Question to Mayor Whitaker. As he prepares to have the last of his “Talk Around the Town” meetings with the public where he asks people to bring him questions, why has he not answered specific and direct questions that were posed by his then Park and Recreation Committee appointee, namely myself, one Barry Levinson? I SMELL A COMPLETE AND TOTAL FRAUD AND PHONY HERE! I ask that someone take the above list and ask the good Mayor for answers to any and all of the above ignored issues by him!

Nothing to be proud of

BARRY LEVINSON COUNTING THE MANY WAYS THAT COUNCIL MEMBER WHITAKER HAS FAILED THE GOOD PEOPLE OF FULLERTON AS FOLLOWS:

1. Bruce Whitaker voted to place Ma’Ayn Johnson, a S.C.A.G. senior planner to our Fullerton Planning Committee. S.C.A.G, the Southern California Association of Governments, has been pushing for high-rise, high-density development and the elimination of the automobile as agents of the United Nations Agenda 21 for decades.   S.C.A.G is the largest unelected, taxpayer funded, governmental agency in the country and so-called limited government, Bruce Whitaker voted for her to be on our Fullerton Planning Commission when he himself stated there were 17 well-qualified candidates.  This from a politician who claims to be for limited government.   So what does total phony politician Bruce Whitaker do but vote for someone who is part of an unelected government body.  That Fullertonians is taxation without representation.  That goes against the principles of a constitutional republic. His wife incredulously stated sometime after this vote by Whitaker that he is against S.C.A.G.  Whitaker to this day has never explained why he voted for a senior planner working for S.C.A.G.   What a guy!  What a phony politician!

2.  Bruce Whitaker refused to respond verbally or in writing to my (Barry Levinson’s) extremely well documented analysis of a 4 to 5 million-dollar finding concerning the Fullerton Golf Course.  I am a trained auditor with an MBA and work experience with Ernst and Young, a worldwide CPA firm as well as 12 years as an Internal auditor at the Corporate Headquarters of Northrop Grumman Corporation.  A total of 35 years of accounting and auditing experience ignored by the Council member who appointed me to the Fullerton Park and Recreation Commission and gave no reason. I believe the reason he removed me is simple. I was apparently getting in the way of the city doing its corrupt, phony deals.   I am referring to deals such as the DCCSP, College Town, the Summit House lease extension, and the Revised DCCSP (which would have also removed Polly’s Pies from its current long-time address and basically removed one of the few shopping centers in the eastern part of Fullerton).  What a guy!  What a phony politician!

3. A short time after he chose not to deal with my very large, extremely well documenting and supported finding, he asks for the establishment of an Audit Committee for our City.  Of course his motion got no support and it died immediately.  Was this by design?  Was Bruce Whitaker being a hypocrite?  Did Bruce ever discuss an audit committee with me or ask me as an auditor by trade to sit on such a Committee or give him input as to how to best set one up?  NO.  What a guy!  What a phony politician!

4. Bruce Whitaker voted to repeal our Pedophile Residency Restriction Ordinance based on false information that the Fullerton law restricted all sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of a school, park or licensed day-care center provided by City Attorney James Touchstone.  In my public comments I made the point that our law specifically applies to only child sex offenders, not all sex offenders.  The only negative court decisions related to laws that restricted all sex offenders.   There was no case law against our much narrower Fullerton law, which impacted only child sex offenders.

Mr. Touchstone in presenting this agenda item to the Fullerton City Council took exception with my comments.  He stated as follows:

“With respect, I must disagree with Mr. Levinson and his comments.  Specifically, I am looking at the language before you right now of the municipal; code and it states that any sex offender is prohibited from residing within 2,000 feet of any school, park or day care center.”  What Touchstone who helped write the law failed to tell the city council members was the definition of sex offender provided by the ordinance at 7.150.020H of the Fullerton Municipal Code is as follows:

“Sex offender means any person required by law to register with government entity as a sex offender for an offense against or involving a child or children, including, but not limited to, the California Sex Offender Registration Act, Penal Code Section 290, et seq.”

Mayor Bruce Whitaker ignored my comments completely and the Fullerton City Council never acknowledged the correction that I brought forth.  But more importantly the city council voted at the second hearing for the ordinance to make it law with a unanimous vote again after I proved the City Attorney’s presentation was fatally flawed.  Bruce Whitaker and the rest of the city council should be ashamed of themselves to allow a complete and proven falsehood to be used as an excuse to repeal a very important law for the protection of all our children from pedophiles.   What kind of a guy allows false information from our City Attorney to be used to support the repeal of a law helping to protect children?  The answer is Mayor Bruce Whitaker and the rest of the city council members.  What a guy!   What a phony and unethical politician!

5. Bruce Whitaker in a November 2014 council meeting stated that there was absolutely no evidence to support the charges brought against me by former Police Chief Dan Hughes.   At that meeting Dan Hughes admitted that he could hate that guy (referring to me) and that he took total control of the investigation himself.   When was the last time that any police chief took total control of an investigation including contacting people to interview them and then write the police report to the OC District Attorney recommending that they prosecute me?   The answer is probably never or at least never in an honest police department.  All this time the city, i.e. the police department would not make public the video camera tape where this so-called incident took place.   A few weeks after the OCDA refused to charge me with a crime for lack of evidence, the city video was made public and it showed that no crime, no incident took place.   Yet after a few others and I asked Bruce Whitaker and the rest of the council to open up an independent investigation on this matter, Whitaker and the rest of the council totally ignored our requests.   What kind of a man acknowledges that the police pursuit of me certainly seemed to be all political payback based on nothing and yet drops the matter totally?  That kind of a weak, cowardly man is none other than current Mayor Bruce Whitaker.   The fact that he still sits on the Fullerton City council dais is shameful enough but to now want a huge promotion after the scandalous way he has handled himself is something only an extremely arrogant, self-center phony politician could do with a straight face.  What a guy!  What a phony politician!

6. Bruce Whitaker voted for the absolute worst redistricting map, which I call the high-density, high-rise developers and downtown nightclub owners’ map.   It is the only map presented to the council that basically disenfranchises the good people who live in and around the downtown area of Fullerton.  Rather than being in primarily one district, Popoff’s map divides our downtown residents into five small pieces attached to other neighborhoods throughout Fullerton. This is taxation without adequate representation.  Jeremy Popoff, the owner of the Downtown Fullerton Slidebar and a $1,500 contributor to Bruce Whitaker’s past campaigns, wrote this map.  Is this a coincidence or not?  What a guy!  What a phony politician!

7. Bruce Whitaker voted to make Jennifer Fitzgerald our Mayor almost guaranteeing her to be reelected with the help of the title Mayor on the ballot.  I bring this up because so very often in speaking with me he stated how much he disagreed with so many of Council member Fitzgerald’s votes.   What a guy!   What a phony politician!

8. The Agenda item to extend an existing Summit House Restaurant lease deal, which sits on Fullerton City Park land was shameful.  The Summit House, not the city already controlled options with the exact same terms including lease revenue to the city to the year 2041.   In other words the Summit House was in the drivers seat until the year 2041 or 26 years from the date of this agenda item.  But the Summit House wanted more and our totally inept and/or corrupt city council and city manager wanted to give them two additional 10-year lease extensions with the exact same terms all the way to October 2061.

This meant that the city council intentionally bypassed the Park and Recreation Committee for this important agenda issue.  I was the only speaker at public comments to point out how the city manager and the city council wrongly bypassed the Park and Recreation Committee.   Based on my bringing this failure by the city to the attention of all that night, it resulted in it supposedly going back to our committee for its recommendation before it went to council.  Guess what, a little over a month later I learned that the agenda item was withdrawn by the Summit House Restaurant owner.

Question:  Would any reasonable businessman leasing out property accept extending a lease with the same current terms for the next 46 years?  Why didn’t Bruce Whitaker inform me as his appointee to the Park and Recreation Committee, that this agenda item had wrongly bypassed the Park and Recreation Committee by the city?

Question:  Was Bruce Whitaker part of this plan to bypass the P and R Committee?  If not, why did he not contact me as his appointed to that committee when he received his council member agenda package several days in advance.   The agenda package clearly stated that the lease extension was recommended by the Park and Recreation Department and not the Park and Recreation Committee, which is the normal procedure.  What a guy!  What a phony politician!

9. Late last year, Bruce Whitaker complained about having to vote on a grant application due to a fast approaching deadline that had not yet been actually filled out by the city.  I spoke at the very next city council meeting and informed Whitaker and the rest of the council that all they had to do to solve this problem permanently was to make it mandatory that staff present agenda items not at the last minute but rather at least 2 meetings prior to any deadline.  In this way any information absent could be provided by the next meeting assuring that the council and the public had all the information necessary to make a fully informed decision.  You would think that every council member especially Bruce Whitaker would be thrilled to finally have a permanent solution to an ongoing problem.   But neither Council member Whitaker nor any other council members ever referred to my very easy and quick solution.  I have to surmise that Bruce Whitaker’s objection to a grant application without it being filled out was just political gamesmanship to win some points with his constituents.   For if he was serious about fixing the ongoing problem he would have pounced on my easy solution immediately.  No he ignored my suggestion completely.  How sad it is when our politicians are exposed for what they all too often are, which are totally phony self-centered individuals.  What a guy!  What a phony politician!

10. Just last month as Mayor he lead a unanimous vote to appoint David Hendricks our next Fullerton Police Chief.   Forty percent of the council was absent that night but Whitaker led the charge to appoint him nevertheless.   This shows the arrogance of Whitaker and the council to not wait until all were present to hear all the comments by the public about Hendricks prior to making their final decision.   That vote with only 60% of the council present should have never taken place.  Yet Whitaker allowed it to happen on his watch as Mayor.  I guess we can conclude that this was just another of one of his mental lapses concerning his fiduciary responsibility to his constituents.  What a guy!  What a phony politician!

11. Whitaker takes no responsibility for all of his political failures.  When confronted with the facts that except for legalizing fireworks he has accomplished nothing in his 6 plus years of service, his lame answer is always the same.  His answer to these legitimate critiques is that he is only 1 person out of 5 on the dais.   What he fails to tell us that Bruce Whitaker has been part of the majority as a Republican the entire time he has represented Fullerton.  In fact, he has had either a 4 to 1 majority or a 3 to 2 majority the entire time of his service.   Yet now he wants to represent us in the State Senate where he will be one voice out of dozens and his party will be a small minority not the majority he has had for all his time on the Fullerton City Council dais.

12. To those who believed and trusted Bruce Whitaker to represent us honestly based on his many years of his pontificating fiscally conservative values and limited government solutions, he has let us all down.  He had such a golden opportunity to make a real difference in our City and instead especially over the past 2 years he decided to place politics and his own ambition in front of the needs of the people he swore to represent.

Concluding Remarks:  Bruce Whitaker told me almost two year’s ago that he was planning to run for Shawn Nelson’s OC Supervisory seat when it became available in November 2018.   As recently as a month or two ago on a local news show, he reiterated that he intended to run for Nelson’s Supervisor’s seat.  Yet at the last minute he has changed his mind to run for the 29^thCa. Senate seat, now held by Josh Newman. First he wants to represent the people in his District of Orange County on local county issues and now he wants to be in the State Senate dealing with statewide issues.  Why the sudden switch?  I would guess that after Young Kim threw her hat into the supervisor’s race and got the lion’s share of support from local Republican Ca. elected officials, he decided to abruptly change course.  Or maybe he just saw an opportunity to snag a large six-figure paycheck a year earlier.  Does he really care about Fullertonians or is he just looking for that big six-figure paycheck on the government dole for a part-time job whether it is as a member of the OC Supervisors or whether it be a State representative?

With all this factual documentation showing Bruce Whitaker’s actions that goes against his so-called constitutional, limited government philosophy, any conservative who still votes for Bruce Whitaker must have his or her head buried deep in the ground.   The only smart move by the electorate is to not ignore all the facts that I have presented in this article.  His turning his back on his most loyal supporters can’t and should not be rewarded with a large promotion.  You have let us down big time Council member Bruce Whitaker and hopefully now you will have to pay a political price for your phony political choices and  your lack of leadership.

We have now come to learn that the image is so, so different than reality.  All of the above examples prove Bruce Whitaker’s betrayal of his so-called constitutional conservative, limited government philosophy. Anyone objective enough to absorb the facts presented here now knows that the reality falls far short from the carefully cultivated image.

Let me state for the record that anyone who decides to vote for Bruce Whitaker with the “lesser of two evils” argument is only fooling themselves.   A public servant who in my opinion is deceptive, disingenuous and repeatedly fails to follow his own supposed principles does not deserve your vote.

A Few Final Questions For The Fullerton Public As Follows:

1. How in good conscience could any parent, grandparent, aunt or uncle vote for a man, Bruce Whitaker who allowed proven false information about a Fullerton ordinance to be justification to repeal a very good law protecting Fullerton children from pedophiles?

2. How in good conscience can any voter support Bruce Whitaker after stating during a city council meeting that there was no evidence to support the recommendation by Police Chief Dan Hughes to have the OCDA indict me with a misdemeanor crime and then totally drops the ball? There was certainly much evidence that the investigation led by former Police Chief Dan Hughes, was extremely biased based on his stating to Whitaker that he hated the guy, referring to myself and his acknowledgement that he himself led the entire investigation, i.e. witch hunt from start to finish against me. There was however, incontrovertible evidence that proved my innocence and it was totally ignored by Dan Hughes.   Why do you think Dan Hughes ignored evidence that was always controlled by the city namely the City videotape, which would have proven that there was no evidence to accuse me of any crime whatsoever?  This is a textbook case of police  abuse of power and a blatant attempt by Dan Hughes to make me a political prisoner.  At the same time this evidence, the videotape, was hidden from the public for months, which 100% proved my innocence.   Even though the investigation of the handling of this case by the FPD was requested by at least three people, two others and myself at city council meetings, Whitaker remained shamefully and cowardly silent on getting to the bottom of this apparent criminal misuse of police power.   When you state there is a serious possible criminal misbehavior by the head of the Fullerton police department and Whitaker strongly inferred the same and then failed to take any action to investigate the alleged criminal abuse by the FPD, this defines the antithesis of a leader or a statesman. Again phony, corrupt and cowardly politician Bruce Whitaker never requested that any investigation be conducted to get to the bottom of this apparent total disregard for the law by our own police chief.

3. How in good conscience could any Fullerton voter cast his or her precious vote for a man who makes a mockery of the very things he has told us he stands for time and time again over his long and not very distinguished political career?

In 2012, Fullertonians by almost a 2 to 1 majority informed Bankhead, McKinley and Jones that we have had enough of them.  Let us send a loud and very clear message that now we have no confidence in Bruce Whitaker in any position of political power.

I report,  you decide.

Barry Levinson