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.
#1 by Barry Levinson on August 3, 2017 - 11:48 am
Sean Paden has been a Bruce Whitaker supporter 100% whether right or wrong. David Curlee is also a supporter of Whitaker. Yet when Paden brought up the issue of wrongdoing by the Long Beach Police resulting in million dollar payouts and claiming that a number of the same officers are still on the Long Beach payroll as police officers and Curlee mentioned the questionable master’s degree received by Hendricks, they both received a virtual slap in the face by one Bruce Whitaker. Whitaker stated as follows:
“I DON’T KNOW IF ANYTHING NEEDS TO BE ANSWERED FROM PRIOR TWO COMMENTERS? (Referring to Paden and Curlee)
Council had not discussed in public these extremely important issues at all up to that point. 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!
At a time when Whitaker should be displaying leadership qualities and providing specific achievements that warrant a vote for him for State Senate, he is doing neither!
#2 by Anonymous on August 28, 2017 - 3:23 pm
Sean Paden just wants so desperately to get elected to something.