Park Barrel Spending … Literally
Further review of the budget document dump offers lots of worthy material. Why not examine the “15” Parks and Recreation Fund, shall we?
The only justification they can provide for $15,000 of Landscape Maintenance Supplies is “Substantially increased use of trash can liners in several parks“. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
Not long ago, I wrote about their brainstorm to launch fireworks from the top of Hillcrest Park on the Fourth of July. Included in that proposal was an idea to use Lions Field for Fourth of July festivities.
When youth sports are in session (i.e. most of the year), your chance of finding a parking spot at Lions Field in the evenings and on weekends is nearly impossible. Parking along Brea Blvd. is also used up for the same reason.
That’s okay, when Joe Felz’ Hillcrest Park stairs to nowhere are open — and the kids aren’t playing ball — people can park their cars at Lions Field and climb the hideous stairs when nobody is around, right? Wrong.
Under this proposal, parking at Lions Field during the day, everyday, will be scarce, if not completely unavailable.
That’s because the footer of the Parks & Rec Proposal offers this wonderful idea:
- Lease the Lions Field to Hope International University, most likely during the day, since youth sports already use it on the nights/weekends.
- Lease the Lions Field parking lot to St. Jude for employee parking use.
Just as the stairs are a terrible waste of money and devoid of any logic, so too is the idea to lease parking spaces to St. Jude for profit. This is how Parks & Recreation operates: (1) waste a ton of money on something completely unnecessary that benefits less than 1% of Fullerton residents, (2) realize there isn’t enough money to support it, (3) come up with some scheme to siphon money away from the end user.
Leasing the Lions Field parking lot creates yet another reason for Fullerton residents not to use the stairs.
Oh, and by the way, the Park Dwelling Fee is slated to increase from $11,700 to $12,015 per unit.
I think the time has come to reduce — or even eliminate — the Park Dwelling Fee so that nonsense like the stairs isn’t affordable anymore. The $12,015 per unit would be far greater used to fix Fullerton’s streets, water mains, and sewers.
For the umpteenth time WHY do Hugo and Alice, i believe thats their names, still have a job? This would never be tolerated in the private sector!
How many trash can liners can one buy for $15,000?
At $0.20 to $0.40 per bag in around 500 quantity, $15,000 comes out to about 100 to 200 bags PER DAY. I stand to be corrected, but somehow I don’t think parks and rec use that many bags. And I hope they get a better price.
We’re stuck with Hugo the parks director forever. The rest can get jobs out in the 909 after Fullerton runs dry, but who is going to take that guy? Nobody.
Felz had no plan, no vision, no nothing – except to enable rotten development projects and keep SparkyFitz happy.
Everything, and I mean everything was ad hoc. As the author correctly points out, money was draining out of the reserves and Stumblejose was trying to pour money in the other end in dribs and drabs.
Let’s just get it over with. Lease all public space and buildings to private interests, eliminate all city staff and services. Turn it all into a parking lot.
Let me get this straight:
1. They take our money to build a park
2. They lease it to a corporation
3. Take that money from the lease to pay for their pensions.
We’re left with nothing.
That just doesn’t seem right.
…Interesting article in today’s LA Times about the fact that over 20% of their current budget is being spent to cover past employees pension obligations.
Less than 15 years ago that figure was only 5%.
How long do you think it’ll be before the wave finally hits the average citizen over the head hard enough to realize that they’re leaving their own childen a future which will be drowning in overwhelming debt?
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-pensions-20170421-story.html
More and more a get mad at myself for reading these publications. Now I do it to laugh at how people are such babies and whine and cry about stuff like the fact that the City of Fullerton had to buy $15,000 worth of trash bags. The reason why, to clean up all the cr*p your slinging. If you don’t like it, get out
Maybe you should re-direct your anger at the $150,000.00 that the administration of the Fullerton P.D. spent last year on legal fees, instead of concerned residents that are trying to expose the cronyism, corruption, and waste.
Just remember that the Fire and Police budgets account for 80% of every dollar, which leaves the rest of the city to run on the 20% left.
That’s why 90% of the roads in Fullerton look worse than any third world country.
Is that the legacy we should leave for our children?
a thumbs up for the new stairway but will they be used for excersize? stay tuned https://i.imgsafe.org/e8b5c60c2a.jpg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1Deh7PLugA
Thanks for sharing that nauseating bit of municipal self-promotion. I note:
Whitaker sitting in front of Laguna Lake where untold millions of gallons of prime MWD water were lost with no apology, no accountability, no responsibility. Fitzgerald brazenly bragging about the moronic stairs to nowhere. Donwtown stakeholder are committed she says. Committed to what? Profit at our expense.Sebourn, with his ass parked in the Corporate Yard as the streets of Fullerton crumble; “we’re ready” he boasts. ready for what?
And then the images of the vast Joe Felz/Karen Haluza stack n’ pack tenement blocks. Who is the target audience for that? Developers, I guess.
Jesus. How much did this bullshit cost.
Did anyone notice something odd about the above picture of the new stairs at Hillcrest Park? I can count at least 10 posts with light fixtures in the picture. How nice of the stairway designer to include lighting. We wouldn’t want someone tripping in the dark on those steep stairs. But I have a few questions for the city regarding the lights.
Why was lighting installed when the park closes at sundown?
Are the stairs going to be open at night? On nights when Lions Field is being used?
Was there some code requirement to have lighting on stairs even when they are closed to the public?
Will the lights be on even though the stairs are closed to the public?
Just curious.
“Why was lighting installed when the park closes at sundown?”
Haha! Well done. Because Hugo is a No Go.
In 15 years those wooden stairs to nowhere will be demolished as a public safety hazard. And all the idiots who thought it up and voted for it will be long gone.
It’s Fullerton, Jake.
Hugo is awful
I was at Lion’s Field this pat Saturday and I must admit my thoughts were the same as Jerry’s in a few short years that expensive pressure treated would is going to become nothing more than a liability when it starts deteriorating.
Great job again wasting precious resources