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We have sort of a “file” on Lucille Kring, containing things that you (and maybe even she) may not remember. (To get a three year-old primer on her flip-flops, start here.) With filing having closed for the November election’s political offices (other than where an eligible incumbent seeks re-election), it seems like a good time to remind you (and maybe her) of a few things. (Well, maybe “a few” is selling our Kring file a bit short.) Let’s start here:
General Municipal Election – November 4, 2014
Measure N: Anaheim Local Services Measure
Shall Section 1221 of the Anaheim City Charter regarding water and electric rates be amended to:
update language regarding financial reserves, reaffirm and authorize the transfer of money to the City’s general fund to support general City services, remove unnecessary language that duplicates a requirement of the California Constitution, and authorize programs to assist non‐residential and residential customers? (Measure Text / Impartial Analysis)
Measure N: Vote Count
Yes: 21,413 No: 21,535
To recap: Measure N, raising Anaheim’s utility fees, came within 123 votes out of 42,948 of passing. (If only 62 people had switched from “No” to “Yes,” it would have passed.)
Measure N was Lucille Kring’s baby. Its primary opponent was the cranky, obnoxious, booming, and disgustingly vicious Council gadfly William Denis Fitzgerald. (This explains why many of us still listen to the substantive portions of what Fitz has to say: while they are sometimes nonsense, and the sense in them is often drowned out by the gratuitous and bigoted attacks … he’s often right about the policies! And more importantly, he often sees things that other people don’t see. So while there are good reasons that Kring hates Fitz, there are also bad reasons: such as he sometimes plays a huge role in blocking her own stupid, vile, and mean plans.)
But that’s not the best part. How many of you actually read the text of the measure, to see what that innocuous-sounding “update language regarding financial reserves” actually means? You didn’t? Well, now would be a great time to do so!
I have helpfully highlighted the four substantive changes in Kring’s measure — additions in blue, deletions in pink — and put tiny red numbers next to each for purposes of discussion. I’ve also highlighted some useful text from the measure in yellow, because sometimes that helps the worst abuses hide.
Change 1: Removing the requirement that Anaheim’s utility rates maintain financial reserves “adequate to assure debt service on bonds outstanding.”
Maintaining the utility agency’s reserves at a high enough level to assure payment of its debt service on bonds ensures that the utility will never have to tap into the city’s General Fund to cover its debts. Kring, in proposing Measure N, did not want to keep reserve levels that high. Why? Do we want the general fund to be more at risk? Did you even know that you were voting on this two years ago?
Did you realize, when you read the ballot statement, that THIS was what she meant by “update language regarding financial reserves”?
Change 2: Chiseling away at the amount that the utility must contribute to the general fund
The City Charter requires that Anaheim’s utility provide up to 4% of its total revenues to the City during the previous year. “Up to” means that it can be less, but only if the City Council takes responsibility for the cut. Kring wanted to reduce this cap from 4% of the gross revenues to 4% of the net revenues — net of everything except “operating revenue” — necessarily a lower number. So she wants Anaheim’s utility to have lower reserves and to quietly be able to give less money to the City! Why?
Did you realize that THIS was what she meant by “reaffirm and authorize the transfer of money to the City’s general fund to support City services”? Did you know that “reaffirm and authorize” meant cutting the amount of money that the General Fund would receive?
Change 3: Detaches amount of rates from cost to provide utility services
Currently, different “classes” of customers pay the same rates (except for special discount programs for some residential customers.) But all utility customers in the same “class” pay the same rates, and those rates are based upon the actual costs of providing services to them. Kring’s Measure N would have removed this requirement from the City Charter. The ballot argument applies that it is redundant with a requirement of the California Constitution — but then why eliminate it? It would only make a difference if there were a drive to remove the requirement from the state constitution, or if there are court decisions circumventing the Constitutional requirement in some cases. (Strangely enough, it does happen.)
Did you realize that this crucial extra layer of protection against being gouged on utility rates was what what Kring considered to be merely “redundant”?
Change 4: Allow special rate concessions to businesses for unspecified reasons, not solely to distressed residents
Currently, the City Council can create ratepayer discount and other programs designed to assist residents who have trouble paying their utility bills. That’s a nice thing for the city to do for its residents, especially in hard times (at least for the working and middle classes) like ours. And it’s not like politicians or staff members are so willing to put themselves in the vulnerable position of bending the rules to give breaks on rates to undeserving residents. But non-residential users such as businesses? They DO have the money to push financial breaks and benefits for themselves through the City Council! Does anyone really imagine that Disney — the Angels, the Ducks, Hardin Automotive, or plenty of other businesses wouldn’t push the Council for a lower utility bill if they could? Measure N would have left only one barrier to keep them from doing so: the City Council’s own (cough!) integrity.
Did you realize that, when the ballot statement said Measure N would “authorize programs to benefit residential and non-residential customers,” residential customers were already eligible for benefits if they couldn’t pay bills (so those programs didn’t need to be newly “authorized”) while non-residential customers were being newly authorized for what could have been new classes of larger, and less justifiable, breaks on their utility bills? You probably didn’t right?
Was all this Kring’s own cunning plan — or did some outside interest plan it and put her up to it?
Now let’s be fair: this is well enough and subtly enough drafted that Lucille Kring did not likely come up with the language (or even the underlying ideas) on her own. So she was probably carrying water for some interests wealthy enough to hire a team of sharp lawyers who were getting paid to do what I’m trying to undo for free. (And if Kring is re-elected, they’ll probably do it again in 2018 and/or 2020. After all, that was one close vote!)
So, for those people who think that it’s better if Kring was duped (or, um, “enticed”) into trying to rip-off consumers, rather than coming up with the scheme by herself, you have a good question to ask Kring this year: “WHO PUT YOU UP TO SPONSORING MEASURE N?”
Conclusion: Does all of this add up?
Meanwhile, let’s total up the score: Kring’s narrowly defeated Measure N would have meant less money set aside for debt service, less money likely to be paid to Anaheim’s General Fund, less protection against arbitrary rate hikes, and no greater protection for residents who were having trouble paying their bills. So what was going to happen to all that extra money that wasn’t going to be saved, wasn’t going to be given to the City, wasn’t going to be used to hold down rates, and wasn’t going to expand forbearance programs for struggling residents?
Well, what’s left in what Measure N would have done? Oh, there it is. It would have taken away money from the city and from residents to give it to big business. And Lucille Kring probably got some nice far contributions on the basis of her playing along with business interests and carrying their water here. When you see those glossy mailers promoting Kring’s re-election, remember that some of the money paying for them probably came from interests that were using her as their vehicle to push through Measure N while everyone’s attention was distracted on Measures L & M. You have to keep a really close eye on this one, hmmm?
Lucille Kring: You can’t trust her, so don’t re-elect her.
This is your Weekend Open Thread. Talk about that, or anything else you’d like, within reasonable bounds of discretion and decorum.
One of the things Measure N was supposed to do was legitimize an “in-lieu” fee to the General Fund that was really nothing more than a tax.
Like Fullerton, Anaheim was no doubt doing the transfer that was made illegal by Props 218 and 26. This was meant to legitimize the scam.
The General Fund should not be the recipient of Utility revenue. That’s bad accounting and bad governance. Utilities rates should reflect the cost of delivering electricity and water and that’s it.
I don’t doubt that Kring would love circumventing the system like that just based on general principles (as, focusing only on photos from distant yesteryears, she seems to view herself as some sort of Natasha Fatale figure.) But I don’t think that that’s what’s going on here. Why funnel more money to the General Fund when spending that money leaves too many fingerprints?
Instead, the text of the measure would have reduced the cap on what the utility could give to the General Fund from 4% of gross revenues to 4% of operating revenues. (See discussion above.) That doesn’t fit with what Fullerton was doing. And why open the justification for the program for subsidizing struggling low-income residents to include programs for (non-)struggling businesses? I think that this wasn’t intended to funnel more money to the General Fund, but to allow circumvention of the General Fund altogether. Businesses (especially Anaheim businesses, who as used to getting their way) love subsidies; a utility bill subsidy program controlled by friendly staff would have been an excellent and sneaky way to dole them out. (They’d still know who to thank.)
N was no doubt meant to to do many things, one of which was to legitimize (“reaffirm and authorize” – two completely incongruent terms) the transfer from the utility to the General Fund, a transfer that is illegal without a vote.
Fullerton was doing exactly the same thing – transferring 10% of the gross water revenue to the General Fund even though City costs were already being charged to the Water Fund. They called it an in-lieu fee, a charade that I don’t think Anaheim even bothered with.
But Fullerton went the other route, cooking up a new, but just as phony cost % so they could keep calling it an in-lieu fee.
No utility funds should go to the General Fund and no rebates should be offered, either. If the PUD has sufficient funds to cover an adequate reserve, and cover debt, rates should be lowered for everybody.
Just when I thought I could not take one more issue with this council…here comes yet another one. (Please Lord give strength to me thine loyal servant)
Too much power. Too much going on behind the scenes.
I am speculating they are too sophisticated to use their public emails making a public record search for their emails a waste of time to show corroboration and influence by others.
But too bad one can’t do a public record search of a council members private emails and text messages if those private emails and text messages were used to conduct government business? i.e “Dear Madam Clerk: Cause to be produced herewith to the aforementioned party in the first part all private emails and private text messages of [council member’s name] that in anyway relate to the heretofore person’s communication regarding Charter Amendment Measure M”
There would probably be a treasure trove of information in those private emails and text messages. (“Lock her up-Lock her up!)
Why should the public not see all emails and text messages regarding government business even if they were on private emails and private phones? There is precedent here because of Hillary Clinton using a private server for her emails.
PS: Where would we be without people like Mr. Diamond and Ms. Ward and Mr. Vern and Mr. David to watch out for us on this stuff. I don’t want to think about that because it means moving out of this city since I don’t like some of the bad things that are happening here.
PSS: No disrespect to my democratic brothers and sisters by any references or comments herein. All references to Hillary Clinton are for illustration purposes only and I accept no liability for any anger such comments may cause you since I am not advocating against Hillary Clinton. And for the record I am an independent voting for Hillary.
Mr. Editor: Thank you for allowing me to post you have my permission to edit as you deem necessary.
Come to think of it, Anaheim SHOULD have a policy requiring ALL city business to be conducted on City servers. Make it an ordinance and it becomes a crime to not comply. Yes one can still use a personal account, simply CC your city account to create a public record. What is so hard about that? And yet….
You’re too kind to us intrepid Juicers. Seriously — you’re making me nervous! Say something impolite, please!
Saying that you support Hillary doesn’t get you very far here, though. (Thanks for permission, but as a rule we don’t edit comments to “improve” them; occasionally to fix typos or to take out all of the consonants or something.)
Your suggestion is, of course, a good one. I believe that James Vanderbilt already more or less lives by those rules.
Great reminder.
Higher taxes for residents.
Tax rebate and giveaway for campaign donors.
Refusal to let residents vote on decisions costing $100,000,000 or more.
Oh, and let’s not forget the value of saving trial costs through summary executions!
Not qualified to lead.
Final ballot roster (except for those contests with registration extended until Wednesday at 5:00) is up!
http://www.ocvote.com/fileadmin/user_upload/data/candlog/gen2016/candlog.pdf
It will be put into proper ballot order once the Secretary of State rearranges the alphabet.
NOBODY RUNNING AGAINST BILODEAU FOR OCWD
And up until recently I’d thought he’d been not elected but appointed by the Orange City Council.
Of COURSE Poseidon opponent Phil Anthony and Poseidon skeptic Roger Yoh both have challengers, who will no doubt be VERY well funded. Phil and Roger deserve all our support.
And more than that, CLEM DOMINGUEZ deserves our support in his race against one of the biggest Poseidon servants of all, OCWD chaiwoman Cathy Green.
It’s not just Clem Dominguez, Vern!
ALEX REICH also deserves our support in his race against Slow Jim Fisler in Mesa Water District 2.
Roger Yoh will gain some benefit from the fact that he’s not only running against Councilman Peter Kim, but also against Peter L. Kim. Yep, someone JoJo’d him!(Note: “Fake Kim” didn’t qualify.)Now I suppose I had better explain the Bilodeau thing….
Fisler! You mean our old “deadwhitemale” who used to make obnoxious racist, sexist, AND Poseido-shilling comments here until you, Zenger, and John Earl scared him off in a remarkable display of tripartisan unity.
That’s the one! Slow Jim.
I’m the slow one, taking so long on all my stories. How did Fisler get that name?
I gave it to him. Spell it “Sloe Gin” and it will make sense to you.
But he’s pretty QUICK to blurt out obnoxious shit – on Facebook, blog comments, and in person.
Look folks, I’m a volunteer here — and a volunteer here with less and less time on my hands. So I apologize for the lower service level in this case.
The one thing I can think of that I don’t like about how the Registrar of Voters office does its job is that they don’t post contests on the “Candidate Log” sheet if no one is as yet running. They do have a separate page listing the (many many) contests that will be on the ballot, which I did open this year to cross-check, but I hadn’t noticed the discrepancy — and without a race listed if no one has filed, it’s hard to keep those “empty races” in mind. So by waiting until August 11, Bilodeau preventing his triggering the Area 2 sheet from being on the Candidate Log — and I just missed its absence. (Frankly, it’s not likely to have mattered; it’s not like I have a whole lot of sway in Tustin and Orange anyway.)
It could be that someone else was going to run and backed out (as when Bilodeau himself backed out on running for Assessor two years ago, leading to Webster Guillory’s downfall), or it could be that he didn’t want to run until Todd Spitzer’s intriguing, doomed, and (he later said) just-for-show policy to prevent double-dipping was withdrawn, but I prefer to think that Bilodeau was carefully monitoring OJB to see if I would continue to omit the District 2 race before he pounced.
Someone could still run a write-in campaign against the highly vulnerable Bilodeau, but who? It would have to be a strong and aggressive fiscal conservative who isn’t already on the ballot. Someone who already had strong name recognition in the pretty conservative Orange, Tustin, and even Silverado area. Someone willing to fight against long odds. It wouldn’t even matter if they had some skeletons in the closet — or on the front porch — because Bilodeau’s in no shape to get into that sort of fight. But it’s hard to come up with a name of someone with those qualities who lives in Orange, Tustin, or Silverado. Oh, I forgot — since it includes all of Orange, it includes Villa Park as well.
Can you think of anyone from one of those cities who could pull off a write-in campaign, Vern? Someone pretty conservative? And don’t forget Villa Park, like I did for a while above….
Did you think my angry face was at you? No, I’m just mad that nobody’s running against Denis.
I only found out that was an elected seat, from Zenger and then Flory, about a week ago. I thought of Theresa Sears but she’s not interested in running for anything.
You’re hinting at a Pauly write-in. I’d suggest it to her but she wasn’t real friendly to me at Anaheim council the other day. (Maybe she finally read some of my old pieces about her?). I also don’t know if she’s clued in about Poseidon in particular. And I don’t know what makes you think Denis is vulnerable just cuz WE know he’s a dillwad – he’ll have all the money in the world to prove otherwise.
Great — make Bilodeau spend that money.
He’s vulnerable because of the double-dipping that Spitzer came out against (for a time), and for his atrocious attendance record on the Board, and for his support of Poseidon. Pauly would be just the candidate to be able to go after all three of those — and appeal to anti-tax, anti-waste voters. I strongly presume that, given the facts, she’d be anti-Poseidon.
No, I didn’t think that the orange glare was directed at me; I just try not to make errors or omissions when putting together these lists, and, had I not lost track of the contest, I would have beat the gong hard looking for someone to run against him. I’m glaring at myself.
the seat for mwdoc is open for applicants the incumbant didnt file.
Yeah, but we were talking about OCWD, not MWDOC.
For MWDOC 7, do you know anything about Evan Chaffee or Raymond Miller? They’ve both already committed (to the point of paying for ballot statements.) Donald Froelich and Richard Garndner have not, so far. Anyone there worth supporting?
IF Deb did that… would she be able to spend the money she raised for her assembly race?
I think so. <=== NOT A LEGAL OPINION.
Unforseen (?) (unintended ?) responses to the “fight for 15”-
http://www.zerohedge.com/print/569219
http://www.businessinsider.com/robots-that-are-replacing-farm-workers-2016-8
HOW do you think the tourist traffic to Antarctica compares with that to Anaheim’s Mercenary Magic Kingdom? Well Antarctica now boasts its own FIVE STAR hotel. No mention in the article if the owners demanded a TOT rebate to build (and now remodel), but somehow I doubt it.
http://www.bloomberg.com//news/articles/2016-08-17/white-desert-antarctica-s-jaw-dropping-luxury-hotel
Anyone want to start a pool on how long until the Klepto’s handlers program them to raise a hue and cry about the “crisis of Five Star Hotel business being lost to Antarctica, and the urgency of a remedial TOT rebate” ? lol.
Because your average family from Peoria who has saved up all year to go to Disneyland is definitely going to want those 5-star amenities – the distance between Anaheim and Antarctica they’ll overlook … as long as we build them a streetcar.
From the Antarctic to ARTIC! Intermodal.
Perhaps even Cathartic ! (in several ways !)
I hear Tom Tait put in a $13,000 curb on that Antarctica project. That’s why he opposes ToT rebates in Anaheim. He wants to put more curbs in Antarctica.
This just over Yahoo- A New Mexico Italian restaurant is selling “Black Olives Matter” T shirts. Just the thing for when my “Hillary for Prison” one wears out !
Meanwhile over at the FibOC, that anonymous coward “David Vasquez” really pissed me off. On some CATER-dissing post he wove a fantasy tapestry of Orange Juice people living in abject poverty, including “Donna begging for school supplies,” so I cussed him out and told him never to mention my wife again or I’d find him and slug him.
Not only does he obviously troll our Facebook pages, but of course Donna was not “begging for school supplies,” she was helping to publicize Yesenia’s drive for school supplies for Anna Drive school kids, a drive that we helped with and was very successful. To asshole “Vasquez” that is comical and embarrassing.
And what does Dan C come back with, in defense of his anonymous troll? “And you make fun of me for donating mattresses to abused kids. Loser.”
Yes, as we already know, Dan really is that stupid. I tried responding but apparently I’m on moderation now, which means I probably won’t be going back there any time soon, but duh:. #1 This is more like some anonymous prick saying his wife Dawn is out begging for a mattress.
But beyond that, NOBODY EVER MADE FUN OF DAN FOR DONATING MATTRESSES – we made fun of him for boasting about it nonstop and acting like it made him better than everyone else. Dan Chmielewski, Pharisee and clueless cretin.
Fake Vasquez still claims that I contacted his workplace. The only actual person in the local political blogosphere to whom I know from the source that has happened is Ryan Cantor — an act denied (unconvincingly, in my opinion) by Dan. It’s almost a tribute, in a way; people actually get paid to pull bits from our online discussions and turn them into anonymous hits on us, so that “called his employer” canbecome something did by us rather than to us, thus weakening the power of our ability to protest it. It’s a kennel of really sick puppies over there. Now your “threat” to slug Fake Vasquez — as if you threatened to slap another fictitious character like Lois Lane — will become a recurring trope. It’s fascinating, in its way.
And it’s almost all anonymous — except for Chumley, who’s happy to support others’ petty fabrications and distortions under his own name. Because that’s what a PR professional is willing to do.
I’m glad you’re on moderation; you were breathing a lot of oxygen onto their dumpster fire. Let’s make Dan’s imaginary friends work harder to make the room seem full! I say we put up some posts here to house an all-out war of wits, because they are woefully undersupplied with them.
Yup. I keep that letter on my desk as a daily reminder, too.
I find it remarkable that someone else nurses all the exact petty hatreds and jealousies that infest the peanut-sized brain of Lil’ Clumski.
Pretty hard to believe.
For the record, Donna thought the whole thing was funny. But still “Vasquez” doesn’t have my permission to utter her name.
Liberal grassroots organization MoveOn.org weighs in with an endorsement in the U.S. Senate race. It’s … pretty decisive:
I truly do wish Loretta well in her career after this race — and I truly do wish that she had decided to stay in the House of Representatives.
Best thing she’s done this month is endorse Donna.
Well… waiting for the final letter…
Maybe even the best thing she’s done this year!
Nah, I have y’all beat. I’ve been accused of activism as a criminal act, more than once. Actual, file-a-complaint- with-the-authorities type crap AND threats for more. (The best part of that was hearing the FPPC people LAUGHING on the phone while describing it.) Letters to one’s employers is 2nd place. Insulting our mates is standard operating procedure now. Which is kind of backwards, really, when it is obvious our mates need freaking AWARDS.