Candidate for
Council member to succeed Don Bankhead if recalled; City of Fullerton

I'm a citizen, not a politician. Our government should work for us, not against us. We should have the final say in the direction our City chooses to go.

Government should only do for the citizenry that which they cannot do for themselves. To me, that means City Hall should be focused on public safety and the infrastructure. When times are tough, its important to stay focused on providing quality core services.

As a licensed professional land surveyor I have a keen eye for the infrastructure. The roads, sidewalks, trees, are all visible and important. Often, it is what lies under the roads that we neglect the most, such as water, sewer, and storm drain lines. However, in Fullerton they are all equally neglected.

I have worked hard for several years to understand why our infrastructure has been so neglected. You need only to drive on our streets to know the poor conditions we are faced with. I have found several reasons for this:

First, it appears that there maybe widespread misappropriation from employees draining certain funds and enriching their own programs. This was first shown to be the case with the illegal water tax which inflated water prices for ratepayers and the revenue spent primarily on salaries, pensions, and benefits of non-water employees.

Second, the priorities established by the City Council places Parks & Rec, Public Safety, Redevelopment, and certain City owned facilities ahead of water, sewer, and roads. The only priority lower than water, sewer, and roads is the airport.

Third,there is no personal accountability for waste. That is, employees do not enter their time onto time sheets with indications as to what they were working on. There appears to be no way to know just how much time is spent on various tasks which means we cannot charge the appropriate fees for service. Some fees may be too much, such as the business license (tax) surcharge paid by all businesses in the City, or some fees may be too low. This would cause fees collected for one purpose to be used to subsidize another purpose.

Fourth, as of May 20, 2012, the City has refused to have an audit conducted. The only thing close they have done is the state-mandated Comprehensive Annual Financial Report or CAFR, which shows us the big picture and minimal details.

Our Police Department has been bruised, both by internal actions as well as the external image. The lack of transparency is frustrating and more can and should be done to bring out what our officers do and don't do. Part of a temporary solution may be to have a civilian oversight body which observes internal policies and investigations for consistency with public expectations.

We have incurred more than $1.1-BILLION of debt. About half is pension obligations and the other is from the Fullerton Redevelopment Agency's reckless spending and borrowing. Those funds could have been put to use on Fullerton's roads but were instead used for feel-good programs and policies with limited public benefit.

Bankruptcy and outsourcing of services are being foisted upon Fullertonians, but I believe there is a better way.

A vote for Greg Sebourn is a vote for Fullerton's future.