Here is our ninth installment of this popular feature on our site. This is yet another “double edition” as we are playing catch up – it should be the “Idiot of the Week and a Half” award…
The FlashReport Idiot Of The Week Award is bestowed upon that pubic official (or high profile person engaged in politics or public policy) who does something completely idiotic. With a state as large as Californian, which seems to have a higher-than-average amount of folks who either don’t think about what they do — or even worse, they think about what they do and still act like idiots — we suffer from no shortage of potential award winners. As in previous columns, we start first with the runners-up in no particular order, and then onto the big prize. Oh yes, don’t be shy or timid in sending along suggestions to us for next week’s award recipient — many of those featured come from tips from readers like you!
And so, starting with nine runners’ up, here is the list — with the big award winner at the bottom!
Runner Up #10 – Salinas Councilman Jose Castenada. Late last year Casteneda was elected to his local City Council. Prior to being elected to the City Council, Castaneda had been serving as an elected Trustee of the Alisal School District. The City Attorney of Salinas informed Mr. Castenada that due to conflicts of interest, he could not serve on both the council and the school board. But Castenada refuses to step down from the school board. This is not good. But it would be idiotic of Castenada to feed the flames of this scandal in the press, no? How about this — about two months after it allegedly occurred, Castenada files a local police report, accusing a reporter of breaking the law in his attempt to cover him on this issue — blocking the sidewalk. When it got to a judge it was thrown out. Well, lots of great coverage ahead for Castenada.
Runner Up #9 – San Diego Mayor Bob Filner. At a time when more and more governments are cracking down on public employee pension double dippers (those who retire from an agency, start to get a pension, and then while collecting that pension go right back to work for that same entity), Mayor Filner actually wants to expand the bad practice. Apparently when members of the San Diego City Council retire (with a pension), they are prohibited from coming back with hefty, full-time jobs with the city. But Filner wants to let these ex-politicians come back onto the city payroll. What a dumb idea.
Assemblywoman Nora Campos
Runner Up #8 – Assemblywoman Nora Campos. It was a great day for California when redevelopment agencies were eliminated. Between property rights abuses, and a terrible system of crony capitalism with local officials awarding sweetheart deals to their contributors, RDA’s had been a disaster. Well Assemblywoman Campos has authored Assembly Bill 690 — which would allow cities to create “job and infrastructure districts” (JID) that would once allow future tax revenues to be put into a slush fund for local politicians to dole out money to their friends. Resurrecting RDA’s, in any form, is idiotic.
Runner Up #7 – Los Angeles Times columnist George Skelton. Previously we recognized Bezerkley Ciy Councilman Gordon Wozniak for his (not so) stellar idea to tax email. Well for the second time we are placing Los Angeles Times columnist George Skelton on this list. His first honors were for suggesting that Abel Maldanado run for Governor (barf). Now Skelton pens an entire column highlighting Gordon’s e-mail tax, trying to suggest it to be sound public policy. George, your taxes aren’t high enough already? Ugh.
Runner Up #6 – The Board of Directors of the South Coast Air Quality Management District Under their guidence, the staff of the AQMD is promulgating a new regulation to ban all open burning on beaches in Orange and Los Angeles Counties. That’s right, the government wants to shut down your ability to cook s’mores at the beach. No more camp fires if the AQMD gets their way. One simply cannot make this stuff up.
Runner Up #5 – The San Bernardino City Council. Yes, San Bernardino has filed for bankruptcy — it does not have enough cash flow to manage its bills. Yet the Council there has approved an additional $156,841 in pay raises for city employees. Apparently the City Charter calls for adjustments in staff salaries based on the pay of 10 similar-sized cities. The city’s nine police lieutenants each stand to get 10% raises, good for them. It’s amazing that there is not a word from the Council about fighting these raises — not even placing a charter amendment on the ballot. (Then again, this is the same council which was singled out in a previous column for hiring a new City Manager who has his own personal bankruptcy). I guess when it rains, it pours in Idiotville.
San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee
Runner Up #4 – San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee. It seems we always have someone from San Francisco on this list, and this week is no exception. Henry Alvarez is the Housing Authority Director for Ess Eff, part of the Lee Administration. Lee was placed on medical leave last month by the Housing Authority Commission after providing a doctor’s note. Well imagine the surprise on people’s faces when Alvarez announced that, along with his wife, they would be launching a new restaurant in Berkeley on May 1st. So apparently Alvarez is too sick to fulfill his public duties (though while on paid leave he still pulls down his $210,500 annual salary) — but okay enough to launch a new business. To make matters worse, on the same day that he opens his new restaurant he will become vested with the San Francisco retirement system, garnering health care benefits for life. In the meantime, crickets from Ed Lee. Idiotic seems to be an understatement here.
Runner Up #3 – Former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan. After Republican Kevin James failed to make the run-off for Los Angeles City Mayor — the only two choices remaining for Angelino voters are bad and worse. While Wendy Greuel and Eric Garcetti are both liberals, Greuel seems to have the strongest support of the city’s public employee unions. In case you were thinking that this support would be toxic for any Republicans — think again. Former Mayor Riordan, a Republican, has endorsed Greuel, announcing that if she wins he will “join her administration as a senior advisor on the ongoing budget crisis at city hall.” — working for only $1 a year. Apparently Riordan has decided by jumping the shark on pension reform, by electing public labor’s choice, that this will further pension reform. Riordan is a nice guy, but this was an idiotic maneuver, unworthy of someone of his stature.
Runner Up #2 – Assemblyman Richard Pan. Apparently when redistricting occurred, Assemblyman Pan decided it was in his interest run in a district next door to where he actually lived with his family. Apparently, however, he didn’t move. He rented an apartment in the “new” district, registered to vote their, filed for office there, and was elected there. The problem, according to a Sacramento Bee investigation, is that he is still living with his family at their original home which is not in the district. According to the Bee, “Five times in the past month, The Bee has checked on Pan’s whereabouts at night or in the early morning. Each time, he was at the Natomas home.” — Adding insult to injury, based on its further location from the Capitol, Pan is using the new apartment in which he not live to qualify for nearly $30,000 in legislative per diem payments. What a total idiot.
Assemblyman Tom Daly
Runner Up #1 – Assemblyman Tom Daly. Freshman Democrat Assemblyman Daly is new to Sacramento, having previously served as Orange County’s elected Clerk-Recorder. A scandal has erupted in Orange County government that points squarely back at Daly, and what appears to have been an effort by him to give out a sweetheart totally BS county project to a political ally running for Anaheim City Council (who won I might add), Democrat Jordan Brandman. Brandman was paid $24,000 in tax dollars to produce some sort of report on whether the Clerk-Recorder should open a specific regional office. Turns out, no doubt to Tom Daly’s dismay, that Brandman’s report was substandard, and was majorly plagiarized from a website. This kind of cronyism is so Chicago, and idiotic if you ask me. Lucky for Daly this blew up after his election to the Assembly, and not before.
And this week’s FlashReport Idiot Of The Week Award goes to…
Drum roll please…
FORMER ASSEMBLYMAN NATHAN FLETCHER!
Nathan Fletcher, Idiot Of The Week
So you all remember that this time last year, there was an all out knock-down, drag-out fight taking place between then-Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher and San Diego Councilman Carl DeMaio to see, in essence, who would go up against Democrat Bob Filner in a November run-off. FR readers will remember that Fletcher rather famously left the GOP in a huff just days after rigorously pursuing and failing to get the San Diego County GOP endorsement, which went to DeMaio.
Well it turns out, based on an in depth article by reporter Craig Gustafson over at the Union Tribune San Diego, that people close to Fletcher authorized a private investigation of DeMaio and his partner, Johnathan Hale, which purportedly turned up a bunch of potentially damaging information on Hale — except that it turns out no one had any interest in printing what was considered old, stale information.
Of course this whole “secret project” was funded in a manner so as to keep it off of campaign reports. And Fletcher claims he new nothing about it. But there is the slight inconvenient fact that many supporters of Fletcher were involved with the effort. Most damning is that the company that supplied much of the funding for this effort came was co-owned by Tom Shepard, who was Fletcher’s campaign consultant. Raise your hands if you think that Shepard would not have run this by Fletcher. What? No hands? Didn’t think so. Raise your hands if you think Fletcher didn’t know this was going on. What? No hands again? Since I believe that Fletcher at least tacitly approved this tactic, I believe he could have put a stop to it. For this, Nathan Fletcher wins this week’s top honors.
Now, I commend you to read this article — because you simply cannot make this stuff up:
UTSD: SECRET ANTI-DEMAIO CAMPAIGN REVEALED GROUP’S ASSAULT AIMED TO DAMAGE DEMAIO