Steve Baxter and Fullerton Council candidates Matt Rowe and Doug Chaffee.
From Stephan and Noele Baxter, liberal Fullerton activists:
WHY TWO FORMER CHAFFEE SUPPORTERS ARE VOTING FOR MATT ROWE IN THE RECALL ELECTION
As we continue to learn about new indignities which were forced upon a local homeless man named Kelly Thomas, whilst he was being beaten to death by up to six Fullerton police officers, we can no longer in good conscience support Doug Chaffee in his latest bid to become a Fullerton City Council Member. Instead we have decided to put all our energy and resources behind Matt Rowe. Unlike Chaffee, Rowe has spoken up very eloquently at council meetings, and has taken clear positions in his candidacy regarding how city government and the police should have handled the aftermath of Kelly’s murder, while Doug Chaffee has remained mute on the subject.
We have supported Mr. Chaffee in his efforts to win a seat on the council on all previous occasions, and did so again at the beginning of this recall. The decision to switch to Matt Rowe was not an easy one, but we know it was the correct one. During a time of crisis, we cannot have our elected officials motivated in their decisions not by what is right and wrong, but by what is most politically expedient and least controversial. We need someone like Matt Rowe, who shares many of our concerns on other local matters, including the preservation of Coyote Hills as open space through referendum, has taken a stand for Kelly Thomas, and who has demonstrated leadership under extreme stress in the past.
As a West Point graduate, who lead men under fire at the height of the Iraqi conflict, despite personally having reservations about our involvement in this war, Matt Rowe has the courage and the stamina to accomplish what we now know Doug Chaffee is incapable of, or unwilling to do himself: reform the police department.
It is inconceivable to us that Doug Chaffee, a man we once supported, has taken advantage of the recall election, a recall election which only exists because of the public outcry over Kelly’s murder, and has done so without addressing the very reason he was given the opportunity to run. Sometime after July 5th, 2011, Mr. Chaffee decided that it would be advantageous if he were to sidestep the entire incident. In fact, he seems to not even be willing to refer to Kelly Thomas by name, preferring instead to call him only “that homeless man”. We knew and were fond of Kelly Thomas, as for several years we lived on the same block as Kelly, and we interacted with him on a daily basis. We should also point out that Mr. Chaffee’s law offices were directly across from our apartment, and had he tried, he would also have known Kelly Thomas as we did.
Matt Rowe has answered candidate questions with specifics, while Chaffee laid down words and still managed not to communicate a single applicable thought. We refer you to the May 1st issue of the Fullerton Obserer, and remind you that the DA has determined that Kelly was not committing any crime at the time that police began to attack him.
Observer: “How Would You have Handled The Kelly Thomas Situation?”
Chaffee: “I am a strong advocate of community oriented policing. In a community oriented policing system, police officers partner with neighborhoods to build trust and positive community relationships. The system generates mutual respect between residents and police. Being pro-active, the focus is on preventing crime, as opposed to merely reacting to it, and results in a safer City.” (this response is shameful)
We believe that Chaffee’s campaign worried that being critical of the police, or of the current council, may offend former Police Chief Pat McKinley’s supporters, and these are votes Doug now hopes to attract in the recall. The need for truth and justice has consequently been overshadowed by his desire to finally win a seat on the Fullerton City Council. This is not the kind of man we want in office if we hope to hold Police and city officials accountable for their actions and bring about meaningful reform to ensure the safety of all Fullerton Residents and visitors. Mr. Chaffee did not foresee that the city videotape and audio recordings documenting the abuse and killing of Kelly Thomas would be released before the elections. If he had, he may have taken a different approach. Anyone that has seen parts or all of that tape, and knows how silent he has been, will not understand why he, a classical old Kennedy liberal, sat out the biggest injustice in Fullerton’s modern history. It’s shameful to those of us who once had such great affection for him, and frankly it’s shamed all the principles which progressives should hold close.
Now that the tape is out, and the Kelly Thomas murder is front page news again, Mr. Chaffee will most likely feel compelled to finally weigh in on this subject, and his previous silence. Fullerton Residents will do well to remember that he does so NOT out of concern for the man who was publicly tortured, humiliated and left to choke on his own blood, but for purely opportunistic reasons.
To say that we are disappointed in Chaffee is to truly understate what it feels like to find out that a person you respected, and actually got emotionally invested in, was a fraud. To say that we were punched in the stomach would be more accurate. Regardless of this, we wish the Chaffee Family well. We know how important becoming a councilmen is to Doug, and under normal circumstances we may have continued to support him, but today we need courageous men and women on the Fullerton City Council. Men and women who will fight for us until Fullerton is free of corruption, and no citizen will ever again be murdered by those our taxes pay to protect us.
We are honored to put our support and our vote behind Matt Rowe. We simply cannot waste our vote on someone who appears to be more concerned in fulfilling his bucket list than he is in making Fullerton a better place to live.
Please vote for Matt Rowe for the Fullerton City Council, and please share this letter with other Chaffee supporters and ask them to join us in supporting Matt Rowe.
Most sincerely,
Stephan & Noele Baxter
Fullerton California
Your letter was very helpful and tremendously insightful. Thank you for sharing your experiences with all of us. It definitely has had an impact upon this voter and I would imagine others as well.
Steve (and Noele), when you say that the “recall election which only exists because of the public outcry over Kelly’s murder,” all it makes me think is that you should put on your hip waders and spend more time in the swamps at FFFF, where the sponsors of the recall dwell. There, the killing of Kelly Thomas — about which the City Council could do little directly — is also about breaking public unions, reneging on public pensions, and keeping aboil the issue of the water tax.
Your assigned role in this enterprise is to siphon votes away from Doug Chaffee to Matt Rowe so that FFFF-certified Barry Levinson can slip through into the McKinley seat. The hope is that Matt, and liberals like you who support him, will split the “doesn’t want to ransack the city” vote.
If I thought that Matt Rowe had more support than Doug Chaffee, this wouldn’t bother me. But given Doug Chaffee’s experience with the city and name recognition, I doubt it’s true.
The City Council is going to be able to do very little to fix the situation with the FPD. The word should already have gone forward not to hire idiot wacko cops like Jay Cicinelli; the Council is not likely to address the policy question of whether officers should be willing to hold down a suspect to try to get them into a face-down, hands-on-back position rather than taking a small risk to avoid a larger risk of killing them.
The Council could tell the cops to stop rousting the homeless (as apparently they have for now) and could provide better facilities for the homeless. However, it won’t be able to do the latter, because an FFFF majority on the council will want to “shrink the government” to the point where it can’t afford to do anything.
If Levinson (rather than Chaffee or Rowe) ends up on the Council and voting for the drowning of municipal government, it will be because those two split the vote. With what I’m sure are the best intentions, you’re helping that happen.
What the video indicates to me is that people should have hesitated to speak out before seeing the video. Chaffee did so. That’s not cowardice, it’s waiting for the facts. It’s unfortunate that you don’t distinguish between them.
“Your assigned role in this enterprise is to siphon votes away from Doug Chaffee to Matt Rowe so that FFFF-certified Barry Levinson can slip through into the McKinley seat.”
Did you just imply that Mr. Baxter is being manipulated to support Matt Rowe? That’s pretty low Greg. It’s also factually incorrect. I think a retraction is in order.
I think he means that’s the reason FFFF is cheering him on, not that he was manipulated. I know he came (like me) to support Matt based on his own observations.
From what I hear, Chaffee’s gonna win pretty handily anyway. He just doesn’t seem like the kind of bold Democrat THIS Democrat likes to get behind.
Fine Vern, but let’s be crystal clear on this.
NO ONE from FFFF directs anything that has to do with Matt Rowe. Representing anything to the contrary is reprehensible.
The original statement was, in my view, intentionally baiting and morally ambiguous. It should be removed and Greg should be more precise with what he wants to say.
I think that Matt has been completely proper, as well as his own man, during the entire campaign.
I think that you, by contrast, are an Excitable Boy, but that’s excusable (even if not all that helpful for Rowe.)
I could understand Baxter taking offense at my comment — yet I still think that it’s true.
Did you just compare me to a Warren Zevon track?
I was going to go with “Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner,” but this seemed better. Glad you got the reference!
Can’t say I get it. I can say the lyrics are pretty horrible.
The lyrics are wry and not to be literally applied to you. I don’t think that you rub pot roast all over your chest, for example.
You tend to react to what you consider to be slights quickly and forcefully. That’s all.
I’m fine with the pot roast. The other bits? Pretty awful.
I hear what you’re saying, but the lyrics to that piece are gross.
I’ll clarify: I don’t think that he’s being “directed” to do anything. I think that they’re cheering him on when he joins their crusade and that, understandably, he like the cheering.
I will bet you that none of the core people on FFFF vote for Matt Rowe, regardless of what they tell you or him to your faces. They want a Bushala tool like Levinson, not an independent thinker like Rowe. I would be very happy for it to be otherwise, but this is an anti-government jihad on their part and Matt is just not jihadist enough for their taste. If they get a majority in June, though, they might be willing to tolerate him in the council minority in November.
For what it’s worth, here’s the way I think it breaks down. Voters have one of three choices 1) maintain the status quo; 2) turn hard right; 3) go for effective and lasting community-based change.
Status Quo: Means voting “No” on the recall. If it’s possible, take the Kelly Thomas beating out of the mix for a minute Have any of the three done anything warranting a recall?
You may disagree-vehemently, with some of the issues they approved, such as the water rates or the Coyote Hills deal. But show me a Council that hasn’t done something to piss a lot of people off. Philosophically, you can say they took bribes by accepting campaign funds from developers, but again most politicians take money from some kind of business interest. Is it any better, ethically, to accept money from one well-endowed “donor”? And if you recall the three of them for that, then you should recall Whitaker, too, because he voted for the Chevron development. Now put Kelly Thomas in the mix. How does that change your views?
Hard right: This is the FFFF slate. If you want things to change, you can certainly go this route. But consider what may result. I was pleased and more than a little surprised the FFFF site has a recording of the candidate forum, since its candidates didn’t do particularly well and they have a habit of evading anything that may make them look less than perfect. At least one candidate has said he would disband the police department and contract to the sheriff. Since its quite likely the sheriff would pick up the existing Fullerton PD officers, what would that change? Another said infrastructure improvements should be paid through reductions in employee compensation (although there isn’t anywhere near enough money even if you put everyone on minimum wage).
The FFFF folks like labeling the three recalled candidates with phrases like “the three bald tires” or “three clogged pipes”. I think we can call the three FFFF candidates the “three scratched records” because all they do is talk about the same issues over and over: the water rates; employee compensation, and the PD. They show a shocking inability to cogently state their positions on anything else. When asked about funding parking improvements, one of them said the cost shod come out of employees, eliciting a “that’s a bit of a stretch” retort from another candidate.
The candidates also seem to have a problem with consistency. Water rates and employee contracts? How did other FFFF-backed incumbents like Norby and Nelson vote? Oops! Why was it okay before but recall-worthy now? And wasn’t Nelson the gent whose name was on the same campaign signs as Bankhead’s’ with a big banner headline reading “Police Support…”? If you want to save Coyote Hills, think twice before you vote for these guys. We saw what a willful disregard for reality and staunch ideological posturing can do when George Bush was president. Their “We have to destroy it to save it” mentality would certainly result in change, but probably not the kind most Fullertonians want.
Finally, community-based change. Candidates like Rands, Chafee, Rowe, and Georgoff. They may have different views and different approaches, but all of them seem to have educated themselves on the issues, most of them have shown commitment to the community by serving on commissions or non-profits, and their answers at the forum were well-thought out and showed some appreciation for the reality of where we are. Does the PD’s culture need change? Yes, but it needs to be changed intelligently into a more compassionate and less authoritarian department. How would switching to the sheriff’s department achieve that?
Are all city employees overpaid and underworked? Probably not, after losing almost 60 positions, having their wages frozen for four years and they’re now paying their share of retirement costs. But, can the organization be run more efficiently, so the remaining sources—human and material—can be used more effectively? Absolutely! But show me any organization, public or private, that can’t be improved. These people seem interested in creating a better, stronger, and more unified community rather than one based on conspiracy theories, division, and brute force.
Before you vote, you really need to ask yourself, “Am I voting as a passionate response to the failure of the current Council, or for the long-term good of the community?” If you can honestly answer that question, your choices are petty clear.
[Editors’s Note: I put in paragraph breaks because reading this without them was killing me. — GAD]
Thanks for putting in the paragraph breaks. I write some of the longer posts in Word and cut and paste to avoid embarrasing typos.
Diamond. You are too much. A month ago Levinson was blaming Rowe for splitting his vote and now you are accusing him of splitting the Chaffee vote. I think Rowe is the best man for the job by far and is actually splitting both “party’s” vote. He is the only one that stands on his own and does not answer to a party. He will answer to only the “voter”.
I presume that he could split votes from both Chaffee and Levinson. I just happen to think that Democrats will really consider voting for him and at least the FFFF-publicans are faking it. Anyway, the FFFF story was about Democrats abandoning Chaffee for Rowe — the evidence for the “trend” being the Baxters letter — so I don’t see what you’re up in arms about.
I lived next door to Chaffee and his wife for 9 years on Hickory Place. This man is an idiot and is not fit to attend homeowners meetings let alone hold a seat on city council. He is a bad neighbor and his wife is a basket case. Not the sort of change I was hoping for in Fullerton. I have voted against him for many, many years and will continue to do so in 2012.
How brave of you to come forward like this with such nasty anonymous assertions. People not throwing bricks from behind bushes like you have is part of the sort of change that I’ve been hoping for in Fullerton — and in the rest of Orange County.
I’m sure that he’s dismayed not to get your vote this time.