Downtown Fullerton Archives - Page 11 of 25 - Friends For Fullerton's Future

December 12, 2016December 12, 2016Behind Closed Doors

The Culture of Vodka, Vomit & Vehicular Mayhem (Part One); or Who is Gregg Hanour?

It is often said that nature abhors a vacuum. I think government ineptitude and corruption does, too. For a void created in the latter case attracts all sorts of opportunists looking to get ahead. Just consider the Gennaco affair for a moment: an out-of-control police department and a city government that wanted it to stay that way, called on the “professional” services of Michael Gennaco to make sure nothing was done at all.

The other day our crack team of investigators discovered that a fellow named Gregg Hanour had made public records requests for police calls to two of downtown Fullerton’s ~~fine dining establishments~~ night clubs – Bourbon Street and our old friends at Slidebar Rock ‘N Roll Something-or-other. Mr. Hanour is a former bar owner who now makes it his business to explore ways in which bars can quit annoying the municipalities in which they are located, abide by the permits that let them operate, and control their rowdy and inebriated customers, etc. Apparently, one of the main strategies offered by Mr. Hanour is to get bartenders to quit serving alcohol to drunks.

Downtown Fullerton must occupy a bunch of Hanour’s business development resources, given the completely out-of-control booze and barf culture that appertains. Good God! Just look at these two rap sheets:

Of course we are all familiar with the Slidebar and its checkered history. What most people in Fullerton don’t realize is that Slidebar is currently operating illegally as a night club. That’s right. This establishment has no conditional use permit, and every time something untoward goes on there a tremor of fear should pass through the City’s Risk Management Department. That’s because the City has intentionally looked the other way while Slidebar and it’s politically connected owner Jeremy Popoff keep the doors open and the drink flowing.

The real possibility of injury or assault or worse is evident in the long list of police calls to this bar. Can the City be held responsible for the consequences of letting this place run without the necessary permits? I don’t know. Shall we ask the City Attorney?

November 18, 2016November 18, 2016Behind Closed Doors

Independent Person Wanted, Inquire Within

by Joe Sipowicz11 Comments

I'm bringing in my brother-in-law, Bob. — I’m bringing in my brother-in-law, Bob.

According to the City of Fullerton’s website the City Attorney is looking for an “independent person” to investigate the activities of our City Manager, Joe Felz. Here’s the PSA:

Now in the first place, the idea of of our mush-mouth City Attorney employing anybody not willing and able to deliver the right verdict on the events of Wednesday morning, November 9th, is ridiculous; but really, an independent “person?” Attorney Jones’s gardener? His CPA? His car detailer?

Seriously, though, the hiring of an investigator by the City and calling him (or her) independent is a complete farce. For there is a fundamental conflict of interest here, just as there is for the Fullerton Police Department to investigate their own boss. I can see it, you can see it. Probably even comically ardent FPD supporters like Chaffee, Flory and Fitzgerald can see it. But unlike us, they don’t care.

The truth of what I’m saying is pretty evidently contained within the facts of this situation: it is not a personnel matter. Joe Felz was driving home from a series of private parties in Downtown Fullerton’s Liquor Row. He was not on duty, he was not engaged in any official capacity. He was just a guy fidgeting with wires under his dashboard who ran off the road, knocked over a tree, churned up some dirt with spinning tires, moved on down the road a bit, was interviewed by the cops, was given an okie-dokie by them, was driven home by them, and was tucked into bed.

What does any of this have to do with Mr. Felz’s job as City Manager?

November 11, 2016November 13, 2016Downtown Fullerton

“They Weren’t Stopping”

by Fullerton Ladybug19 Comments

Here’s a short interview with the woman who watched Joe Felz’s off road adventure and called 911.

The story comes from KCAL 9 news.

January 13, 2013Downtown Fullerton

We Get Mail: Not In Their Backyard

by Disillusioned Ex-Hippy172 Comments

Dear Friends, we received the following e-mail from an unhappy resident of the neighborhood around Chapman Park, across the street from the location the County is proposing to buy for $3.15 million to transform into a permanent homeless shelter.

It always interests me to see that those politicians and bureaucrats who support obnoxious land uses of one kind or another always seem suitably removed, geographically, from any undesirable effects of their decisions.

Take the case of the permanent homeless shelter proposed by the County (and possibly our own City Council – nobody really knows what has been agreed to behind closed doors – with zero input from us) on State College. It would be located across the street from the Chapman Park neighborhood where we live. To the north are two story apartments and an elementary school; right next door and to the rear are other commercial properties. But it is a long, long way from any residence of the decision makers. Surprised? Not me.

We will be told that such facilities need to be built where public transportation exists. Okay. But in the next breath we learn that getting the homeless out of downtown Fullerton is required. How come? That is the very heart of the transportation network in north Orange County. La Palma Park in Anaheim is ground zero for the homeless population of north orange County and is located astride not one but THREE bus lines.

Since the County’s only requirements are that their shelter be on a bus route and away from downtown Fullerton, here’s a thought. Let’s build the shelter next to Hillcrest Park, or near the Brea Dam – near two bus lines – on City owned property that won’t cost anybody a dime. Of course it would be pretty near where Jan Flory and Doug Chaffee live. Or maybe it could be built on some open space in Coyote Hills – near the Euclid bus line and not far from Jennifer Fitzgerald and Shawn Nelson’s homes.

January 10, 2013Behind Closed Doors

County Wants To Build Homeless Shelter On State College

by Disillusioned Ex-Hippy138 Comments

Fullertonstories is reporting here, that the County of Orange wants to build a homeless shelter on south State College in Fullerton. They may be soon buying the Linder Furniture store for $3,000,000.

This may not be good news to the folks who live in the single family neighborhood across the street and who take their kids to the Commonwealth Elementary School which is virtually adjacent to this site. The folks I know over in the Chapman Park area have heard nothing about this venture, which makes me wonder whose big idea this was and why the neighbors have not even been informed.

Amazingly, it would appear from the article that the County’s “search criteria” only included that the shelter be on a bus line and moved away from Downtown Fullerton. Nice.

How much of this “plan” has already been secretly approved by our own City Council goes unmentioned. Has a deal already been work out with the City? It’s hard to believe the County would buy real estate without the approval of the City Council, or at least the City staff.

Apparently the County Board of Supervisors is voting on this purchase Tuesday. I wonder when the government plans on telling anybody about this.

November 11, 2012Big Brother

Just Wrong

by admin347 Comments

Here is a sly observer expressing his view that a Fullerton cop appears to be more like a soldier than a civilian policeman.

Naturally he is rewarded with a combination of arrogance, error, and attitude by “officer” Contino.

While it is true that Prime Minister Robert Peel established the first permanent and professional police forces in Britain, the use of that factoid to explain and defend a paramilitary organization behaving like an occupying army would be faintly ridiculous if the consequences weren’t so, um, deadly.

And speaking of Mr. Peel, while living in Tamworth, the versatile gentleman was credited with the development of the Tamworth Pig by breeding Irish stock with some local Tamworth pigs.

October 29, 2012Downtown Fullerton

The Culture of Corruption Has NOT Changed!

by The Fullerton Shadow162 Comments

First off, I’d like to thank a good and courageous Friend for sharing this alarming video with us.

I’m still sort of shocked to hear what Fullerton police Lieutenant Markowski said to a group of folks who took the open house tour of the police department last Saturday. Apparently, when she comes to work on Mondays there’s a desk full of complaints from women who claim they were abducted, raped, kidnapped telling horror stories of what happened to them. And thank God she can go review the video cameras, and that not everybody that comes to file a report is truthful. (And of course not everyone who receives a complaint or writes a report is truthful, either, as we now know).

According to Markowski there have been many, many cases that she worked where women report, “he pulled me out of this bar, he pulled he into this alley, he pulled me into his car, he did this that. And then I review the video the downtown video cameras which obviously we maintain and I review the video and I can clearly see that she walked voluntarily out of the bar with this gentleman that she was all over him. I’ve been able to save a lot of men from being accused of things that they absolutely didn’t do whereas if we didn’t have that video evidence these guys would be sitting in here getting ready to go to jail for crimes that they absolutely didn’t commit so they work very well for investigators.”

The idea that a cop by way of a video camera is now acting as district attorney, judge and jury in cases involving women who want to file charges against one of downtown Fullerton’s army of drunken gentlemen is alarming.

I also find it very disconcerting that Markowski found it appropriate to regale her visitors with this particular story, given the history of FPD cop Albert Rincon. According to Markowski this false accusation against DTF’s menfolk happens all the time, and it is routine for Markowski, who seems to have a low regard for some of DTF’s female guests.

Of course it is ironic in the extreme that Ms. Markowski makes no mention of her cameras and the story they told about the Kelly Thomas murder, or the assault and false arrest (and later false prosecution) of Veth Mam at the hands of Kenton Hampton.

October 4, 2012Chronic Failure

Has the FPD Been Withholding Evidence?

by Joe Sipowicz78 Comments

Take a look at one of our downtown police spy cams – just like the one that captured the Kelly Thomas killing at the Fullerton Transportation Center.

This one is located on the south side of Amerige Avenue almost exactly where Veth Mam was assaulted and arrested for no reason by Kenton Hampton about two years ago. Did this camera provide the whole story and show explicitly why Veth Mam could not have done the things the cops and the DA claimed he did? Did it provide the whole story of it would have been impossible for Hampton to know even if Mam had?

Hard to say. I presume the camera works; and I presume a diligent watch commander such as Tom “Tango” Basham could and would have used it that night to see what was going on. If so, was this footage handed over to the DA, perhaps saving Mam the ordeal of trumped up charges and prosecution? Does the DA even know the incident took place at the base of a cop security camera pole?

Lots of good questions for Acting Chief Danny to address, now and in his deposition with Garo Mardirossian.

September 19, 2012Behind Closed Doors

Municipal Redevelopment Arrogance: A Common Scourge

by The Desert Rat55 Comments

Sometimes you don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Like the case in Philly where a local businessman may be sued by the Redevelopment Agency for cleaning up trash and beautifying a piece of blighted Agency-owned property that they willfully refused to clean up. So ths guy spends 20 big ones of his own dough since the City blatantly ignored its own mess, and is now looking at a potential lawsuit – a lawsuit some asshole city bureaucrat says is based on “principle.” Principle. Now that’s a scream.

What’s really funny is that if the city had done the work it would have cost twenty times as much and taken ten times longer.

Of course apologists of Fullerton’s former Redevelopment Agency (you know who they are) would be quick to point out is that this sort incompetence and arrogance never happened in Fullerton; Fullerton Redevelopment folks were just so darned…well… you know.

But consider this: Fullerton has had a long and inglorious Redevelopment history that includes building, then demolishing concrete trestles along Harbor, giving away a public sidewalk to a politically connected apaign contributor, subsidizing dozens of boondoggles, supporting architectural design Nazi-ism, stealing an old lady’s property to give to a car dealer, and nasty little sales tax kick backs from Redevelopment funds – all done to promote more tax revenue to pay for pensions, League of City junkets, and all those inevitable step pay increases for the gang.

A final thought: even though Redevelopment is supposedly dead in California you can bet the farm (if they don’t steal it for High Speed Rail) that the lobbyists are busy at work in Sacramento trying to revive it, and that local mall fry politicians and local political wannabes are real eager for it to come back.

Why not? It’s fun and it isn’t their money.

July 19, 2012July 19, 2012Behind Closed Doors

What Happened to Sean Moses?

by admin135 Comments

A man was found dead along the tracks at the Fullerton train station early Sunday morning. It was a 30 year-old Cypress man named Sean Moses.

Early speculation was that he had been initially struck by a train has not been verified and questions about when the actor and former junior high basketball coach actually died remain unanswered although an autopsy has been performed. Apparently he had been celebrating a friend’s birthday in downtown Fullerton on Saturday night.

A memorial has emerged at the north depot platform in eerie proximity to the location where Kelly Thomas’s is located.

Naturally, we will be looking into this as well and will keep the friends informed.