2011 - Page 34 of 50 - Friends For Fullerton's Future

June 8, 2011June 8, 2011Don Bankhead

Don Bankhead Working Just Fine Says Manufacturer

Humanoid robot Don Bankhead, is “working just fine”, says the robot’s chief engineer. DON, as he is known to his inventors, is actually an acronym for “Do Nothing”, the project’s original name. “DON was supposed to just be a placeholder who would maintain the status quo while we ramped up a couple of newer models, but he proved to be so good at what he does that we’ve just kept him active for all of these years. Unless they really screw up, once they are launched it’s usually just a matter of keeping them adequately funded, but DON has set a few longevity records around here.”

Don-Bankhead-Robot — DON the Humanoid on display at a recent CSUF symposium.

Another member of the team added “He’s already fulfilled his primary objectives. We’re always delighted to see one of our models go into the bonus mission phase.” Bankhead, who has been in office on the Fullerton City Council almost continually since 1988, has sometimes been accused of losing touch during meetings and casting votes for stated reasons confusing to others. His inventors disagree. “Perhaps some new folks in Fullerton are alarmed at some of his behavior, but let me assure you, he’s the same DON (Bankhead) he’s always been.”

The mission hasn’t been entirely trouble free. “We did had that glitch in 1994 when his trajectory was derailed for a few months. It was a tricky maneuver, but with the whole team working together we brought him back online. Other serious situations have arisen along the way, but fortunately nobody seems to notice.”

How long do engineers expect Bankhead to last? “Of course any machine slows down with age. DON has developed an intermittent loss of verbal/audio transmission, but most of the noises we hear from him are pretty unintelligible at this point anyway, so we really don’t consider it a problem.”

June 8, 2011June 7, 2011Arts & Architecture

Fullerton College’s New Building Dun Goofed

by admin34 Comments

When this blog kicked off several years ago, one of the first subjects of our discontent was the fake McSpanish horrors being constructed at Fullerton College.

Well, the buildings are complete and FJC students are submitting their feedback…and boy are things looking ugly. Here’s a hilarious clip of some dudes highlighting a few of the creepier features:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DAVMr9iCds

June 7, 2011June 7, 2011Fullerton City Council

How would you spend $193 million?

by Greg Sebourn23 Comments

The City of Fullerton’s Proposed Budget is out and tonight your elected Council will vote to approve it.

$172.6 million represents the “total appropriations” planned for FY2011-12 for the City of Fullerton and the balance, $20.4 million, is what the Redevelopment Agency plans to spend for the same period.

The biennial budget also includes a rough budget for FY2012-13 with $183.2 million in projected additional spending.

If the City had the money to spend, I could see a favorable vote by Council members, however, the 2-year budget falls $8 million short of being balanced.

Unfortunately, this budget is based on the premise that city employees will negotiate and accept a cut in benefits in order to help balance the revenue short-fall or over-extended expenditures depending on your point of view.

5 Council members elected by you to control $193,000,000 and in the end, we get about $4,043,000 to repave our streets and $1,600,000 to fix our water system…

With only 3% of our budget being invested in our streets and water system, its no wonder our water rates will be going up.

June 5, 2011June 5, 2011Watch Your Wallet

Watch Your Wallet: The Paramedic Sneak

by Travis27 Comments

Update: It’s that time of the year again. Don’t forget to deduct the optional $42.00 “crash tax” from your Fullerton utility bill this month.

Don’t forget, this is the month in when an optional Paramedic Fee is automatically added on to your Fullerton water bill. Look closely and you’ll see that the city squeezing the optional charge into the total amount due, which seems a little sneaky. Subtract $42.00 from your total before you make your payment to opt out of the program.

According to the city website, paramedic visit charges range from $250 to $500 and are sometimes covered by your health insurance. Unless you fall down a lot, specific risk coverage for relatively minor expenses such as these are usually not a good investment.

June 4, 2011Brick Veneer, Fake Old, And Other Horrors

More Redevelopment, More Pedestrian Booby Traps

by admin18 Comments

Remember the hilarious “meandering” sidewalks created by the Fullerton Redevelopment Agency in downtown?

Here’s the encore. Be careful walking down this public sidewalk in front of the city-owned Costco parking lot.

June 3, 2011June 3, 2011Arts & Architecture

Promoting Christianity on Public Property; Is it Kosher?

by admin46 Comments

Update: These two murals are about to be put on the schedule as part of the $100,000 taxpayer-funded Lemon Park Mural restoration project, so now it’s time to ask the question again…

There has been some discussion over the past few years about what to do with the aging and in some cases repeatedly defaced murals that adorn the pedestrian bridge over Lemon Street.

When I went to take some pictures recently, a new twist on the story occurred to me, and one which the ACLU-types don’t seem to have noticed: the promotion of Christianity on public property. On the east side support an actual Catholic shrine has emerged.

An interesting situation, to say the least, and one in which any artistic statement has obviously morphed into an obviously overt religious expression. Do these murals get a pass as a cultural expression that, say, a Christmas display in front of City Hall wouldn’t?

As always we welcome your thoughts on the subject.

June 2, 2011June 2, 2011Arts & Architecture

Contrasts in Architecture Are Rare in Fullerton

by Greg Sebourn10 Comments

Last month I was walking Independence Mall in Philadelphia and admiring the history and reflecting on what it would have been like in 1776. As I crossed Market Street to go look at the Liberty Bell I looked left and right scanning the streets. Then something caught my eye. The antique cityscape had something shiny and new nestled in between two pieces of historic-looking buildings.

The structure has jutting polished metal forming right angles and contrasts sharply against the backdrop of American history. The building’s unusual placement on the historic Mall speaks volumes of its purpose, though no billboards announce what that may be.

As I circle the Mall admiring the formation of our Country, my mind and camera wander back to the building, now more striking than when I saw it just moments ago. Seeing the building on the Mall and recognizing the unusual beauty of its presence in that location has caused me to question the direction the City of Fullerton has traveled for decades.

A recent FFFF post brought to light the Redevelopment Design Review Committee’s selections of less than inspiring architecture.

I used to have the strong opinion that modern designs just would not work in our downtown. After long debates and discussions with friends and my visit to Philadelphia I am confident that it can work well.

Entrepreneurs looking to raise the bar and make their place in Fullerton should look to innovative designs which will stand in contrast to our old and confused architecture. More importantly, when every other building is a bar or tattoo parlor, business owners need to look at ways of setting their establishment apart from the rest of the herd.

May 31, 2011May 31, 2011Fullerton City Council

ABOLISH THE RDRC!

by The Fullerton Harpoon31 Comments

Update from admin: It’s 2011 and we’re still still catching stanky wiffs rising from the bog of mediocrity known as the RDRC. Yep, they’re still slowing and stalling residential additions, nitpicking the architectural details of private projects and using the know-nothing force of government to bear down on hapless homeowners trying to improve buildings that aren’t even visible from the public street. And so again we say…

The Fullerton Redevelopment Design Review Committee (RDRC) must be abolished. The committee was created in the 1970’s along with the Redevelopment Project Areas with the goal of fostering good architectural designs within them.

The trial run period is over. The RDRC and its associated bureaucratic process has failed – failed to improve design in either the project areas themselves, or in the ever growing number of projects in which city staff has required RDRC review. Actually the reverse is true. The failure has been spectacular.

who says affordable housing has to look ugly? — Who says affordable housing has to look good?

The pages of this blog has been nauseatingly filled with examples of RDRC failure-projects dutifully approved by a compliant and complacent RDRC. Rather than promoting innovative and creative work-excellence, in fact, the RDRC has enabled city staff penchant for the phony, stucco, and brick veneered banalities intended to comfort the worst of middle brow aesthetic preferences.

Over the weary years the RDRC has been the precinct of local architects looking to promote their own interests within the city. Numerous examples of conflicts of interest were exposed in the 1990’s. And the city council keeps appointing to the RDRC dingbats, talent-free Pecksniffs, and interior decorators, to whom you wouldn’t entrust the design of a birdhouse. The existence of this committee provides the city council with a little political cover on potentially controversial projects, but accomplishes very little else.

And so we say: Abolish the RDRC! People developing their own property without subsidy or without legislative action by the City should be able to design their projects without city oversight; those receiving subsidy or significant zone changes should be required to use architects who have been published in reputable professional journals. Maybe when this happens we can have increased freedom for private owners and design excellence for City sponsored projects. Presently we have very little of either.

May 29, 2011May 29, 2011Arts & Architecture

Should the Lemon Park Murals Be Saved?

by admin113 Comments

Neighbors around Lemon Park received a letter from the city inviting them to meetings on 5/31 and 6/28 to discuss the old Lemon Park Murals. The Public Art Committee would like feedback from the community…

1. Is there one or more mural out of the group you feel is/are absolutely essential to keep and restore?

2. Is there one or more mural out of the group that you feel is/are absolutely essential to remove or replace?

3. Please rank the murals in order of importance to the park and the community. A number 1 would indicate the most important, 12 the least.


Come Back Again and La Adelita	Fullerton Clasped Hands

Girl with Car	Cross with Crown of Thorns

The Town I Live In and Brown Car

Virgin de Guadalupe	La Mujer Latina

Zoot Suit Riots	Calle Elm

Los Ninos Del Mundo

4. If we are able to produce a new mural in or around Lemon Park, what subjects/themes would you like to see depicted in the mural.

FFFF will be forwarding all comments to the Fullerton Public Art Committee, the Fullerton Museum Board and the Fullerton City Council.

May 26, 2011About Us

BAD B.I.D.?

by admin10 Comments

A Public Comment to the General Plan Advisory Committee By Judith Kaluzny

I ask that you remove the reference to a Business Improvement District from your draft of a general plan. I understand the mention is to “encourage” a business improvement district. A business improvement district is a tax on businesses, collected as a property tax by the county tax assessor, in a defined area. It can be based on property ownership–and the owners pass the costs along to their tenants; or on individual businesses in the district.

This is found in the codes of the State of California in the Streets and Highways code. Thing is, a city can assist a BID ONLY AFTER the business people on their own form a group, plan the boundaries, get a petition signed to ask for having a BID. A BID is NOT for paying for regular maintenance of an area, but for improvements. An executive director will be hired, and a board of directors elected–another level of government and taxation for your small downtown businesses in this case.

The redevelopment department, inappropriately, has already tried that for $3,000 paid to a consultant and a balance in the accounts for another $27,000 for that consultant. Four meetings were held; I attended all, as did Cameron Irons and Mr. Terranova. Only at the last meeting did about five other business owners attend. And I had handed out many fliers to alert downtown businesses.

A year or two before that, Cameron Irons sent out a survey to downtown property owners regarding a BID. He gave me copies of the 12 or 14 replies. All were against it, but two said, if you are going to have it, we will participate.

The Nicole Coats had a meeting or two to gin up support for a BID. The two people (me and Henry Jones) who indicated willingness to participate were not invited. Those meeting with Nicole Coats–Cameron Irons, Terranova, Theresa Harvey, and two or three more chose the consultant. Paul Dunlap said he was invited, but declined to participate.

The idea of a BID for downtown arose when Councilmember Quirk asked if there wasn’t some way to get money for paying for the costs of maintaining downtown. Redevelopment Director Zur Schmeide told her that a business improvement district might be a way.

When the consultant was hired, I talked to both the city manager and Councilmember Quirk. Mr Meyer said, “we have an eight block area that is costing us over million and a half dollars a year. We have to do something.” Councilmember Quirk also spoke of a BID paying for the excess costs of maintaining the restaurant overlay district.

This is not the appropriate use or purpose of a BID! And it is by law supposed to arise from the grass roots business people, not top down from the city to get tax money for maintenance.

What I see happening is that if a BID were established for downtown, the only people who would have time or interest to serve on the board of directors will be restaurant/bar owners. Then they will vote to spend the taxes raised for maintenance so the city will not be so burdened by the bar district. (Which burden the city council created by abolishing CUPs for restaurants downtown.)

The Downtown Fullerton Restaurant Association is a non profit listed as c/o Cameron Irons, 118 North State College Boulevard, same address as Vanguard Investment Properties.