The Poisoned Trail to Nowhere?

The subject of trichlorethylene (TCE) contamination along the proposed Trail to Nowhere has been the subject of discussion on this blog. The adjacent factory at 311 South Highland Avenue was the site of TCE spills for years and has been identified as such by the State Department of Toxic Substance Control and the federal EPA. The agencies identified a southerly moving plume off the property and directly under the trail site.

The contamination was included in a lawsuit brought by the Orange County Water District, but has not been remediated.

In previous posts FFFF identified old test wells on property to the west of 311 S. Highland.

It turns out there are new ones, too. Six of them, in fact, that were actually drilled on the trail site strung out along several hundred feet.

There are also new test wells that have been placed very recently even farther south – in the west 100 block of Truslow Avenue.

These test wells have been placed without any notification to the residents of District 5, so they told me when I traversed the area today; but, obviously the City is aware of these installations since encroachment permits are required to do this sort of work on public property.

So the question remains: what is the level of toxicity in the area – and not just on the impact to ground water, but to surface soils that might need to be excavated, treated, and removed. There is no budget to do toxic soils remediation, either in the Trail to Nowhere grant application, or in the City’s budget.

Maybe the soils along the Trail to Nowhere are clean, or at least of a level of toxicity that is not considered hazardous. Maybe not. Maybe it’s time to find out.

Shana Charles. Liar?

Yes, apparently so, at least according to the Gingerwood Homeowners Association.

It’s only a lie if you get caught…

The topic of this alleged prevarication is the proposed reconfiguration of Associated Road that would remove a lane of auto traffic and permit on-street parking. I’ll be writing about the details of this “project” in a bit.

This proposal seems to have germinated within the walls of City Hall and was presented to affected parties along the road. One of them is the Gingerwood community HOA that wasn’t real pleased with comments made by their councilmember, Shana Charles.

Uh, oh. It appears the good doctor has been telling stories in order to pedal this project past wary homeowners who don’t want cars blocking their sight lines when they emerge onto the fast traffic of Associated.

Lying to constituents to push a project you like but they don’t suggests a moral and ethical vacuum.

The Shana Charles Experience

Wants healthy communities…

An alert Friend recently advised me to visit the web pages of the Fullerton Observer. There, according to this person, I could find an “open letter” written by our new councilwoman Shana Charles and addressed to Mayor Fred Jung.

Apparently Ms. Charles stood up and hauled herself out of the State of the City speech given by Jung and subsequently felt the need to share her reasons with the public. Maybe she thought nobody saw her leave, or cared.

Now going to the Fullerton Observer is not a task I undertake very willingly, but I was interested to see what sort of silly drama was taking place. Here’s a link to the aforementioned open letter.

Looking down from above…

The missive explains that she walked out of the lunch in protest of some sort of verbal mistreatment of Councilman Ahmad Zahra and follows with a recitation of all the wonderful things Zahra has done for District 5’s “underserved” folk, yadda, yadda, yadda, and reminds her readers that his brand is the only LGBTQ Muslim, and he deserves respect!

I get the vibe that that the whole stunt was pre-planned and that the dress rehearsal was probably staged in Zahra’s living room.

In any case, the preachy petulance shown by this woman is telling. She admonishes Jung to rise above his personal “vendetta,” obviously uninterested in publicly exploring her assertion and “urges” Jung to apologize to the poor, injured Zahra. “If you wish to continue as Mayor” she sternly intones, Jung must put aside his own interest, an ironic admonition given the ceaseless self-promotion performed by Zahra.

That’s not very good, is it?

I don’t why or how Ms. Charles got her schnoz all bent out of shape, or if she was even really offended at all; and it really doesn’t matter. The fact is that those who have followed the self-serving “public service” of the serial prevaricator Zahra know what sort of creature he is and will find it hard to imagine that he is even capable of being offended.