A link in FFFF sent me hurtling to Jan Flory’s Facebook page, where I found a longish post of her worth reprinting in full — and without permission, either, because I’m a rebel. I’ll render it in Flory Sign Green.
You’re going to love this one.
Last night I picked up a cryptic email message from O.Co. Register reporter, Tony Saavedra, asking me to call him today. We talked about 10:30 this morning. Apparently Tony had received a copy of a letter from an anonymous “concerned court employee” that had been sent to Shawn Nelson, our esteemed county supervisor. Tony said that Shawn had turned the letter over the District Attorney for investigation. WHAT! Tony wanted to know if I had been contacted by the D.A. WHAT!
My next 2 questions were: 1. Am I going to be arrested for something? That would be a bummer for the campaign, and 2. What was the letter about?
As described to me by Tony, the anonymous letter described an encounter that the writer had with me mid-August when I appeared in North Court with a 19-year-old friend of mine, Jackie, to deal with a traffic citation Jackie received the month before. Jackie was cited for an illegal left hand turn and driving without a license. The letter accused me of asking the court for some kind of special favor for Jackie. (I’m still trying to get a copy of the letter.)
Let’s back up. Jackie is one of the “Dream” kids. She was brought to this country by her undocumented parents when she was 8 and has lived here since then. Because Jackie has no documents herself, she (like hundreds of thousands) cannot get a driver’s license. I’ve known Jackie for 10 years, and she is a good girl who has done everything asked of her. She earned a 3.9 GPA in high school and has just finished her first year at Fullerton College with a 3.7 GPA. She volunteered as a poll worker for the June election. She has applied to work as a cadet for the City of Anaheim, but cannot get a job because she has no papers.
Once upon a time, Jackie’s parents worked in my home cleaning my house, and I developed a friendship with Jackie. Although her parents haven’t worked for me for a while, Jackie and I keep in touch. She was terrified of going to court by herself because she didn’t know if she might be arrested by ICE officials and deported. I offered to go to court with her to help out if I could.
When Jackie’s matter was called, I stood up with Jackie and notified the court that I was an attorney appearing to vouch for Jackie’s character and ask the court to cut Jackie a break if it had any discretion at all in the matter. The judge heard me out, and asked if Jackie was driving without a license. Jackie admitted that she was, and pled guilty to both counts. Jackie and I went downstairs where she had to pay nearly $600 for the fine.
This is what gets me. Based on the facts set forth above,
1. Why would Nelson (an attorney himself) turn such a letter over to the D.A. for investigation?
2. How did Tony Saavedra get the letter conveniently “leaked” to him?
3. Does this have anything to do with my being the frontrunner in the city council election? YA THINK! And more important,
4. Does this have anything to do with Shawn’s tight relationship with Tony Bushala who has been attacking me on his blog for the past 4 years.
Mr. Nelson, you owe me an explanation.
My current understanding is that Jan Flory and Bruce Whitaker should be considered co-front-runners in the election, but with three seats open that’s a pretty good place to be. It’s the race for third place that’s interesting; I think it might go to whoever’s signs get stolen last. But anyway, yes, Flory asks some good questions here. Supervisor Nelson — why did you hand over the letter to the freaking District Attorney?
My thanks to FFFF for the lead. Some commenters there note that this shows that Flory (knowing or not) employed “illegal aliens” (which some prefer to call “undocumented workers,” and which I call “unauthorized residents”) to clean her house. Yes, like several other (tens of thousands of) people in OC, this appears to be the case. I have the duty to therefore inform Jan Flory that she will never be selected as a Vice-Presidential candidate for the Democratic Party and she should give up any hopes of an appointment to a significant political position in the second Obama Administration. We have to take this sort of thing very seriously, after all, with the exception of “almost always.” (I’m betting that Tony Bushala would not want to open that particular can of worms — am I right?)
SHE ACCOMPANIED A YOUNG WOMAN TO COURT TO VOUCH FOR HER CHARACTER!!! CAN YOU BELIEVE IT???
Well, the better question is if Ms. Flory knew she was illegally employing an individual, if she paid the proper employment taxes, and if she didn’t know– what action was taken when she found out?
That said, I applaud Ms. Flory for doing what she felt was the right thing to do despite the potential political consequences.
I suspect that Mr. Norby handed over the tip with the expectation that Ms. Flory was going to get in trouble. I don’t think the rhetorical question needs to be asked.
Be that as it may, the anatomy of a smear involving a court employee, a Supervisor, a DA, and a reporter seems more interesting and timely to address.
Speaking as a third party-playing judge Judy,
The letter, if written, sounds “he said, she said-ish” and doesnt sound like it warrants a trip to the DA for investigation, this sounds like it was purposely designed to make Flory look bad.
If this letter exists, my question is why would Jackie write it in the first place? Jackie should be asked about it, IMO.
Flory is the frontrunner, or frontrunner of two? That’s embarrassing…. especially to a Democrat.
I’ve been looking at the Yes on W literature and notice her name on their with all the pro-Chevron development people. Sebourn’s there too. Sebourn and Flory, apparently Kiger wasn’t listed or I missed it.
And now I learn that supposedly crazy libertarian Barry Levinson opposes the Chevron development, alone among the (supposed) Bushala-ites.
This puts Jan Flory on the wrong side of ALL the important Fulerton issues – police reform, recall of those three useless RINOs, and Coyote Hills. And it puts only Jane Rands and Barry Levinson on the RIGHT side of all those issues.
I don’t see why we’re sticking up for Flory so much on this blog, just because FFFF doesn’t like her? Sometimes they have good reason.
(Not to take away from the scurviness of this particular story…)
“We” or just Mr. Diamond?
I think that it’s just me. It’s good for me and Vern to disagree sometimes!
I don’t think that there’s much difference, economically, between what Jim Righeimer wants to do in Costa Mesa and what Tony Bushala wants to do in Fullerton. That’s a bigger issue than all of the others.
I disagree with her about Coyote Hills, but (1) she doesn’t seem to be pushing that issue, (2) I don’t think that either Rands or Levinson is going to win, and (3) a Levinson victory would mean Costa Mesafication, unless he has changed that tune. As a DPOC member, I can’t endorse anyone but Flory and Jaramillo anyway, so for me the question would be whether to vote for Rands as a third choice. I can’t say that I would; all I can say is that I have previous the idea of a Citizen’s Police Commission.
So then the real question is: how bad is Flory on police reform? My sense is that she’s pretty much exactly like SQS, who I thought what the most responsible of all of the Council members over the past year. Like Sharon, and unlike the three Bald Dinosaurs (or whatever the term for them was), I see no indication that Flory would be the sort to roll over and shovel as much money to the FPOA as they want. Like Sharon, and unlike the three Malfunctioning Toaster Ovens, she seems to believe that Dan Hughes is a reformer who has made useful changes and deserves a chance to continue as Chief. She does not seem to want to root for the highest settlement amount with Ron Thomas as a way of bankrupting the city and forcing cuts in services (and potentially municipal bankruptcy itself.)
By the time of the recall election, Sharon — historically no friend to the Three Dented Air Conditioning Units — was opposed to the recall also, because of the radicalism of the FFFF faction. Primarily, I think, she opposed the economic radicalism, but also because she seemed afraid that they’d do something nuts like move to shut down the department (which — guess what?) The right position, which I don’t think anyone but me ended up taking, was to recall McKinley (a must given his FPD history), retain Bankhead (not because he deserved it but because he wouldn’t do much harm in the minority), and equivocate on Jones (because how much harm could Kiger do in five months? Ha-ha.) But that was roundly denounced as too complicated a message to send to voters — so she, like Flory, opposed the recall (although I would not be surprised if either voted to recall McKinley.
Unless we’re willing to limit ourselves to Jane Rands (and maybe Kitty Jaramillo, I’m not sure), either Vern or I are necessarily in a contradictory position: we either support someone who opposed the recall or we support someone who would impose the Righeimer-like policies that we detest onto Fullerton. Flory seems to me to take a moderate position on the FPD issue — neither total devotion nor total destruction. I think that she can be trusted to work for a Police Department that isn’t going to drown the city in lawsuits — which I think is also what Hughes wants. So for me it’s a pretty easy choice.
Whether or not that’s true, though, this leak being used against her on such weak grounds is bogus bullcrap — as I presume Vern would agree.
Vern I like your breakdown, That’s what still confuses me about politics, the city issues are the most important reason to vote for or against someone or something, yet there are so many other things that occurred in the past that really have nothing to do with the issues, that are used to embarrass or make a candidate look bad – I guess it just matters to me too much how you get to the end result, Maybe it shouldn’t.
One thing I like about Jan is that she is honest, maybe too honest.That is a hard find in a politician. Fullerton city councill election for three seats seems to have more vote splitters than contenders. As I agree with Vern’s breakdown, I don’t consider Jan a vote splitter. Besides, I saw her campaign walking in my district so she isn’t just taking it laying down either.
It seems to me Greg is trying to make a couple of points 1) to be opposed to one thing does not require embracing its polar opposite, and 2) when you run on a platform of honesty and openness, you should stick to it.
Regarding the first point, Flory may not have been a supporter of the recall, but that by no means she somehow approved of the three old men’s lack of leadership. When she was on the Council, she was the only one who opposed enhanced retirement benefits for public safety, so she’s hardly a pawn of the Police or Fire Departments. What she did oppose was the hijacking of the city’s government by a single radically libertarian millionaire and his minions. As for being on the “wrong” side of the issues; what substantive issues have the FFFF-backed members been on the “right” side of? First, they’re doing their best to drive the city into bankruptcy by demanding the most impractical method of refunding the revenue from the “water tax”, a method that will do the most damage to the city’s general fund while being of the least practical benefit to its residents. Second, the nearly trashed a $190,000 grant from the state because they didn’t do their homework and opposed a DUI checkpoint, not bothering to find out the $50,000 for the checkpoint was tied to the rest of the grant. Third, they took the bold step of placing the removal of the fireworks ban on the ballot (and as has been recently revealed, the campaign to approve fireworks has been primarily financed by a single fireworks company). Fourth, rather than taking a measured approach to police reform, their initial move was to ask the sheriff’s department for a bid on taking over law enforcement in the city. There is no indication the sheriff’s would do a better job or better address the issues brought up by the office of independent review. Flory supports a civilian police review board. Fifth, despite their charges of nepotism in the workforce, they attempted to appoint family members and cronies to the city’s commissions. What might be popular at the moment may not be what’s right for the city or its residents 10 or 15 years from now.
On the second point, the FFFF-backed members have shown a remarkable ability to ignore their own campaign platform. What surprised me the most during the recall campaign was their brazenness in accusing the three old dudes of bowing to special interest (e.g. unions), while they were being financed almost entirely by one person. A council member should judge each issue before him or her impartially and make a decision based on facts. But is hard to say you can do that when you are the webmaster for an aggressively anti-city blog that viciously attacks its opponents. This same member seems obsessed with funding “corruption” even when an independent expert with years of public corruption experience has found none.
The Kelly Thomas killing was a senseless act, but at least served as a catalyst for real change in Fullerton. Maybe Flory wants to be sure all that effort wasn’t wasted so a few ideologues can control the city.