Item 2 of the Consent Calendar should upset your applecart. The item is for the City to receive grant funding to solve cold cases. Sounds good, right? Here is the bitter sweet pill the Council will shove down our throats tomorrow.
The grant will fund 2-3 part-time reserve officers to look into these cases. According to Police Spokes-hole Andy Goodbar, normal reserves aren’t getting paid and haven’t for more than a year due to lack of funds. This grant will allow 2-3 reserves to earn $22 per hour. “Not on my dime, so it’s ok” you might say. No, these aren’t your typical reserves. These will be RETIRED POLICE OFFICERS with their big FAT pensions earning an extra $22 per hour to solve cases they couldn’t solve when they were on duty. (Maybe after Bankhead and McKinley get recalled, they can go back to work as reserves). Remember, these same retired cops are already making 90% of their last year’s salary. Now they want another $22 an hour to finish what they couldn’t do before. I think they should do it without any additional pay.
Item 4 will take long-time City Attorney consultants Jones-Mayer off the police misconduct and civil rights cases. At $200 per hour, I bet we get exactly what we pay for with Lewis Brisois Bisgaard and Smith defending the City’s use of force policy and criminal actions of several police officers while on-duty.
And whatever the esquires at Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard and Smith can’t figure out, I’m sure the cats at Carpenter Rothans and Dumont can. Item 5 is an agreement with the firm for more legal services. Good Lord we must be subsidizing half the firms in Orange County ! These legal hounds will cost us $175 an hour. I guess they’ll have to make it up in volume.
Item 6 will bring us closer to Vegas! This is the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for a Fullerton to Las Vegas train line. If we make it cheap and easy for college students to hop a train to Vegas, do they take our Vegas-style problems (and money) with them? High-Speed Rail to San Francisco was a stupid idea. This isn’t quite as stupid though there appears to be a lot of details yet to be discussed.
Item 7 seeks to place adult businesses closer to churches. The municipal code says in short that adult businesses cannot be permitted within 750 feet of a church. Staff would like to strike “churches” from the current law. The code also says these businesses must be 750 feet away from school, parks, playgrounds, day care facilities, etc. Those who attend churches also know that many have their own day care and schools with play grounds. The Planning Commission took up this issue last week and voted to leave the law alone.
Item 8 is an official apology and acknowledgment by the Police Department for raiding the wrong house. You might recall when the FPD burst through the back door of a reverend’s home during a drug raid on the wrong house. Nice one FPD! You can add that to the growing list for the F’dPD.
Item 9 is the Lemon Park/Maple Center improvements. After looking at the scope of improvements, I cannot imagine how spending $3-million on these two facilities will improve the community. There is also some creative bookkeeping going on- somebody call Levinson.
Item 10 will allow St. Mary’s to borrow the baseball field next door for their annual carnival. Their usual location behind the Community Center is under construction.
Item 11 will open up one of the St. Jude parking structures for people using the Brea Dam Recreation area. It also calls for massive improvements in the area. Parking will cost $1 for the first half-hour and a maximum of $5 per day. The report says that it costs about $96,000 to operate and maintain the new structure and the revenue will go into a special account. Parking in this area will include the structure on the east side of St. Jude (behind hospital), the Tennis Center , Fullerton Community Nursery School , and the YMCA.
