September 25, 2009September 25, 2009Arts & Architecture

Happy 50th Anniversary Sunny Hills H.S.!

POST UPDATE:

A Taste of Sunny Hills

Our 50th Anniversary Celebration will officially begin with “A Taste of Sunny Hills: A Taste of Talent, Food and Reunions”, on Saturday, September 26, 2009 from 4:00 p.m. until 8:00 p.m.

Bring your family and join us on the Sunny Hills campus for:

– “Tastes” from local restaurants include: Beach Pit BBQ, Chomp, Cafe Hidalgo, Slidebar, Heroes, Phan 55, Koba Grill, Hashigo Sushi, El Matador Cantina, Top Class Pizza, Twin Dragon Chinese Food, Rutabegorz, EHF Fundraising, Lascari’s, and Cajun Swamp!

– A special “KidZone” sponsored by the agriculture department with carnival games and a petting zoo. Jamba Juice will be available in the “KidZone” along with kettle corn and a “candy store.”

– “Reunion Row,” a special place to reconnect with classmates from years past and relive high school memories.

– Live entertainment venues featuring music, comedy and dance from incredible Sunny Hills student and alumni entertainers.

– 50th birthday cake will be served with coffee provided by Starbucks.

Admission for the event is free.

I have received several emails from Friends inquiring about examples of sustainable design in Fullerton. Sunny Hills High School is a great example of sustainable design.

Concrete structure, steel framed windows both on the north and south sides of all the classroom buildings were built to last; a great cantilevered roof design provides ample shade while still allows natural light and ventilation to pass through thus not needing HVAC all the time.

The roofs have the perfect pitch and design to accept solar panels for future conversion. When I found out that SHHS opened 50 years ago today, it confirmed the theory that good design will assure that buildings will last for as long as the materials they were built out of will let them.

The new school just around the corner is just 5 years old, and is already starting to fall apart – but more about that in a separate post.

September 24, 2009Redevelopment

You Want Blight? We Got Blight!

by admin6 Comments

Dear Friends, we know that the issue of blight relative to the proposed Redevelopment expansion may seem confusing to you, perhaps even a bit abstract. So we have decided to collect some images of blight to help you get the picture. To be fair, and consistent, we have tried to stick to the City’s own standard (or worse) as we collected pictures not in the proposed area, but in the existing Redevelopment Project Area – to let you also see what a bang-up job the city is doing to eradicate blight already, especially with subsidized projects that it has already built!

September 24, 2009September 24, 200972nd Election

Councilwoman Sharon Quirk-Silva Throws Hat in the Ring for the 72nd

by admin12 Comments

Fullerton Councilwoman Sharon Quirk-Silva sent me a text message that read; “To my favorite blogger (I like the sound of that) I am officially running for the 72nd Assembly seat”.

This is good news for Fullerton Democrats that care about having a principled Democrat in the race. There appears to be another Democrat in the race from Placentia, but Sharon Quirk-Silva has a high profile here in Fullerton, and Fullerton is a much bigger chunk of the 72nd.

Quirk-Silva is now firmly opposed to redevelopment boondoggles. She recently opposed the bogus redevelopment expansion and had the courage to change her vote on the $6 million McDonald’s redevelopment giveaway/boondoggle.

So far, of all the candidate’s websites, I think she has the best. Here’s the link.

September 24, 2009December 30, 2009Dick Jones

Who Do You Believe, Nelson or Jones?

by admin6 Comments

Here’s a video clip with two starkly contrasting views of the hush money scheme Fullerton’s Redevelopment lawyer Jeff Oderman cooked up to payoff the County in order to prevent a lawsuit against the city’s crooked Redevelopment expansion proposal.

Shawn Nelson rightly identifies the $4,000,000 upfront General Fund payout and later phony lease-back arrangements for what they are: a gimmick and a scam. Dick Jones just can’t let it go at that and interjects his windy summation, again, since he had already had his chance to bloviate over the City’s shenanigans earlier.

Well, Friends, you decide; “brilliance” or “scam.”

September 22, 2009January 4, 2010Orange County Government

Milking The Cash Cow; John Lewis et. al. and The Politics of Profit

by admin7 Comments

Why is it so many supposedly conservative, small-government OC Republicans seem to make it their business to make as much money as they can off of the very entities that they are constantly railing against? For many of these miscreants the County government is nothing but a plantation to be worked, and worked over, as often as possible.

Take the case of former State Senator John Lewis, supposed arch-conservative Republican, who as a campaign consultant gets his boys elected and then as a lobbyist raises money for them – right before he puts the squeeze on them for a vote or two. His “firm” brags about being able to navigate the complex maze of government. Hmm. Seems like it’s to his advantage to keep government as big, complicated, and non-user friendly as possible. The list of other Republicans -like Anaheim mayor Curt Pringle, County GOP party Chairman Scott Baugh and his predecessor Tom Fuentes, who lobby this or that – is pretty long. We’ve even heard from one reliable source that the latter’s endorsement can be had – for 2500 bucks.

But back to Lewis. His most recent Lewis scam seems to be the utterly bizarre candidacy of one Laura Cunningham for the County Clerk job – as reported by Lewis himself on the Orange Juice blog here. We say bizarre because this idea is so weird that it barely deserves consideration. Except that what the hell, somebody’s got to win this election! Ms. Cunningham is the spouse of Matt Cunningham, a Lewis protege and collaborator; according to her on-line resume she also used to work for Lewis himself as a lobbyist at the County Hall of Admin – so the promotion of this “candidacy” makes sense. But this woman seemingly has no experience or record managing anything. Like her husband, she seems to have spent an adulthood spinning yarns for this or that Republican politician, or trying to help some clients “navigate” some public issue or other (i.e lobbying and PR); running a public agency? Nuh, uh.

Can't these people get real jobs?

Lewis may be afraid that his boy Tom Daly is getting cold feet about running to replace Chris Norby as Supervisor and wants him to nail his colors to the mast by endorsing a potential successor. Ultimately Lewis has nothing to lose by promoting an unqualified unknown. Who knows? Maybe the whole thing is just a ploy. On the other hand maybe Lewis figures this could be the start of a brilliant new political career – and ultimately a lobbying target in the future!

P.S. The funny thing about all of this is that everybody seems to be forgetting about Chris Norby who until a few days ago was also running for the Clerk job. If he gets beat by Ackerman in the 72nd Assy primary in November will he re-train his sights on preserving our vital records at the County Clerk’s office? And what would Lewis do at that point?

September 22, 2009December 28, 200972nd Election

Mrs. Ackerman Goes Negative @ GOP Central Committee

by admin5 Comments

Oh yeah. It's gonna get ugly. Real ugly.

Our Friend Allan Bartlett who happens to be an OC GOP Central Committee member reports that an anonymous flier was passed out at last night’s meeting attacking Chris Norby – for the bogus sexual harassment suit (filed by a County employee fired for misfeasance), and for allegedly saying bad things about Mexicans.

Bartlett says Mrs. Dick Ackerman (who is going to run against Norby for the 72nd Assy seat) denied any knowledge of the flier, but he’s not buying that, and neither are we. She already let the cat out of the bag that others will be doing her dirty work for her- most likely her old man who has a natural flair for it. So be it.

As we have said the harassment thing was conjured up out of malice. As far as discriminatory comments about Mexicans is concerned, two thoughts come to mind: first, Norby may have his faults, but he is one of the least prejudiced people on the planet Earth; second that such a charge would be brought up at the forum of the OC GOP Central Committee meeting is just hilarious. How could anybody think that was going to hurt Norby at that venue!

When word of that flier gets out it might actually help Norby win the Raymond Hills GOP Bluehair vote!

Some of my best friends are Mexicans. Like my gardener and my house cleaner.

September 19, 2009December 30, 2009Arts & Architecture

Downtown Fullerton: The Brick Myth, The Reality of Brick Veneer, and The Legacy of Schlock

by admin27 Comments

We published a couple of posts a few days ago on the new parking structure planned on Santa Fe Avenue, and how it is proposed to be faced with brick veneer here and here .

You may remember that I got to thinking about why the city staff would tell the RDRC that the $40,000,000 parking structure must have brick veneer; and that I asked one of the RDRC Board members that very same question, and the answer I got was that staff told the Committee that the City has to use brick veneer because it was a “State” requirement to meet the CEQA guidelines. (I also noted that the use of fake brick is in complete contrast to the sustainable design the General Plan Advisory Committee has spend the last 3 years discussing and recommending to the City Council).

CEQA? Yes CEQA he said, because there’s a provision in the CEQA guidelines that requires mitigation of any visual impacts. In other words, since the new parking structure was being built with structural concrete, and the surrounding downtown has many brick-looking buildings, using the brick veneer would cause no visual impact on the environment. I say “brick-looking” because so many of the buildings in downtown Fullerton are faced with fake brick veneers, facades that are not historic, and some of which, in fact, were stuck-on older buildings during the course of Redevelopment in the last 30 years. And many of these were subsidized by the taxpayers of Fullerton.

How do I know this? I did a building facade survey of downtown from the RR tracks to Chapman and from Malden to Pomona. I documented the principal “building skin” of each structure. The results didn’t surprise me, but they may surprise you; they should shock the Redevelopment and Planning Department “experts” who not only have been tolerating, but actually promoting this material over the years – seemingly in an effort to keep downtown “historical” looking. Boy, did they get it wrong.

Here are the results of the survey:

24 Brick veneer

2 Flagstone veneer

9 Real brick & clay block

3 Glazed & fluted brick

24 stucco & plaster

20 Concrete, concrete block & terra cotta

And here is a useful overhead image with the various exterior materials colored in on each of the building’s footprint. Notice how few real brick buildings there are; and of these only a couple are red brick – the crap of choice among Fullerton’s bureaucratic tastemakers. The buildings with substantial brick venerers are pink.

Using CEQA to bolster the poor design choices of the past is pretty bad. Let’s hope this post will help end the travesty of bad and cheap looking architecture based on erroneous assumptions, and that California’s environmental laws will never be used again by city staff to foist this garbage on us.

September 16, 2009December 30, 2009Behind Closed Doors

City and County Collaborate on $25 Million Bribery Plan

by admin8 Comments

Last night the Fullerton City Council voted to give the County of Orange $4,000,000 of your money. Right now. Right out of your pocket.

well, there she goes — Well, there she goes. Say good bye.

So what’s the reason for this unusual generosity? It was because the County was threatening to sue the City over the diversion of property tax increment from the County through the bogus establishment of an expanded Redevelopment project area where no blight exists as required under State law.

The City lawyers, Rutan & Tucker,sure must have felt they had a lousy case – because they cooked up a deal behind the scenes to buy off the County with a ton of up-front cash plus some hinky lease back deals on down the road. Ultimately the total payout will be $25,000,000. We shared news of the the payoff meetings here . The County knows the Redevelopment expansion is fraudulent, because it has already made that argument publicly; but apparently there are at least three votes on the Board of Supervisors to take the deal and help out a fellow government agency. The County will formally go for the gold next week.

The City Council vote was utterly predictable with Pam Keller, Don Bankhead, and Dick Jones cheer leading the payoff. Dick Jones in particular excelled himself in ignorant idiocy. We’ll soon be showing the Friends clips of Fullerton’s City Council in action.

To their credit, both Shawn Nelson and Sharon Quirk-Silva voted against an action that both robs the taxpayers of Fullerton and violates a basic ethical standard. The other three broke the law, and they know it. But they’re not out of the woods, yet. A court will decide the matter.

September 15, 2009September 15, 2009About Us

We Get Mail: Have We Confused You?

by admin5 Comments

mailbag

We recently found this missive in our FFFF e-mail sack:

Subject: Having trouble figuring out FFFF

It seems this blog doesn’t know where it stands politically, I’d originally assumed it to be non-partisan, but have seen it seem to lean towards the right. Which I figured was corrected with the Norby expose until the duvall affair. Now it seems focused purely on the republican side of the 72nd special election, somehow supporting norby who recently the blog said was illegally raising funds. what?

There seems to be an ideological disconnect.

Good points. It seems a little clarification is in order. First, we have several bloggers – some Libertarian, some Repuglican and others of unknown political persuasion. Second, we have no particular espoused blog-philosophy other than trying to promote independent and relatively intelligent office-holders who will be accountable for what they and their employees do. We are not a party-affiliated operation and have no ambitions in that direction. There are already several partisan blogs in OC and they are full of self-congratulating hacks.

We do tend to be persuaded that less regulation and government micro-management of our everyday lives is a good thing; but we especially believe that the rules laid down by government should be applied evenly and fairly – especially to the government itself.

When Norby’s campaign goofed up and sent out money solicitations to County workers, the Shadow chastised him; similarly she had at him for his hapless County Clerk campaign that smacked of desperation on his part. But when an opening occurred after the Duvall mess, the Harpoon (rightly, I believe) suggested that Norby go for the State Assembly where we are in dire need of Redevelopment reform – a theme constantly revisited on this blog.

Our readers may be interested to know that we are actively recruiting both Libertarian and Green Party members to run for the 72nd race because we would love to see some alternative voices heard for a change.

In short: we may seem unpredictable, and if we are its because there is more than one of us; certain issues may resonate with some of us; and we don’t write about everything.

So keep visiting. You never can tell what you may discover here.

September 13, 2009December 28, 2009Chris Norby

A Sign of Things to Come

by admin9 Comments

We keep hearing that County Clerk Tom Daly wants to be our next county supervisor, replacing Chris Norby, the current job holder, who is termed out next year.

We have never cared much for the idea – not because Tom isn’t a likable sort of fellow, but instead because he has held a series of government jobs in and around the County since the 1980s and we don’t relish the thought of being represented by a typical insider, career politician-type.

What really worries us is the fact that the Democrat Daly is being energetically promoted by one-time conservative Republican John Lewis, the campaign consultant/lobbyist whose modus operandi is to get ’em into office and then begin to lobby ’em.

But back to the Daly campaign. Apart from Daly’s announcement away back in March – six months ago – we’ve heard virtually nothing about the his campaign, except that Lewis paid a loud visit to Chris Norby a few months ago trying to secure the latter’s endorsement for his man Daly. He didn’t get it.

So we’ve decided to help the Daly campaign. To that end we’ve designed a nifty campaign sign, several thousand of which we plan to decorate the Fourth Supervisorial District if in fact, Daly does decide to run after all. Hope you like it!

Daly-4-Sale-&-Career-Politician-22x30-[Converted]