TheFullertonInformer.com

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