Behind Closed Doors Archives - Page 7 of 82 - Friends For Fullerton's Future

August 6, 2024August 6, 2024Ahmad Zahra

Ad Hoc Tuah Coming

You read that right. This evening the Fullerton City Council is being asked to create an “ad hoc” committee that would spend the next nine months considering our financial situations, and, presumably, making recommendations for next year’s budget hearings. The idea came from Councilmember Charles, supported by Councilman Fred Jung.

If I knew what I was talking about this wouldn’t be Fullerton!

The fact that Charles initiated this process is telling. Her only observable skill on the City Council is to keep things the bureaucracy wants alive, alive.

And what they want is a recommendation to put a sales tax on the ballot at a 2025 special election.

The object here is simple. Keep talking about a 13% sales tax increase, a tax whose campaign the “public safety” unions will pay for and that might pass a 50% threshold in a low turn out special election.

When and where will this committee meet? Who knows? One thing is sure, meetings won’t be easy to find, and will likely take place midday somewhere – like a broom closet at the Fullerton Physical Plant.

According to our crack legal team of the I Can’t Believe It’s a Law Firm” of Jones and Meyer, “temporary” ad hoc committees are not subject to the Brown Act – California’s open meeting laws. Our City Manager, the hapless Eric Levitt, promises real hard to “notice” us peons, but wants to maintain “flexibility” to accomplish the “work” requested.

Of course that work is to work on the committee members to come to the right conclusion – a tax to fix the dire fiscal cliff years of pandering to the cops and the paramedics has created.

I sure hope that Nick Dunlap and Bruce Whitaker will see what’s going on; and that Fred Jung was just having some fun with pro-tax Charles. But then again, Fullerton, being Fullerton, has been known for this sort of thing: stalling, obfuscating, temporizing, hoodwinking, and generally doing the stupid thing in the end.

August 2, 2024August 5, 2024Bad Cop

The Charge of the Light Brigade

by Mr. Peabody60 Comments

So, according to the article these ponies and their associated costs are to be paid for by the cops themselves. Their horsing around to take place in addition to their regular duties. This makes one feel less aggrieved about the maintenance cost, but I have to wonder if this implies additional pay since the union would not like their boys working for free. Perhaps this is considered to have PR value.

Believe it or not, Fullerton now has an equestrian cop unit.

What’s that you say? Why? Why the Hell on Earth?

I don’t know why, but I know it’s true because Orange County Register thief/scribe Lou Ponsi says so. You may remember Lou from his role as apologist for the FPD after six of their gang murdered Kelly Thomas in July, 2011. Before that he gained local fame by stealing a story from FFFF and pretending it was his.

Why, during the influx of an immense ocean of red ink Fullerton has assembled a horse troop is beyond me. Horses need to be fed, sheltered and given adequate veterinary care (one hopes), and the use of them on Fullerton trails is completely unnecessary. Five cops on ponies is five less than could be patrolling Fullerton’s streets. (See addendum, above)

Will these bold equestrians be patrolling the Trail to Nowhere? Of course not.

Maybe they’re there for riot control, since a 900 lbs. horse is a substantial deterrent to all those rioters Fullerton deals with on a regular basis.

Whatever the the pretext for this nonsense, one wonders if this deployment was actually approved by our City Council. It hardly matters, does it?

I love the cowboy hats. A true sign that the spirit of the Old West, despite Doc Heehaw’s plea for “New West” behavior, is alive and well.

July 31, 2024Behind Closed Doors

Public Gathering

by Mr. Peabody41 Comments

It’s funny how, one by one, the advocates for the idiotic “Walk on Wilshire” determinedly reject common sense arguments against it’s continuance.

The concept has been a money loser for the City. Who cares?

Created and perpetuated by “economic development” City employees as make-work for themselves, the thing is an economic sinkhole, just like the rest of downtown Fullerton, while the City suffers from a massive tsunami of red ink. Who cares?

Only one restaurant has deemed it worthwhile to fully participate in this financial disaster. Who cares?

The rights and interests of business owners elsewhere on Wilshire Avenue have been intentionally denied. Who cares?

The ability of motorists to use a public street bought and paid for by the public has been denied them. Who cares?

At the July 16th City Council meeting we learned what was valuable according to the advocates of this moronic scheme. It wasn’t really about “economic development,” because there isn’t any. It was all about the squishy, feel-good goal of a communal gathering space, as if this silly, blocked off space provided any better communal experience than private dining on the inside of a restaurant, or on the sidewalk.

The fact the that the Fullerton Observer has dedicated itself to defending this ludicrous scheme should be sufficient evidence of its idiocy. The real goal of this gaggle is to deny auto access to a public street; it’s the first small step to a utopia where everybody is poor, riding bikes and wearing Mao jackets. But that’s too nutsy even for them to propound openly. So they advocate for a “public gathering space” even though the “Walk on Wilshire” is not really open to the general populace at all.

What these people don’t acknowledge is that there is already a large public space in downtown Fullerton.

It’s called the Downtown Plaza, an acre of open space that already exists, and that can be used without any cost for those interested in the orgasmic experience of New Urban public gathering. There’s even a little parklet across the way. Here it is:

There is absolutely nothing from keeping the City opening this huge space to public dining and permitting ALL the restaurants in Fullerton to cater their wares here directly, or through an on line application. There’s trees, green grass and blue sky overhead.

Of course this would require almost no City involvement, and no project our economic development employees could put on their time cards. It was built a long time ago and, except for a few events goes mostly unused. But there it is. String some solar light in the trees, put out some tables and you’re good to go. There’s even a handy parking structure across the street.

How about this as a “pilot” program: use the existing open space for that “al fresco” dining experience so beloved by Bruce Whitaker, and open up Wilshire Avenue to the people who want to drive on it, and for the businesses on Wilshire that need it for convenient access and parking.

Does this idea seem ridiculous? Why? At the very least it demonstrates the shallowness of the alleged arguments in favor of keeping Wilshire closed: the City doesn’t intelligently used the communal gathering space it already has.

And why not restrict outside dining to the sidewalks, where it belongs?

Our City staff, and at least two of our City Councilpersons, maybe three if you count Bruce Whitaker, would rather shut down a public street to our detriment, but to their benefit.

July 19, 2024July 19, 2024Ahmad Zahra

The Poison Park Gets Some Federal Dough

by Mr. Peabody34 Comments

At last Tuesday night’s Fullerton City Council meeting the annual CDBG show took place.

CBDG stands for Community Development Block Grant – money that is doled out by the Department of Housing and Urban Development to local governments to fritter away with no accountability after slicing off the lion’s share for themselves to “administer” stuff.

The local do-gooder community surround this federal largesse like hungry koi wanting to be fed. Some get money, some don’t. Most of these applicants are centered in the homeless industrial complex, that cluster of NGOs that are the recipients of untold government paychecks who are never held accountable for anything.

One of the items that caught my eye was money – $350,000 for the abandoned Union Pacific Park – the municipal embarrassment that has created an eyesore on Truslow Avenue for two decades. It was described in two different documents. The first mention is in the staff PowerPoint presentation:

This laconic slide is most unhelpful since there are no details. We know it’s a 1.4 acre park, but we also know there is a plan for a new park; so why this cryptic reference? You can’t boil a government potato for $350,000, so what’s the plan, a partial rehabilitation?

We know if the walkways are “damaged,” it was because the City damaged them last year – when pressure was put on staff by the City Council to reopen the park. Do they mean sandblasting the graffiti?

The term “sports courts” is unhelpful because there is only one – an old basketball slab. Some people wanted pickle ball courts but can you do them without the rest of the park? What gives?

The staff report is accompanied by a slightly more specific “action plan” that gives details about the various grant applications. Here we discover this:

There is no existing trail in UP Park, so what are they talking about? Who knows? Are they referring to the dilapidated Phase I of the dismal Trail to Nowhere? Do they want to fix the barrio’s equestrian trail railing? No, the public may not know, but one thing is certain: nobody in City Hall wants to discuss the failure of the UP Park and Phase I of the Trail to Nowhere; they just want to waste more money on them.

The presentation did elicit a few words from some staff guy who stood up saying the City wants to add new “courts” and ADA improvements at the little parking area, language implying that there is indeed some sort of concept to rebuild this park in pieces, an idea which makes sense in a perverted sort of way – everything about this park has been screwed up by City staff since the proverbial Day One.

Tellingly, not one councilmember bothered to question the idea of phasing construction of anything, and whether this is a good idea. It may be that some of them want to plant grass and then forget about the Big Plan. If that is the plan, no one wants to talk about it publicly, and the UP Park Committee has vanished, never to be heard from at all.

At this point the piecemealing pantomime is good for appearances, and the appearance seems to be to be seen doing something, no matter how futile the flailing.

I guess the otherwise laughable piecemealing means that this next inevitable failure will happen in less a less expensive manner.

July 5, 2024July 5, 2024Behind Closed Doors

More Bungling And Intransigence From Fullerton’s Underpaid Bureaucrats

by Mr. Peabody18 Comments

On June 26th the Fullerton Planning Commission revisited the never-ending saga of a Noise Ordinance Revision, mostly as it applies to illegal noise in Downtown Fullerton, a situation that City Code Enforcement has for years been energetically ignoring. Friends may recall that the City Council bobbed and weaved on this issue at the end of 2023 and again in February, without, seemingly even bothering to read the proposed mess of an ordinance. Taking bold action the Council referred the matter back to the Planning Commission who had already rubber stamped it.

But when the PC did review the matter again, the same thing it had already approved, the Commission seemed to have developed both curiosity and courage. On March 26th they savaged the jumbled and contradictory hodgepodge and decided they had better have an on-site examination of the actual problem and the problem makers; afterward they would reconvene.

And reconvene they did, for a “workshop.” Somehow – and it’s not quite clear how – the meeting had been identified somewhere as a “public hearing,” a meeting where important discretionary decisions are made. Even the staff report contained a recommendation to approve the ordinance changes – a formal action. Some of the Commissioners wanted to shut it down then and there, and reschedule the matter; others were eager share their opinions after on-site field trips. In the end the Planning Commission continued the matter so that staff could get it right next time (they won’t).

The staff report itself contained the usual propaganda and misstatements and handwringing that have become the hallmark of Sunayana Thomas, Fullerton’s Planning Director and Economic Development expert. Here’s one:

This statement is absurd, of course.

Then there was the same old litany of difficulties in legally enforcing anything and winning in court. Jesus H., when they don’t feel like doing something they’re just weak as kittens.

Two things emerged during brief “public comments.”

First, Joshua Ferguson pointed out that the notice error was a Brown Act violation and also that a “serial meeting” had taken place. The unnamed lawyer at the meeting who is employed by “The I can’t Believe It’s A Law Firm,” claimed everything was kosher because a quorum of the Commission never met to discuss anything, which begs the question of whether staff itself can organize a serial meeting, illegal under the Brown Act.

Another thing that popped up is that staff, on its own initiative has actually now raised the allowable decibel level that they are recommending in Fullerton’s Commercial Zones to 80dBs – based, presumably, on their field adventures.

Two things remain crystal clear: City staff doesn’t want to do their jobs, and the coddling of nightclub operators abusing their 47 Licenses is going to keep happening until some City Council caves in and gives the bar owners legal license to keep doing what they’ve been doing for 20 years. The long-running effort to protect lawbreakers in Downtown Fullerton will continue for at least a while longer. And every delay makes more money flow into the pockets of the scofflaw bar owners.

July 1, 2024July 1, 2024Ahmad Zahra

Boutique Fun and Games With Johnny Lu and Larry Liu

by The Fullerton Harpoon17 Comments

FFFF has already reported on some of the colorful financial background of Johnny Lu of TA Partners, our City’s stand-up partner on the so-called “boutique” hotel project at the railroad tracks. This hot mess even has a name: The Tracks at Fullerton Station. The development has morphed into a monstrous minotaur by adding approval for a massively dense apartment – an amalgamation which gives us a shocking 130 units per acre, overall.

Well, anyway, we previously shared the news that Johnny was in default on massive construction loans he somehow finagled for projects in Irvine a few years ago. The lender on those has foreclosed on those properties.

And here’s some even more recent news. It seems that Johnny has waded out into more legal problems over in LA, according to The Real Deal, a real estate news source. Here’s the thrust of the complaint by bamboozled investors on a “project” at Playa Vista:

“The investors — who form an entity called RUC14 Playa LLC — sued Lu, Liu and TA Partners, alleging commingling of funds, fraud and misrepresentation, court records show. Attorneys for TA Partners, which have requested for arbitration in the case, did not respond to a request for comment.“

Johnny and his partner, Larry Liu, declared their bankruptcy on the Playa Vista project. But let’s give the misunderstood boys a break. A little contrition goes a long way, right? Said Larry:

“We would like to offer our apology for the non-compliance during project execution,” Liu wrote in the letter. “Self-reflection is needed and I would like to apologize.”

Whatever any of this means to “TA Westpark LLC.,” the corporation that was awarded the Fullerton project entitlements (without any competition) remains to be seen. But now Johnny and Larry have equity – and boy have they got equity; see, Councilmembers Zahra, Charles and Whitaker handed them a bonanza – a plot of land available for hundreds of units – for a mere pittance: $1.4 million less associated costs.

Ms. Charles happened to mention at a council item about raising funds for Fullerton’s fiscal disaster, that the boutique hotel plan was moving along. But there was no mention of the fiscal disaster facing Johnny and Larry Enterprises. Does she even know? Does she understand what is happening? Does she care? Probably no on all three.

The plan here is crystal clear. At this point nobody is going to lend Lu and Liu a bent nickle. But these fine fellows will have entitlements worth tens of millions on this project; a project that never should have happened in the first place – an unsolicited proposal by a local guy who had no chance of building a birdhouse.

This project will be reassigned to a third party, someone the City “business development” expert bureaucrats will be sweet-talked into recommending. And then Johnny and Larry will quietly disappear from Fullerton with millions belonging to us.

Fullerton being Fullerton.

June 29, 2024June 30, 2024Ahmad Zahra

Bungling Boutique Boondoggle Blunders

by The Fullerton Harpoon12 Comments

Some folks have been asking about the fate of the idiotic “boutique” hotel project that had morphed into a hideously overbuilt hotel/apartment hippogriff that is twice the allowable density permitted per the City’s own Transportation Center Specific Plan. Of course the project was never contemplated at all in the Specific Plan, so who cares, right? Fullerton being Fullerton.

In an act of utter incompetence the City actually rushed the approval to transfer of title to the land, before the deal had received final approval. Then they gave it away the land for pennies on the dollar.

Friends may recall our last October post in which we discovered that the new “developer,” one Johnny Lu of TA Westpark LLC, was way upside down on loans he had somehow leveraged on apartment blocks in Irvine and was in default.

You may also recall that Lu started shifting the property to different corporations, the first of which, a Delaware corporation, was non-existent. And just for grins, Mr. Lu changed the property description, too, when he later deeded it back to his California Corporation.

Anyhow, it looks like Johnny has finally created and recorded the appropriately named Delaware corporation in March – only two years too late, but, hey, not bad for Fullerton, right?

There has been nothing but radio silence from City Hall as to the status of Mr. Lu and whether he has met any of the stipulated deadlines in the Development and Disposition Agreement, but as we have learned in the case of the Florentine/Marovich sidewalk heist, contractual obligations mean nothing when the “I Can’t Believe It’s a Law Firm” of Jones & Mayer is your City Attorney. Recently, cluelessly verbose Shana Charles indicated that the project was still alive and well. She didn’t mention Mr. Lu’s financial embarrassment, but then nobody else has, either.

And now for some sadly interesting news. It turns out the original Founding Father of the boutique hotel concept, Craig Hostert of West Park Development – the guy who sold the idea to Jennifer Fitzgerald, Jan Flory, Jesus Quirk Silva, Ahmad Zahra, Bruce Whitaker, et. al. – died in late May.

Poor guy. He went to his Reward after getting pushed out of his own scheme, and sticking us with the appalling, metastasized mess the concept has predictably morphed into; showing that once again, no bad idea goes unappreciated in downtown Fullerton. Being Fullerton, of course.

June 11, 2024June 11, 2024Behind Closed Doors

Chapman Parking Structure Deeded to City

by The Fullerton Harpoon16 Comments

A while back FFFF noticed a item forecast on the June 4th Agenda dealing with the property bounded by Whiting, Chapman, Pomona and Lemon – a parking structure built about 30 years ago for reasons still unknown. Curiously, the staff report calls it a “parking lot,” ignoring the fact that it’s actually an elevated parking structure – an asset that cost several million to build. The accompanying Quitclaim Deed only refers to parcels of land on the original Townsite Map, but doesn’t describe improvements on said lots.

According to staff it was built by the downtown Fullerton Parking Authority – which isn’t quite true because the parking district didn’t have any money. It was built by the Fullerton Redevelopment Agency which raised lots of money to waste on stuff like this.

Anyhow, the agendized item turns out to be a paperwork issue to deed miscellaneous portions of the site to the City from the now dead “Parking Authority.” The item was dutifully approved by our City Council.

Obviously, nobody caught the omission when the parking agency expired (another Jones and Mayer success story), but now the timing may suggest that the “opportunity site” as identified in the otherwise unrelated and never-ending “Fox Block” fiasco has attracted the attention of City Hall’s Monopoly-playing, “economic development” bureaucrats.

June 5, 2024June 4, 2024Ahmad Zahra

New Well. Same as Old Wells

by Fullerton Engineer19 Comments

A new testing well has recently appeared on Walnut Avenue next to the source of trichloroethylene contamination at 311 South Highland Avenue. Friends may remember that this contamination has been monitored by the Feds and the State agency responsible for tracking such things. Here’s the drill rig crew hard at work installing the well casing.

Of course FFFF has already noted the existence of the contamination of the property and its neighbors in the context of the dismal $2,000,000 Trail to Nowhere, pet project of Ahmad Zahra and his colleagues on the City Council; FFFF also identified ten testing wells on the trail site, plus a couple more in the middle of Truslow Avenue. Apparently testing is now taking place to the north, on Walnut Avenue, too. That’s not very good, is it?

The City of Fullerton claimed and still claims that there is no problem with their trail site and apparently the State Natural Resources Agency, the bureaucracy that doles out grant money, remains incurious as to why no mention of trichloroethylene has ever been made by Fullerton’s environmental consultants in their reporting.

Meantime the City continues its silence about the growing plume that could be moving northward, too.

Of course public employees are indemnified for their activities, no matter how incompetent or based in misfeasance. It’s the public that gets to pick up the check.

June 4, 2024June 4, 2024Arts & Architecture

I Wanna Paint It Black

by Disillusioned Ex-Hippy6 Comments

So somebody noticed that a new downtown “club” called Kalaveras is opening. Looks like they have painted the rear of their building black.

Apparently they have also expanded their business into an adjoining property.

The trouble is, according to our correspondent, their Conditional Use Permit is only for 122 W. Commonwealth and work is being done next door – at 120 W. Commonwealth – which is not covered under the CUP. Oops. It looks like they’re actually putting in underground plumbing.

I don’t know if this information is accurate, but I know if it is, the City will likely do nothing about the scofflawry, Fullerton being Fullerton.

As far as the black exterior is concerned, it’s hard to believe that the City actually approved of this since elevations must have been submitted along with the CUP application, and yet Fullerton’s Planning Department has been so inept and careless in the past that maybe it seemed okay, Downtown Fullerton being all about coolness and hipness and a wonderful, vital, -$1,500,000 per year success, and all.

It’s entertaining to recall that the location of this operation is the same place that Slidebar, DTF’s Nexus of Nuisance used to occupy. That owner, Jeremy Popoff, went years operating without a CUP, breaking just about every rule in the book.