The Fullerton Shadow, Author at Friends For Fullerton's Future

January 22, 2010January 23, 2010Behind Closed Doors

As The Colony Turns: Funny Business at the Anaheim Planning Department?

lorrisfortune — Strings will be pulled in the near future...

First of all, we here at FFFF don’t profess to be experts on urban planning, but something doesn’t seem quite kosher down in our neighbor to the south.

Our Intrepid Travis just got word from one of his Colony sources that the City of Anaheim is now smiling on the legality of Lorri Galloway’s 4th District carpetbagging rental residence in a house located in their “light office professional” (O-P) zone. Check it out. Why is the City smiling? Because apparently they believe that since the fake “carriage house” on site has a studio apartment in it, the whole Taormina property is wide open for residential use.

Hmm. Now that’s quite a leap, but not all that surprising given that Lorri Galloway is an Anaheim city councilmember and Taormina is a big Anaheim property owner and political big shot. So is the story over? We wonder. Consider a few facts.

First, the land use is O-P, within the commercial zoning division, as noted above. The Anaheim commercial zoning code tables provide for no residential uses in the O-P zone at all. None. The city does have a defined “mixed use” overlay zone, but it does not appear at all on the zoning map legend, and it is not shown applying to the property in question. So what gives? How did Taormina get a residential unit on that property in the first place?

Let’s say for the sake of argument that there is indeed a “mixed use” overlay on this O-P property, that is not reflected on the zoning map. The Mixed Use zone definition clearly states that there shall be a commercial use on the ground floor facing the street (modified only by Conditional use permit); and that a Conditional Use Permit shall determine the number of live/work units. So unless Lorri is inhabiting only the upper floor of that house, she needs a CUP. And furthermore Taormina not only needed a CUP to establish a residential use in the first place (if in fact there was an MU overlay), he would need to either modify it or get a new CUP to expand the number of existing MU units.

And here’s another thought: if the existing residential unit does not meet code then it is hard to see how an expansion of it is justifiable especially when expansion of even a legal non-conforming use is generally prohibited in land use law.

Ah, well. Let Heaven and Earth be moved to accommodate Galloway’s carpetbagging! And let the Colonists bang their tabors and joyously welcome their new, well-connected neighbor!

January 20, 2010January 26, 2010Boohooism

As The Colony Turns: Galloway Moving Again

by The Fullerton Shadow10 Comments

Ah! The tribulations of homelessness! OC 4th Supervisorial wannabe Lorri Galloway is on the move again, kicked out of her so-called new “home” at 1155 East Lincoln Avenue in Anaheim.

It seems that the big house she was supposedly living in had no permit for a residential use – it’s an office; fortunately her landlord, Anaheim trash contractor Bill Taormina is obliging. He’s going to move the Galloway family into the studio loft in the adjacent “carriage house” that does have a permit for residential occupancy. The Register’s Jennifer Muir documents the latest twist in the Galloway saga, here.

Although Ms. Muir links to the Red and Blue County blogs’ attacks and apologetics, she doesn’t mention that we were the first to discover the whole carpetbagging scam.

Anyhoo, we are now supposed to believe that Galloway is moving into a one room apartment while her landlord tries to get the big house permitted for residential use? That ought to be fun! Taormina will have to apply for a permit, have a public hearing in front of a zoning administrator, then have that decision inevitably appealed to the Planning Commission, etc., and all the while with poor Lorri having to deal with the embarrassment of the whole shady thing.

Electric_Hot_Plate — The kitchen is to die for.

Well, you go girl, and good luck cooking tasty meals on that hot plate!

January 16, 2010January 16, 2010Dead heads

Lorri Galloway Honors Anaheim’s History. Takes Up Residence in Colony District

by The Fullerton Shadow22 Comments

UPDATE: One of our eagle-eyed Friends has discovered that Cynthia Ward, aka “Colony Rabble” picked up on this post and shared the news with her fascinated readers over there.

What caught our attention was her statement that we have been deleting her comments over here. That is patently not true. We don’t delete comments here – except in really, really rare instances, and Ms. Ward is far too civil to ever trip our threshold.

– The Fullerton Shadow

Following up on our brilliant post about the carpetbaggin’ Anaheim councilman/billiards aficionado Harry Sidhu taking up residence in the 4th Supervisorial District, we turn our focus on the race’s other carpetbagger – Lorri Galloway, who until recently, lived in the 3rd Supe District along with Harry.

One of our Friends just got an invitation to a campaign coffee klatsch with Lorri “in the comfort” of her “lovely restored historic home” in Anaheim’s Colony District. She seems to have moved into a neighborhood near the busy corner of East St. and Lincoln, in a small enclave carved out by the UP underpass in which the City of Anaheim facilitated an historic preservation petting zoo. Not the greatest neighborhood, to be sure, but a whole helluva lot better than Sidhu’s crib farther west on Lincoln Avenue.

Lorri's Place — Convienent, Lorri can take the bus

Say, what is it about Lincoln Avenue that attracts Anaheim Hills carpetbaggers?

January 11, 2010January 11, 2010OC's Fourth District

Harry’s Home in The Hood

by The Fullerton Shadow22 Comments

Our sources have informed us that Anaheim city councilman Harry Sidhu has just re-registered to vote at 2230 W. Lincoln Ave., Apt. 106 in Anaheim. Since he actually lives in Anaheim Hills, he’s obviously going to claim this address in the 4th District as his residence – so he can legally run for County Supervisor to replace Chris Norby.

HarrysHome — Gracious living at the Calabria Apartments

Wow, that hideous peach colored apartment block with no landscaping and dubious neighbors sure is a major step down from the “elegant Old Yorba Estate” that sprawls its lush-landscaped way across a wide swath of the 3rd Supervisorial District.

Yorba-Estate-111 — The Sidhu Compound even has an aviary!

We also note that Harry is the only Sidhu that registered at this new address. After a hard day’s campaigning will Harry come home to a cold, empty apartment? Well, not to worry. Besides a pool hall, the neighborhood offers other distractions that may compensate.

lb2 — How many Linbrook bowlers have their own aviary?

Harry’s new home backs up to the Linbrook Bowl lanes where Harry can hobnob with his would-be kegling constituents!

Oh well. Just another carpetbagger. Ackerwoman, Galloway, Sidhu. They seem to be popping up like weeds lately, and as they pop up we will do our best to apply the appropriate herbicide.

January 5, 2010January 5, 2010Fullerton BooHoo

Pam Keller: Funneling Grant Money Into Liberal Activism for Fun and Profit

by The Fullerton Shadow23 Comments

We’ve burned quite a few pixels explaining how Pam Keller’s is using her non-profit, The Fullerton Collaborative, as a vehicle to peddle influence, fund political activists, and profit Keller herself through excessively convoluted financial relationships.

But some of our loyal Friends still don’t get it.

That’s admittedly understandable, since the entire contraption is remarkably complicated. But to help everyone wrap his or her cerebral cortex around the many conflicts of interest, we present this valuable flow chart to demonstrate where The Fullerton Collaborative’s money comes from and where it goes. Naturally the nexus of the whole tangled web is Pam Keller. And that’s the big problem.

Fullerton-Collaborative-Illustrated — Click for an eye-opening experience...

Enjoy following the arrows. After perusing this chart there really is no excuse for not being concerned about the manifest conflicts of interests on the part of our City Council woman Pam Keller.

Unless, of course, you are part of the web.

January 4, 2010January 4, 2010Boohooism

Babs Giasone Hits New High in Low

by The Fullerton Shadow7 Comments

And by low we mean a really, really, rock-bottom sort of low.

A helpful Friend shared this link to a Barbara Giasone News Tribune, er, “article” from 12/21/09 about some former florist delivery boy and long-mustache contest award winner who showed up at the Fullerton Library impersonating Gene Simmons of the 1970 rock band KISS. This seems to be his current means of employment. Good thing Barbara was on the scene to relay the crucial breaking news to her readers. What if we had missed this? Ha! Just think of all that time other reporters have wasted going to journalism school!

But seriously (!) now, Friends, we’re a city of 140,000 people and this is the sort of thing the Register/News Tribune newshawks think Fullertonians want to see:

Another scoop for Babs... — Another big scoop for Babs...

But what do we know? This is the same “journalist” who was recently recognized by some sort of “Women in Leadership” event for her achievements. And Pam Keller has publicly praised her as “our wonderful Barbara Giasone.” Perhaps this is exactly the kind of thing Fullertonians want to see! If so, it is the kind of thing we deserve.

Well, maybe not all of us.

December 19, 2009December 30, 2009Behind Closed Doors

Another Disaster in the Making

by The Fullerton Shadow9 Comments

How come our electeds don’t seem to be able to grasp simple concepts; why have they no resistance to the bureaucratic sales pitch; why must they obscure their own ignorance in a cloud of asinine nonsense or outright lies?

Last Tuesday night the Fullerton City Council/Redevelopment Agency approved the idiotic Richman housing project, a staff-concocted, no-bid, pet project that proposes to subsidize ownership of condos. The vote was 3-1, Sharon Quirk-Silva, dissenting. Shawn Nelson took a powder.

Why is this project idiotic? First we believe that the ownership of a house is something that should be available equally, and not doled out by the government to its own selected recipients.

Second, the units in this project will have to be perpetually restricted to people whose income levels qualify. Perfect: perpetual housing bureaucracy! The necessary deed restrictions are a pretty significant encumbrance and will just add to the financial shakiness of the whole enchilada. But without these restrictions the original buyers would be in line for a massive windfall courtesy of all of us, when they sell.

A third point, as was admirably developed by Sharon Quirk-Silva, the proposed occupancy restrictions would very likely disqualify people who need housing the most. Which leads to the fourth point. These units will not count against Fullerton’s most neglected RHNA category – low and very low income. Which leads to:

Five. Dick Jones claimed that approving the Richman project is required to satisfy some legal mandate – it is THE LAW. That’s just a tin-plated, bald-faced lie. The SCAG RHNA allocations are goals, not a legal mandate. Cities are required by the State HCD to provide evidence of programs used to achieve those goals – not specific projects. And, in any case hypocritically, this project does not address the most urgent RHNA category of all which means that for folks who profess to really like this sort of thing, an opportunity has been lost.

Finally, FFFF has tried to promote better, more sustainable design in government-subsidized projects. And this project just promises more of the same old architectural crap we’ve been getting all along.

And now that we contemplate this fiasco, we feel the need for a last minute adendum to the Fringie Worst Vote category.

December 11, 2009December 11, 2009About Us

Fullerton Food Fun For Friends

by The Fullerton Shadow20 Comments

The Fullerton city fathers (and mothers) have dedicated themselves to the cause of converting historic downtown Fullerton into an open air food and booze court. The place is now chock full of food and drink purveyors – almost to the exclusion of any practical uses associated with a real downtown. Well that’s their vision for “preservation” and the rubes seem to be going for it: the nincompoopers keep getting re-elected. But I digress badly.

We would like to do reviews of Fullerton eateries, but, alas, we cannot afford a Food and Wine critic as was originally contemplated in our business plan. And, yet since DTF has become the sort of place aptly symbolized by the horror of Meatloaf Monday, it is clear that a free and open culinary exchange is needed now more than ever. To that end we are asking Friends to contribute their own reviews of various fooderies. If they are decently written and share a certain piquant je ne sais quoi, we will publish them for the edification of the Friends, comestibles-wise. Of course we will have no truck with the sort of blatant stoogery one would find in a Fullerton News Tribune restaurant review.

December 7, 2009January 9, 2010Boohooism

BooHooing Job Assigned to Vince Buck

by The Fullerton Shadow12 Comments

We knew the first post-mayoral vote edition of the Yellowing Fullerton Observer was going to have a Page One sob story recounting how Pam Keller was robbed of her birthright. The only question was who was going to write the tale of woe. That duty fell upon Liberosaur Vince Buck, who’s been an uncompromising shill for the idiotic council lefties for years and years.

not known for agility — Not known for agility

Mr. Buck is not given to hysteria, so the tenor of the article is pretty calm. Still, the assertions therein were, as usual, appalling pea-brained: the woman was rejected by the boys; and it was her turn; Bankhead and Nelson voted they way they did for political reasons (Oh no, the horror!).

Of course Buck didn’t bother to correct the previous erroneous assertions of his editoress that other localities have a “rotation” – implying some mechanism for school yard-type “sharing” of the mayor-ship. He also didn’t share the choice irony that The Observer has endorsed the chowderheads Bankhead and Jones time and time and time again.

Vince Buck awaits the jello salad — Vince Buck awaits the salad

What was really funny was Buck’s claim that Nelson voted for Bankhead to get the latter’s endorsement for his upcoming Supervisorial campaign, while in the next breath he (accurately) reminds us of how little the Bankhead endorsement did for the Ackerwoman. Of course, we already knew that, and Nelson must, too! Bankhead’s endorsement is as worthless as Zimbabwean currency.

It just doesn’t seem to have occurred to poor, cliche-riddled Vince that maybe Nelson just really dislikes Pam Keller. And by dislike we mean a don’t-walk-ahead-of-him-down-a-dark-alley sort of dislike.

December 3, 2009January 16, 2010About Us

The New Red Bottomed Voice Insults FFFF!

by The Fullerton Shadow36 Comments

We’re used to insults flung at us from the non-fringers who talk a real good game, but who are basically all about feeling out and burrowing into whatever handy crevice will accommodate their abdominal bulk, six legs, and antennae.

hey baby, you don't get to be 100 million years old without some survival instincts!

So we take it in stride when the latest addition to the Red Bottomed blog, “Colony Rabble” took a little baby swing at us in the comment thread of her maiden post:

“I love Tom Daly to bits, and the fact that the nimrods at FFFF (how many F’s?) bag on him just makes me fight harder for him.”

Nimrods? Ouch. I think.

We really have no bone to pick with Colony Rabble. She “loves Daly to bits” which is just fine. She is clearly not a Repuglican, just a big time RINO. You fight on, girl! Work your tail off for Tom. You’ll probably end up working a lot harder than he will.

But why shouldn’t we “bag” on Tom Daly – a career politician with no evident ability other than political careerism? Is it really so bad to think we can do better? A lot better?

And it does seem pretty unusual that someone whom Matthew J. Cunningham agrees with on almost no issue he says he believes in, is suddenly blogging – just in time for the 4th District election. Well, color us suspicious. And so color, too, their own blogger Allan Bartlett, who is under the impression that his blog should stand for something. Silly Allan!

Things used to be so simple... — Oh Allan. remember when things used to be so simple?