year term. Mayor Bruce Whitaker placed this back on the agenda resulting in disenfranchising the second district from 2018 to 2020, while at the very same time giving the third district not one but two representatives, Greg Sebourn or a challenger and Jesus Silva. This action of Mayor Bruce Whitaker results in undermining the whole purpose for the district elections.
- The Council continues to ignore the will of the people by approving Agenda 21 high-density buildings. The city council votes to change zoning requirements and ignore our General Plan to allow developers free rein in our city.
Council member Jennifer Fitzgerald’s actions are the most troubling, as she was heavily involved in creating our latest General Plan. Questions for Council member Fitzgerald: Why do think it is proper to ignore our General Plan and the vast majority of the public? Does it have to do with your VP position with Curt Pringle and Associates?
- Finally the City Attorney’s arguments to repeal Ordinance 3149, our former child sex offender residency restriction law, misrepresented important facts and mislead the public about the legal status of that ordinance. The council’s unanimous decision to turn its backs on our children because a convicted child sex offender not even living in Southern California filed seventeen lawsuits throughout the state is shameful. Our city council did not want to spend the relatively few dollars defending a very good law. The residency restrictions only applied to child sex offenders not all sex offenders, which has not been adjudicated by any California court. There was simply no justifiably good reason to repeal it at this time.
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