Downtown Fullerton

Downtown Fullerton is characterized by bars, dance clubs, restaurants, specialty stores and coffee shops. But mostly bars and dance clubs.

We Get Mail: Not In Their Backyard

Posted by Disillusioned Ex-Hippy in Downtown Fullerton, Orange County Government, Our Town, Setting The Bar Low, Shawn Nelson, Strange But True, Transparency, Watch Your Wallet on January 13, 2013

Dear Friends, we received the following e-mail from an unhappy resident of the neighborhood around Chapman Park, across the street from the location the County is proposing to buy for $3.15 million to transform into a permanent homeless shelter.

It always interests me to see that those politicians and bureaucrats who support obnoxious land uses of one kind or another always seem suitably removed, geographically, from any undesirable effects of their decisions.

Take the case of the permanent homeless shelter proposed by the County (and possibly our own City Council – nobody really knows what has been agreed to behind closed doors – with zero input from us) on State College. It would be located across the street from the Chapman Park neighborhood where we live. To the north are two story apartments and an elementary school; right next door and to the rear are other commercial properties. But it is a long, long way from any residence of the decision makers. Surprised? Not me.

We will be told that such facilities need to be built where public transportation exists. Okay. But in the next breath we learn that getting the homeless out of downtown Fullerton is required. How come? That is the very heart of the transportation network in north Orange County. La Palma Park in Anaheim is ground zero for the homeless population of north orange County and is located astride not one but THREE bus lines.

Since the County’s only requirements are that their shelter be on a bus route and away from downtown Fullerton, here’s a thought. Let’s build the shelter next to Hillcrest Park, or near the Brea Dam – near two bus lines – on City owned property that won’t cost anybody a dime. Of course it would be pretty near where Jan Flory and Doug Chaffee live. Or maybe it could be built on some open space in Coyote Hills – near the Euclid bus line and not far from Jennifer Fitzgerald and Shawn Nelson’s homes.

172 Comments

County Wants To Build Homeless Shelter On State College

Posted by Disillusioned Ex-Hippy in Behind Closed Doors, Boohooism, Chronic Failure, Downtown Fullerton, Hidden Government Agencies, I Ain't a Swallerin' That, Orange County Government, Setting The Bar Low, Watch Your Wallet on January 10, 2013

Fullertonstories is reporting here, that the County of Orange wants to build a homeless shelter on south State College in Fullerton. They may be soon buying the Linder Furniture store for $3,000,000.

This may not be good news to the folks who live in the single family neighborhood across the street and who take their kids to the Commonwealth Elementary School which is virtually adjacent to this site. The folks I know over in the Chapman Park area have heard nothing about this venture, which makes me wonder whose big idea this was and why the neighbors have not even been informed.

Amazingly, it would appear from the article that the County’s “search criteria” only included that the shelter be on a bus line and moved away from Downtown Fullerton. Nice.

How much of this “plan” has already been secretly approved by our own City Council goes unmentioned. Has a deal already been work out with the City? It’s hard to believe the County would buy real estate without the approval of the City Council, or at least the City staff.

Apparently the County Board of Supervisors is voting on this purchase Tuesday. I wonder when the government plans on telling anybody about this.

137 Comments

Just Wrong

Posted by admin in Big Brother, Downtown Fullerton, Small Stuff Adds Up, The Crime Beat, Union Goons on November 11, 2012

Here is a sly observer expressing his view that a Fullerton cop appears to be more like a soldier than a civilian policeman.

Naturally he is rewarded with a combination of arrogance, error, and attitude by “officer” Contino.

While it is true that Prime Minister Robert Peel established the first permanent and professional police forces in Britain, the use of that factoid to explain and defend a paramilitary organization behaving like an occupying army would be faintly ridiculous if the consequences weren’t so, um, deadly.

And speaking of Mr. Peel, while living in Tamworth, the versatile gentleman was credited with the development of the Tamworth Pig by breeding Irish stock with some local Tamworth pigs.

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The Culture of Corruption Has NOT Changed!

Posted by The Fullerton Shadow in Downtown Fullerton, I Ain't a Swallerin' That, Law 'N Disorder, Setting The Bar Low, Small Stuff Adds Up, Something Wicked This Way Comes, The Culture of Corruption, Union Goons on October 29, 2012

First off, I’d like to thank a good and courageous Friend for sharing this alarming video with us.

I’m still sort of shocked to hear what Fullerton police Lieutenant Markowski said to a group of folks who took the open house tour of the police department last Saturday. Apparently, when she comes to work on Mondays there’s a desk full of complaints from women who claim they were abducted, raped, kidnapped telling horror stories of what happened to them. And thank God she can go review the video cameras, and that not everybody that comes to file a report is truthful. (And of course not everyone who receives a complaint or writes a report is truthful, either, as we now know).

According to Markowski there have been many, many cases that she worked where women report, “he pulled me out of this bar, he pulled he into this alley, he pulled me into his car, he did this that. And then I review the video the downtown video cameras which obviously we maintain and I review the video and I can clearly see that she walked voluntarily out of the bar with this gentleman that she was all over him. I’ve been able to save a lot of men from being accused of things that they absolutely didn’t do whereas if we didn’t have that video evidence these guys would be sitting in here getting ready to go to jail for crimes that they absolutely didn’t commit so they work very well for investigators.”

The idea that a cop by way of a video camera is now acting as district attorney, judge and jury in cases involving women who want to file charges against one of downtown Fullerton’s army of drunken gentlemen is alarming.

I also find it very disconcerting that Markowski found it appropriate to regale her visitors with this particular story, given the history of FPD cop Albert Rincon. According to Markowski this false accusation against DTF’s menfolk happens all the time, and it is routine for Markowski, who seems to have a low regard for some of DTF’s female guests.

Of course it is ironic in the extreme that Ms. Markowski makes no mention of her cameras and the story they told about the Kelly Thomas murder, or the assault and false arrest (and later false prosecution) of Veth Mam at the hands of Kenton Hampton.

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Has the FPD Been Withholding Evidence?

Posted by Joe Sipowicz in Chronic Failure, Downtown Fullerton, Something Wicked This Way Comes, Strange But True, The Culture of Corruption, Transparency, Union Goons, Watch Your Wallet on October 4, 2012

Take a look at one of our downtown police spy cams – just like the one that captured the Kelly Thomas killing at the Fullerton Transportation Center.

The MamCam.

This one is located on the south side of Amerige Avenue almost exactly where Veth Mam was assaulted and arrested for no reason by Kenton Hampton about two years ago. Did this camera provide the whole story and show explicitly why Veth Mam could not have done the things the cops and the DA claimed he did? Did it provide the whole story of it would have been impossible for Hampton to know even if Mam had?

Hard to say. I presume the camera works; and I presume a diligent watch commander such as Tom “Tango” Basham could and would have used it that night to see what was going on. If so, was this footage handed over to the DA, perhaps saving Mam the ordeal of trumped up charges and prosecution? Does the DA even know the incident took place at the base of a cop security camera pole?

Lots of good questions for Acting Chief Danny to address, now and in his deposition with Garo Mardirossian.

78 Comments

Municipal Redevelopment Arrogance: A Common Scourge

Posted by The Desert Rat in Behind Closed Doors, Chronic Failure, Dead heads, Don Bankhead, Downtown Fullerton, Fullerton BooHoo, Fullerton City Council Candidates, Fullerton City Council Election 2010, Gin Flurry, Hidden Government Agencies, Redevelopment, Repuglicanism, Setting The Bar Low, Something Wicked This Way Comes, The Culture of Corruption, Watch Your Wallet on September 19, 2012

Sometimes you don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Like the case in Philly where a local businessman may be sued by the Redevelopment Agency for cleaning up trash and beautifying a piece of blighted Agency-owned property that they willfully refused to clean up. So ths guy spends 20 big ones of his own dough since the City blatantly ignored its own mess, and is now looking at a potential lawsuit – a lawsuit some asshole city bureaucrat says is based on “principle.” Principle. Now that’s a scream.

What’s really funny is that if the city had done the work it would have cost twenty times as much and taken ten times longer.

Of course apologists of Fullerton’s former Redevelopment Agency (you know who they are) would be quick to point out is that this sort incompetence and arrogance never happened in Fullerton; Fullerton Redevelopment folks were just so darned…well… you know.

But consider this: Fullerton has had a long and inglorious Redevelopment history that includes building, then demolishing concrete trestles along Harbor, giving away a public sidewalk to a politically connected apaign contributor, subsidizing dozens of boondoggles, supporting architectural design Nazi-ism, stealing an old lady’s property to give to a car dealer, and nasty little sales tax kick backs from Redevelopment funds - all done to promote more tax revenue to pay for pensions, League of City junkets, and all those inevitable step pay increases for the gang.

A final thought: even though Redevelopment is supposedly dead in California you can bet the farm (if they don’t steal it for High Speed Rail) that the lobbyists are busy at work in Sacramento trying to revive it, and that local mall fry politicians and local political wannabes are real eager for it to come back.

Why not? It’s fun and it isn’t their money.

55 Comments

What Happened to Sean Moses?

Posted by admin in Behind Closed Doors, Downtown Fullerton on July 19, 2012

A man was found dead along the tracks at the Fullerton train station early Sunday morning. It was a 30 year-old Cypress man named Sean Moses.

Early speculation was that he had been initially struck by a train has not been verified and questions about when the actor and former junior high basketball coach actually died remain unanswered although an autopsy has been performed. Apparently he had been celebrating a friend’s birthday in downtown Fullerton on Saturday night.

A memorial has emerged at the north depot platform in eerie proximity to the location where Kelly Thomas’s is located.

Naturally, we will be looking into this as well and will keep the friends informed.

128 Comments

NEW: Kelly Thomas killing aftermath: Reforming how cops deal with the homeless

Posted by admin in Downtown Fullerton, The Crime Beat, The Culture of Corruption on July 5, 2012

Editor’s (Cal Watchdog) note: Today marks a year since Kelly Thomas, an unarmed homeless man, was severely beaten by Fullerton police. He died five days later. This is the first of a three-part series.

By Tori Richards

An outside investigation into whether police officers violated policy leading up to the beating death of homeless man Kelly Thomas will be completed shortly. If consistent with preliminary findings, the investigation will lambast the Fullerton Police Department for a series of blunders.

A CalWatchDog.com investigation has found that, not only have the officers’ actions violated the city’s police policy manual, they are in sharp contrast to another police agency that encounters the homeless at a rate hundreds of percentage points higher, but without a record of violence.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department — a model agency in its dealings with the homeless — has more than 2,000 encounters a month and runs a groundbreaking program that seeks to aid that sector, rather than incarcerate them.

“The International Association of Chiefs of Police gave its highest award to the LASD in 1996 because we partnered law enforcement with mental health and social workers to work together and identify people living on the streets and provide opportunities to them,” said Sheriff’s Capt. Mike Parker.

That was 16 years ago and LASD is still going strong. Numerous police agencies have followed their lead and initiated their own polices, including Fullerton.

But on July 5, 2011, none of that seemed to matter when Thomas had a fatal run-in with six police officers at a Fullerton bus depot. The 37-year-old man was a schizophrenic who preferred living on the streets to a structured life indoors where he took his medicine. Read more here.

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Coming Soon: The Kelly Thomas Memorial Art Show and Concert

Posted by admin in A Step in the Right Direction, Arts & Architecture, Downtown Fullerton, Home Town Hero, Our Town on June 21, 2012

Friday July 6^th @ PÄS Gallery 6:00-11:00 PM Art With An Agenda. Commemorate the first anniversary of Kelly Thomas’ deadly encounter with six members of the Fullerton PD. Double Click here to download the Press Release.

And then the very next day, Saturday July 7^th at the Fullerton Museum Plaza, is the 2^nd Annual Kelly Thomas Memorial Concert, Clothing and Food Drive featuring one of the best bands to ever come from the OC, The Adolescents.

Two great opportunities to show your support for reform in Fullerton without glossing over what happened last July 5th - the murder of an innocent man.

341 Comments

The New FPD. Send in More Troops

Posted by The Fullerton Harpoon in Behind Closed Doors, Chronic Failure, Downtown Fullerton on May 22, 2012

Apparently Dan Hughes and Sharon Quirk’s “reformed” FPD learned one lesson from the Kelly Thomas murder perpetrated by members of the force last summer. Don’t de-escalate, instead just send in more boys!

Our roving correspondent “streets of fullerton” sent in a story complete with pics from an incident on Harbor Boulevard, last night at 10:30. Here’s how it began: one garden-variety, Manny Ramos-body type FPD cop lecturing a homeless dude.

When he returned to the scene a bit later, our correspondent noticed half the night shift was there to weigh in. Our witness seems to think there may have been a physical altercation of some sort.

Well maybe this strategy is an improvement. Apparently the homeless guy left the scene in a cop car, alive. What his offense was and why he was confronted in the first place is still unknown.

Perhaps we should call Rusty Kennedy’s Human Relations Commission so he can tell us all about it. Here’s Rusty’s number: 714/567-7470.

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