Redevelopment Archives - Page 14 of 25 - Friends For Fullerton's Future

April 27, 2010Redevelopment

The Missing Conversation with the Redevelopment Department

Last Thursday marked the second in a five part series of presentations at the Fullerton Museum Center entitled “Conversations with your City”. Organized by Fullerton City Council member Sharon Quirk-Silva, each evening features managers and directors of some of our city’s most prominent departments, including Police Chief Michael Sellers and City Manager Chris Meyer. June 24 brings Parks and Recreation Director Joe Felz, followed by August 26 with Fire Chief Wolfgang Knabe, and ends with an October 28 double header with Engineering Director Don Hoppe and Maintenance Services Director Bob Savage. Just about everyone you’d want to talk to as an active member of your community, right?

Conspicuously missing are the Community Development and Redevelopment Department directors. As it happens, Community Development (aka Planning Dept.) Director John Godlewski will finish his contract with Fullerton very soon. Who knows when his successor will be hired, so perhaps it was just awkward to try to schedule someone to speak with the public about that department.

But Redevelopment is something of a puzzling omission. Why was Redevelopment Director Robert Zur Schmiede not included in this series of conversations with our city? After all, his department’s current fiscal year budget is over $ 13 million, about twice that of the Parks and Rec. Dept., and nearly twice the budget of Community Development (see them all here.) Redevelopment does big things. You’d think they would be proud to talk to us about their past accomplishments and how they can be more responsive to all of us (because you know that’s what everyone else will say is the goal of their departments).

Did no one invite Mr. Zur Schmiede to the party? Or does it go without saying that the Redevelopment Department simply isn’t thought of as being accountable to the people of Fullerton? Mr. Zur Schmiede answers directly to the Redevelopment Agency, better known as your city council. Wouldn’t you like to have an hour or to ask Robert Zur Schmiede a few questions about how his agency operates?

April 19, 2010April 19, 2010Redevelopment

Will Redevelopment Borrow $50 Million for Affordable Housing?

by Christian11 Comments

Have you ever been robbed? Some robberies are violent and involve weapons or threats of force. Others are of a white-collar nature. Don’t be fooled, you are robbed either way. One robber let’s you know he is taking your money while the other is much more insidious and calculating. Our Redevelopment Agency is the latter.

Item 10 on this week’s council agenda deserves some attention.

According to the staff recommendation signed by Ramona Castaneda, for our illustrious Land Czar Rob Zur Schmiede and Charles Kovac, these fine public employees would like to sell a bond. They say that their autonomous agency could net between $26,900,000 and $32,000,000 in proceeds. That sounds like a great idea if you like to squander public money. The Staff report states that the debt service payments over a 17-year term would be approximately $2,900,000 per year starting September 20100 and ending September 2027. Okay, so check my math: $2,900,000 x 17 years = $49,300,000.

That’s a cost of nearly $50 MILLION! We are cutting staff hours, cutting services and rethinking the way we do business… at least everyone else is. Our Land Czar wants the money so he can build MORE affordable housing. That’s laughable since his agency has single-handedly destroyed and displaced more homes than any other in Fullerton. Oh, but wait! What’s that Doc? Oh, he says it’s that law, we just gotta do it! No we don’t.

Of course missing from the discussion about this venture seems to be the little matter of the lawsuit that Friends for Fullerton’s Future has filed against the Redevelopment Agency’s expansion plan. Is Zur Schmiede counting on tax increment from the proposed expansion area to pay off his bonds? Better hope not.

April 6, 2010April 6, 2010Dick Jones

A Letter to the City Council by Judith Kaluzny

by admin9 Comments

UPDATE: A version of this item is back on the agenda for tonight’s council meeting. Council denied the $69,997 expenditure last year. Now the Redevelopment Agency has broken the project into smaller increments, hoping that it can slither its’ way through in 2010.

A POST UPDATE FROM A FRIEND:

This item failed on a split vote last night. Keller and Quirk against, Jones and Nelson in favor, with Bankhead absent.

I read the state laws regarding business improvement districts. The process is that business people sign a petition to the city council. It is not the job of redevelopment to gin up a petition to give the appearance of support for this new taxing agency.

Cameron Irons did a survey February 2008 and got about 10 responses regarding a BID, mostly negative.

Sharon Quirk as councilmember said in 2007 that people should pay for the privilege of doing business downtown.

Maybe you want the money for city improvement, but it is not RDA’s place to create a demand for a taxing agency business people rejected in a private survey–the appropriate kind for a BID–last year.

Please do not waste money on this ill-advised venture. Vote no on Item 17 on May 19.

Yours truly,
A downtown business person,

Judith A. Kaluzny, Mediator and Lawyer
149 West Whiting Avenue
Fullerton, California 92832

March 30, 2010March 30, 2010Behind Closed Doors

12 Years Was More Than Enough. The “F” Is For Fail

by The Desert Rat6 Comments

jones-gone-wild1 — The worst thing I've ever seen...

And now, a year and a half after Fullerton Councilman Dick Jones was re-elected to a fourth dreadful term it only gets worse.

During the fall of 2008 FFFF shared Joneses’ mastery of the rude, ignorant, nutsy outburst. We even got creative. Last year we chronicled Jones’ comical misunderstanding of Redevelopment, as well as his crazy melt down at a Vector Control meeting. And just last week we related the story of Jones standing up during a meeting, walking out, and quitting the Vector Control Board.

Even if we give him the benefit of the doubt on the female cop derriere incident, I wonder how long the people who have propped up this asinine buffoon can continue to look the other way.

Well, enough is enough, already. This guy has spent 14 years making himself a laughingstock, and it seems he won’t be satisfied until he does the same thing for Fullerton.

February 20, 2010February 20, 2010Arts & Architecture

The Making of An Eyesore; And a Hell of a Climb, Too

by admin16 Comments

A little less than 20 years ago, some friends and I stood in front of the Fullerton City Council pleading with the Redevelopment Agency to build a pedestrian underpass at the train station instead of a steel bridge overpass. We had three reasons. The first was expense: an underpass was about half the cost of a bridge. Second was the matter of practicality and convenience: it is easier for a pedestrian to climb 24 steps versus 49; not to mention the cost of maintaining two elevators. Third, the bridge was going to tower over the Historic Santa Fe Depot – a real incongruous pairing and one in which the Depot suffered.

When the question was asked to the city staff during the public hearing about the possibilities of an underpass the Fullerton Redevelopment Manager Terry Galvin answered that an underpass would be too dangerous and could end up smelling like urine and besides, “nobody builds underpasses.” He even dug up an incident (and only one!) where somebody got stabbed – in Raton, New Mexico. Ooooooh, so scary! The fact of the matter is that an underpass would have been a mere 50 feet long – a little more than half the distance from home plate to first base!

The staff also dismissed Vince Buck’s brilliant idea of using the existing Harbor grade separation to get people from one side of the tracks to the other, a solution that would have been the most practical and cost efficient of all!

What has always bothered me about the city staff is that when they want something they will not give the city council all of the pertinant facts to make an intelligent decision; or they will deliberately inflate the project they want and diminish options they don’t want. And then the city council does not hold anyone on staff accountable for the messes they create. And that my Friends, is the history of Redevelopment in Fullerton.

A couple years later I was at the Oceanside train station and guess what?

Of course lots of local Metrolink/Amtrak stations now have underpasses including Orange, Tustin, Laguna Niguel and many others. Money was saved, citizens were spared visual monstrosities, and maintenance costs were minimized.

But in Fullerton we have Molly McClanahan (who voted for the bridge), and her immortal words: hindsight is 20/20.

Almost twenty years later and the City of Fullerton doesn’t even seem to bother with the graffiti etched into the elevator towers’ glass.

January 15, 2010July 14, 2010Behind Closed Doors

Fullerton Decision-makers Lied To. So What’s New?

by admin9 Comments

Last year just before Christmas the Fullerton City Council voted 3-1 to approve the idiotic Richman housing project, a staff-driven boondoggle that makes zero planning, housing, or economic sense. We wrote about it here.

We also wrote about the review of the same fiasco-in-the-making by the Planning Commission here, in which we lauded Commissioner Bruce Whitaker for his solitary stance in opposing it. As the YouTube clip shows, Whitaker objected on economic grounds citing the project’s dubious fiscal foundation.

This position was immediately questioned by Commissioner Lansburg who inquired about it of the city attorney, Tom Duarte:

Commissioner Lansburg: is it within the Commission’s purview to look at this from a financial standpoint or are we only to look at this from a planning standpoint?

The city attorney Mr. Duarte answered: In the commissions purview its a land use issue, the city council will look at the financial impact.

Well, the project was passed by a Commission majority, with only Whitaker dissenting.

Subsequently Commission Chairman Dexter Savage addressed the following communication to staff, seeking clarification of the issue.

And now, Lo and Behold, the issue has been agendized by the City Council; and just look at staff’s response: economic considerations are indeed within the purview of a planning commission in many respects, and are nowhere prohibited.

This response begs several questions. Why did the city’s attorney misinform the commission? Is he incompetent, or was he motivated to press the approval of a project near and dear to the hearts of the city staff, without any reference to the law.

Why did the staff present like (John Godlewski) not correct him? He countersigned the above memorandum contradicting Duarte, yet was at the meeting and said nothing.

The facts can really only be interpreted in one way. Both the attorney and staff were more interested in the approval of the project, no matter how bad, than in the service of the public interest, or the truth, or the law.

Now the entire matter has been brought to the City Council for its enlightenment as agenda item #16 at the January 19, meeting. But it’s really to late for the Richman project – a Redevelopment/housing staff concocted project that has all the tell-tale signs of a disaster in the making.

And Friends: there you have it.

January 5, 2010January 5, 2010Boohooism

The OCCCO Scam

by The Desert Rat7 Comments

Earlier today a Friend tipped us off to this self-serving video produced by OCCCO (Orange County Congregation Community Organization) touting its alleged accomplishments. The whole thing is really embarrassing. Trying to take credit for Anaheim’s “$100,000,000” housing policy is just laughable.

But when this group of group of lefty do-gooders bragged about their successful petition to the Fullerton City Council for west Fullerton to be included in the fraudulent Redevelopment expansion, some of us in the editorial room got pissed off. Cut to the 7:30 mark of the youtube clip to avoid a lot of uber-mind-numbing drivel.

Pam Keller4 — Oh yeah, I got a posse and man are they dumb...

First, we have already demonstrated the not too coincidental elevation of some woman called Lee Chalker to the Board of Directors of the Fullerton Collaborative with her sudden interest in Redevelopment issues, here; could any reasonable human being believe that Chalker and her OCCCO pals weren’t persuaded by Collaborative Executive Director and City Council woman Keller to go to public meetings and pimp something they knew absolutely nothing about? They got $26,000 bucks a couple of years ago for “community organizing” from Keller so maybe they figured they owed her, quid pro quo.

But to take credit for their stoogery in a fraudulent political act as an accomplishment not only suggests a complete lack of real accomplishment, but it also suggests a moral bankruptcy, too. Either that or a really low level of intelligence.

Well, really, what did you expect?

January 5, 2010January 5, 2010Behind Closed Doors

A Good Article, By George!

by Mr. Peabody4 Comments

I've never even been to Fullerton — Fullerton? Where's that?

Although George Will can be stuffy and, well, fat-headed on occasion, there is nothing off the mark about his opinion piece in the Washington Post the other day about the Atlantic Yards eminent domain scandal occurring in Brooklyn, New York. Read it here.

Sounds kind of familiar, doesn’t it? Trumped up findings of blight that justify the creation of a government-as-developer zone. In Fullerton we have the proposed Redevelopment expansion – leveraged off a completely fraudulent finding of blight. There are no massive projects in the expansion area – yet, but the idea of securing property tax increment and using the expansion to extend the life of the existing Redevelopment project area foreshadows all sorts of problems with government overreach and the misdirection of public revenue.

January 5, 2010January 5, 2010Fullerton BooHoo

Pam Keller: Funneling Grant Money Into Liberal Activism for Fun and Profit

by The Fullerton Shadow23 Comments

We’ve burned quite a few pixels explaining how Pam Keller’s is using her non-profit, The Fullerton Collaborative, as a vehicle to peddle influence, fund political activists, and profit Keller herself through excessively convoluted financial relationships.

But some of our loyal Friends still don’t get it.

That’s admittedly understandable, since the entire contraption is remarkably complicated. But to help everyone wrap his or her cerebral cortex around the many conflicts of interest, we present this valuable flow chart to demonstrate where The Fullerton Collaborative’s money comes from and where it goes. Naturally the nexus of the whole tangled web is Pam Keller. And that’s the big problem.

Fullerton-Collaborative-Illustrated — Click for an eye-opening experience...

Enjoy following the arrows. After perusing this chart there really is no excuse for not being concerned about the manifest conflicts of interests on the part of our City Council woman Pam Keller.

Unless, of course, you are part of the web.

December 24, 2009December 28, 2009Boohooism

In Fullerton It’s Only Over When Staff Says Its Over

by Jan Florys Dog6 Comments

I don't mind being led around just so long as I don't know where I'm going. — I don't mind being led around just as long as I don't know where they're taking me!

A few items in 2009 have caused me to reflect on the way things go in Fullerton, the way things have always gone, in fact. My poodle friends have a saying: la plus ca change, la plus c’est la meme chose. Man, that’s Fullerton all over!

In Fullerton, no screw-up, no cluster f, no civic disaster ever goes away if the city staff doesn’t want it to. They’ll dig in their heels and start the ol’ push-back as soon as it looks like something they really want is about to get torpedoed.

Consider the absolutely horrible decision to relocate the McDonald’s outlet at a jaw-dropping cost of six million bucks. Not even the most compliant council could swallow that one, and ours pulled the plug on it (so we thought, foolish us!) last summer. But within a a few weeks, the Redevelopment staff cooked up a “new” plan for the brainless “Fox Block” scheme. And guess what? It too, involved relocating McDonald’s – just not all the way to the corner. Geez, wasn’t anybody paying attention? That episode was so bad that it really crossed the line of insubordination. But did anybody on the council say a word? ‘Course not. This is Fullerton!

Of course the real problem is is the sort of people that we keep electing to the City Council. The mentally lame, the incompetent, the inert; people who by political and personal inclination identify with the bureaucracy instead of the citizens and taxpayers of Fullerton; people who dodge responsibility. Of the current crop, only Shawn Nelson really seems to take offense at being lied to and led around by the nose like a prize bull. And speaking of bull, Sharon Quirk seems to have finally realized that her advisors have their own agendas that more likely than not are incongruous with the interests of the rest of us. Well, that’s some progress, anyway.

What will 2010 bring? More of the same, no doubt. This is Fullerton. If there’s any hope for us the brain-dead gerontocracy must go. And by gerontocracy I mean the ossified geriatric thinking displayed by councilmembers of all ages, and the interests they represent. Of course Bankhead must go. Jones, too. And Keller. But if they’re replaced with stooges like Marty Burbank or Pat McKinley what the hell’s the difference?

Well let’s throw out a few issues to track to see how bad, or good, things will be in 2010 as far as accountability goes:

Will the council finally once and for all end the Fox Block scam?

Will Keller, Quirk, and Nelson stick to their promise to put the issue of term limits on the June ballot?

Will the council quit wasting time and energy on the idiotic Transportation Center master plan?

Will the council give up on the bogus Redevelopment expansion?

Will the council ditch the moronic “at-large” members of commissions altogether?

Will the council demand accountability on the UP park scandal before they sink another dime into more Redevelopment of it? Will they tell the city manager to quit making unilateral policy decisions?

Will the council have the courage (very little required really) to forget the useless UP ROW “trail”?

Will the council quit subsidizing and encouraging illegal behavior by downtown bars and dance halls?

Well, really, the list is endless and the Friends could no doubt supply their own favorites. Bon chance!