Barry Levinson

What is the current result of all my hard work documenting the many failures of Council member Bruce Whitaker’s Fullerton City Council career?  It was the California Republican Assembly’s rejection of his attempt to gain the CRA’s endorsement of his candidacy for the State Senate Seat from the 29th District on April 14, 2018.  Instead the CRA endorsement went to newcomer George Shen with at least a two thirds majority on the very first ballot.

CRA was not too long ago a hot bed of Bruce Whitaker support…. the oldest and some would say the most conservative Republican organization in the State of California. Not only did he fail to get the endorsement but he snubbed our members by stating he could not attend due to some undisclosed scheduling conflict. He could have easily sent a representative to talk on his behalf. This happens all the time. Yet Whitaker chose not to do this either.

SHOULD READ PROTECTING ILLEGAL ALIENS AND CORRUPTION IN FULLERTON

An organization that he used to virtually own based on his past level of support does not even get an appearance from a man seeking our endorsement. Why? Well you do not have to look any further than two members of the Fullerton CRA Chapter, Joe Imbriano and yours truly, the President of the Fullerton chapter. The man who claims he is running to stamp out Sacramento corruption can’t garner enough courage to face two of his local detractors. Cowardice just reached a new level for one Bruce Whitaker. No one will ever make a real difference in Sacramento without a backbone.

Now that his dwindling chances to win this Senate seat has been dealt another severe and most likely fatal blow, we must fight on to make sure that come November 2020 that he is voted off the Fullerton City Council. A politician that was all talk and no action has wasted eight precious years accomplishing virtually nothing. He had such a golden opportunity to make a real difference but in the end he just took up space and sucked up air on the Fullerton City Council dais.

Congratulations to George Shen who won the CRA endorsement for the 29th State Senate District seat. He was the only Republican candidate brave enough and caring enough to speak to us prior to our endorsement vote. Obviously a two thirds majority liked what he had to say to us and appreciated his appearance before our group.

Below I am counting the many ways that Council Member Bruce Whitaker has failed the good people of Fullerton as follows:

1. Bruce Whitaker abstained from voting for a Receive and File motion concerning April 3, 2018 Agenda Item No. 3 entitled “Consideration Of Support For The Department Of Justice Lawsuit Against the State Of California Regarding Sanctuary City Laws”. Whitaker did this about face right after he spoke about his support for the lawsuit and the federal governments authority to deal with immigration.  Below is Council member Bruce Whitaker’s key statements as follows:
“Since immigration is predominately and really entirely a federal jurisdiction, it leads me to lean in that direction, to lean in the direction of at least to preserving the federal government’s right to enforce immigration law.”

Whitaker continued: “But as far as being pressed into having to make a call on this, my lean is too support the federal attempts to make California as a border state comply with at least the minimum requirements of immigration law.”

Whitaker goes on to state: “There is more than a little bit of partisanship at play here and there is more than a little bit of political one-upmanship and the tactics of labeling and to shout down people from the other side of the situation. I will not be cowered by those tactics.”

Bruce Whitaker was a total sellout and proved beyond any shadow of a doubt not to be a man of his word. He proved in my opinion that whatever comes out of his mouth should never be taken seriously. He in fact proved himself to be a worthless, spineless, cowardly, self-serving politician who betrayed his own position in the blink of an eye.

This historic betrayal by Republican Bruce Whitaker, a self-proclaimed Constitutional Conservative must be forever remembered by all of you.

How could anyone ever trust him with his or her votes again? I for one will never support him again.

When a politician’s word literally means absolutely nothing, trust has been forever broken between the people they serve and themselves.

Does anyone after all this documentation, still believe that Bruce Whitaker is the right person to serve us in Sacramento from the 29th Senate District?

For this alone Bruce Whitaker’s political career deserves to be ended as soon as possible. That means that you do not vote for Bruce Whitaker for California State Senate for the 29th Senate District or for another term as Fullerton Council member (if he chooses to run). But there is so much more compelling factual information that supports we the voters ending once and for all the political career of one Bruce Whitaker as follows:

2. 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!

3. 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. I have a total of 35 years of accounting and auditing experience ignored by Council member Bruce Whitaker who appointed me not once but twice to the Parks and Recreation Committee, (which had oversight on the Fullerton Municipal Golf Course). There is absolutely no good reason why Council member Whitaker ignored the Fullerton Golf Course issue. But 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!

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 chief’s attempt to railroad me into jail certainly to him appeared to be entirely political payback and yet drops the matter totally? Well that kind of a weak, cowardly man is none other than California 29thSenate District candidate 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 shameful 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 appointee 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 a few short month’s ago as Mayor he led 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 7 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:

With all this factual documentation showing Bruce Whitaker’s actions goes against his so-called constitutional, limited government philosophy, any good conservative would be betraying our cause for transparent, honest conservative leadership by casting a vote for him. The only smart move by the electorate and by the CRA 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 29th State Senate District Voters 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 who repeatedly has failed to stand up to Fullerton City corruption over a 7 plus year period while on the Fullerton City Council? Yet now he has the unmitigated gall to base his campaign on pledging to get rid of corruption in Sacramento.

3. How in good conscience could anyone in the 29th California Senate District now 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 too long and not very distinguished political career?