by Barry Levinson
Exactly 1,603 days after the savage beating death of a 135- pound “innocent man” (Police Chief Dan Hughes so proclaimed Kelly Thomas posthumously at a council meeting about a year or so latter), the tragic tale of Kelly Thomas comes to a dramatic close.
Although, I am very disappointed that Mr. Thomas chose to accept the City of Fullerton’s large offer of 4.9 million dollars, instead of going through an open civil trial, it should not be the focus of our thoughts and concerns.
Let’s just review that various costs involved in the Kelly Thomas savage beating death has cost the Fullerton public.
Payout to Mrs. Kathy Thomas $1,000,000
Payout to Mr. Ron Thomas $4,900,000
Estimated legal related fees $500,000
Potential estimated settlements with
fired officers who are attempting to get
their jobs back.
(We shall have to wait
and see on this one.) $5,000,000
—————
Total cost to pay off victims for the FPD’s
bad acts: $11,400,000
The impact this has for the Fullerton
Public. ………………………………… A lasting mistrust of the FPD
Here is the way to start the healing.
Removing Dan Hughes and Joe Felz from
Fullerton city government forever. …………… Priceless!!
Dan Hughes-FPD chief
It is ironic that the settlement approval came at a hastily called for “Special” City Council meeting for 8 AM the morning before the Thanksgiving Day Holiday. Any fool knows that the timing of this meeting was carefully selected by a majority of our city council along with City Manager Joe Felz.
Joe Felz Fullerton city manager
It was probably the same majority who voted for the $4.9 million settlement, i.e. Fitzgerald, Flory and Chaffee. So the next time Council members Flory, Fitzgerald and Chaffee have the audacity to talk about the openness and transparency of city government, I hope a large segment of the council audience will have the courage to remind them of this 8 AM council meeting.
Now that Police Chief Dan Hughes does not have to worry about testifying under oath before the civil jury (and the world) and answer some very embarrassing, tough and even a few unanswerable questions, he can now sit back and wait for his approximately 200K pension to arrive just over the horizon. It is good to be the king, which is what many of the top public servants truly are these days. It is we the people who get incredibly little consideration from all these so-called civil servants and elected officials. They are supposed to be looking out for the citizens of Fullerton wellbeing in their fiduciary roles. They make multi-million dollar decisions such as with the passage of several 4-year union contracts and in their public council deliberations did not even mention the word “taxpayer”. Their actions certainly show no empathy or concern for those that pay the city’s bills. Council member Fitzgerald as a self-described Republican, deserves the loudest shout-out for her apparent lack of concern for the financial wellbeing of the city and taxpayer.
But I want to leave the readers with a positive message. We the people of Fullerton can look forward to a better-run city government. All we have to do is vote out Ms. Flory and Ms. Fitzgerald next year and vote for people such as Joe Imbriano.
My role going forward will be to do whatever will do the most good for our city. I look forward to continue speaking out whenever our city leadership goes astray or fails in their responsibilities to you the good citizens of Fullerton.
P.S. The city of Fullerton government and its services are in very bad shape. Therefore, we must reject politics as usual. Too many elected officials either work against the people or try to straddle the fence and in so doing accomplish little. Well I am here to tell all of them, to either get with the people 100% or get out of the way for a change is coming.
I report, you decide.
Barry Levinson
#1 by Telling it Like It Is on December 9, 2015 - 10:16 am
Dealing with the FPD honestly and objectively may be political suicide, but we have tragically learned when the FPD is not properly dealt with, results in numerous cases of police abuse of power, abuse of the laws they were sworn to protect and ultimately the horrific death by their hands of an innocent man. Anyone who is not totally disgusted about what transpired and the lack of any justice is a person without character or decency.
Any politician worth a damn should be more concerned with the health and welfare of its citizens and not the political clout of the police unions. Are you listening Sebourn and Whitaker? I do not even mention the other three phony council members because they are in the hip pocket of the safety unions.
#2 by Fullerton Lover on December 11, 2015 - 3:29 pm
Telling It Like It Is,
It’s not just the public safety unions, they are also in the metaphorical hip pocket of the Teachers and Professors that use groups with civic minded sounding names like “Neighbors United For Fullerton” to advance their thinly veiled agenda to support local candidates that will be supportive of higher pay and earlier retirement packages for local school teachers.
Consider that, “Neighbors United For Fullerton” or NUFF, labels themselves as a local political group who professes to be non-partisan. Webster’s dictionary defines non-partisan as:
free from party affiliation, bias, or designation.
I have done a little of my own research into just who and what NUFF is, and have come to far different conclusions about who and what NUFF REALLY is, as opposed to whom they say they are.
Firstly, there is the connection with the Fullerton Observer, who also professes to be non-partisan. That of course is long time political commentator that pontificates instead of really analyzes local politicians, “Vince” Buck.
Vince Buck is a NUFF member. Who else are NUFF members? You would think with a name like “Neighbors United For Fullerton” that this would be a group of neighbors who hoped that their collective voices would be better heard, yet in reality, I noticed that most, if not all, off the names that I’ve found ran through the state of California’s “Transparent California” website, have come back showing NUFF members as Teachers and Professors that advocate for candidates in local elections that will give them generous raises and retirement packages, for sub-par Teachers and Professors…
CSUF Professor Vince Buck’s “Rate My Professor” ratings…
http://www.ratemyprofessors.com/ShowRatings.jsp?tid=340679
CSUF Professor Vince Buck’s over $1,500 a week ($76K per year) retirement from CSUF:
http://transparentcalifornia.com/pensions/2014/calpers/j-v-buck/
OC Register news article referencing Vince Buck as a Fullerton Library Trustee and NUFF member from 1/8/2008…
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/library-125114-fullerton-voters.html
I guess the real problem I have is that NUFF, who claims to be non-partisan, is consistently supportive of Fullerton City Council candidates which are also supported simultaneousy by the Democrats of North Orange County such as Doug Chaffee:
( key and full list of donors such as SQS,Pam Keller,Vice Buck, Fullerton Observer, and NUFF)
http://www.smartvoter.org/2010/11/02/ca/or/vote/chaffee_d/
Karen Haluza
http://www.smartvoter.org/2008/11/04/ca/or/vote/haluza_k/endorse.html
Also note how Pam Keller’s campaign contributions from the 2006 Fullerton City Council election, clearly showing a $2,500 contribution from supposedly non-partisan group, NUFF, or Neighbors United For Fullerton…which I believe in reality it is the covert arm of the educators in this community, subversively funneling money to Democratic candidates such as Keller,Flory, and SQS, Chaffee, etc…
(8of17)
http://docs.cityoffullerton.com/weblink/1/doc/391823/Page1.aspx
Pam Keller’s payment back to NUFF…
http://docs.cityoffullerton.com/weblink/1/doc/391765/Page1.aspx
Pam’s contribution to fellow Democrat, Doug Chaffee…
http://docs.cityoffullerton.com/weblink/1/doc/449576/Page1.aspx
http://docs.cityoffullerton.com/weblink/1/doc/423073/Page1.aspx
Pam’s 2006 contributors, including the Democratic Party of Orange…
http://docs.cityoffullerton.com/weblink/1/doc/391825/Page1.aspx
I think that it’s also noteworthy to see how the Fullerton Observer’s editor, Sharon Kennedy, perjures herself under oath in this Superior Court declaration , by stating that the Fullerton Observer is non-partisan, and non-sectarian.
I’ll grant them the last one, but the first is a blatant lie as the Fullerton Observer’s definitely supportive with their coverage of Democratic candidates, such as Chaffee, Sharon Quirk Silva and Pam Keller, and obviously slanted in their coverage of Republicans such as Norby, Nelson, Whitaker, and even Chris Thompson.
http://www.fullertonsfuture.org/tag/sharon-kennedy/
30 year FJUSD Trustee, Bob Singer’s list of endorsements listing includes NUFF, Vince Buck, Fullerton Observer, Jan Flory, Jennifer Fitzgerald, SQS, and the Democratic party…
https://ballotpedia.org/Robert_A._Singer
#3 by Anonymous on December 11, 2015 - 3:53 pm
Thank you for this.
#4 by Fullerton Lover on January 11, 2016 - 6:37 pm
Note the front page on the most current issue of the Fullerton Observer…
http://www.fullertonobserver.com/
Here’s the Author of this article ….
http://transparentcalifornia.com/pensions/2014/calpers/elizabeth-t-gibbs/
Would you have known, if I hadn’t told you that is, that the article about the proposed “College Town” development was written by a retired pensioner from CSUF, which is the President of Neighbors United For Fullerton, or, N.U.F.F.?
This group is composed of Teachers who lobby for themselves under the pretense of being our neighbors, that sponsors phony meet and greets with the candidates that will keep them all their jobs propped up, and forever deny Fullerton parents from ever getting vouchers to educate their children at schools that WON”T use wireless, and cannot enforce children to be vaccinated with potential toxins against their parent’s will.
http://nuffpac.org/nuff-board-members/
I guess T.U.F.F. was already taken?
http://nuffpac.org/nuff-board-members/