By the Fullerton Shadow
Tuesday was a big day for Fullerton Mayor Sharon Quirk Silva. Only the day before Quirk-Silva had issued a bold press release to her pals in the liberal blogosphere stating that she was going to request that her colleagues on the city council suspend the illegal 10% water tax. She even helpfully explained why the new 6.7% number was a load of manure.
Here’s what she said, quoted verbatim from a press release sent to an admiring Liberal OC: “I will also call upon members of the city council to join me in a motion to stop any further diversions of water revenues to the general fund until these questions are answered,” Mayor Quirk-Silva asserted.
Read the rest of “Quirk-Silva Gets Opportunity To Do The Right Thing. Then Doesn’t.”
If you have a Tempest in a Teapot: Use bottled water!
Moving deck chairs on the Titanic….has yet to work as a viable solution for most issues!
Unfortunately but perhaps inevitably, I’ve started mixing it up with the hive mind of FFFF. Here was my comment placed there on this story:
I encourage people here to watch the video, read the comments there, and try to make sense of them.
To be fair, this is what Sharon has to expect from Norby’s crowd now that she’s running against him. No more positive interpretations of her actions and words. Just negative ones now.
Yeah, it’s going to be a fun race. Lucky for them that Norby is above being criticized! Ha-ha.
Vern, to be fair, Sharon made a get tough Monday morning statement about what she was going to do on the water tax. The next day she wouldn’t even back up Whitaker who did precisely what she said she was going to do.
Did you ever ask her why?
Not having the vote in the absence of both Jones and McKinley was courteous and probably wise. (Make them own the decision too.) When it passes, presumably at the next meeting, it can easily be made retroactive to last week (or to some previous point.)
The hyperventilating reaction at FFFF was almost comical.
No what was comical was your trying to portray the simple act of agendizing an item into the most complex issue imaginable.
I only takes two people to agendize an issue in Fullerton. Courtesy had nothing to do with it.
In my experience with several City Council’s including Fullerton’s over the past six months, along with other organizations for decades beforehand, agendizing an item is not something that usually happens at the beginning of a meeting unless you plan to vote on it at that meeting. (Even then, for City Council’s there are some limits regarding exigent circumstances regarding what can be agendized for the same day.) Agendizing something at a later meeting need not happen at a meeting at all. It can, but there’s generally no reason (other than grandstanding) to do so.
Your FFFF commenters give different and contradictory impressions of what Whitaker was trying to do in the first place. If he was agendizing it to discuss at that meeting, then the concerns about the absence of 40% of the Council remains. If he was agendizing it for a future meeting, then I believe that he and Sharon could have done so the following day at City Hall, or maybe even later, and there was no actual urgency in agendizing it “live” other than the presence of the madding crowd.
So unless I fail to understand Fullerton’s rules of procedure for agendizing items, Sharon’s “failure” here was either (1) that she was being courteous unnecessarily to people who you believe do not warrant courtesy, or (2) that she was concerned that it was not an exigent circumstance and didn’t want to violate the Brown Act, or (3) she was failing to grandstand along with Whitaker by performing an act that need not be done in open session in front of the audience.
Which is it?
The response at FFFF — which I am doing you the courtesy of not quoting here because it would really look like insane gibbering outside of the echo chamber within the FFFF hothouse — that her not agreeing to agendize the item as soon as Whitaker demanded it was a betrayal of her previous statements on the water tax issue, was completely unmoored and out of all proportion.
You’re right, it’s not all that complicated. The City did something wrong that needs to be fixed. The fix appears to be necessary, but will seriously impact the city’s budget. There was little if any any cost to waiting to agendize it until the next day (if it didn’t need to be done at the meeting itself) or until 2/3 of the ruling Council majority was present (if it did), because of the benefits of unanimity in a time of crisis. No big deal — except for people inclined to make it one.
Your right — I probably should have chosen a less kind word than “comical.”
*Dr. Greg,
It still just plain amazes us that anyone from FULLERTON at this time, with all the things going on……..are prepared to bring battle plans from either how much the water tax is or where it should be placed. Nonsense…..total nonsense. How many people’s lives are going to be changed either way?
This is purely a “Halley’s Comet” issue….when the Recall should be foremost. When SQS should withdraw from the Assembly race. When they should be finding a suitable Search Company to find a new Chief of Police. When they should create an Ad Hoc Committee to Investigate the Internal Affairs department of the Fullerton PD. When they should be joining hands with DOJ for a full blown investigation into FPD policies and procedures. Lord knows we are 100% law enforcement, but when stuff happens it requires that the air is cleared and all outstanding issues are brought out on the table as all suitable ducks must be.
The City of Fullerton is in Social Dependency Shock…..and needs to be fixed now and for the foreseeable future. Let us not take our eyes off the the falling Humpty Dumpty in order to polish the wheels on the cart.
Indeed, RAW — Norby should withdraw from the Assembly race. Whoa, where did that out of context statement of mine come from?
*Not Norby….SQS! She has a responsibility to serve the constituents of Fullerton and resolve the major problems there first. Norby was out on Term Limits to begin with and timing was propecious as you know. Duval got caught short. Norby has served well enough to be re-elected and he will be. But, when you become a “Blind Partisan” rather than a Responsible Representative of the people….things like SQS happen. Lucille Kring got caught up in politics as well……we understand that “things happen” in politics. But whatever “King Makers” are behind this move….are “Out to Lunch!” completely.
You are “loyal to” your friends, I’ll “grant you” that!
No, Sharon does not have to spend the rest of her life on the council, possibly in the minority, just because the council majority never successfully addresses its problems. And the “blind partisanship” is in your mind’s eye.
*Don’t “make fun of” the Winships, they “are grandfathered” here!
O”K”.