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Category: Dick Jones
Mayor Dick Jones is a councilmember in the City of Fullerton. He is known for using his position on the council to serve out mindless babble and execute revenge on those who have spited him in decades past.
Loyal Friends, on June 16th the city council again demonstrated why the process behind selecting the boundaries of the proposed expansion area are almost completely arbitrary. The council voted 3-1 to remove 7 selected properties from the area.
The criteria employed in the deselection are these:
the properties are on boundaries,
they are not necessary
and the owners simply ask to be removed.
Now some cynical folks might surmise that these exclusions were just done to shut people up, including former Congressman Bill Dannemeyer, in fact we have already suggested that very same thought.
What is inescapable is the conclusion that if these 7 properties are not necessary than they never should have been included in the first place. How many haphazard lines drawn on a consultant draft table include non-blighted properties? The statistics presented by the lone dissenting vote, Shawn Nelson suggest very many indeed.
We suspect the city staff and their consultant are pursuing an age old strategy: grab all you can, get, and then hang on to as much of it as you can.
The Fullerton Observer continues to sink to new lows in its coverage of important Fullerton issues. Or lack of coverage.
In its most recent edition it published a redevelopment article which was simply an interview with RDA Director Rob Zur Schmiede, whose very job depends on RDA expansion. Wow, that’s cutting edge investigative journalism!
The Observer has totally ignored the RDA’s $6 million McDonald‘s move. An evil corporation making kids fat, a giveaway to the rich, money intended for blight going to promote junk food! Fast Food Nation was written by muckraking journalists that the Observer should emulate. $6 million to help McDonald’s make high school kids fatter!
McMore please
The Observer has completely ignored the story that has excited even usually tepid reporter Barbara Giasone. They will NOT embarrass the council majority that it helped elect with their endorsement. Jones, Bankhead, Quirk, Keller were all backed by the Observer.
Could it also be that the Fullerton RDA–is paying for quarter page ads in the Observer?
The Observer has published two pieces by Supervisor Norby expressing the County’s opposition to the RDA expansion, but only afterleaking both articles to city staff in time to write rebuttals. The rebuttals themselves are not fact-checked by anyone and are filled with lies.
In the current July 2009 edition (Page 4) Kennedy bewails the 1994 recall of Bankhead after he “voted to support a ½ cent utility rate increase to keep the city from going bankrupt”. Three wrong statements in one sentence!
is that you Molly?
It was NOT a utility rate increase, but a utility TAX on gas, water, electricity and cable TV. It was NOT a half cent but 2%. It did NOT keep the City from going bankrupt. In fact, it was repealed soon after the recall and has saved us Fullerton tax payers over $ 100 Million dollars over the past 15 years and the City is just fine!
True to form, the Observer has supported every city, county and state ballot measure that increased taxes, most of which went down in defeat. It especially likes sales tax hikes, which disproportionately affects the poor–the supposed constituents of a “progressive” paper.
The proposed redevelopment expansion in Fullerton hinges upon on the city councils ability to discover “blight” in this vast area. Two of the biggest cheerleaders for this expansion of government power are councilman Dick Jones and Don Bankhead who are happy to make the necessary “finding” of blight.
you mean to tell us that blights been going on?
Let us reflect for a moment on the irony of the situation. Bankhead has been on the city council for over 20 years, and Jones has been on it since 1996, 12 years and counting! So what have we got going on here? According to Jones and Bankhead “blight” has been proliferating at a record pace on their watch! So what does this suggest about their competencyto fight blight, are these the guys we want running even more redevelopment?
The whole thing would be sort of comical if the potential consequences for the property owners in the proposed expansion area weren’t so serious.
Run for the hills, them darn taxpayers are on to our scheme
It takes a lot to keep the eight full time redevelopment staffers busy. With the economy tanking, widespread commercial vacancies and developer money drying up, the wheeling and dealing–at taxpayer expense–is a thing of the past!
Falling property values mean tax increment revenues are slowing to a trickle. Even the bond market is looking murky for RDAs.
So what’s a bored staff with a lot of time on its hands to do? With the only recent feather in their cap (a black eye) really is the $6 million McDonald’s move (150 feet west, right across from Fullerton H.S.) They need more self-justification.
Hence, the 18-month effort to expand the Fullerton Redevelopment Area by 25%, All the hearings, studies, consultant reports and pricey legal advice could keep any self-respecting bureaucrat busy in justifying their jobs. Never mind that the proposed new area does not meet the barest minimum legal justification for blight. Never mind that the County of Orange has found the legal backbone to oppose the $20-30 million in theft from its general fund.
Never mind that none of the hundreds of businesses affected have requested any redevelopment subsidies, nor the use of eminent domain to purloin property from their neighbors. Never mind that the state is moving to recapture lost redevelopment money.
Turf protection and self-preservation is the first law of any government agency or bureaucracy. The redevelopment staff has a tough charade to maintain. They must pretend that thy are curing blight while at the same time trying to prove that blight in Fullerton is actually growing.
Once a bold master planned development with a pioneering spiritNow, the pioneers are gone and so is their spirit
Why did the City Council vote to extinguish several office buildings, all which contributed to Fullerton’s business zone and stock of professional offices, as well as our historic built environment? Besides a crappy deceitful plan called Jefferson Commons for more student housing on a private college campus, the city lost a huge asset, one that helped create the historic character of East Fullerton for the past 50 years. Shame on them!
Correction to this post: I have been informed that the project cannot legally be exclusively for students, despite the council repeatedly calling it “student housing”. It is a private development, and they cannot discriminate against non-students who want to rent there.
Item 1. CONFERENCE WITH REAL PROPERTY NEGOTIATOR – Per Government Code
Section 54956.8
Property: North and South Block of 100 West Amerige Avenue,
Fullerton, CA
Agency Negotiator: Rob Zur Schmiede, Director of Redevelopment and
Economic Development
Negotiating Parties: Richard Hamm, Pelican-Laing Fullerton, LLC
Under Negotiations: Price and terms
The Laing of the LLC is John Laing Holmes. Laing is a home builder with a reported debt of $500 million to $1 billion and is in Chapter 11 receivership. And furthermore, the word on the street is the front men of the LLC Hamm & Pellican are also on the verge of financial protection.
Exactly what kind of negotiations could our financially unexperienced City Council be doing with a group of financial wizards who are running amok in debt? When is the Redevelopment Agency going to realize the housing market has collapsed? If this project goes forward it will be a financial wreck for Fullerton.
Dear Friends, how many of you realize Pam Keller, Sharon Quirk, Don Bankhead and Dick Jones have already voted to place the Fullerton tax payers on the hook by guaranteeing the developer who’s in bankruptcy a 15% profit? Who besides us are willing to admit this project was a turkey from day 1?
The City bought two “Go Titans” banners and posted them on the railroad overpass above Harbor Blvd. Great! We’re all for the Titans. Titan fans glory in our four College World Series championships. Some recall the 1978 basketball season when we were one point away from making the Final Four, and our 1984 football season when we were ranked in Sports Illustrated’s Top 25 for much of the season, with a final record of 11-1. Banners do liven up a city, inform the public and boost community spirit.
So, why the kill-joy sign still posted at Malvern & Euclid, on the flood control channel fence? Like a scolding nanny, it reads “Do Not Post Banners On Fence.” This has long been a convenient and inexpensive way for youth sports, churches and community groups to advertise their sign-ups and activities. It is hypocritical for the city to post a banner above Harbor, but ban signs at Euclid. If the Titans want to maintain baseball supremacy, the prospective Little League dad must know how to sign up his junior slugger—and for decades moms & dads read the banners at Euclid & Malvern for just such updated info.
Safety concerns must be weighed, but a loose banner above Harbor will fall onto oncoming traffic. A loose banner at Euclid & Malvern will fall onto the sidewalk—or into the urban runoff in the channel. At Euclid & Malvern, the fences are low enough so the banners aren’t blocking anyone’s and since their on the south side of the street, motorists don’t even need to look their direction to check cross-traffic.
We’re all for a Titan banner on Harbor. But we’re also for the Little League and all manner of other banners on Euclid. That scolding warning sign is deterring community groups from getting their message out. You can bet it won’t deter politicians from their bi-annual blossoming of yard signs.
After a month of speculation, Councilman Dick Jones did reappear as Fullerton’s representative at the Orange County Vector Control District meeting held yesterday (to the uninformed—vectors are mosquitoes, fire ants, killer bees, rats, flies and other living things that really bug people).
At the May meeting, other city rep’s were abuzz at Jones’ Texas-twanged tirade that interrupted a staff presentation on property assessments. Bored, angered and irritated at all the background info he was getting, he suddenly cried out—“ENOUGH, ENOUGH, FOR GOD’S SAKE!”
Jones nearly went off again, reported on-the-scene witnesses. After the Staff presented its recommendation on the assessments, Laguna Niguel Mayor Robert Ming presented an alternate motion, and passed out a written copy to the Board. This flustered Jones, who is used to the well-scripted staff motions of the Fullerton City Council. To Mayor Ming, he sarcastically yelled out “OH—YOU MEAN WE HAVE TO READ IT NOW?”.
There was tension in the room, as Board Members feared another meltdown. Ming calmed the threatening waters when he replied “Well, yes, it’s only one paragraph long”. The motion set higher standards of accountability than did the staff recommendation.
Whether Jones read the motion or not, we’ll never know. He didn’t vote for it, as did only 8 of the 31 Board Members (including Ming, Moorlach and Buena Parks Jim Dow). In a second vote, the staff recommendation was approved. People in Orange County politics must believe that Fullerton is a joke of a city with this kind of representation.
Today, all eyes—and ears—will be on Fullerton’s representative at the OC Vector Control Board meeting that will take place in Garden Grove. There are three scenarios as to what might happen. Here they are, from best to worst:
Best: The City Council appoints a new Vector Control representative who will take the job seriously.
So-so: No one will show up representing Fullerton, leaving us without a voice.
Worst: Councilman Dick Jones will take his seat on the Vector Board and continue to embarrass the city with his Texas-twanged outbursts.
Stay tuned!
You may have trouble sorting through the man’s mangled syntax so we are providing a transcript of his remarks:
“I would like to compliment you all on the extensive report you gave, however when I get on an airplane I’d like to think that some agency says it’s air worthy, I don’t want to know the percentage of the materials that make up the wing spars, your intentions are laudible and so forth. I think this was over done, when people come to me for an operation I did not give them 4 years of surgical information during my residency, this was excellent. It’s nice to be baffled by brilliance, and it was baffling”.
