Fullerton depilitator Stephanie Stevenson, perched above the aqua waters of Bora Bora, sharpens her intellect on a Fullerton Harpoon post while husband Ed loads up on tiki kitsch for the family room.
Fullerton’s Redevelopment Chairman Don Bankhead, and members Pam Keller and Sharon Quirk led the charge to spend $6 million in tax payer’s money to relocate McDonalds 2oo feet closer to Fullerton High School. As part of the total figure, the Agency previously spent $3 million to buy and demolish four historic California bungalows on the site.
Redevelopment Agency Director Rob Zur Schmiede said “funds for the project had been set aside years ago”. Governments flawed incremental approval process at work again.
The move will pave the way for The Fox Block project– a proposed parking structure type development fronting on Chapman Avenue between Harbor Boulevard and the new McDonald’s which will resemble a McMiniature McSpanish McCastle.
Not everyone favored the deal, longtime Fox critic, Councilman Jones opposed the deal, indicating that he was disappointed a big corporation like McDonald’s was not putting a nickle into the multimillion dollar burger deal.
“This is a huge cost of the citizens’ money,” Jones said.
Councilman Nelson asked if it were possible to postpone the final decision until the Fox Block developer, Arteco Partners, could come up with a plan and a feasibility study.
With nothing at stake and everything to gain, the out of town Developer’s spokesman Jerry Tessier said the new proposed parking structure and project would not work if McDonald’s stayed in its current location. Yet, he could not provide any guarantees for much.
Councilwoman Quirk agreed it was time to move forward. “We have the funds, and we need to get sales tax in.”
As a school teacher, Quirk must know what causes obesity in children; eating too much of the wrong kinds of food and not getting enough exercise. Now the kids wont have to walk as far to get their subsidized happy meal deals.
McDonald’s franchisee Mr. Frisbie reminded the Redevelopment Agency members that the City staff approached him to relocate his business, which was started by his father, James, in 1969 as a family business. A recent study shows the presence of an fastfood outlet within easy walking distance of a high school — about 530 feet or less — resulted in a 5.2% increase in the incidence of student obesity compared with the average for California youths, a correlation deemed “sizable” according to the findings. Great job Quirk, Bankhead and Keller!
“Our business is better suited where we are now,” Frisbie said. Dear Friends but another example that government is part of the problem and not the solution.
Some not so smart landscape planner hired by the Fullerton Redevelopment Agency thought he knew what he was doing when he choose to plant a tree right in front of the Historic Rialto Theater in downtown Fullerton. The Rialto Theater Building is one of the two remaining “Zig Zag Moderne” buildings in Fullerton. What do you think about the landscaping efforts of the Redevelopment Agency in downtown Fullerton?
Okay, another story of Redevelopment incompetence run amok. Sorry, but it’s like eating potato chips; once you start…
A visit to the City website will reward you with a list of historic buildings, including what they are calling the Landmark Plaza.
The inclusion of this structure (see image above) on the list is obviously meant to be self-congratulatory and take credit for historic preservation. Unfortunately nobody seems able (or willing) to recall what actually happened. So we’ll help out.
In the late 80s a fly-by-night “developer” wanted to remodel this historic building. The Redevelopment Agency decided to help out by giving the guy a third loan. Since the building was listed as historic the Landmark Ordinance required general adherence to the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for Rehabilitation. These were serially violated when the developer removed the roof and created an outdoor walkway on the second floor, removing the then useless windows in the process. Other character defining features such as a marble stairway were removed as well.
The Agency staff knew all this. In fact before construction started it solicited an opinion from the State Office of Historic Preservation that informed the City that the remodel violated the Standards, would put the building at risk for nomination to the National Register of Historic places, and jeopardize potential tax credits. Yet the City went ahead, approving the work and subsidizing it!
Well, not long afterwards the “developer,” predictably, headed for the tall grass, and the Agency was left holding the bag. Standing in third place, their near-million dollar loan was gone – unless they bought out the folks at the head of the line. Which of course they did. More of our tax dollars at work.
In 1993 after the work was finally done, guess what the City did? They nominated their building for the National Register, turning the process on its head. To their credit the Heritage group of the time opposed this as a reward for deception and incompetent rehabilitation, but the nomination went through with a little political arm twisting.
Soon after the building was sold at a huge loss, but at least returned to the property tax roll.
There are Heritage group brass plaques on this building now, and a spot on the City’s website: a testament to self-delusion, self-congratulation, and abuse of the Fullerton taxpayer.
Well, sure, mistakes were made but hindsight is 20/20!
Our honor roll:
Molly McClanahan
Buck Catlin
Don Bankhead
Dick Ackerman
Almost twenty years ago Fullerton made its first significant foray into the quagmire of affordable housing, acquiring the the Allen Hotel and turning it over to a fellow named Jose Zapeda. Mr. Zapeda’s job was to accept a huge subsidy to “renovate” the original building and build a new addition. Apartments were to be low income.
The total taxpayer payout exceeded one million dollars – a tidy sum, to be sure – over $70,000 per unit, in fact. Cynics claimed that the exorbitant subsidy was just a way to buy down the quickly escalating affordable housing spending requirement of Redevelopment law that the City had ignored for years.
The usual suspects were on board. Perhaps the most comical (and racially charged) comment came from then City councilmember Molly McClanahan who bragged: “we’re giving them one of their own” as if Mr. Zapeda, because he was Mexican American, was more qualified to build and run a low income housing project – inhabited by – Mexicans! Molly also proclaimed that she liked the simplicity of the proposal, as if a stucco box with flush vinyl windows and stick-on brink lintels over the windows was somehow virtuous.
The replacement of the original fenestration with plastic windows, and the transom glass with fake leaded lights (grid glued on the back!) just showed that historic preservation was being used as a pretext for the big subsidy. With the passing of the years it’s truly hard to see how this eyesore has avoided targeting by Redevelopment as blight – since it was blighted from the moment its “designer” put pencil to paper.
Almost ten years ago the Morgan Group developers contributed this gem to downtown Fullerton’s inventory of beautiful buildings. For some reason Fullerton’s leaders thought the idea of another faux-Renaissance palazzo built of wood studs, stucco, and styrofoam details was just what the doctor ordered.
Well maybe the doctor did order it. Sometime check out the contributions made by partners of the Morgan group to Dick Jones’ 2000 city council campaign. Hmmm.
Well, we got more high-density, crappy architecture, more traffic on an already deficient intersection, the aesthetic engulfment of the beautiful and historic church next door, etc., etc.
What did The Morgan Group get? Free land, plus a gift of a public street (the 100 E. block of Whiting – an original street from the 1886 town site grid) and who knows what else. Who approved this disgrace? Let’s have a looksee:
Don Bankhead (current Councilmember)
Dick Jones (current Councilmember)
Jan Flory (former Councilmember)
Chris Norby (former Councilmember and current County Supervisor)
Julie Sa (twice elected former unintelligible Councilmember, current whereabouts unknown)
Dear Loyal Friends, considering the number of comments received on the prior post , the majority of you have agreed that WTF’s idea for a contest to see which is the ugliest and cheapest looking piece of cardboard crap to come from Redevelopment is a good one. So, email images of your ugliest and cheapest looking piece of cardboard crap to come from Redevelopment to: fullertonsfuture@yahoo.com. I’ll post them, and our loyal Friends will select the winner.
The winner will receive an original Friends For Fullerton’s Future “TERM LIMITS” t-shirt.
Four-and-a-half year old Yoshii Kawamura of Minamiechizen Village, Nanjo District, Fukui Prefecture, and penpal of Golden Hills Elementary’s March Citizen of the Month, Trevor McGrath, takes a break from precalculus class at the Nanjo Normal School to enjoy a riveting FFFF blog post by the Fullerton Shadow.