[Probably Councilwoman Natalie Meeks, sensing peril.]
A “fight or flight” reflex took hold of Anaheim’s (jokingly nicknamed) “Reform Council” last night, when the team the previous council had hired to investigate the town’s corruption (the JL Group) showed up, asking for more money to continue their work because the cesspool they’d been tasked to survey had turned out to be ever so much deeper and wider than originally suspected.
“We have never seen anything like this,” marveled veteran investigator Jeff Johnson, and orifices on that dais clenched palpably. When his colleague Jeff Love mentioned possible “criminal violations of the law,” the gang of seven began to focus feverishly on stanching the damage.
It didn’t help when Love added, “We’ve found problems going back 20 years.” No wonder Natalie Meeks was the most terrified of all – she’s brand new on Council but she was a real mover and shaker when her handler Curt Pringle was Mayor from 2002-10. She had come prepared with a list of grave concerns (and didn’t appear to be receiving any texts on the dais.) Most pressingly she agonized about what the JL Group might release to the public, and how it could very possibly HURT GOOD PEOPLE! The final report is set to be released in full to the public who paid for it – activists made sure of that – but you could tell the good Ms. Meeks dearly hopes she can redact it first.
Natalie M also, like the rest of the Council, bellyached over the additional $750k the investigators were requesting – a mere ZERO-POINT-FOUR PERCENT of the 185MM in public money she and Pringle blew on the unnecessary and currently deserted ARTIC Station, but hey. That’s water under the bridge, while THIS is just an attempt to get honest government in Anaheim.
Poor Councilman Steve Faessel sat bent and silent the whole time, and abstained on the vote. I’d been told earlier in the day that he is personally under investigation, and dismissed it as a rumor until last night. It’s kind of sad. It’s not as easy to wish ill on that dapper and friendly gentleman as it was with the arrogant Sidhu, Brandman, O’Neil, Kring and Murray.
As always we strove diligently to decipher what Councilman Jose Diaz was saying. Most of it seemed to be protestations of his innocence of ANYTHING. At one point though, Jeanine and I looked at each other quickly – we swore we both heard him tell the investigators “I give you blank check for your work.” But I’m sure he meant the opposite, that he DIDN’T want to give them a blank check.
It was maddening to hear new members Leon and Rubalcava, intelligent people with plenty of government knowledge who RAN ON A PLATFORM OF REFORM, claim unfamiliarity with anything to do with the investigation. They weren’t paying attention that month, too busy running for office? But the thing had been properly agendized for yesterday’s meeting. Jeesh! At least Mayor Aitken was familiar with the investigation, but she like the others was put off by the additional $750k the team was requesting, to continue their painstaking work into July.
Having been elected with HUGE help from Anaheim’s Fire Union, our new Mayor expresses expenditures, sums of money, in terms of how many firefighters it could theoretically pay for – the firefighters we’re missing out on hiring if we spend on something else like investigating corruption. “This $750k is THREE FIREFIGHTERS we could put on the street!” the Mayor cried out. $250k per firefighter seems a little steep, but she’s probably right, in Anaheim, after their recent raise.
Her expressing costs in terms of firefighters caught on with some of the other members too. Firefighters as currency will be something to get used to though, and may take some practice. Let’s see:
- Arte Moreno tried to buy the Stadium land for FOUR FIREFIGHTERS AN ACRE.
- Special interests spent THREE FIREFIGHTERS electing Natalie Meeks.
- Natalie and Curt blew 740 FIREFIGHTERS building the unnecessary and still-deserted ARTIC station. Okay, I guess this could work…
The Sage of Dogwood
In the years after Thomas Jefferson’s Presidency, his successors Madison and Monroe used to regularly make pilgrimages to his Monticello estate to get his advice on issues of the day – thus, he was sometimes referred to as “The Sage of Monticello.” Well, Anaheim has Gloria Ma’ae, the appointed-and-quickly-defeated Councilwoman who makes the trip from her Dogwood Avenue home to share her wisdom with today’s Council. Sure, the hallmark of her tenure was 1) profess ignorance of most issues, 2) vote on them anyway, and 3) read off lists of “concerns” compiled by her handler Arianna Barrios.
But at this point Gloria has knowledge and ideas to share! It was startling last week to hear Mayor Aitken – an actual lawyer – echoing Gloria’s earlier arguments against including Independent Expenditures in our much-needed package of Campaign Finance Reform because somehow Citizens United makes it unconstitutional. (It doesn’t.) This blog will have much more to say about THAT in the days to come, but that was just a foretaste of Gloria’s influence!
For the Sage of Dogwood sauntered up to the mike last night and decreed that “The investigation should be put on hold until the FBI are done with THEIR investigation” – and soon enough, FOUR of our Councilmembers were saying the same thing! (Gloria mentioned, correctly, that Irvine had just voted against a similar self-investigation with the same bogus excuse – and to Irvine’s shame, that is true, and who the hell told Gloria about that anyway?)
Well, to start with, as Johnson replied, the JL Group’s “scope is different from the FBI’s. We’re not duplicating their effort … We primarily address not only political crimes, but state crimes and violations as well. We’re looking at some different things than the feds are. I’m not sure that would help for you to put it on hold.”
Aside from that, can’t you see what a stupid bullshit evasion that is, waiting on the Feds, how it’s just a naked attempt to put off the investigation forever? Nobody knows for sure if the FBI is still in Anaheim (or if they’re really in Irvine) – we hope they are but they don’t tell us – and we won’t know when they’re done either. This is like some little kid’s REALLY lame attempt at not having to clean their room till some other day.
Déjà vu? Nah…
A lot of you, watching last night’s meeting, watching a group elected on the promise of investigating and reforming their predecessors’ lawless acts, back off on that promise because “It’s all better now, we’re in charge,” may have felt like you were experiencing déjà vu.
Well you weren’t! Déjà vu is an unexplained psychological phenomenon where you feel that you’ve experienced something before but you know you haven’t. But we HAVE experienced this before. And I’m not just talking about Obama’s exhortations to “Look forward not back” and let Bush’s war crimes and lying us into Iraq go unpunished, or the current AG’s glacial pace at doing anything about Trump’s crimes against the nation. I’m talking about something we all experienced recently in THIS County.
I’m talking about how when Todd Spitzer was elected DA, having campaigned through 2018 against Tony Rackauckas’ jailhouse snitch scandal and countless other abuses, decided to stonewall and otherwise prevent any meaningful investigations or consequences into his predecessor’s behavior. “Oh, everything’s good now, I’m in charge. Go home. Nothing more to worry about.”
It’s enough to make you suspect that these “reformist” candidates never really cared about the crimes they railed against in their campaigns, or the consequences of letting those pass with impunity – rather, they were ONLY USING THOSE to get themselves into office. Is the election of “reformists” Aitken, Leon and Rubalcava ANY different? We shall see on Feb. 28, but it’s not looking good right now.
“Meet the New Boss, same as the Old Boss…”
[illustration Felipe Flores, OC Weekly]
“If you want to destroy my sweater…”
Judge Clay Smith, who oversees this JL Group investigation, told the Council last night, “What my colleagues are finding raises real concerns. It needs to be finished… I believe that if you let them finish their job, you’ll be glad you did because you’ll know what happened and you will have, I think, some valuable recommendations for public policy.”
But Council gave them till next meeting, Feb. 28, to narrow their scope and WRAP THE INVESTIGATION UP.
We hired these gentlemen to pull on the thread of corruption, and they pulled on it, and Anaheim’s corruption turned out to be much bigger than anyone expected, like Weezer’s sweater. If we want to destroy that sweater, we need to let them keep pulling, even if it does cost us three firefighters – they are used to running into burning buildings for the public good! Vern out.
[DISCLAIMER: Wylie Aitken does NOT chair the Orange Juice Blog Board of Directors!]
Great article, worth its weight in Firefighters! It’s interesting to see that a certain “journalist” with marital ties to the Chamber of Commerce has resumed releasing articles making the same arguments against issues that councilmembers take to making as well. It’s quite obvious Gloria Ma’ae read from scripts written by people with similar ties during her thankfully limited masquerade as a qualified representative, she was almost as bad as Sidhu at concealing it.
The Chamber would have the clearest motive at the moment to narrow and “wrap this investigation up” seeing as their leadership tends to engage in activities that get them thrown in federal prison (Google Todd Ament), so it would make sense to learn that some of those articles come as a result of cooperation between the new president of the Cabal’s Chamber and her cabal-shill husband. From a “Cunninghammy” perspective, it must be bad enough to have the fbi investigating you, but must be quite the feeling to have a diligent city investigation unncovering crimes your “good people” have committed in completely different, albeit inter-related areas as well.
Hats off to JL Group, I still think the public should do a firefighter-raising to pay them the rest of the firefighters they need to finish their work to fully expose this greedy firefighter theft and firefighter laundering corruption. Pay them their 3 firefighters because after all, firefighters isn’t everything when we’re talking about potentially saving 1000 firefighters later when the next firefighter scam comes around.
Great article, worth its weight in Firefighters!
For the win.
But, she’s a former federal prosecutor!®
So, what, same as the old boss.
https://youtu.be/WX_96uKZ7yQ
Weezer’s Beverly Hills! I’m in Beverly Hills today. My hometown… Gonna go to some of my old haunts and get Jewish Deli. Smoking a cigar right now the street from city hall right now.
https://youtu.be/HL_WvOly7mY
Yup… didn’t wanna put more than one song onto this story, but I can’t get enough of that video of Pete & Keith…
I am now regretting my vote for Aitken, even though I always knew she’d turn Kleptostablishment ASAP. I should have left the ballot blank. William James tells us that when there is no practical difference in the outcome, two choices mean effectively the same thing.
Also, the sooner we get rid of the term “firefighter” and call them what they are – emergency medical personnel (EMPs), the sooner we can reign in the astronomical cost of our Heroes.
Is it time again for this Bushala-produced classic?
How would Trevor have been any better?
Aitken may not be shamed into being honorable yet — but she can be and she will be. Trevor would never be.
Some people temperamentally can’t stomach a “lesser evil.” Donna is like that too.
We all have evil in us. Allowing someone significantly worse to govern due to one’s refusal to be sullied can itself be an evil, if it’s not clear that one’s loud refusal to take part in a choice will do even a penny’s worth of good.
It’s official. Oh myopic booby one admits what we all believed to be self-evident. He is evil. Speak for yourself counselor. Lol.
I’m approving this comment of yours partially to embarrass you.
William James tells us that when there is no practical difference in the outcome, two choices mean effectively the same thing.
Well, we still have yet to see if Ashleigh is better than Trevor on certain issues like affordable housing. Probably she will be.
And there you have an area where I will vehemently disagree: Sacramento diktat destroying local planning control. Aitken is safe up on the hill. Others not so much to the overdevelopment decreed by our incompetent legislature, idiotic SCAG numbers, and lust of apartment cliff-dwelling developers.
But we don’t know whether there are practical differences. Electing Aitken has offered some home, with which she might not follow through, or might not be successful even if she tries. Electing Trevor would have been a complete capitulation: no hope whatsoever. Aitken has to have at least some concern about hanging onto the reformist part of the electorate; Trevor did not.
If “90% of success is just showing up”, electing Ashleigh was just that: showing up. Not the end of anything, but possibly the beginning.
That’s just wishful thinking. Repost is a year after the cops and emergency medical personnel have got another raise and the Kleptocracy has received another bonanza.
No she won’t. She is an Aitken. Beyond reproach.
You appreciate that she is an establishment candidate. The Anaheim cabal has nothing on the DC one. And, she is big Machine offspring.
Among other things, Daddy has a history as a Democratic Judicial Selection Committee advising the White House on federal judges appointments.
Her husband is on a committee that advises Newsom about state judge appointments.
They can accept acknowledgment from organizations steeped in a history of spying on US citizens, promoting legislation chilling free speech critical of Israel and lobbying against formal US recognition of the Armenian Genocide for Israel and Turkey. You can’t.
They believe they are just flat out different than you and entitled.
https://www.feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=8500b5d9-905b-0a1d-6d3b-28fac1447f7c
https://www.aitkenlaw.com/wylie-attorney-committee/
https://voiceofoc.org/2017/05/reiff-lawyer-ashleigh-aitken-planning-run-for-anaheim-mayor-not-for-da/?amp
https://www.gov.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Regional-Judicial-Selection-Advisory-Committees-1.21.pdf (Find “Casey Johnson”)
“They believe they are just flat out different than you and entitled.”
Yep. The classic limousine liberals telling us what we need – on their way to the bank.
My firm applied to do the investigation. Everyone knew that JL was under-selling the cost and the time it would take to do the investigation, and everyone paying attention knew that the scope of this could go back a long way. Is the problem with this Council, or with the fact that the last Council hired a low-ball bidder hoping to get a quickie exoneration?
Hmmm… The plot sickens
I believe they were hired as former cops (not lawyers and auditors) because they could be relied upon to muddle the thing or whitewash it. Now that maybe they’re not so inclined, the Kleptostablishment has been scripted to play an episode of Frugality Theater.
I seem to remember that JL was not my first choice, not that anybody asked me, but now that I know the two main Jeffreys they’re doing fine work. Maybe they DID sneakily underbid the others though.
I also seem to remember the ethical-to-a-fault Moreno recusing himself from the vote because Lee had contributed to him… am I remembering right?
Did everyone know that, Lee? How? Did “everyone” have a mental list of how much ethical muck would ooze out of the ground at a slight scrape of a trowel?
Did you know about the Greenlaw-Sidhu deal that Vern wrote about last week, to which he and Donna tipped off JL? If so, how? If not, then if you were the investigator wouldn’t it be possible that it — and likely much more like it — would lead you too to expand the scope of the investigation?
If they respond to people who claim to be digging up golden nuggets of malfeasance by saying “you know, we really don’t need to know about this after all,” how the hell do they think that they’re going to stay out of prison?
My prediction is that the Council will try to snuff out this investigation and claim to own all of JL’s work product and try to hold them under a muzzle — and that JL is going to make enough off of whistleblower rewards that they can buy the Angels out from under Arte Moreno.
Vern remembers Jose’s recusal correctly.
Yes, everyone (who spent any serious time making a submission, anyway) knew this. It’s not that I knew how the scope of the investigation might expand, but that the scope of an investigation like this ALWAYS expands somehow. And it was clear that this one would expand a lot. Nor am I saying that my firm was necessarily the right choice–we had advantages we presented; so did others. So did JL, though when I ranked the likelihood of firms to get picked, JL ranked behind “re-bid the process.” (FWIW, I thought that they would re-bid before they picked us too; but for slightly different reasons.) And Judge Smith was specifically picked because he was the cheapest.
None of this is meant to knock Judge Smith (whom I respect), or JL (whom I do not know, but don’t have any reason not to respect). Only to point out that it was known at the time to anyone taking the bidding seriously knew that the time and money estimated was never going to cut it. It certainly had a feel that the Council had hoped for a quick exoneration. And if JL is shirking that, good for them. The problem here is that now someone really does have a blank check. If they come back in 3 months and say “we need another $750,000, will the response from this quarter be any different, or will the demand be to give them the money to dig into the muck? And the $750,000 after that? Etc. There’s just not a good solution here.
Lee, I think that at some point they should be prepared to provide whatever the equivalent of “proffers” would be. If it involves Councilmember themselves, and perhaps I’d go beyond that, then the proffers should go to higher levels, probably to the AG’s office.
Do you have any doubt that the money spent (even if it goes to $3MM, as you posit) would ultimately save Anaheim more than that going forward? Honestly, this strikes me as making a bargain to take only 1/4 of the termites out of one’s house because that’s all one can afford. (Except that in this analysis, 3-4 of the councilmembers might themselves be termites.)
The Council should make clear, by resolution, that if they cut JL’s contract short, any other government agency with power over corruption in Anaheim can pay for furtherance of the investigation, on the condition that the results will not be embargoed.
Very interesting comments. Despite the best efforts of everyone involved, this exact situation is more common than most are aware. It can be deliberate or entirely justified and defensible.
Don’t get discourage as a future bidder. We all need as many options as possible in the competitive bidding process.
Why TF is Ashley Aitken singing this song ? Wtf?
The song is about one person holding onto a thread from a sweater as the person wearing it walks about, ultimately making the entire sweater unravel.
That is, in this case, a metaphor for following the threads of an investigation until the tightly wound and knotted mystery is entirely eliminated.
Here, we want the sweater to be unraveled. Get it?
Other clues are embedded here: https://www.orangejuiceblog.com/2008/05/lucas-the-truth-is-out-there/
They could LITERALLY fund this with bond revenue! Most of the benefits would go to future residents, after all. My God, I would LOVE to own a “JL GROUP Anaheim INVESTIGATION” municipal bond, wouldn’t you!
Seriously — what’s the LOW estimate for how much this investigation will save Anaheim?
Of course, JL Group can just truck up to Sacto and put all their analysis and research into the hands of the Attorney General. And if the City objects — well, heh-heh, let ’em try!
Cunningham gives the establishment view on this, and Donna and I have a cameo: https://www.anaheimobserver.com/2023/02/09/council-pushes-back-on-request-to-double-angels-related-investigation-budget-to-1-5-million/
Looks like ol’ Jerbal is back on the Anaheim beat.
Where there’s money to be made, there’s Cunningham. But maybe he’s comping them because of Meeks and Faessel.
My firm has had cases before Judge Smith. Nothing pejorative to report.
Technically, $750,000 wouldn’t pay for three firefighters. It would pay for three chauffeurs to drive around paramedics on medical calls, because that’s what firefighters basically do on 85% of their service calls, because our county contracts with medical service agencies providers don’t allow those paramedics to ride with the ambulances. Change that rule and you’d more than double the number of firefighters available to, you know, fight fires, overnight, without spending one cent more.
Has this been tried? Do they listen to you in Fullerton?
That’s why I want to change their name to Emergency Medical Personnel.
Everything you mention and suggest makes all the sense in the world and would be the most logical business decision possible, but alas, common sense and logic frequently die a painful death when they hit the buzz saw of politics
In defense of the city council, if the public performance of JL Associates at council is any indication of their value
I too would be reluctant to renew.
Rubalcavas Swipe at the OJB notwithstanding, JL GROUP has apparently offered up NOTHING for three quarters of a million dollars. The fact that this is being played out in public, not at a “closed session” is telling.
The VOC has been conspicuously absent on this, leaving the heavy lifting to you guys. Which makes you an easy target, given your past.
Guess which Anaheim insiders are at Kings right now (why do SO CALLED progressives eat at ZOV’S, KINGS AND FLEMINGS??).
I suspect there is something “afoot”. If you guys think AA sold you down the river…..buckle up. Melehat v2.0.
Well, the Council did the right thing last night, after LOTS of pressure from the people, and granted the extra time and money, with a few provisos. I’ll be writing about this victory today or tomorrow, but for the very impatient, this is from the SHAKEDOWN website:
https://voiceofoc.org/2023/03/anaheim-officials-reverse-course-and-fully-fund-an-independent-city-corruption-probe/
Surprisingly apt!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lCMUkqpI7o