Fullerton Arboretum: Benign Neglect or Deliberate Sabotage?
I am posting a communication from a guy named Dr. Steve Chapin regarding the arboretum over next to the CSUF campus. According to Chapin the Arboretum grounds are suffering from lack of attention and parking, which used to be free, will now cost an astonishing twelve bucks on week-ends.
From the Fullerton Arboretum Advocates Facebook page:
Dear members of the “Fullerton Arboretum Advocates” Facebook page. I have not posted here since my last post on March 6, 2023. (See below).
I had not visited the Fullerton Arboretum since around that time when CSUF took FULL control and renamed it the CSUF Arboretum and started charging $4 per hour for parking at the Arboretum lot on weekdays. Today, Friday August 8th, I visited the Arboretum for the first time in over 2 years. What I saw saddened me and confirmed the concerns I expressed previously on this page.
There was hardly anyone there on a beautiful sunny Friday afternoon with only 8 cars in the almost empty parking lot. (See Pic) Starting August 25th CSUF will begin charging a $12 parking fee (*now informed it starts at $6 and will increase to $12) on the weekends for all the campus lots including the Arboretum lot. Because of the weekday $4 per hour parking fee at the Arboretum lot that began in 2022 using the Park Mobile app, the Arboretum is now mostly visited on the weekends and is often crowded then.
Earlier this year I spoke with Dr. Shana Charles the Fullerton Councilmember for District 3 about the Arboretum, she happily noted: “Parking is still FREE at the Arboretum on the weekends!” This will no longer be the case starting August 25th. Expect attendance at the Arboretum to continue to fall and its many benefits to the Fullerton community as a commons for people to visit and enjoy free of any fees on the weekend to expire. How sad for the people of Fullerton that this once great civic source of relaxation, recreation, education and family enjoyment will now be monetized and underutilized by its citizens.
The Arboretum was not looking as nice or as well kept as I remember it. Besides a lack of visitors, the extensive lawn next to Dr. Clark’s house was brown and mostly dead. Many of the surrounding citrus trees looked under water stress with curled up leaves. I have 10 citrus trees in my yard, so I know what healthy watered trees look like.
I was told that the Arboretum’s long time director had retired in January and that the position had been posted but then removed by CSUF and had not been filled. This could explain the sad shape of the grounds. I asked if Dr. Clark’s House (Heritage House) had been reopened for visitors or the many schoolchildren field trips I use to see there and was told no. The only good news I have to report is that Arboretum land was not taken for the massive expansion and building of student housing that is being added to the campus. It does tower above the Arboretum grounds though. (See pic).
I just wanted to alert the people here who are still Fullerton Arboretum Advocates to what I saw and learned today after visiting the Fullerton Arboretum after a 2 year absence.
Sincerely,
Dr. Steve Chapin
The plan here seems pretty obvious: let the Arboretum go to the dogs, declare it an unsafe nuisance and build more massive dormitories for the eager young CSUF students. $12 to park on a week-end? That’s tantamount to robbery. The City has no control over the university that can do any damn thing it wants, although I seem to recall an Arboretum Joint Powers Authority with a commission, or some such thing. I don’t know if it even exists anymore.
I do love the reference to Shana Charles, happy warrior for public health when it’s not even at stake. This is different. A real open space with trees, plants, water, n’ stuff could very well be at risk from her employer. Let’s see what the good doctor does.
I wonder if Dr. Sheena has tenure.
Shana Charles, happy warrior for public health
What a quandary for Fullerton Boohoo. Open space versus the biggest symbol of education they can imagine – CSUF.
Of course they want to destroy anything good there is in Fullerton. But that fat ass wants to complain about not being able to shut down a street in downtown.
She needs to take a good look in a real mirror and get her crap together. Nobody is impressed by her or her choices.
Hey wait just a doggone minute.
Walk on Wilshire provided trees, green grass, education opportunities. Arbols. You could even Walk Your Dog on Wilshire. Allegedly some one did.
What makes you think this decision has anything to do with her?
What decision?
The decision to charge a weekend parking fee.
Nobody said it had to do with her. FFFF just noted it was her bosses that did it. What will she do about it? Bitch to the Chancellor about lost open space or just keep her giant yap shut.
She works there.
Work? Well, we pay her to blabber to slack-jawed, illiterate students and feed their multiple choice tests into a machine to grade.
Fast food restaurants and junk food manufacturers are very impressed (and pleased) with her choices.
Excuse me, she’s big boned.
The bones grew sideways.
Dinosaurs have big bones. She is just portly.
I visited the arboretum about a year ago and couldn’t believe how terrible some of the fruit trees looked. An obvious lack of water and disease control. Average backyard trees look better than theirs did.
As I stood there looking at the trees, two arboretum employees came by to accuse me of stealing “plant material” meaning fruit. Keep in mind there was no fruit in my hands or pockets and a person with average eyesight would have been able to see this a hundred feet away.
It quickly became evident that yelling at visitors and just being rude is standard practice for them. They opened their mouths before taking the extra two seconds to verify I didn’t steal anything. Terrible customer service if you want to call it that.
I have no desire to return to the arboretum any time soon. And even less desire if I have to pay for parking.
You should have seen the physical plant. What a sorry, run down mess.
The previous director – Greg Dymant – seemed to be on cruise control and the staff was pretty damn iffy. Volunteers did a lot of the physical work.
The place had gotten real shabby ten years ago.
Now there’s no director at all, apparently CSUF is intent on letting the place go to ruin.
The arboretum is a dump. We need big beautiful apartment blocks there instead.
The building is 20 years old and was a design mess to start. The “gallery space” – total disaster.
Didn’t some administrator in charge of new buildings at the school get canned for graft years ago?
I heard that the ceiling louvers designed to modulate natural light stopped working soon after it opened because of building settling.
That’s a new one.
Arboretum is another ankle weight on the city. Old timers will remember it as a jewel. But it is CSUF continuing to take their pound of flesh from Fullerton. Isn’t the mouthy, portly professor an employee? Lots of conflicts there. Should expect an Eli op ed in the Kennedy monthly?
Tender E won’t attack any member or associate of the Kennedy Coven.
Shana Charles destroys everything she touches — including students.
I had a child attend a sports camp at the CSUF Stadiums over the summer and they required parents to pay for parking. Using an otherwise empty lot for 5 minutes just for dropping kids off they wanted us to go to their stupid kiosk and pay.
I came back one morning to a CSUF parking enforcement guy telling a very pregnant lady she had to pay to park there. She replied that she didn’t have a credit card on her and he actually told her she could park off campus and walk in. Who says that to a pregnant lady on a hot day? Also keep in mind this lot is otherwise empty during this time so they’re intentionally paying a parking ticket guy to be there and do this.
You don’t hate these people enough.
The CSUF administration isn’t about education, it’s about money and self-promotion.
The entire CSU system is farcical. They’re diploma mills, and the “graduates” do not possess the skills or abilities necessary to succeed in the modern workforce. We won’t even interview CSU grads for entry-level positions because we’ve found them incapable of success.
LOL. Stay mad at life.
Keep laughing Hoogie. Let a smile be your umbrella.
Mad at the failure of California’s educational industrial complex is more like it. It’s there to fill the pockets of politicians, administrators, and unions primarily, education be damned!
It’s also there to keep hundreds of thousands of semi-literate high school graduates out of the work force which would depress wages.
It’s a vast subsidy. And don’t get us started on the community college sinkhole.
The entire state has become like this. Tax dollars went to the care and upkeep of things they’re supposed to. Then, California became a one-party state and more of the money got siphoned off to pay for excessive compensation, pensions, fraud, grift, and waste. Now, there is a parade of taxes masquerading as “fees” for taxpayers to pay for public services that should be gratis. Elections have consequences, and until Californians vote better, it’s only going to get worse.
Landscaping crew got scared of ICE. Student landscapers had to get real jobs to make their new loan payments. All that’s left are fat administrators and DEI experts.
California government is like the crazy uncle that can’t keep nice things because he always destroys them.
Blows my mind that we allow a bunch of blue haired centenarians to dictate the course of the ship in Fullerton.
We can’t get anyone to take care of this park, but let’s spend a bunch of money (we dont have) and resources we can’t afford towards something we will inevitably discard like the TTNW or UP park. I swear, if we weren’t doing the most insane BS, we wouldn’t be doing anything at all.