This clip is short but meaningful. Claiming East & West Fullerton are “blighted”, Councilman Dick Jones and the Redevelopment Agency wants to take “money” from the schools, police and fire departments, and use it to build “municipal auditoriums, affordable housing, and even homes.” Of course none of this is about good ol’ Dick. He’s doin’ jes fine up on the hill. Enjoy!
Yesterday we ran a post on the duplicitous way the City started the ball rolling behind closed doors on a big housing project that promises CEQA impacts on its neighbors. In fact decisions are already being taken that should have been done under the illumination of a public hearing.
The project even has a name, “Euclid Commons” that makes us wish to make a quick pit stop at the West Harbor Alley Improvement Project vomitorium. A couple of comments provided descriptions of what was being proposed that seemed to differ considerably and so we provide la tabula rasa for our Friends to chime in and see if any clarifications are forthcoming.
The issue of starting negotiations is being addressed tonight (Aug 4th) behind closed doors since the public can’t be trusted to even know that a project is now officially (if secretly) sanctioned by the City Council. There will be “reporting out” but no public comment. Really, what have they got to hide?
Some people are determined to talk. They just can’t help it. They believe that the more stuff they say the more informed they appear. Even if it’s just babble to the rest of us.
Take our own Councilman Dick Jones. If we didn’t mine so much pure gold out of this bonehead’s blathering we really would beg him just to shut up – if only to soothe our agitated synapses.
One of his favorite reasons for promoting Redevelopment expansion is that the money can be used to satisfy low-income housing mandates, imposed by the evil bastards in Sacramento, or Karakhastan, or Tanganyisha, or whatever mythical countries exist in his febrile imagination.
The fact is that housing objectives come from SCAG – the Southern California Association of Governments – a bureaucratic local government consortium made up of people like Jones and guided by public employees. The housing targets, by income classification, are contained in the RHNA (pronounced “reena”) – the Regional Housing Needs Assessment, and are divvied up among local jurisdictions. These numbers are merely “goals,” not mandates. The whole thing is a bureaucratic paper chase and hardly anybody takes it seriously except far lefties.
Which brings us to the point of this post. We wonder what Jones’ Republican backers like Ed Royce and Dick Ackerman think about Jones actively promoting the quasi-socialist RHNA objectives in Fullerton. He is sounding more and more like Sharon Kennedy with each passing meeting. So we have to wonder who’s coaching him on housing issues (well, no we really don’t).
Finally, Jones doesn’t talk about the real mandate; it comes from Redevelopment law itself: the 20% property tax increment set-aside for “affordable” housing, a requirement created to help compensate when city planners and pols rip up lower income neighborhoods to gentrify them. The new expansion area includes little if any residential housing, so no housing stock is going to be displaced. But sooner or later that 20% set aside will start to accrue, and it will have to be used somewhere in Fullerton.
Somewhere in Fullerton. But not in Dick’s zero sub-prime neighborhood in the hills, you can bet the family farm on that. The buck will certainly stop there.
Watch Dick Jones question Redevelopment Director Rob Zur Schmiede about the availability of tax increment monies in the proposed extension area. Zur Schmiede responds that because of the merger with an existing area money would be available “immediately.” And Jones is off to the Camp Town races, perhaps not realizing that his Redevelopment director was only talking about existing funds – not new property tax increment. All he heard was “immediately.” So he sits up, pleased as punch, like he had just discovered radium. Uh–mmediately! Well, Land ‘o Goshen! You cain’t hardly beat uh-mmediate! Instant gratification – a predictable desire in a child; embarrassing in a septuagenarian.
The reality is that even if the Redevelopment extension survives a legal challenge, the depressed real estate market and property tax re-assessments will likely create a flat or even a negative increment for the near to mid-term future within the amendment area. This means that any Redevelopment funded projects here would have to dip into the also diminishing increment in the pre-existing project area. So why doesn’t Jones grasp this? Because the Redevelopment Agency has arrived upon the scene to cure all that ails us. HOT DAMN! IMMEDIATELY!
Is this really the guy we want making this decisions for us?
Below is an illuminating video clip of our old nemesis City Councilman Dick Jones defending redevelopment expansion in Fullerton.
Dick’s suggestion that blight exists because foreclosed houses are close to “those blighted areas”, makes absolutely no sense, and, in fact directly contradicts the specific legal findings he had to make to support Redevelopment expansion; but then again look who’s talking.
The other important question Dick’s little speech raises is whether or not he discussed this issue with Pam Keller prior to the meeting. Listen to when Dick he says “when this thing passes, I’m going to make a motion to have our attorney and our staff work with the County to….”, it was obvious he already knew it was going to pass. But how could he have known unless of course Dick had already gone over this with Keller, the ultimate third vote? This is not a Brown Act violation, but it sure would be if he had previously discussed this issue with either Don Bankhead or Sharon Quirk, and it’s pretty hard to believe otherwise. These guys habitually play fast and loose with the Brown Act prohibition against “serial meetings” so it’s not inconceivable.
It’s not a far stretch, you decide!
While watching the youtube clip of David Espinosa tee off on the Union Pacific Park and the comment by City Manager Chris Meyer that the park was being shut down, we got to thinking. The Mayor was clearly not told by anybody that the park was being closed down – observe the standard “we’ll fix it, thanks, move along” comment by Bankhead followed by Meyer’s explanation.
Meyer went on to say that the problem of what to do with this “park” was being passed to the Community Services Commission for ponderment.
And we say: who in Hell gave Chris Meyer the authority to shut down a public park? Why wasn’t the Council asked to make this decision and how come they were never even told about it before the apparent revelation at the council meeting? Who gave Meyer the authority to assign this problem to anybody, let alone a lower committee without even informing the Council of his plans? Why wasn’t this issue agendized and discussed, in public, by the City Council?
These are mostly rhetorical questions, of course. The City’s staff wants to sweep this acute embarrassment under the municipal rug and the only way to do that is not to tell anybody. Even their bosses.
It also makes us wonder how much else in Fullerton has being undertaken by the City Manager on his own hook. It’s one thing to execute policy laid down by elected officials; it’s quite another thing to start taking on major policy decisions, and worse still, not tell anybody. Unfortunately this situation is symptomatic of two long-standing problems in Fullerton, two problems that fit together like pieces in a jigsaw puzzle.
First is the perfect willingness of our elected city council persons to abdicate their own policy-making responsibility and simply show up for the meetings, the Rotary lunches, the Chamber mixers, and the ribbon cuttings; second is the perfect willingness of the city managers to step into the authority void and run the show any damn way they please. It’s a perverse symbiosis.
This has got to stop. The results have been amply catalogued on the pages of this blog. And they aren’t very pretty.
After watching the Fullerton City Council meeting the other night we had a sort of vague, creepy feeling. At first it wasn’t clear why. We noted the rather startling sartorial choices made by Councilman Dick Jones and a queasy uneasiness crept over the proceedings. Various uninvited images started to crawl into our rapidly firing synapses – Professor Harold Hill, Benny Hill, Benny Hinn; what the Devil was it?
Then it hit us like a rolling thunder from the Gulf of Mexico punctuated with a sharp explosion of illumination over the Texas llano: The Dukes of Hazzard! Dick Jones must have been channeling the ghost of Boss Hogg!
Ye Gods, have you no mercy? On the other hand we’ve gotta admit – the material is priceless – and endless.
FFFF’s seasoned veteran Attorney Bob Ferguson (6-0 record vs. redevelopment scams) knows a blight scam when he sees it, and is relishing the idea of bringing the redevelopment expansion under the judicial microscope. Like a quack doctor intentionally trumping up a diagnosis to jack up his fees, the redevelopment agency’s legal council Jeff Oderman with Rutan & Tucker fabricates blight that doesn’t exist at $400 per hour. Judges will see through this charade, just as they have with many other cities Ferguson has challenged.
One property owner in the affected area said it best–“I’m offended that the City has declared my property blighted, and I just now found out about it. Tell me how it’s blighted and I’ll fix it myself!”
The process limps forward towards a legal battle, with Shawn Nelson and Sharon Quirk in opposition. At least Nelson and Quirk respect the law that they have sworn to uphold.
A classic example of how the redevelopment agency casts a dead hand on parts of our city can be seen at the Northeast corner of Brookhurst & Orangethorpe. A firm that I know has plans to purchase the properties from 6 different owners and assemble the 8 acres for a new development. They have the cash, the experience, the patience, and the price is right.
Now, however, the Fullerton Redevelopment Agency proposes to include this property into its expanded area. The owners are unwilling to sell now because they think the agency will pay more later than the private firm will pay now–which may be true.
In addition, if the agency does a “friendly eminent domain” scam, the owners get tax advantages the private company cannot offer. Of course, the eminent domain may be unfriendly if the agency won’t pay what the owners’ want.
Then, having assembled the parcels, the agency will sell at a discount–or give the land away–to a politically connected developer who will build what the RDA staff wants. Not what the market demands, but what the bureaucrats want.
This kind of micromanaging of property is what the RDA is all about. Instead of letting the market work on its own, the bureaucrats and politicians intervene. Instead of allowing willing sellers and willing buyers to create a privately-funded project–they want to use your tax dollars.
Instead of letting private enterprises’ make a profit–and of course risk a loss–they want to socialize the whole development. This approached has failed time after time.
Isn’t it time to leave the free market alone?
Apparently, the Redevelopment staff got the word out to those already receiving City funds to get behind this redevelopment expansion if you want to score brownie points and maybe a little more dinero.
Speakers at Tuesday’s hearing in favor of the expansion included Jim Ranii of the Museum Board. Of course, the Museum is not blighted (is it, Jim?) and is not eligible for any funding by expanding the RDA. Muckenthaler Director Zoot Velasco talked of the “hidden blight” in Southwest Fullerton. Let’s hope its not so well hidden when it’s challenged in court. And, Zoot, the Muck cannot receive any future loot, so why allow yourself to be used by RDA staff? Then the folks from OCCLA who want grafitti removal (714-738-3108) and code enforcement (they don’t need redevelopment for either), and the Chamber of Commerce director Terresa Harvey, begging for hand outs for her fellow board members like Scott Dowds (who also spoke in favor). And lastly let’s not forget old Louis Kuntz Sr., who supported the expansion as well. Not surprising, since his son Louis Jr. and the Morgan Company who already got an $18 million public gift (including the gift of a public street–100 block East Whiting) from the Agency for his downtown apartment complex…. maybe there are some more profitable projects looming for him in the expanded area.
Of course, their pleas had nothing to do with blight. In order to legally declare an area “redevelopment” the area must be blighted.
The process limps forward towards a legal battle, with Shawn Nelson and Sharon Quirk in opposition. At least Nelson and Quirk respect the law that they have sworn to uphold. Stay tuned.