Fullerton City Council Archives - Page 60 of 74 - Friends For Fullerton's Future

June 17, 2010June 17, 2010Dead heads

Voice of OCEA and LIB OC Cook Up More Crapola

Well, they’re at it again. The Voice of OC which is funded by (drum roll) the OCEA and the OCEA PAC Treasurer Chris Prevatt have coughed up yet another load of happy horse shit about Shawn Nelson.

Here is Tracy Wood of the Voice of OCEA; and here is Prevatt, picking up the ball and running even farther out of bounds. Of course Matthew Cunningham passes along the story as a “top story”, too, just as if the Voice of OCEA were a real news source.

They are deliberately mischaracterizing Nelson’s statements about a possible new Coyote Hills meeting, trying to make it look like Nelson was trying to lobby for a new meeting so he could change his vote.

At the Council meeting last Tuesday at a “second reading” of the Council denial (BTW, that’s a new one on us!) discussion arose about additional information that the Council had not heard. Whether there was any real merit to that claim remains to be seen. Nelson was dubious, but basically volunteered to attend one last special meeting before swearing in as Supervisor if his colleagues felt inclined to do so.

Quirk and Keller declined, and on a vote of 3-2 the original denial was confirmed. Story over.

What’s funny is that Prevatt is spinning this as some sort of issue that Hairball Sidhu can use in the fall against Nelson. Did he let slip the official union position on the fall election? Hmm.

June 15, 2010June 15, 2010Behind Closed Doors

Why Public Works Projects Cost So Much

by The Desert Rat9 Comments

Well, paying legally required “prevailing wage” to union workers, for one thing. This adds from 33-50% to the straight labor costs.

But there’s a more insidious cost to reckon with. And that’s the often overlooked administration costs tacked on to construction projects by the City Engineering Department. By gouging these projects with inflated bureaucratic costs, the Engineering Department can pad its own budget without leaning on the General Fund. The monies for capital projects comes from CDBG funds, Redevelopment tax increment, Gas Tax revenue – a whole crazy Byzantine funding network that fortuitously disconnects the payer from the beneficiary.

Yesterday our blogger Christian noted that a contract to upgrade traffic signals at three intersections was let out to a contractor for about $102,000; but that the City’s Engineering Department tacked on a whopping $39,000 for its own administration and inspections. That’s about a 38% increase, and is anomalously high – even for a typical project in Fullerton. Smaller projects get disproportionately nailed. But the point is that actual infrastructure improvements – the very stuff that everybody says they want to promote – is getting, and has gotten robbed by featherbedding in the Engineering Departments.

Of course this has been going for years and years and years. It’s a standard practice. Probably everywhere. So why haven’t the politicians ever cottoned on to this sleight of hand? Maybe they have. But its just so much easier to go along with the “experts” and not ask any questions; or if you do, don’t demand any cogent answers.

June 14, 2010Fullerton City Council

On the Agenda – June 15th, 2010

by Christian7 Comments

With the Primary Election over and candidates licking their wounds we jump into Tuesday’s Council Meeting to see what STAFF has in store for our elected representatives. View the full agenda

In closed session there appears to be some labor negotiations going on. First is a discussion regarding Chris Meyer’s position which I hear will be vacated soon. Second, Fullerton Municipal Employees Federation (FMEF) is meeting with Council to determine what they will meet and discuss in the future regarding lay-offs. At least that is what the agenda says. Actually, it says, “Discuss meet-and-confer topics related to layoffs”. Amazing! A meeting to talk about a future meeting! That’s government bureaucracy and waste for you. Why can’t these be public? I don’t think they are talking about a specific person or maybe they are. Either way, I would like to see just how spineless the council can be when it comes to the public employee unions.

There is a plethora of presentations planned which will probably draw the usual hapless attempts at wit from our mayor and perhaps Texas colloquialism which won’t make sense to anyone but the person saying it.

(more…)

June 13, 2010Fullerton City Council

The Register Finds Time for Sex

by The Fullerton Savage6 Comments

It’s been a couple of months since The Fullerton Savage’s debut on this blog drew over sixty responses to the story of a new sex oriented shop in downtown Fullerton. Now the Register has gotten into the act with a story about the same subject. Adam Townsend, the author, and many commenters on this blog seem to think I had something inherently against the business in question. This is what Mr. Townsend wrote:

‘The author called the shop’s merchandise “trash.” ‘The blog said that seeing the underwear-clad mannequins and other sexually-oriented merchandise would harm children and said allowing the business to operate was “engendering blight.’

To be fair, I did use the word “trash”, but trashy isn’t the worst thing to associate with lingerie. I never wrote that the sight of the busty mannequins etc. would “harm children.” I did write that they would get “quite an education” from looking into the shop’s windows. Remember, we are The Education City!

So maybe Adam Townsend got the wrong idea about my attitude toward a sex-themed business. No big deal, but where he really blew it in his article was when he wrote that I ‘said allowing the business to operate was “engendering blight.”‘

No, Mr. Townsend, what I asked was “Is there any better evidence of redevelopment engendering blight?” This is no small distinction. Shops like The Naughty Teddy are sometimes cited as examples of blight when cities are trying to establish redevelopment zones. Downtown Fullerton has been a redevelopment zone since 1973. My point, Mr. Townsend, was that despite nearly forty years and millions of dollars spent to push out pawn shops, lure in restaurants, add trees, build signs, commission murals, rehab storefronts, brick street medians, redesign traffic signals, build mixed use developments, and whatever else The Redevelopment Agency unilaterally decides is good for the area, in the end a 5,000 square foot shop that sells lubricants, videos and sex toys to the 21-and-over only crowd is open for business near a major intersection downtown.

Well, just for the record, I don’t really care what consenting adults do for sex and I don’t care what a business sells, as long as both are safe. But if a city spends millions of taxpayer dollars trying to turn a downtown into restaurant Disneyland or whatever it is they are trying to do with it, I would really like to know how The Naughty Teddy fits into their vision for the whole place.

Did the business lie on their application to the city, as has been claimed, or are they the victims of a prudish municipal mindset? I don’t know. Several tattoo parlors have already opened downtown, and the city is right behind that curve. Look for an agenda item concerning the classification of tattoo parlors on the next council meeting agenda.

June 10, 2010June 10, 2010Dead heads

‘Ol Doc Jones Working Hard Behind The Scene

by The Desert Rat20 Comments

jones-gone-wild1 — A hard rain's gonna fall...

Just when we thought Doc Hee Haw was on the verge of institutionalization, we get word that the good ‘ol boy is working his fellow councilmembers to appoint a replacement for Shawn Nelson. He’ll need two other votes so either Sharon Quirk or Pam keller would have to go along with the inevtable Ed Royce/Dick Ackerman hand-picked idiot.

Not too likely. Still…

Still, my suggestion is get in touch with both these two worthy ladies and insist that no backroom deals be cut, and that the replacement be made by the voters in the November General Election.

This was what was done in 2002 when Norby left. Let’s do ‘er again.

donk — This is not the old West. This is the new West.

And now for the fun part. Who do you suppose Jonsey might be pitching to replace Nelson? Please share your guesses in the space provided below.

June 9, 2010June 23, 2010About Us

The New 2010 Council Dynamic

by English Major12 Comments

Now that Shawn Nelson is moving up to the Supervisor’s office, his imminent departure creates an even more unpredictable Fullerton City Council campaign landscape.

Pam Keller has already announced that she’s out. With Nelson gone that means there will be two openings, plus the interminable candidacy of the antediluvian Don Bankhead.

It’s hard to believe that the four remaining councilmembers could decide on a replacement for Nelson, so the prospect of a rump council (okay that’s pretty funny if you think about it) and a November election to fill the remainder of Nelson’s term seems inevitable.

Then, of course, there’s the sad deterioration of Doc Jones, whose antics and idiocies continue to mount. Re-elected in 2008, there has been speculation that he would hold on for two years and then quit when a suitable Ackerman/Royce Chamber of Commerce zombie could be coughed up.

Could there be yet another seat up for grabs, come November?

It’s already getting late in the year so the interested and the ambitious must surely be contemplating their political futures today.

Good luck to them, with a caveat. The ones whose ambitions outweigh their brains will be scrutinized closely. By us.

June 2, 2010Fullerton City Council

Let Me Put This In Recognizable Terms

by Mr. Peabody16 Comments

John Lewis told me to move — You're right Julie, these people are suckers

I first became dimly aware of Fullerton politics back in 1993 when I saw a performance of then councilwoman Julie Sa. Sa was incapable of communicating in English, understood nothing, and was completely at the mercy of the City Manager, Jim Armstrong. The worst part of her reign of error was the evident truth that she was just using the office to promote herself.

In 2000 she was busted for not living in Fullerton and she gave up on running for third time. Fullerton had set the bar so low that any idiot with money could get over it. But at least Sa was gone.

So why am I bringing up Sa now? Because those folks who remember Sa have a useful frame of reference to assess the potential of one Harry Sidhu, who wants to be our Supervisor.

Like Sa, Sidhu doesn’t live in the jurisdiction he wants to represent. Sidhu cannot communicate his thoughts to his would-be constituents in English. Although I presume he can read English better than he can speak it, his grasp of simple grammar doesn’t portend a great understanding of the language. His well-documented manglings of simple statements has been nothing less than embarrassing – not for him, he doesn’t seem to possess the faculty of shame – but for those of us who have been subjected to it. His public admission that he didn’t know the impact of defined benefits was pitiful; his statement that he wasn’t taking union money was the closest thing to a million dollar lie that you will ever witness.

Sidhu’s self-interested supporters just love to accuse his critics of racism; nuh uh. Like Sa, Sidhu is an immigrant who made some money in the fast food business – more power to ’em (although Sa went bankrupt). But this economic success in no way qualifies Sidhu to run for elective office, and it certainly doesn’t make him immune from honest assessment of his abilities – or lack of same.

In 1992 the unknown Julie Sa ran for Fullerton council by sending out a bunch of slick, well designed mailings that masked the fact that she was utterly unqualified for any public office; and her subsequent performance proved this assessment true. In 2010 Harry Sidhu is running a vicious and hollow campaign lubricated with a million dollars of union money to in an office that he is patently unfit to hold.

Let’s not make that mistake again.

June 1, 2010Fullerton City Council

On The Agenda – June 1st, 2010

by Christian7 Comments

There are three (3) items on tonight’s City Council agenda. They are: 1) the minutes from May 11 & 18 meetings; 2) November 2 call for municipal elections; and 3) the FY2010-2011 budget.

At first, I was relieved and thought I might be able to escape an exhaustive post. However, upon closer inspection I concluded that we must examine items 2 and 3 a bit closer.

Calling all candidates! Item 2, municipal election, includes language that supports putting term limits on the ballot for Fullerton voters to decide in November. The proposed text reads: “Shall an ordinance be adopted to enact term limits upon members of the Fullerton City Council, preventing any person who serves three (3) successive terms from serving again until an intervening period of four (4) years has elapsed?” Do we need term limits?

The rest of item 2 appears to be standard municipal election language. So who is running? We’ll have to wait and see. The normal deadline for candidates to file is August 6th and will cost you $1,267.00 if you want to have a candidate statement placed on the ballot. That fee alone squashes the hopes and dreams of many would-be candidates.

Moving forward to the expensive part of the agenda, item 3, we are presented with the proposed budget for fiscal year 2010-2011. I think a CPA or someone who likes playing with numbers will like details in the budget. There is some immaterial misinformation in the report signed by Julia James, but in James’ words the gist is this:

“The proposed revised budget for the 2010-11 fiscal year totals $184.4 million for the City and $54.1 million for the Redevelopment Agency, for a total proposed revised appropriations for all funds of $238.5 million. This total includes $58.5 million in capital projects in progress to be carried over. The General Operating Funds budget is not balanced, with a deficit of $3.2 million.”

So what will council cut to balance the budget? My guess is that Ol’ Doc Hee Haw and Bunkhead will vote to raise fees. Keller, not looking for re-election will go ahead with it. Quirk-Silva and Nelson will vote not to raise fees. Based on another post on FFFF, perhaps the city should stop subsidizing and start charging the Muckenthaler Cultural Center Foundation for their exclusive use of the property for weddings and private events.

Friends, there is so much right with Fullerton that these issues sometimes don’t get the attention they deserve. We are all able to live in our pleasant north OC bubble without regard for our civic duty. Unfortunately, if we keep letting the same few who got us into our current mess continue digging their bottomless money pits, things will never improve. And if you think things are going good now, imagine how good they could be if we each do our part to hold our elected official accountable. You can start doing your part June 8 at the polls and again November 2.

May 31, 2010May 31, 2010Arts & Architecture

Should We Subsidize the Muck?

by admin7 Comments

We received this letter from a “Mr. Ed” on the subject of the the Muckenthaler Cultural Center:

The Fullerton City Council will hold their final meetings on the fiscal year 2011 budget on June 1 & 2. I am aware of one contentious item on the agenda: elimination of the $80,000 annual cash grant to the Muckenthaler Center Cultural Foundation (MCCF). It should be noted the $80,000 cash grant is part of the City’s support which totals about $200,000 a year.

At the first budget meeting in March the Parks & Recreation Department proposed cuts to all groups under its jurisdiction, i.e., youth sports programs (Little League, Pop Warner, Rangers Soccer, etc.), Senior Citizens Center, Fullerton Museum Center, and MCCF, to name a few. The MCCF was the only group that objected, claiming they were being unfairly singled out. All other groups realized the magnitude of the situation the City was facing and accepted what was being proposed.

At the March meetings councilwomen Quirk and Keller were supportive of the cut for the MCCF: Quirk for the full $80,000 being proposed by Parks & Recreation and Keller for a $40,000 reduction. Councilmen Bankhead and Jones were against any cuts but seemed to indicate they could go along with a $20,000 reduction. Councilman Nelson suggested exploring some alternatives for privatizing the Senior Center and the City’s cultural programs.

Privatization is not the answer. The MCCF was privatized 16 years ago. In 1994 Fullerton ceded control of the facility to the MCCF. The City retained ownership and maintenance responsibility of the grounds and building. At that time the MCCF stated they could run the facility more cheaply and efficiently if the City was not involved. All they needed was three years of financial support from the City and after that they would be on their own.

Sixteen years later the MCCF is still on the dole to the extent of about $200,000 per year. The city has spent over $3,000,000 in support over the past 16 years with no discernible benefit to the taxpaying citizens of Fullerton.

Councilmen Bankhead and Jones felt the MCCF was not on firm financial footing and needed continued assistance from the City. The director of the MCCF was and is pleading for the public to “Save the Muck”.

The Muckenthaler does not need saving!

The last published financial statement shows the MCCF has cash and investments of $590,000 and total revenues of about $650,000. It also shows the MCCF realized a surplus of $99,000 for the fiscal year ending June 2009. Of the $650,000 in total revenues approximately $250,000 is attributable to wedding receptions Colette’s Catering, a private company, holds on the grounds of this publicly owned facility.

The current arrangement has the taxpayers subsidizing two private entities: the MCCF and Colette’s Catering. We can no longer allow this waste of taxpayers’ money to continue.

Rather than continuing the current arrangement with the MCCF a powerful case can be made that the facility should be placed back under the city’s management. This option would allow the citizens of Fullerton to benefit from the facility rental income. Another option would be for the MCCF to reimburse the City annually for the $200,000 that Fullerton spends to maintain the building and grounds. Both cases would be a net saving to the city of about $200,000 per year. This would go a long way in helping alleviate the budgetary problems we are facing.

May 28, 2010May 28, 2010Arts & Architecture

One Big Happy $23 Million Community Center

by The Fullerton Savage8 Comments

Last week, before all of the excitement about Coyote Hills and the one term history of Pam Keller, the Fullerton City Council approved the conceptual plan for a new community center. This eighth wonder of the world is to be built right across the street from city hall and the main library. The existing Boys and Girls Club and the Senior Center will be demolished to make room for it.

This $23 million mostly redevelopment funded project is supposed to be necessary because half of the city’s Parks and Rec programs are farmed out to other cities, and it would be so much nicer to have them under one new roof right downtown, near the new lingerie shop. The fifty plus year old B & G Club is considered to be beyond repair and the senior center, which isn’t really that old in the grand scheme of things is somehow inadequate. OK, so neither is an architectural masterpiece, but is it really necessary to tear them both down for this new combined community center?

The idea seems to have been to somehow “activate” the corner of Commonwealth and Highland, making it more a part of the library/city hall/police station/baseball field district. To that end, the architect has included one of those pretty, and pretty useless medians down the center of Commonwealth, and a little welcoming plaza on the north side. Placing the huge double gymnasium right up against Commonwealth doesn’t do much to activate the corner, however.

The kids, seniors and everyone in between can all interact as part of one big happy community, except that they still have their own buildings, just closer together than the current ones are, for more togetherness, I guess. There is a third building they do get to share, just to teach them all a lesson. You see, it’s a “multigenerational facility”, except that not everyone wants to be so together.

Several seniors have expressed concerns about having to be so close to boisterous young people while they are busy trying to relax with people of their own age group. As far as I know, no youngsters have yet complained about having to be close to old people, but who knows if anyone asked them during the long, long planning process.

Kids enter from the Commonwealth entrance while seniors use an entrance from the larger, southern parking lot adjacent to the senior center. This arrangement makes sense if no old people have to ride the bus to get there. You see, the bus stop is way out on Commonwealth, so seniors would have to walk through crowds of kids all the way down the central axis of the project, to get to the safety of the senior center, which is closest to the railroad tracks.

A seventy-five year old man at the hearing asked why the noisy gym and swimming pool weren’t placed nearest the railroad tracks instead of a facility used by the aged. The ever helpful and certainly senior Dr. Dick Jones suggested that seniors were hard of hearing anyway before voting to approve the plan. Not to be outdone, even more senior Don Bankhead addressed a concern about the new Commonwealth median restricting bicycle traffic by asserting that it is perfectly legal to ride on the sidewalk in Fullerton —presumably right through seniors exiting a bus.