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
#1 by Anonymous on May 26, 2014 - 6:33 pm
Dan Hughes is a master of PR. Nothing more and nothing less. He cannot be trusted. The department is still as corrupt as it has ever been.