Originally posted at www.liberaloc.com
With a huge turnout at last night’s city council meeting, the Fullerton City Council voted 3-2 to retain Fullerton PD which has a contract with the city through 2015. Newly elected council member Greg Seborn proved to be the wild card and voted with Fullerton Mayor Sharon Quirk-Silva and newly-elected Doug Chaffee to retain the force rather than gather information about how Fullerton could save the Orange County Sheriff’s Department take over for Fullerton PD.
The Register has details on the meeting here.
The cynical part of me says this “victory” was symbolic for FPD as the city could be found in breach of its contract with the police force. Seborn’s vote “no” designed to show that Fullerton developer and Friends for Fullerton Future blogger Tony Bushala isn’t pulling the puppet strings. The pro-recall advocates can point to this vote and say “see, Tony’s isn’t in charge.” But the reality is the city does have contractual obligations that a council move towards saving money could wind up costing taxpayers more. Even talking about this is simply a first step towards a debate over the removal of FPD in 2014 and a termination in 2015.
It’s fascinating to read posts on FFFF and then hear policy statements come out of the pro-Bushala councilmembers that mirror blog posts. What’s downright funny are positions about transparency from new council members who seem to take direction from anonymous bloggers who hide their identities. If fear of government is a reason for blogging anonymously, why keep doing so the blog took control of a council majority?
Fullerton voters happy with the vote last night really need to know this issue isn’t dead. It’ll be on vacation until 2014. But those who showed up in force last night to support FPD have a more meaningful place to do so in November — the ballot box.