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

January 5, 2011January 5, 2011Bruce Whitaker

Can Coyote Hills Be Saved?

As part of its project mitigation planning, the Orange County Transportation Authority’s Measure M program has sequestered a huge pile ‘o cash, something in the neighborhood of $200,000,000. The purpose of this dough is to procure sensitive habitat from private property owners who might have development plans.

Naturally, the West Coyote Hills property was on the initial list, until removed by its owners last year. Chevron likely thought their plans for development were in the bag in 2010.

It wasn’t, and now it’s 2011. And apparently the OCTA is re-opening consideration of applications for the first funding from the mitigation fund. Chevron has until Jan 13, to file an application to the OCTA if they want to participate in the program.

Chevron may believe they now have 3 secure votes to approve what the Council denied last June. And they may still prefer to face long years of entitlement, inevitable lawsuits, and two or three embarrassing economic cycles in order to make a big profit. Or perhaps upon further reflection, they might come to realize that selling part or all of their property for a big payday up front without mitigation cost and without dragged out development issues, is preferable.

The Fullerton City Council might want to consider this too, and help persuade Chevron to take this alternate path. Bruce Whitaker, for one, has an excellent opportunity to make this overture.

January 4, 2011January 4, 2011The Crime Beat

Bomb Threat

by Travis15 Comments

The Hunt Branch of the Fullerton Library was quietly evacuated yesterday afternoon as staff told patrons they “weren’t allowed to say” why the library was suddenly closing. Whispers of a bomb threat were heard on the way towards the exit.

Bomb Threat — The homeless clean up team.

Cops and a city crew were still on the scene today, apparently cleaning out a small homeless encampment on the library grounds. A librarian confirmed that there was in fact some sort of bomb threat that caused the library to close yesterday. For some reason the library’s computer system was offline, too.

Is any of this related to anything? Who knows.

January 3, 2011January 4, 2011Behind Closed Doors

Another Pringle Undertaking

by admin20 Comments

Cemetery1-300x225 — Der Pringle is dying to get in...

The OC Cemetery District sure seems to have a morbid fascination with failure.

Last year we reported on how the Orange County Cemetery District had employed Anaheim’s mayor-for-hire, Kurt Pringle as a consultant. Pringle was getting 6,000 bucks a month to find a new cemetery site, do PR, and act as a cemetery developer. Which was really pretty funny since Pringle is not a realtor, is not a landscape architect, and all the publicity the Cemetery District has gotten lately has all been bad.

PringlePower-300x225 — We have something really nice for you in mahogany.

Pringle’s been on the Cemetery District’s payroll for two years now, which seems like ample time to have accomplished a lot. Well, something. Anything.

But in these opaque, special districts nothing succeeds like failure, apparently, for tomorrow the Cemetery District Board of Trustees is being asked by their staff to extend Der Pringle’s contract even though so far he has accomplished virtually nothing for them. Part of the problem is that the Cemetery Board is independent of any real oversight; and the average age of the Board is something like 969 years old, so there seems to be zero sales resistance.

Renew!!?? Sweet Jebus! The Board ought to be suing Pringle and his Associates for breach of contract!

January 3, 2011January 3, 2011About Us

Subpoena from an Anaheim Employee

by Travis59 Comments

The OC Sheriff’s department staked out an FFFF outpost last week to deliver a subpoena demanding that fullertonsfuture.org produce information identifying one of our anonymous commenters.

Cheryl Sanders, currently a “Real Property Specialist” for the City of Anaheim, is suing (see complaint) one or more John Does who allegedly defamed her in anonymous comments on FFFF and a few other sites. The blog comments claim that the Anaheim planning department is taking bribes under the table, call for an investigation and state that Cheryl Sanders should be “brought to justice.”

anonymous — Faceless Internet meanies strike again

Of course, Sanders’ suit against the commenter claims that all of these statements are false and were made with the intent to emotionally harm her.

But back to the matter at hand: Cheryl’s initial demand for FFFF to identify the commenter was denied. We don’t disclose our logs to anyone. So what should we do with the subpoena?

View the subpoena

The Friends have a soft spot for the anonymous horde of commenters that visit our humble blog and we’d hate to see any of them get pushed around by a litigious public employee. On the other hand, making false statements with the intent to harm is a legal no-no, and the alleged victim should have her day in court. But the actual comment that was left on FFFF was vague, uninspired, and hardly defamatory in my professional opinion (it was removed pending the outcome of the case, but that was pointless since you can now view it on the last page of the subpoena.) Truthfully, this blog is disinclined to acquiesce to the court’s request, but we’d like to consider the opinions of the armchair attorneys that frequent our blog before we proceed.

And it’s worth noting that in over two years and 350,000 words, none of our own bloggers have ever been sued for libel. Why not? Because you can’t sue if it’s true.

January 2, 2011Fullerton City Council

On the Agenda – January 4, 2011

by Christian33 Comments

Happy New Year Friends!

We have a council meeting this Tuesday at 4:00PM. The agenda is a little unusual for a few reasons. First, there aren’t millions of taxpayer dollars being squandered away! Second, there are no minutes being approved! Third, it’s a SHORT agenda!

Now that I have your attention, what’s in the agenda and how will it screw up (or possibly improve) our lives?

Item 1 of the consent calendar is the amendment of the St. Jude Medical Center Specific Plan. After reading it and seeing the changes, I think it’s a pretty good plan.

Items 2 and 3 are donations related to the Police Department.

Next, we move into regular business. Item 4 is likely to upset more than one applecart. It seems the Orange County Flyers are looking to move into the pony stadium at Amerige Park , also known as Duane Winters Field. The team has struggled to draw a crowd but some of the blame can go to Cal State who charges patrons for parking during weeknight games. Some patrons have complained that the concessions are equal to a major league event in price only. The agreement states that the cost for any development plans are the Flyers’ alone. That’s good since we wouldn’t want the Fullerton Redevelopment Agency to spend public funds on for-profit entertainment, now would we…

Item 5 might place pianos all over town, much like the sheep and hearts that have shown up over the years.

Item 6 amends the municipal code so that the council can appoint replacement council members in the event a member resigns before completing their term. As you may recall, a few members were dumbfounded by the process and needed significant hand-holding.

The next meeting, scheduled for January 18, 2011, has a full agenda.

Public Hearing – PPI’s – cont. from Sept. 21
Direct Appointments to Commissions/Committees
Presentation – Progress Report by OCTA on SR 57 Widening
Amend Public Nuisances Ordinance
Revenue/Fee Recap
Draft RFQ – Downtown Core & Corridor Specific Plan
Presentation – Future Farmers of America
TCC Recommendation – Euclid Street – NSA and Loading/Unloading
TCC Recommendation – Acacia Ave – NSA & 1 Hour Parking
TCC Recommendation – Williamson Ave – 30 Minute Parking
TCC Recommendation – Brookdale at Ford/Jacaranda/Ford – 2 Way Stop Control
Federal Appropriations Projects (Let’s blow tax dollars from out of state because we done blew through our constituents’!)
Closed Session – Labor Negotiations
Amendment to Coop. Agree. – OCFA – FTC Parking Structure
Fox Theatre – Operation/Maintenance Expenditures
Outdoor Dining & Public Right of Way Encroachments – Cont. from 12-21-10
Minutes – December 21, 2010 and January 4, 2011
Korean/American Festival Update
Closed Session – Property Negotiations – Muckenthaler (more bailouts)
Fullerton Police Officers’ Association Donation to Explorers

And for February 1, 2011:

Advisory Bodies Representation
Richman Athletic Field Improvements
Resident Permit Parking – 600 Block East Princeton , Almira Ave , Sycamore Ave , Melody Ave
Public Hearing – FTC Cost Recovery Fee (Cost Recovery, also known as Justification for Higher Taxes)
Mid Year Budget Report (we’re broke)
Fullerton Golf Course Irrigation Project

January 1, 2011January 1, 2011Former Fullerton Councilmembers

Things to Look For in 2011

by The Desert Rat10 Comments

Dinos — They were large and slow with a mean streak.

The Fullerton new year brings with it a strange atavistic political regime: an elderly, under-informed, pro-staff, pro-Redevelopment, pro big government RINO majority. It sort of reminds me of the Ackerman-LeQuire-Catlin axis of ignorance that held sway in Fullerton in the 1980s. Things only got worse when Don Bankhead added his own special brand of undernourished intelligence to the equation in 1988.

So what does the new year portend? One thing to look for is the return to the old method of selection of city commissioners by committee – a committee made up of retired public employees who have the time and desire to weed out the intelligent, the skeptical, the individualistic sorts who might actually make a city commission do something besides rubber stamp whatever nonsense were being peddled by staff.

In recent years the process has been made much more accountable by having personal recommendations made by council members. And folks like Keller and Quirk-Silva who in the old days would never be able make important appointments finally had some real influence in the municipal sausage factory.

Of course this sort of accountability is anathema to the old-timers who understand the value of Fullertonion group-think, fear informed opinion, promote government “stability” and who above all else want responsibility as diffuse and elusive as possible, so that when the inevitable “mistakes were made” mantra is chanted it will be as hard as possible to assign a name to the screw-up.

Will the dinosaurs work hard to keep Bruce Whitaker and Sharon Quirk-Silva from making key appointments? Just wait and see. And just wait for the Jan Flory good-government types to come out of the woodwork to promote the Old Boy Network.

Ah! Just like the good old days!