Comments to the Fullerton City Council on August 2, 2011:
Mayor Jones and Members of the Council :
My name is Jack Dean, 2217 Vista del Sol, I’m a 30-year resident of Fullerton, and I’m president of the Fullerton Association of Concerned Taxpayers — also known as FACT.
With all due respect to legal constraints, in the world of public relations and public opinion, perception is everything. And the current perception is that the City of Fullerton is stonewalling on the Kelly Thomas case.
The lack of interaction by city officials with the media has been disappointing. In fact, the overall silence has been almost deafening. Fortunately, this void was filled by a public statement from Councilmember Whitaker on July 20th and a statement from Councilmember Quirk this past weekend. Mr. Mayor, thank you for your statement this evening.
Our police chief seems to have been missing in action since the incident, and it’s hard to tell if the police department’s public information officer is working for the taxpayers, or for the police union.
Of even more concern, however, is the surveillance video of the incident which has been withheld. Few citizens – me included – were aware that video cameras were watching us in downtown Fullerton. If taxpayers are funding these cameras and recordings, then taxpayers should have easy access to them – the same as we do with recordings of city council meetings.
This video should be released immediately.
We also believe there should be total transparency in Fullerton, and that we should NOT be moving in the direction of a surveillance society — that is, one in which the police are watching us, but we don’t get to watch them.
Therefore, FACT will be submitting a formal request to the city to EITHER make all surveillance cameras accessible to all its citizens via the web, OR remove them.
Speaking on behalf of Fullerton’s taxpayers, I would like to express our heart-felt sympathy to the family of Kelly Thomas. We know that this incident will cost the taxpayers of Fullerton financially; but hopefully, constructive changes in police procedure will result from this tragic event.
Special thanks should go also to the Friends for Fullerton’s Future blog for first breaking this story, and for doing the nitty-gritty follow-up research that has kept it in the news. Who says community journalism is dead?
Thank you.
To watch the entire city council meeting on August 2, click here and then click on PUBLIC COMMENTS in the left-hand column. Jack Dean’s comments can be found at 00:44:00.
