Jane Reifer For Fullerton City Council in 2010?

Well, why the hell not? We were immensely impressed by her statement at the recent City Council meeting where she stared down the establishment in its headlong rush to expand Redevelopment in Fullerton. She was courageous and knowledgeable – a far cry from the Pam Kellers and Sharon Quirks of Fullerton who have gone along with monstrous development projects with the casual complicity of politicians who have higher aspirations. While the Redevelopment goons and shills like John Phelps and “Fullerton Positive” jackasses were trying to grease their own skids, Jane was at the podium defending the interests of the people of Fullerton from further Redevelopment demolitions and styrofoam construction. 

Jane Reifer has been a dedicated advocate for true preservation and sensible development for years. She has embraced progressive ideas without falling into the brainless trap of liberal cliches and shibboleths. She has learned the hard way that City staff has its own agenda that is not necessarily congruent with the interests of the people.

Maybe most importantly she would truly listen to voices not connected to issues via their own self-interest; she would bring a geniunely independent perspective to those issues; and best of all she would demand accountability on the part of City staff.

And so we say: Jane Reifer in 2010! Why not? It’s time for a real change.

George Giokaris: School Snitch/Team Player. But Which Team Is He On?

giokaris_gJust what does Fullerton H.S. District  Superintendent George Giokaris owe Fullerton City Manager Chris Meyer? What compels him to be a tattletale on his own Board? Unlike Mike Escalante, his predecessor, Giokaris apparently wants a McDonald’s right across from Fullerton High.

Here’s what we’ve gathered from credible sources:

Last week, County Supervisor Chris Norby (FHS ’68) spoke with former district Superintendent Escalante and current Boardmembers Dutton and Singer. All confirmed their opposition to the $6 million McDonald’s move across the street from FHS.  Escalante recounted an earlier conversation with Meyer opposing the relocation on traffic and safety grounds.

Unfortunately, these concerns were kept from the city council.

This week, Norby wrote a letter to Dutton and Singer suggesting they communicate their position to the city council, while there’s still time. Giokaris saw the letter, then quickly dispatched a “heads up” email to Meyer warning of a possible lobbying effort by members of the High School Board against the McDonald’s relocation fiasco.

Is there something we should know about these two?
Is there something we should know about these two?

Imagine that – a warning from a Superintendent that his own bosses on the School Board may actually stand up for their students’ safety and their taxpayers’ wallets! Instead of tattletaling to Meyer, he should repeat the opposition of his predecessor and oppose this super-sized boondoggle!

And we say to Dutton and Singer–if you really do oppose this $6 million move, say so now. Don’t be intimidated by Giokaris’s little intrigues behind your back – be outraged by them!

Me: Long walks on the beach and cuddling by the fire...
Long walks on the beach and cuddling by the fire?

Fullerton Gov’t Hates Property Rights – and Kids on Bikes

What’s going on in Fullerton? Many city officials seem intent on “redeveloping” a city that has no blight — even as they have wasted $20,000 in bureaucratic expenses to make sure kids don’t ride their bikes in a vacant lot. As the economy worsens for everyone, the city just can’t get its priorities straight.

First, the redevelopment absurdity. The city claims West Fullerton’s commercial areas and East Fullerton industrial areas are “blighted” and wants to redevelop them. This could mean using “eminent domain” to forcibly take property from its rightful owners, then give it to other private owners for a supposedly “better” use. And it could mean using our hard-earned tax dollars to “help” the new owners redevelop the property.

At a recent City Council meeting, City Councilman Shawn Nelson ripped the redevelopment “argument” to shreds. “Clearly, the data has been manipulated, and it’s been manipulated for a purpose,” he said, referring to a report that supposedly proved the areas were “blighted.” He added, “This is not an objective report…. I don’t think that any… objective report would have reached the conclusion that there’s blight.” He pointed out that the supposed “blight” in Fullerton “doesn’t come anywhere near” the threshold set by the California Court of Appeal for imposing eminent domain. Click here for the YouTube of Shawn’s comments:

Second, the Fullerton Code Enforcement Department spent $20,000 and countless hours of staff and attorney time prosecuting local businessman Tony Bushala (admin) for allowing his sons and their friends to ride bicycles on three acres of vacant land he owns behind the Brea Dam. The bureaucrats grandiosely called the vacant lot “outdoor recreational facilities.” Will they next also call every home driveway in the city “outdoor recreational facilities” — and ban kids from using driveways to ride up to park their bikes in the home garage?

How silly. Isn’t it better to have kids riding their bikes on private property owned by one kid’s dad, than to have them hanging out somewhere else, possibly getting into mischief? And that $20,000 in wasted tax money could have meant half a year of work for someone in the private sector — instead of staying in an unemployment line in this severe recession.

After various bureaucratic wranglings, the Appeals Board found that “no nuisance exists.” But the bike incident produced an incredible 47 pages of documents. What a waste.

These are serious economic times. The go-go days are over. We need to save our money, both private and public. The city needs to stop attacking the private-property rights of citizens, whether by threatening to take their property through eminent domain, or by stopping kids from having innocent fun on family property.

Leave us alone!

Judge Jim Gray on Marijuana

Marijuana. Decriminalize, tax and regulate. Makes a lot more sense than ban, spray and incarcerate. Of course, it’s just the dark-skinned ones that we jail mostly. For middle class kids, it’s just “experimentation”!

That was the message of retired Judge Jim Gray at last night’s packed meeting of the Neighbors United for Fullerton at the main library. Gray told the supportive NUFFsters that imprisoning marijuana offenders costs California taxpayers $1 billion yearly and taxing it would add $4 billion to state coffers. That’s a net of $5 billion!

Who are the big winners in the drug war? Prison guards, prison builders, drug lords, dumb politicians and Big Pharma. (Tough to profit from a plant that grows in the wilds!)

Elected officials attending–and positively responding–were Supervisor Chris Norby and Anaheim UHSD Board Member Katherine Smith.

Gray talked about all the costs of the entire drug war, but concentrated on cannabis as the one most likely to see real reform. AB 390 by Assemblyman Tom Amiano (D-San Francisco) would legalize and tax marijuana in California, to take effect only after federal law was changed to respect state autonomy on the issue.

How ’bout it Barack? Would society really have been better off had you been jailed back during your experimental youth?

There are just enough pro-freedom Dems and Reps to form a coaltion. Reefer Madness might soon be replaced by Reefer sanity!

Pam Keller Appears to Like Fake Old Buildings

Pam Keller seems to think it’s a good idea to make the new 6.5 million dollar subsidized McDonald’s look “more like the high school” than a “fast-food joint.” She appears to believe that a visual “upgrade” helps justify the huge expenditure of public money. We don’t think it’s an upgrade at all, but just another example of Redevelopment shoving crappy architecture down our throats. Strike two.

On the other hand, maybe Keller is hoping the architectural “blend” will keep people from noticing that the city spent 6.5 Million dollars on moving the McDonald’s 150 feet closer to the school!

Because of the health concerns caused from fast food, Sharon Quirk is said to be considering changing her vote. Maybe Pam Keller will too.

Read this Recent comment from:

#15 by The Enabler at May 16th, 2009

Right on, Frazier. And thank you Supervisor Norby, for your Fullerton legislative history update on the importance of vote-changing, when changing one’s vote is simply the right thing to do.

In one corner, a huge corporation, under guise of a local businessman; in the other, City of Fullerton, hoodwinked into abetting the feeding of malnutritious food to its young residents! On this issue, I must entirely side with Council members Jones and Nelson. McDonald’s shouldn’t receive ONE DIME from City of Fullerton! Long-term costs upon Fullerton’s citizens to provide financial assistance to this global firm are catastrophic!

By eating this food, Fullerton students become less prepared to excel at school, less productive citizens, and will suffer crippling long-term health problems! Obesity, cardiac distress, diabetes! This isn’t idle speculation, but medical fact! Our Latino population’s particularly susceptible to these complications! Not even to mention high civic costs to clean up paper and plastic waste, which is daily generated from this eatery!

I defend, though not happily, McDonald’s or any firm’s rights to build wherever it wants; pay the going rate, meet all governing local, state and federal rules and requirements.

But it’s just wrong for Fullerton to subsidize McDonald’s operation, in any way. Wrong for Fullerton to favor one company over another. Wrong for Fullerton to justify such future ugliness, in the name of civic beautification. Wrong for Fullerton to victimize its young, to enable old people feel good about themselves. Wrong. Wrong Wrong.

I strongly urge Council members Keller, Quirk, Bankhead to carefully reexamine their votes, and put Fullerton first! Put Fullerton first; provide a safe, healthy environment for its young! Put Fullerton first; cautiously rein in civic waste! Put Fullerton first; focus not on global corporate greed, but on local civic virtue!

Every time Fullerton citizens drive by Fox Theatre, and marvel at its future apotheosis as local cultural shrine, please think of thousands of Fullerton young children, teen-agers, young adults who’ll have paid the price to make this happen. Very soon, they’ll have even fewer steps to pick up their Egg McMuffins, Mcfries, and six dollar dollar Super-sized Big Macs.

It hardly seems possible!

Sorry to be so cranky. But I’m truly flabbergasted by this civic-inspired fiscal imprudence and grave social justice.

The Enabler

The “Paseo Park” Chronicles: The Park That Never Was. Or Is. Part 3

So far we have chronicled the story of a city park that nobody needed, with a proposed name no one wanted. Once construction was done, what had heretofore been a waste of time and money was soon to take a new twist.

chubby-checker-twist_l
No, not that kind of Twist, Chubby.

It was discovered that a flume of toxic material contaminated the west half of the park.

Oops. They're all empty. Now that's not very good, is it?
Oops. They're empty. Now that's not very good, is it?

Nobody in City Hall had bothered to do an environmental assessment before buying an old piece of industrial zoned property: not Gary Chalupsky the Redevelopment Director; not Susan Hunt the Community Services Director; not Bob Hodson the Engineering Director. All these Directors and nobody was directing anything. Perched atop of this shaky pyramid of incompetence sat Jim Armstrong, just waiting to bug out for the soonest better deal that offered itself. By the time the park was built Armstrong was gone, and his protege Chris Meyers was in charge – and probably damn glad this was Fullerton, where nobody was ever held accountable for anything.

This'll come in handy...
This'll come in handy...

Since 2003 a fence has been set up around the contaminated half of  the park. Meanwhile the City has been wrangling with the Gas Company over clean-up costs. This is now 6 years of embarrassing closure, and counting.  Half the park has been fenced off.

Not much of a park, is it?
A lot of chainlink fence and dead grass. Not much of a park, is it?

Meanwhile, too, the few Fullertonians who were actually paying attention found out how little park $1,500,000 in land and $1,900,000 in construction gets you nowadays: a prefabricated toilet building, among other things. And the City continued its tradition of ludicrous design, for instance a monument sign with its own little roof! How precious!

What kind of genius would put a tile roof on a sign? And how come the tiles are broken?
What kind of genius would put a tile roof on a sign? And how come the tiles are broken?

And as predicted, the half-park attracted just the sort of element you don’t want hanging around your parks and your kids – gang taggers, cholos, and neighborhood borrachos. Fortunately few kids seem interested in playing there anyway.

In the proposed Redevelopment expansion this would be proof of blight!
In the proposed Redevelopment expansion this would be proof of blight!

As this park degenerates we wonder how long it will be and how many consultants hired and studies performed to recommend the re-Redevelopment of this park; or to pave it over for Metrolink parking! Since we know that the City doesn’t like to part with territory once they acquire it, we can only speculate about future foibles in the Never Ending Story.

Read the rest of the Paseo Park Chronicles – Part 1Part 2 – Part 3

The “Paseo Park” Chronicles – The Park That Never Was. Or is. Part 1

This is a story that relates a chain of events that goes back many years, Gentle Readers, so please be patient. For those who don’t think Redevelopment spends half its time fixing mistakes it created with the other half, we promise that you will learn a lot about the way your city has been run – in three bite-size installments.

Why can't they leave stuff alone?
Why can't they leave stuff alone?

Way, way back in the 1980s Terry Galvin of the Redevelopment Agency cooked up a deal with the Union Pacific Railroad to acquire their Mission Revival depot on Truslow and Harbor. It was properly seen as a valuable historic resource, but damn the luck! It was on the wrong side of the tracks! Galvin’s plan was to relocate it to its current location on Harbor and Santa Fe, attach a weird-looking wood box addition to it, and present it to his pals at The Spaghetti Factory for $1 a year. The first of Fullerton’s subsidized restaurants offered cheap carbs to the masses, and why not? They weren’t paying any rent!

25 years of corporate welfare...
25 years of corporate welfare...

But how does this narration tie into something called  “Paseo Park” you ask? Patience, Friends, patience.

As usual the Redevelopment “experts” created more problems than they solved, for the empty lot created by the relocation was soon to become a permanent dumping ground for trash and junk – right next to Harbor Boulevard in the veritable gateway to Downtown Fullerton! And the painful irony: blight as a by-product of Redevelopment! But it was in the barrio so nobody cared.

Blight in the foreground, blight in the background, Redevelopment style...
The UP site with the Allen Hotel in the distance: blight in the foreground, blight in the background, courtesy of Redevelopment.

But cleaning up junk on railroad property is not nearly so fun as playing Monopoly with other people’s money, and the problem festered for years and years – almost twenty to be exact; until the Union Pacific decided to unburden itself of this section of track and the adjacent depot site. Despite the fact that that the railroad was in negotiations with private citizens to buy the old depot site, the Redevelopment Agency led by Gary Chalupsky intervened, and acquired the property itself – with the ludicrous intention of building a trail and an adjacent park. The “trail” itself was utterly useless since it effectively ended at the Highland Avenue grade separation on one end, and the SoCo Walk project at the other. The park occupied the former depot space between Truslow and the trail. Check out the aerial.

And all the property was removed from the property-tax rolls forever.

How about a Utility Tax Fix?
How about Another Utility Tax Fix?

Apart from the trail to nowhere, the park project itself was a dubious venture from the start. The location was not auspicious, and nobody from the community really wanted it. Sparsely attended “community” meetings showed that people on Truslow were concerned about on-street parking and getting rid of blight – not creating more. And they weren’t interested in a hang-out for the local gangs and borrachos by creating a “pocket park.” Well the City never let that sort of thing stand in the way of progress.

Skeptical observers noted that vast Richman Park was only a few blocks away, but this did not dampen enthusiasm in City Hall for a land grab: Susan Hunt, the Director of Community Services, was in a facility building mood – and that’s all that counted. Redevelopment money was there to grease the skids.

cashspigot

Read the rest of the Paseo Park Chronicles – Part 1 – Part 2Part 3

Fullerton Redevelopment Agency Working Out the Kinks

This YouTube clip of a recent Fullerton Redevelopment Agency strategy/workshop session is a must see for anyone who wants to see how their decisions are made. The audio has been artfully overdubbed  to protect councilmembers from appearing ridiculous and thus preserving the dignity of their office.

Councilman Shawn Nelson Blows Away Redevelopment Smokescreen and Bogus Consultant

Listen to Councilman Shawn Nelson as he effectively guts the findings of blight necessary to establish the proposed  redevelopment expansion. He applies  intelligence and common sense to this issue that would, if imposed,  negatively effect the future of Fullerton. Undeterred by staff and colleague pressure, he stands on principle instead of prevarication and political expediency.

Folks, this is what a real leader looks and sounds like.