BY BARRY LEVINSON

JENNIFER FITZGERALD

‘I think it is both fitting and appropriate that I am penning this article on the 4th of July, Independence Day.

Councilmember Fitzgerald’s June 30, 2014 article entitled “Fullerton Councilmember Responds: New COIN Ordinance Has Teeth” is referring to my last article about C.O.I.N. dated June 25, 2014 without mentioning my name. She states that Supervisor Moorlach’s five components are in the Fullerton ordinance. She conveniently ignores every specific fact comparison I make for each of the 5 components. How is that responding to my very real concerns that the Fullerton ordinance will not make any major improvements to the transparency, timeliness and accountability of Fullerton’s labor negotiation process?

Let us first start out with the keys to a good C.O.I.N. ordinance. The keys are transparency, openness, timeliness and accountability. Let us take up that subject as it may relate to Ms. Fitzgerald. Let us go to her byline entitled ”About the Author”. She tells you “she serves on the Board of Directors for the Association of California Cities-Orange County Chapter and the Orange County Taxpayers Association and is a Past President of the Fullerton Chamber of Commerce.” Yet she leaves out what she does for a living and who is her current employer. Why would she not tell the audience how she earns a living? So I will tell you. She is currently Vice President of Curt Pringle and Associates which describes themselves on their Facebook page as follows:

“About
Curt Pringle & Associates is a full-service public relations, public affairs and government relations firm, providing a wide range of services to both private and public sector clients.

General Information
The Curt Pringle & Associates team works collaboratively to maximize our knowledge, expertise and experience in tailoring a comprehensive strategy to fit the client’s specific goals, resources and abilities.

While we are perhaps best known for our governmental advocacy efforts, employing an extensive breadth of relationships with elected and appointed officials throughout southern California and at the State Capitol*, we are also well versed in the areas of land use entitlement, public outreach, crisis communications and media relations, and have produced substantial benefits in each of these fields for numerous clients.”

I would very much like Councilmember Fitzgerald to tell us why she left out this very important detail in describing herself. I would say what one does for a living could have a direct impact on various public policy positions especially when that is her business as VP of Curt Pringle and Associates as well as her elected obligation and duty as Fullerton Councilmember as well. Could it be that this is the very reason why Ms. Fitzgerald failed to mention her executive position with Curt Pringle and Associates?
I REPORT, YOU DECIDE.

There is an excellent quote whose author I do not know. The quote is as follows:

“You are entitled to your own opinions, but you are not entitled to your own facts.”

It simply means that you are entitled to any opinion without the boundaries of accuracy, factuality, or even sanity. Facts by the very definition of the word, does not allow you to have your own set of facts simply because you are not the arbiter of those facts like you are with your own opinions. I know politicians wish that they could have their own set of facts and many times act like they are entitled to have their own set of facts. However, I am here to tell them unequivocally that they do not have that right if they also want to be honest communicators of the truth.

Therefore, Ms. Fitzgerald certainly is entitled to her opinions but she is certainly not entitled to her own brand of facts.

My earlier article took the five major components of a good C.O.I.N ordinance and found shortcomings in the just passed counterfeit CO.I.N. ordinance thanks to the yes votes by Mayor Chaffee and Councilmembers Fitzgerald and Flory.

It is interesting that for each specific shortcoming that I factually pointed out, Ms. Fitzgerald did not address directly any of them. I would call that rather non-responsive.

For instance, let us give the reader two examples starting with component No. 1 Independent Negotiator. This is part of what I wrote as follows:

“Under Moorlach’s component, an independent negotiator is a requirement for all negotiations.  Under Fullerton ordinance Section B.1. Principal Negotiator second paragraph states as follows: “The requirement for an outside negotiator may be waived by a majority vote of City Council.”
Therefore, since the current council put this out clause into the ordinance they must want to be able to waive the independent negotiator requirement at their convenience with a simple majority vote. If a majority of our current council wanted a truly independent process there would be no language in the ordinance to allow for the independent negotiator’s status to be tampered with by this council or for any future council as well.
Ms. Fitzgerald did not address this critical fact in her response.

For Component No. 2., Cost of Contracts, I wrote the following:

“Under Moorlach’s component the independently elected Auditor-Controller reviews the costs of proposed contracts and provides the information to all parties and the public before any contractual finalization can take place.”  In the Fullerton version it states at A.1., Annual Analysis of Costs and Liabilities, second paragraph, as follows: “The annual fiscal analysis shall be submitted to the City’s independent auditor during the course of the annual City financial audit.” Under Fullerton law, there is no requirement to provide this information prior to the signing of the labor negotiation contracts, relegating the independent auditor’s information basically worthless because the public does not receive it in a timely manner.  Therefore, the second component’s only purpose is not carried out under the Fullerton law.”
Ms. Fitzgerald failed to address this critical point as well. To use her vernacular….CHECKMATE!

I would also like to make one very important observation. I have been regularly attending Fullerton council meetings since early 2010. In those 4.5 years, any agenda item that even had the hint of potentially reducing union power, control and especially their salaries and benefits of their members always resulted in many, many city employees attending and speaking out at those meetings. Not one city employee, not one union president or member spoke out against the recently passed Counterfeit C.O.I.N. ordinance. Ladies and gentlemen doesn’t that tell you all you really need to know about which version of C.O.I.N., the Costa Mesa version or the Fullerton version is going to work best for the taxpayers of Fullerton.

In conclusion, Ms. Fitzgerald is certainly entitled to her opinions, but she is not entitled to her own facts. Unfortunately, we the people of Fullerton believed her when she told us that she would support an effective C.O.I.N. ordinance for the city of Fullerton. Now we know her opinion about C.O.I.N., and now the reader knows the facts.
Post Script: What is truly sad is that Ms. Fitzgerald as well as Ms. Flory and Mr. Chaffee will be asked to account for these and other shortcomings in the Fullerton ordinance in upcoming Fullerton city council meetings by the public and they will most likely not respond to any of the public’s questions. Is this the kind of government that our forefathers envisioned or is this the kind of government they feared might materialize while the public was not closely watching our city leaders?

BARRY LEVINSON

I REPORT, YOU DECIDE. By Barry Levinson

Barry Levinson

C.O.I.N (Civic Openness in Negotiations) – Well a few of us tried valiantly to persuade two other Fullerton council members in addition to our consistent friend and advocate for the people, Council member Whitaker to reject the City of Fullerton’s sham version of labor negotiation reform. Diane Hickey and I presented a comparison between the two tales of “good” government. The real version known as the Costa Mesa version and than the cynical, phony, corrupt version hoisted upon us at council last night by Human Resources Director Gretchen Beatty with the blessings I suspect from her boss, City Manager, Joe Felz.  Read the rest of this entry »

• I REPORT, YOU DECIDE. By Barry Levinson
• 

  BARRY LEVINSON

  This is my first opportunity to compare an excellent law, the CostaMesa Ordinance on Civic Openness in Negotiations (C.O.I.N.) vs. theFullerton Draft C.O.I.N Ordinance, which can be passed into law by a

  vote of our city council on Tuesday, June 17th 2014.

   

  Costa Mesa’s Civic Openness in Negotiations ordinance was

  designed to make public employee salary and benefit negotiations

  open and transparent to the public and to all members of the city

  council as well.

  First, the Costa Mesa ordinance makes it clear that “the city shall

  have prepared on its behalf, by an independent auditor, …. a

  study and supplemental data upon which the study is based,

  determining the fiscal impacts attributed to each term and condition of

  employment.”

  More importantly “the above report and findings of the independent

  auditor shall be completed and made available for review by the city

  council and the public at least thirty days before consideration by the

  city council of an initial meet and confer proposal to be presented

  to any recognized employee organization regarding negotiation

  of an amended, extended, successor, or original memorandum of

  understanding.”

  Finally, “the above report shall be regularly updated by the

  independent auditor to itemize the costs and the funded and

  unfunded actuarial liability which would or may result form adoption or

  acceptance of each meet and confer proposal.”

  The draft Fullerton C.O.I.N. ordinance includes none of the above

  specific steps to ensure the public is being kept informed with

  accurate and timely data and information.

   

  What does our draft ordinance include? It includes the following:

  “Staff shall prepare an annual analysis of cost and liabilities related to

  each Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between a recognized

  employee association and the city of Fullerton …”. “The annual fiscal

  analysis shall be submitted to the City’s independent auditor during

  the course of the annual City financial audit.”

  Please notice ladies and gentlemen that this audit takes place

  annually, probably after the conclusion and the signing of the labor

  agreements. Learning of an error after a 3 or 5-year agreement has

  been signed, sealed and delivered is meaningless. How convenient

  for all city employees that City Manager Joe Felz and staff would

  rewrite this ordinance in this fashion. The auditing required under

  the Fullerton Draft Ordinance is a waste of money because it is not

  completed on a timely basis.

  Second, the Fullerton draft excludes the Report Format, which

  provides the framework and necessary detail to understand the

  impacts of various items in the proposals.

  Third, if the two items above do not derail the true purpose of

  C.O.I.N. then a simple majority of the council can do away with the

  requirement to have an independent negotiator. This part of the draft

  ordinance is ridiculous on its face. You take a cornerstone of the

  concept of C.O.I.N. and you make it optional with the vote of 3 out of

  5 members of the council. Section B.1 entitled Principal Negotiator,

  states “The requirement for an outside negotiator may be waived by a

  majority vote of City Council.”

  Fullerton city leaders have taken an open, fair and effective law for all

  parties and made it into a paper tiger.

  This is my first review of the Fullerton C.O.I.N. draft ordinance and

  you can see by the length of this critique that the two ordinances

  have far more differences than key points in common. In fact, I would

  be hard pressed to see any of the Costa Mesa key points being

  brought forward to our Fullerton ordinance. Based on all the above

  facts, it would not be far from the truth to state that our Fullerton

  ordinance literally guts the effectiveness of the Costa Mesa law.

  My recommendation is that we throw out this draft in its entirety. We

  start again with the Costa Mesa Ordinance as our draft ordinance as

  originally brought before this council some 7 months ago by Council

  member Whitaker. If any council members want to change any of

  the Costa Mesa requirements they should have documented valid

  reasons why their change would be for the better and each change

  should be voted on separately by our council.

  In my humble opinion, the Costa Mesa Civic Openness in

  Negotiations Ordinance is an excellent law. The only fault that some

  may find with it (certainly not me) is that it will actually accomplish its

  proclaimed purpose.—BARRY LEVINSON

I REPORT, YOU DECIDE.-by Barry Levinson

I attended the Fullerton Republican Women’s Federated meeting on May 28, 2014. The guest speaker was our Police Chief Dan Hughes. He gave an interesting if somewhat disjointed speech. He indicated that it was good for his department to acknowledge when they do not live up to the highest standards. Yet, he then referred to activists and complained that whatever the FPD actually does, these activists are going to complain about his department.

Dan, either you want legitimate criticism or you want to bitterly complain whenever a member of the public has a legitimate beef with the FPD. Your speech certainly sent out mixed messages much like that famous pair, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

He also handed out the 2013 FPD Annual Report, which he indicated was the first one published since way back in 1967.

In it I noted that for 2013, the FPD Supervisor of the Year was none other than Sergeant Kevin Craig, the highest-ranking officer present during the beating death of Kelly Thomas. Craig, you may recall, testified in late 2013 or January 2014 for the defense of Ramos and Cicinelli, claiming that none of the actions taken by any of his fellow officers, including himself that night were indeed against FPD policy. It seemed rather odd that even before the criminal trial had begun, Dan Hughes chose this man to be his star performer.

Why, Dan, did you fire Ramos, Cicinelli and Wolfe, when your Supervisor of the Year testified that they did nothing wrong? Your training officer, Corporal Rubio also testified that they did absolutely nothing wrong.

I guess those officers were just walking by and Kelly Thomas just happened to repeatedly strike himself in the head, face, body, etc. and died. I guess Kelly Thomas asked Fullerton Police Officer, Jay Cincinelli if he could borrow his taser, so Kelly could inflict maximum damage to his own face. I guess it was just those 6 officers’ misfortune that they happened to be on their normal rounds when that terrible incident occurred.

One must accept the above scenario as the truth to be able to understand why not one of those 6 officers ever spent a night in jail. But those pesky activists — you know, the protestors — Dan Hughes will make darn sure that they spend some time behind bars. Because that is the fair-minded, not-politically-motivated police chief we are so lucky to have represent us in the most ethically run city in the state of California. Count your blessings, Fullertonians. The city of Bell has nothing over us. After all, they just stole money, not a life!

I forgot to tell all of you, that our police chief kept on repeating one point over and over again during his presentation. That point was that Dan Hughes just does not pay any attention to the politics within Fullerton. No, he just sends 6 police officers, including 2 supervisors as well as several police vehicles to Pasadena for half a day to arrest AJ for a misdemeanor failure to disperse.

I now have learned from Jean Thaxton’s public comments at last council meeting that Dan Hughes put together a police committee to review the tape of the Ramos, Cicinelli not guilty protest that took place on January 18, 2014. Based on that review, FPD filed that non-violent misdemeanor charge against peaceful protester and live streamer, AJ Redkey for failure to disperse (failure I guess to not disperse quickly enough for Dan Hughes because others have alleged that the same tape shows Mr. Redkey running from the protest area at the time the police asked the protestors to disperse). We all know that had to be the highest priority for our FPD that day. Clearly, if AJ Redkey was the most dangerous “suspect” that needed to be arrested that day 40 miles away in Pasadena, and you could afford to send 6 officers to make that arrest, then I would humbly point out that the FPD is greatly overstaffed!

By the way, it is my understanding that the most common way, the easiest way and probably the cheapest way to make that arrest was to call the Pasadena Police Department and ask them to make that arrest. I guess that easy solution never crossed your mind, Chief Hughes. I guess the next question is why did that simple and easy solution never cross your mind? Or maybe it was personal to you Dan Hughes, like the game of political payback! Just like the reports that the FPD riot police who taunted those protestors who were arrested on January 18th, 2014 with saying the words Not Guilty over and over again! If true, it shows a great lack of maturity and professionalism by those officers.

But unfortunately for the good people of Fullerton, the alleged bad acts of one or more Fullerton police officers do not end there. In fact, it was reported that those 10 arrested protestors complained that their very lives were threatened by at least one Fullerton police officer who was transporting them to jail. These protestors complained that they were threatened that when they arrived at the Orange County jail all their faces (including both men and women) will be smashed in by 12 waiting OC Sheriff Deputies. Yet when Dan Hughes was asked whether he had reviewed the DAR’s (Digital Audio Recorder’s) of those officers to investigate those extremely serious charges, our open and honest police chief remained totally silent.

PS: It is now over a month and counting when I first asked Dan Hughes to tell me the name of the Officer who replaced Reserve Officer Bill Wallis performing the very important role of monitoring and enforcing Fullerton’s Sex Offender population. I am becoming suspicious that Dan has not and maybe does not want to hire a replacement for Bill Wallis. That would certainly have the same or greater chilling effect as repealing our Ordinance No. 3149. No manpower, no enforcement, no protection for both our children and our women from dangerous sexual predators.

Barry Levinson

Barry Levinson

There are many people who are upset about the FPD sending 6 police officers and several vehicles all the way up to Pasadena for a half day just to arrest AJ Redkey on a misdemeanor warrant, for failure to disperse during the January 18th protest over the not guilty verdicts of Ramos and Cincinelli. On June 3rd you will have the opportunity to speak before our city council. This issue is on the agenda as Item No. 9 under Regular Business. It will be very interesting if our Police Chief responds to questions from our council members if not from the public.

FPD chief Dan Hughes

Every time I think of that arrest the only two words that make any sense are; political payback! Unless, AJ is a violent felon (and based on all newspaper reports this is not the case), the FPD’s actions are indefensible. Please note that all 5 people streaming (broadcasting) over the internet during the Kelly Thomas not guilty verdict protest on January 18th, 2014 were arrested by the FPD. Coincidence or payback! Remember it was reported that those that were arrested that day while in the police van were heckled by the FPD’s finest with the chant….Not Guilty, Not Guilty! If true just another example of the total lack of professionalism of some of our men and women in blue. I believe that story because I personally know a woman who was not allowed to use a bathroom that day within FPD headquarters after 2 police officers asked her if she was a protester. She said she was peacefully protesting and they told her to take a hike. This woman had major surgery a few days prior and any fool could see that medically she was not doing well. I happened to talk with her right after this alleged innocent and I believe her story 100%. But I guess it was not those 2 officers day to serve and protect the public. 

Dan you must be so proud of those 2 officers for refusing a sick woman the “privilege” to use our taxpayer funded FPD bathroom as well as those officers in full riot gear taunting those arrested protesters. A reasonable person would begin to notice a pattern of harassment, by taunting some of the citizens they come into contact with. We all witnessed for ourselves the taunting of Kelly Thomas by Officer Ramos on July 5^th, 2011. Instead of police training Dan, how about sending those officers to a class with “Miss Manners”? How about a civics class that teaches your officers the meaning of the words, public servants?

Dan I know a half days pay for 6 highly paid FPD officers for a misdemeanor arrest warrant for an activity that occurred 4 months prior, may not seem like a lot of money to you since you make almost $200K a year plus another over $100K in benefits. However, it makes us taxpayers feel like we had our pockets picked by the FPD.

piece of cake

The other words that I cannot get out of my head are these; 2013 FPD Supervisor of the Year, Sergeant Kevin Craig! You know him as the highest-ranking officer participating in the KT beating death. He testified for the defense that he saw no violations of any FPD policy or procedures the night of July 5th, 2011. He came on the scene and witnessed 4 officers literally beating the life out of a 135 pound unarmed shirtless man with enough of Kelly’s blood all around to make an ER doctor sick. Yet he apparently did nothing to stop this totally unnecessary and senseless beating.

Question to Dan Hughes. Since your award winning Sergeant Craig and your FPD training officer testified under oath, that all officers conducted themselves within prescribed FPD policies and procedures, why sir did you fire Ramos, Cincinelli and Wolfe? Either they did something terribly wrong that night or they did not. You cannot continue to have it both ways. You cannot continue to state that you took care of the problem while you never have admitted any bad acts by those 6 men!

We also know based on the testimony of a Fullerton fireman that Sergeant Craig nor any of the other 5 involved officers directed paramedics to help Kelly Thomas to give him the much needed immediate medical attention he desperately needed that night.

—BARRY LEVINSON

I REPORT, YOU DECIDE.

On Memorial Day, a solemn day that our nation honors those that fought and sacrificed so much in order to preserve the precious freedoms we have here in America.

Well this report should question how our city can make arbitrary decisions that seem to fly in the face of those very freedoms that our soldiers have fought to protect for the last 238 years!

This true story starts with the passage of the amended sex offender residency restriction ordinance as follows: Rather than first incorporate the many modifications to the draft amended ordinance that were suggested mainly by me at the May 20 council meeting into a draft ordinance ready to be approved without any further changes at our very next council meeting, the council did this instead. They voted 4-1 to approve the unfinished amended ordinance with the proviso that the city attorney would make all the necessary changes before the 2nd reading of the ordinance in two weeks. Although hopeful that the many changes would be incorporated, I believe that the proper way to get this done correctly, was to first make all the changes to the amended ordinance and then bring it back to the next council for the 1st vote and reading. Rarely, in my experience does the council allow for any changes once an ordinance is passed the first time.

The concern that the city needed to move quickly because of a threatened lawsuit was a very poor excuse to rush this amended ordinance through at the May 20th council meeting.

You see ladies and gentlemen, the city leaders, i.e. Joe Felz, Dick Jones and Dan Hughes were notified that the vagrancy part of Ordinance No. 3149 which deals with keeping child sex offenders out of parks and schools was preempted by state law and that specific part of Fullerton’s law was ruled unconstitutional, according to the case Dermody vs. the people of California filed 4/11/2013. Since the city through our city attorney made no attempt to appeal this decision, the only other thing to do was to go back to council and ask to make the necessary changes to the law to place the entire law back into full compliance with the state. This was totally ignored by our city leaders until May 6th of this year; 13 months after the city knew the law was in violation, due to the Dermody case decision.

They not only squandered 13 months to act, but they unofficially decided at that time to not enforce the entire Ordinance, even though the residency restriction was and still is perfectly good law in full compliance with state statutes. For 13 months they let the council and the good people of Fullerton believe that Sex Offender Ordinance No. 3149 was still being enforced by the city’s police department.

Joe Felz did not have the decency to let my wife and me know the ordinance that we worked day and night on for over 7 months to get written and then passed in 2010 was not being enforced at all for over 13 months and counting. If you think we recently received any kind of apology from Mr. Felz, you would be greatly mistaken.

Why did they knowingly not enforce a hard fought and won ordinance to help protect our children from the worst kind of sexual predators, is a question all of you should ask our city manager, city attorney and our city police chief at the next council meeting?

It is scandalous that they would put our children at risk for their own self-serving reasons.

Finally, I thought Fullerton city laws that were passed had to be enforced unless or until the same council that passed it in the first place officially repealed them. I guess our city has “their own “special” way” to enforce or ignore laws at their own whim. The city IMHO, completely stepped over their legal bounds by arbitrarily and unilaterally deciding not to enforce the major part of Ord. 3149, i.e. the residency restriction as well as the vagrancy part.

Shame on you Joe Felz, Dick Jones, and Dan Hughes.

You do know better and should have done the right thing from the very start. Fullerton, the last time I checked was still a city in the great state of California and California was still part of these United States of America. When did the city decide we became a third rate banana dictatorship where the leaders can pick and choose at their discretion the laws they choose to enforce or not enforce.

If anyone does not believe that the city was not enforcing our Sex Offender Ordinance No. 3149 since last April 2013 through today, all you have to do is go to the May 20th City of Fullerton Regular Meeting Agenda statement. There you would click on the Assessment of City’s Sex Offender Ordinance, Agenda Item No. 7 to get the city attorney’s own write up on this issue, Subject: Assessment of City’s Sex Offender Ordinance, page 10 Item C.1. “The Dermody Decision”. There you will find this quote from Jim Touchstone, our Deputy City Attorney as follows:

“In April 2013, the Superior Court Appellate Division heard the matter and determined that the city’s park exclusion provision contained in the Ordinance (Section 7.150.050) was preempted by state laws and was unenforceable on that basis. Accordingly, the City currently is prohibited from further enforcement of that section of the Ordinance.* The city Attorney’s Office informed the City of this ruling shortly after it was issued. As such, the City ceased enforcement of the Ordinance at that time.” *

Based on the above quoted language, it is clear that we cannot even count on our city leaders to enforce current laws whose sole objective is to help keep our children safe. Remember the city chose not to enforce the entire ordinance when the court only stated that the vagrancy part of the ordinance not be enforced. This is a huge difference and one that the city has never explained to me or to our council either.

Please note that I, Barry Levinson added the bold face and italics for emphasis.

In conclusion, any concerned Fullerton citizen, student, business owner or employee should be outraged at the conduct I described relating to our City Manager, Joe Felz, our City Attorney, Dick Jones and our Police Chief, Dan Hughes.

All of us should attend the next Fullerton City Council meeting on Tuesday, June 3rd, 2014 starting at 6:30 PM and demand answers.

Thank you.

Barry Levinson

BARRY LEVINSON

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE LAST FULLERTON

CITY COUNCIL MEETING. I REPORT, YOU DECIDE. by Barry Levinson

BARRY LEVINSON

First, the agenda item to amend and strengthen Ordinance No. 3149, our Child Sex Offender Residency Restriction Law. The council and Joe Felz agreed to allow me to collaborate in working toward  a revised and improved Ordinance No. 3149. Mr. Felz assured me more than once during the process that any differences I had with the city attorney’s recommendations, I would be given ample opportunity to make my case completely before the council on May 20th. Well Mr. Felz I guess you forgot about your promise to me because right in the middle of my comments and concerns about the city attorney’s revised document Mayor Chaffee cut me off. Mr. Felz did not then speak up and remind the Mayor that both he, (Joe Felz) and the council had assured me that I would have ample time to speak before the council. No Mr. Felz was as quiet as a church mouse.

FULLERTON’S CITY MANAGER JOE FELZ

When I reminded Mayor Chaffee that I was promised this would be a collaborative process and I would have the necessary time to make my points, he rudely said to me that I already went over the 3 minute public comment limit by about a minute or so as the video proves. I followed the Mayor’s wishes even though he failed to keep both the council’s promise and the city manager’s (Felz) promise to me to be allowed to make my case fully before the council. However, it gets worse, much worse. When the agenda item came back to council and council members were allowed to speak, Council member Whitaker stated that he thought the Mayor’s behavior toward me was not proper and disrespectful and that he wanted to allow me the opportunity to finish my thoughts on the topic. Mayor Chaffee rudely stated that public comments were over and refused to let me speak at the request of Council member Whitaker. Let me make two things very clear.

First, Mayor Chaffee was not elected Mayor by the people of Fullerton but rather appointed based primarily on political considerations to the mainly cosmetic post of Mayor. Second, based on the continued dictatorial actions by the aforementioned appointed Mayor Chaffee, as well as his rudeness to the public (he originally denied AJ Redkey from speaking at public comments even though he had a public comment number to speak)

He has shown his true colors and should be asked to step down from the council. Please do not expect that to happen, but we the peoplecan make him step down in November when he runs for reelection.Well after the Mayor refused to allow the request by Council member Whitaker, Council member Sebourn and the Council member Flory,(in that order) said that I should be allowed to speak and because they had the votes to override the Mayor, I was then allowed to finish my comments.

Appointed Mayor Chaffee would probably call himself a liberal. The word liberal used to mean someone who stands for personal liberty and the civil rights of all. Chaffee’s actions belie that definition 100%. Dictator certainly describes the way he behaved at last night’s council meeting, trying to run rough shot over the other council members and it was certainly not the first time he has behaved in such an unbecoming fashion. One last point on the revision of Ordinance No. 3149. My suggestion was to not vote on the ordinance, as there were changes that the city agreed to make to the document. My suggestion was to direct the city attorney to make those changes and have a final draft document ready for the next council meeting. Only Council member Bruce Whitaker supported that very sensible idea. For that reason and that reason only, Council member Whitaker voted against the agenda item. In fact he was the most supportive of any of the council members and without his support to allow me to finish giving my suggestions, some important items would probably been left out of the ordinance.

On the Civics in Open Negotiation presentation, Ms. Gretchen Beatty basically followed the previous guidance of the majority of the council and provided Fullerton’s outlined version of COIN, which basically watered down the independence and oversight portions of the Costa Mesa COIN ordinance. You see the independent negotiator might cost the city a whopping 20,000 dollars to cover all bargaining units negotiations. This was Ms. Beatty’s estimate not mine. It is amazing to me how quickly the status quo becomes so tight fisted when they are against a proposal. We just incurred more than a 20 million-taxpayer liability because the city and city attorney’s recommendation to not settle the Verona homeowner mudslide lawsuit resulted in the city loosing the case.

WHATS THE PASS THROUGH RATE ON THIS?

No problem a 6 million dollar bond will pay for most of it over the next 20 – 25 years at a total cost of the aforementioned over 20 million of our tax dollars. Just another example of how some might say we are wasting are tax dollars when we do not have any money to squander, period. The city leadership in my opinion, starting with Joe Felz is trying to make COIN as weak as possible to keep the status quo. It is so informative to learn that so many who are appointed or elected to serve the people would be working so hard to diminish an ordinance whose only goal is to provide the taxpayer with information for the very first time about the negotiating process before it becomes a faitaccompli, usually all behind closed doors.

Ask anyone who objects to the Costa Mesa COIN ordinance that is working so well in Costa Mesa, why they do not like that model? That model attempts for the very first time to put the taxpayer, the people who pay for all city employees, to have timely access to the same information as the city leadership insiders have. An objective negotiating process that places the employees and the employer i.e. the taxpayers of Fullerton on equal footing. Those that protest too much I would suggest are not for openness, transparency and fairness. I say this because the Costa Mesa version of COIN is precisely those things!

Onto another council topic relating to the arrest of AJ Redkey in Pasadena a few days ago. 6 FPD officers, mostly undercover went to Pasadena earlier this month to arrest AJ for an outstanding misdemeanor warrant, for failure to disperse (I guess not quickly enough according to the FPD) at the January 2014 protest outside of FPD headquarters over the KT not-guilty verdicts. Well, do not worry ladies and gentlemen, even though the 6 involved FPD officers have not and apparently will not serve one day in jail over their actions that directly lead to the death of Kelly Thomas, it appears now that some of the protestors apparently will serve some time.

There appeared to be no “good” reason why AJ attracted so much FPD attention in Pasadena. If anyone would do a Freedom of Information request about the number of outstanding felony warrants in the city of Fullerton, you would most likely find evidence that those 6 FPD officers going to Pasadena was a terrible misuse of taxpayer dollars.

Dan Hughes by this action alone has made it clear that the FPD has not been reformed.

FPD’S DAN HUGHES

Is what he did illegal or even harassment under the law, probably not. However, his action with regard to AJ tells us that he is not using what he claims is his understaffed FPD manpower to its best use. Do not expect him to respond to the many members of the public who spoke out at yesterday’s council meeting. The chief would not even look at the people speaking to him, let alone answer their questions. These are legitimate issues that demand an answer from him. I guess we can all look forward to FPD open house day (not ever to be confused with open and transparent FPD on any day) or another article by his paid consultant, Bill Rams in the Thursday edition of the Fullerton News Tribune. Dan for an understaffed department, you sure no how to waste taxpayer monies on non-essential “police services”.

Finally there is one more very important item to report to you from yesterday’s council meeting. With the passage of a revised Child Sex Offender Residency Restriction Ordinance, it would seem a faitaccompli that are children will be better protected under the law from dangerous child sexual predators. However, this would not be the case if the Police Chief did not replace Reserve Officer Bill Wallis with another full-time reserve officer solely dedicated to tracking our sex offender population and enforcing all the laws that relate to them. Yet I have asked for the name of Bill Wallis replacement 4 different times between asking City Manager Joe Felz and Police Chief Dan Hughes via email and in person, never receiving that information. They both refused to respond to my direct inquiries not once but twice at the last 2 city council meetings. In fact, Mayor Chaffee stated I would get a response later in the council meeting and yet it never happened. How easily our Mayor breaks his promise while hosting our city council meeting. He gives his word that I will get a response later that evening and then he or Police Chief Hughes or City Manager Felz fail to answer my inquiry during the rest of the council meeting. Just another reason why the voters should remove Mayor Chaffee from office this November and at the same time start demanding some accountability by our to top appointed city positions, police chief and city manager.

It has been an incredibly busy and stressful April and May for both my wife and myself. We forced the status quo to bend to the needs and wishes of the people with regard to helping to protect our children from dangerous pedophiles. That effort by the people is not over by a long shot for the very reasons I just explained right above. We live in very dangerous times, where our government sometimes acts more like a third world banana dictatorship than the America we studied in school during our civics lessons. But all I can ask of you is to not give up the good fight, for ladies and gentleman, saving our country from the growing corruption within, is a fight very much worth making!

EVERYDAY, I AM LOOKING OUT FOR YOU, THE CITIZENS OF FULLERTON!

BARRY LEVINSON

by BARRY LEVINSON:

LOYAL CITIZENS OF FULLERTON ARE STILL WAITING FOR POLICE CHIEF HUGHES TO MAKE GOOD ON HIS PROMISE TO THE PEOPLE  OF FULLERTON!

Soon after Dan Hughes became Acting Police Chief in January 2012,  he gave an interview with the local press. He was quoted as saying the following: “If somebody says there is a culture of corruption,they’re either lying, they have other motives or they are grossly misinformed.”

 With those words, you loudly proclaimed that  there were no pervasive problems or corruption within your beloved FPD based presumably on your 29 years of being an integral member of that department.Many citizens of Fullerton disagree with the police chief’s assessment.  But then again as a 29-year veteran on the force, it might be difficult for Hughes to admit any real problems within the department that he has been an integral part of for almost  three decades. He did indicate that the only real problem with his FPD was its failure to keep the public better informed.  So at the March 4, 2014 council meeting, we stated that Hughes has failed to live up to that promise as well! 

This was the challenge we presented to Chief Hughes. Fullerton Police Corporal Hugo Garcia was arrested on felony grand theft charges brought by the county district attorney’s office and reported in all the local papers in mid-February. http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/Fullerton-Cop-Faces-Felony-Charges-for-Fraud-Embezzlement-245949031.html

But the one place you will not see that important local news story is in Dan Hughes official FPD website entitled “Fullerton Police News”. In fact as of the night of the last council meeting ,March 4th the City of Fullerton website. How did they overlook this ladies and gentleman? After all Dan gave his word that he would personally make sure that the information, the news about our FPD would be much improved under his new administration., you would not find that story mentioned anywhere on Well now it is March 26, 22 days after we challenged Hughes on this point and still not a whisper about this police officer’s felony arrest!So we rechecked Dan’s official Fullerton Police News website once again to see if any mention of the arrest of Officer Garcia was posted since the city council meeting. Remember, even Jan Flory the unofficial cheerleader (in my opinion) for the police asked Dan to correct this problem at March 4th council meeting. 

As of March 26, 2014, there is still not a word about it. But the FPD did have the time to make the additional unrelated posts on March 5, March 10, March 11,March 15, two posts on March 17, March 18, and March 19,2014. (Please also note that the March 17 news story of arelative abusing a child conveniently left out the fact that the alleged child abuser is LA Police Officer Daniel Hun Chun, 39.That fact http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news/local/orange_county&id=9475818 was prominently mentioned in every other TV, radio and newspaper stories covering this arrest. LA Police Officer Chun allegedly hit a teen relative repeatedly with a variety of household items on March 13, “leaving welts and bruises,”according to a statement released by the Orange County District Attorney’s Office.

He was charged with one felony count of child abuse and one felony count of corporal injury on a child and faces up to six years in state prison!)There are many stories about our FPD under Fullerton Police Newsand they always have one thing in common, they are all positive stories about our men and women in blue.So when Dan Hughes admitted that the FPD had to improve its communication to the people of Fullerton, he apparently meant that the department needed better Public Relations only. It has not meant a more complete, open and transparent reporting of both positive and even sometimes negative news as well. And now ladies and gentleman thanks to Dan Hughes and Joe Felz, our city manager,city we the taxpayers are paying a new communication consultant to do just that: to provide the FPD with better PR articles to disseminate through the Fullerton Police News (launched by Bill Rams of Cornerstone Communications) and also through the Fullerton News-Tribune which is a Thursday section of our Orange County Register.

The FPD thanks to the OC Register basically gets a twofer, two for the price of one. You see this consultant gets paid to write these puff pieces on the FPD and then the OC register essentially reprint them in their paper under the title “guest columnist” in the opinion section. Except this guest keeps on returning, writing guest columnafter guest column after guest column. (I guess he is the type ofguest that never leaves.) And to think we the taxpayers are payingthis consultant a lot of money just to improve the tarnished image ofour FPD!This new FPD consultant cost is in addition to the cost we arealready paying for police public relations as part of Fullerton policespokesman, Sergeant Jeff Stuart police pay. Many people could be hired to perform Sergeant Stuart’s police spokesman duties ata greatly reduced rate of pay.

You see ladies and gentlemen, we are paying Sergeant Stuart at least $140,000 to $150,000 a year(for salary and benefits) to perform in part this non-police officer function. Please note that someone making 50% – 60% less couldvery competently perform that task.So with this as background as to how much the taxpayers are spending on this function, it is very disappointing that Chief Hughes felt it necessary to increase his public relations budget so significantly. The sad truth is that we the taxpayers are paying for all these one-sided positive feel-good police stories. I for one do not feel good about this at all because it is so self-serving rather than serving the public!

Now it has been over two years since Dan Hughes gave us that empty promise to improve communicating all issues relating to theFPD to the people of Fullerton. How much longer Dan are you going to make us wait until you keep that promise? Another year, two years or maybe that will be your successor’s responsibility. And finally Dan, just as a little reminder to you sir, your website does say “NEWS” in the title as in “Fullerton Police News”!

Barry Levinson