Redevelopment Archives - Page 12 of 25 - Friends For Fullerton's Future

January 26, 2011January 26, 2011Behind Closed Doors

A Plaintive Wail

And now, back to the letter.

According to commenter Art Brown the plaintive Redevelopment wail signed by Mayor HeeHaw on behalf of all of us was actually scribed by the League of Cities and sent out as a boilerplate template for the incompetent locals who, presumably, couldn’t be trusted to mount their own intellectual and philosophical defense of Redevelopment (think: “we neeeed the muh-nie!”)

Of course there is space at the end of the missive to insert one’s community’s dubious Redevelopment accomplishments. And Fullerton did.

Mr. Brown’s claim certainly has the ring of truth to it. It reminds me of a gang of dope addicts defending their habit.

As to the letter itself, observe the following:

The claims that Redevelopment is a job creator and some sort of economic engine is, of course, utter nonsense. It is indeed a massive boon to subsidized corporations and Redevelopment master planners, consultants and bond salesmen. Redevelopment is simply a zero-sum revenue diversion scheme whose manifest failures are immediately forgotten. The funniest part of the letter may be the way one bent branch of government uses the screw-ups of another (SB 375 and AB 32) to justify itself.

Then there is the hilarious claim that Redevelopment is really poverty-stricken, once the bond holders are paid off!

You would think a letter honestly outlining the effects of Redevelopment in Fullerton would have described just a few of the disastrous quagmires that Redevelopment and it organizers have gotten us into: boondoggles amply illustrated in these pages. But no. No Harbor/Commonwealth; no SRO; no Poisoned Park; no endless succession of useless downtown master plans; no attempt to relocate a McDonald’s 200 feet. Wait. Come to think of it they did: cited as an accomplishment is the idiotic Richman housing project!

Affordable housing. Where poor people are cleared out and replaced by less poor people. And this was never one of the rationales for Redevelopment. The housing set-aside was created to protect the poor from dislocation due to the great Urban Renewal mega projects of the 1950s and 60s.

Well, there you have it. An intellectually and morally bereft letter signed by a clown who cannot grasp anything more complicated than a fried chicken.

Are you surprised?

January 25, 2011January 25, 2011Redevelopment

Pillage and Burn. Emergency Redevelopment Meeting Today!

by Greg Sebourn11 Comments

An urgent meeting is scheduled for this Tuesday afternoon at City Hall. While most meetings are scheduled for 6PM or later, this one is set for 4PM, forcing many to leave work early in order to speak at the meeting.

The urgency of the council/Redevelopment Agency meeting comes after Governor Brown announced his intentions of squashing Redevelopment Agencies as component of saving money and redistributing funds to their normally allocated destinations.

This afternoon’s Agenda has only one item:

CONSIDER APPROVING A COOPERATION AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE CITY OF FULLERTON AND THE FULLERTON REDEVELOPMENT AGENCY FOR (PARTIAL) FUNDING OF CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PROJECTS, GRAFFITI REMOVAL SERVICES, AND PROFESSIONAL SERVICES

In a nut shell, City Hall sees their glass house shattering and is looking to pull out as much money as possible from the Redevelopment Agency in order to install street lights in the Lemon/Truslow area, stabilize the slopes along Harbor Boulevard just below the YMCA, work on Hillcrest Park, and build a parking garage at the Fullerton Transportation Center.

In all, the City/Redevelopment Agency is looking to move $14,100,000 from the Redevelopment agency coffers to the City of Fullerton coffers to help cover some of the upfront costs associated with these projects.

If any of those mentioned sound familiar it’s because just last Tuesday the City Council decided to ask Congress for some money to address them.

This sounds like the scheme of someone who desperately pulls out every bit of equity from their house ($14.1M from RDA’s tax increment), maxes out all of their credit cards ($29M in tax bonds) for that new sports car (town homes and condos and garages) knowing they are about to get slapped by a court-ordered judgment (governor’s proposed budget) that will surely leave them penniless.

Once again, the lack of leadership has manifested itself by the procrastination of City Hall to tackle our crumbling infrastructure. Water-mains continue to erupt forth from our streets like Old Faithful while the ever-expanding potholes begin to resemble the Grand Canyon. At this rate, residents will be able to sell tickets to the spectacle as our city sinks into the abyss of municipal doom.

January 6, 2011January 6, 2011Chris Norby

Redevelopment on the Chopping Block?

by Chris Norby11 Comments

Dear Friends, I just returned for my first full legislative term here in Sacramento, having gained valuable experience serving for the past 10 months since the special election. One announced reform I can embrace is the new governor’s goal of abolishing redevelopment agencies and restoring their funds to counties and schools. As a longtime critic of these agencies, I’ve been called by numerous media outlets and colleagues on issues related to this little understood level of government.

Redevelopment agencies capture 12% of all property taxes statewide-that’s $6 billion annually diverted from school districts, counties and municipal police and fire protection. The funds are largely spent subsidizing private development projects whose promoters acquire land under threat of eminent domain, while 20% pays for low income housing projects.

The government should not be in the business of subsidizing private developers, nor of building housing projects. That’s the job of the private sector. This money needs to be restored to pay for infrastructure and services. Public money should build classrooms, not Costcos.

The agencies cannot be closed, however, until their nearly $100 billion indebtedness is paid off, but a phase-out over time could start, and long-evaded sunset clauses enforced.

While the legislature requires me to be in Sacramento on a weekly basis through June, I’ll keep regular district office hours every Friday. Visit or call 714-672-4734. I’m there for you.

December 30, 2010December 31, 2010Arts & Architecture

Fullerton SRO Developer Under Federal Investigation; Is It Even Safe?

by admin12 Comments

Ajit Mithaiwala — Some day we will all have a cup of coffee and laugh about it...

Last year we posted a magisterial, five-part history about one of Fullerton’s greatest Redevelopment boondoggles, the so-called “City Lights” single-room occupancy project. Our series started here.

As we related, here, in October 2010, questions were being raised about the financial dealings and records of the developer, Ajit Mithaiwala, and the federal government was investigating.

Once again, according to a recent article in LA Times, here, Mithaiwala and his company ADI, are accused of sticking it to the City of Glendale, but good. More evidence is presented suggesting that ADI defrauded the Glendale housing agency out of millions, possibly building substandard po’ folks housing while receiving millions in public subsidy. To top it off, ADI was greasing the axles of local government real well, too, as demonstrated by contributions and favors to city councilmembers in Glendale.

According to the articles ADI has been involved in 40-50 projects across the Southland, so the enormity of the problem is, well, potentially enormous, if in fact, the Glendale experience proves typical.

Which brings us back to Fullerton. When the SRO was built in the late 90s, peculiar construction techniques and prolonged inspection difficulties had some scratching their heads. And now with stories of possible substandard work in Glendale circulating, we are well within the bounds of reason asking our city officials if, in fact, the building is really safe for occupancy.

Where is Mithaiwala? These articles do not say. Maybe the FBI is looking.

And just for fun backwards salute, here’s a timely quote from our current mayor, Ol’ Doc Heehaw who, when the SRO was being proposed in 1997, shot off his big yapper, got threatened with a personal lawsuit by Mithaiwala’s henchmen, and then cowardly changed his vote:

“The city would be at great, I underline great, financial risk if it did not proceed with this project,” Jones said before casting his vote for the settlement. The threatened lawsuit was “a loaded gun against the head,” Jones said.

Risk. Thanks Mr. All Hat and No Cattle.

November 20, 2010November 20, 2010About Us

Fleischman Puts ‘Pug in Repuglican

by Grover Cleveland15 Comments

You remember a fellow named Jon Fleischman, don’t you? Well, of course you do. He starred in the now historic 2007 holiday visit video to Dick Ackerman at the latter’s house inside a “secret, gated community” in Irvine.

tricky dick — I still owe Fleischberg for that. Heh heh.

An alert Friend just forwarded a post that was published on the completely hackish blog-for-sale, The Flash Report, of which Fleischman is proprietor. It’s a rousing condemnation of the practice of bogus non-profit, public benefit corporations staging legislative love-ins at plush resorts on Hawaiian islands. The things are bought and paid for by lobbyists who get to corner state legislators at fraudulent “conferences” that are nothing more than schmooze fests, golf and cocktails on the veranda. The Sac Bee gives more info on the latest scams, here. At the end you’ll read about “The Pacific Policy Research Foundation” that just perpetrated its annual scam on Kauai.

Sound familiar? It should.

We reported about the scam over a year ago, here. And the biggest offender of course was the hideous Linda Ackerwoman, bogus 72 AD candidate, who participated in the sham front known as the Pacific Policy Research Foundation that got her and husband, Dick Ackerman, annual junkets to Hawaii. And of course Ackerwoman was an officer of the bogus “charity.”

And to close the circle we have to recall that Fleischman was a big Ackerwoman cheerleader. Ackerwoman. No record, no accomplishment, no residence, no sale. What a difference a year makes.

October 28, 2010October 28, 2010Behind Closed Doors

Mickadeit Already Running Cover For Lame-O DA By Floating Trial Balloons?

by Joe Sipowicz16 Comments

Yesterday, OC Register homunculus and repuglican lackey-chronicler Frank Mickadeit wrote up a story about possible contenders to a Todd Spitzer 3rd District Supervisorial run in 2012 – as a prelude to a Spitzer DA run in 2014.

The big names – outgoing assemblyman Chuck DeVore and Dick Ackerman deserve special attention, and we’ll get back to that in a bit.

But first let’s relish Mickadeit’s effort to stir up anti-Spitzer sentiment for the benefit of our Do Nothing DA who is actually endorsing serial law breaker Roland Chi in Fullerton’s city council race. As is well known, Mickadeit dances to the tunes fifed out by GOP bigwig Michael Schroeder and his wife, DAs spokeshole Susan Kang. In return for providing this entertainment Frank gets to smoke cigars and sip brandy with the Schroeders.

It seems not unlikely that besides the congenital name-dropping instinct, Frank is throwing out these big names as a counter to Spitzer’s own vaulting ambition, as in: not so fast Todd, boy.

chuck-devore — Will nail down the Eagle Scout vote.

DeVore wouldn’t be a bad supervisor and might actually bring some refreshing relief to a County operation dedicated to doling out medical and social services compliments of the federal government. But he needs a job. Now.

Dick Ackerman? Well he does live in a “top secret, gated community” in the 3rd District which s a far cry from his claim to have moved to Fullerton last year so his old lady could run for the State Assembly. Apart from that he’s got some explaining to do. Such as the Pacific Policy Research Foundation scam we reported about here, years of RINO accommodating votes, his dubious behavior vis-a-vis the OC Fair sale. He’s also 70 and we sure have seen enough geriatric retirees at the County over the years.

Worst of all, is Ackerman’s perpetual backing of the worst kind of liberal, staff-stooge candidates here in Fullerton.Pro-Redevelopment, big government chuckleheads like Don Bankhead, Doc HeeHaw Jones, Pat McKinley, Aaron Gregg, and a long list of similar tools, simply selected to keep the scary Dems out – Democrats whose political philosophy is practically indistinguishable from Ackerman’s RINO herd.

The fun part of this is that either one of these worthies running would put a serious crimp in Der Pringle’s master plan of putting Orange’s dreary RINO Carolyn Cavecche into that seat.

October 27, 2010October 27, 2010Harry Sidhu

The Sidhu Crew; The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight

by Joe Sipowicz20 Comments

I just changed the title to this piece. Checking out this band of government for sale repuglicans made me do it. Yes, it is an organized mob. Well, disorganized, at least. But look what they’ve got to work with.

– Joe Sipowicz

The other day The OC Register ran this image in a story about the Shawn Nelson/Hairbag Sidhu race. The story was erroneously titled “Nice Guy Finishes Second” or some such BS which as we know is not true. “Perjuring Carpetbagging Assclown Finishes Second” was the original title until the editor felt sorry for Hirsute Sidhu.

Anyhow, the picture above was absolutely priceless. Enjoy the facial expressions of Hairball’s election backers as the bad news flashes across the screen. John Lewis already seems to be scheming on how to shit-dump Sidhu; and Pringle, well Pringle’s thinking about all the personal credit he tied up into this bozo and how he can possibly ever recoup even a small part of that investment. The fellow behind the computer looks like he just had the Shrimp Special at Roland Chi’s place. The two guys on the left obviously wandered into the picture by accident from a Saturday Night Live skit.

But check out the grinning Assclown chowderhead Sidhu – oblivious to the electoral disaster! Good news is only just around the corner! I am #2!

October 18, 2010October 18, 2010Arts & Architecture

Fullerton Transit Center: Amerige Court on Steroids?

by Travis15 Comments

We just received the following notice from Friends for a Livable Fullerton:

The Fullerton Transportation Center “Specific Plan” is an approximately 40 acre project at the southeast corner of Harbor and Commonwealth. Built over the next few decades, it will take up over 6 full city blocks at one of our prime city intersections and will have a huge effect on our historic downtown and on alternative transportation for years to come. Maximum buildout would be about 2 dozen (!) 3- to 9-story buildings:

1,560 multi-family residential units
100,000 square feet of retail
100,000 sf office space
120-room, 120,000 sf hotel

Note the density and scale compared to the surrounding area:

While the plan doesn’t yet have specific building designs, the approval of this Plan and its 2,290 EIR will allow it to proceed.

City Admits Many Unavoidable Impacts

An unusual aspect of this plan is the large number of City–admitted significant environmental impacts the City Council will be called upon to “override” due to the project benefits outweighing the impacts:

(more…)

October 13, 2010October 14, 2010Behind Closed Doors

BIG SIDHU SUPPORTER IN DEEP FECAL MATTER WITH FEDS?

by admin16 Comments

Last December we posted about a character named Ajit Mithaiwala who had built a heavily subsidized low income housing fustercluck project in Fullerton in the 1990s that epitomized the futility and incompetence of Fullerton Redevelopment Agency.

Remember? His name popped up on a host committee list for a fund raiser thrown by high speed rail impresario and con man Curt Pringle, in honor of his boy, Hide and Seek Harry Sidhu. Since the name appeared to be mispelled we had fun with the notion that it might be somebody else.

Harry'sFriend — Oh, no, no, no! That is another guy, I tell you. There are hundreds of them. Thousands of them.

In the post we wondered aloud what had become of Mithaiwala, and what he had been up to the past ten years.

It turns out we weren’t alone. Federal government auditors, prosecutors, and the FBI have been wondering too, according to an L.A. Times article forwarded to us by an alert Friend.

All sorts of misbehavin’ have been attributed to this guy and his development company that found a niche building subsidized, low-income housing projects, including fraud, failure to report income, and building shoddy, unsafe buildings. His politcal contributions have been scrutinized, too.

Here are a few choice morsels in the article from the Federal investigator:

“virtually no financial records,” no general ledger, no balance sheet and no bank reconciliations. Working with forensic accountants, he said he had discovered “potential fraud and criminal activity.”

On Tuesday, he told the court he was still trying to gain control of company assets and had identified 400 bank accounts, as well as $600,000 in gold bullion and three cars, including a Bentley.

It transpires that besides Fullerton, Mithaiwala has left a trail of tears behind him in cities across Southern California, including our neighbor to the south, Anaheim, where the Mayor Pro Tem is none other than Hide and Seek Harry Sidhu.

Yikes. You don’t mess with the Treasury Department, boys. Even Al Capone could tell you that.

October 9, 2010October 9, 2010Fullerton 2010

Barry Speaks: Redevelopment Loans and the Lack of Public Input

by Travis13 Comments

This just came in from council candidate Barry Levinson:

Last Tuesday night was the vote on the issuance of housing bonds by the RDA in the amount not to exceed $29 million. The Mayor spoke and indicated that there will be no public comments on this issue.

The city attorney right before the vote was to begin, rightly reminded Mayor Bankhead that since the people cannot vote on whether or not to approve the bond issue, we should at least be allowed to voice our non-binding opinions.

Here are some of my comments I presented to the council:

Mayor and council shame on all of you for almost forfeiting our right as Fullertonians to speak out on this housing bond issuance.

We need better oversight over the RDA projects. The city council and the rest of the RDA should not be the ones policing themselves.

The RDA is the only taxing authority that requires no voter approval. We as taxpayers, S/B given more information and more time to review these bond measures before it comes to a vote by council.

Since there will be 2 possibly 3 new council members as of November 2, I suggested that this item be postponed to after the next election.

The council’s answers largely were defensive. No one touched on the third rail issue of no voter participation! Mayor Bankhead remained conspicuously quiet throughout the council’s responses to our objections.

And there you go; another council meeting where our rights as citizens were eroded and $29 million was obligated by the city council without a single vote cast by the people!