As reported earlier by Christian, the Fullerton City Council at its meeting tomorrow will discuss moving “Public Comments” to the end of meetings rather than at the beginning – where they are scheduled now. It’s item #6 on the agenda.
Apparently agendizing this concept was the brainchild of the brainless Dick Jones, author of a million malaprops and febrile, southern-fried bozoisms.
Up until about fifteen years ago the Public Comments were indeed held at the end of the meetings – right where the old guard wanted them – at 11:00 pm, or so, by which time all the malcontents and troublemakers had gone home. You see, they really liked the idea of all that wasted time up front handing out their parchments, gold stars and blue ribbons to happy citizens, but didn’t care to have any negativity go on the record.
Not coincidentally, these were the same folks that fought for years to keep the meetings from being televised.
The system finally was reversed ’round about the mid-nineties in an effort to appear more transparent and actually do something that would be convenient for the citizens and taxpayers. It was a good decision.
So now a decade and a half later there is evidently a move to go back to the old method of silencing public input. Why? Is Jones just tired of staying up so late? If so, maybe he ought to just start keeping his big bazoo shut. That alone will get him home 45 minutes earlier.
Let’s remind Jones and the rest of the Council that sometimes democracy is a bit messy, and that they and their staff work for us – not the other way around.
At last Tuesday’s council meeting our elected representatives were served up a tasty morsel from their attorney Dick Jones. He was peddling a load of BS about it being city policy that Planning Commissioners not consider the economic feasibility of subsidized projects. We’ve already documented Jones’ baloney here.
But Sharon Quirk-Silva, would have none of it. She challenged Jones on the supposed policy, and suggested, correctly, that the project be reconsidered in the light of a full review by the Planning Commission. She had the support of Planning Commissioner Scott Lansburg, who actually showed up to indicate that for him at least, the project would have received different treatment had he been permitted to consider the practical economics of the thing. Good for him.
Attorney Jones of course, pushed back, conjuring up the frightening manitou of “litigation” to chase stray councilmembers back onto their reservation. Now, gee, where have we seen that tactic before?
Meanwhile, Don Bankhead seemed a lot more interested in attending the upcoming ground breaking ceremony (where he can wear a specially painted gold hard hat) than in reining in the Richman/Olson Co. disaster.
In the end nothing came of hearing it except that the Council might have “study sessions” on the matter; which, if it ever happens, will no doubt be steered right back into the direction the city staff wants – at which point Attorney Jones made-up “policy” will become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
In today’s Register our old amigo Martin Wisckol cobbled together a piece about, well, hard to say exactly what it was about, but among other things it contained some gems from OC Democratic Party boss Frank Barbaro.
Of course it's all bullshit!
It seems Frank is having buyer’s remorse after the singularly humiliating asswhipping Fred MacMurray had laid down on him by Chris Norby in the 72nd Special Election. Now, it seems Barbaro is wishing Sharon Quirk had stayed in the race.
“If we’d have had Sharon Quirk, I think we would have had a different result,” said Barbaro, a model of perseverance and optimism already looking ahead to the reelection Norby will seek later in the year. “We might have some surprises for him in November.”
Might have some surprises? Hell, the Sun might collapse in on itself, too.
To surprise Norby in November means the Dems have to have a credible candidate on board almost any day now. But who? Galloway now claims to live in the district, but is tied up elsewhere; Quirk-Silva? Maybe, but the last bug out seemed a bit, well, unusual. Hey, how ’bout Pam Keller? Nope; running for re-election. Rosie Espinosa? See Galloway comment, above.
So the Dems got nothin’. Just whistlin’ in the dark. All Norby has to do is make sure the mike is off.
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.
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!
How come our electeds don’t seem to be able to grasp simple concepts; why have they no resistance to the bureaucratic sales pitch; why must they obscure their own ignorance in a cloud of asinine nonsense or outright lies?
If it was hard we couldn't do it!
Last Tuesday night the Fullerton City Council/Redevelopment Agency approved the idiotic Richman housing project, a staff-concocted, no-bid, pet project that proposes to subsidize ownership of condos. The vote was 3-1, Sharon Quirk-Silva, dissenting. Shawn Nelson took a powder.
Why is this project idiotic? First we believe that the ownership of a house is something that should be available equally, and not doled out by the government to its own selected recipients.
Second, the units in this project will have to be perpetually restricted to people whose income levels qualify. Perfect: perpetual housing bureaucracy! The necessary deed restrictions are a pretty significant encumbrance and will just add to the financial shakiness of the whole enchilada. But without these restrictions the original buyers would be in line for a massive windfall courtesy of all of us, when they sell.
A third point, as was admirably developed by Sharon Quirk-Silva, the proposed occupancy restrictions would very likely disqualify people who need housing the most. Which leads to the fourth point. These units will not count against Fullerton’s most neglected RHNA category – low and very low income. Which leads to:
Five. Dick Jones claimed that approving the Richman project is required to satisfy some legal mandate – it is THE LAW. That’s just a tin-plated, bald-faced lie. The SCAG RHNA allocations are goals, not a legal mandate. Cities are required by the State HCD to provide evidence of programs used to achieve those goals – not specific projects. And, in any case hypocritically, this project does not address the most urgent RHNA category of all which means that for folks who profess to really like this sort of thing, an opportunity has been lost.
Finally, FFFF has tried to promote better, more sustainable design in government-subsidized projects. And this project just promises more of the same old architectural crap we’ve been getting all along.
And now that we contemplate this fiasco, we feel the need for a last minute adendum to the Fringie Worst Vote category.
We knew the first post-mayoral vote edition of the Yellowing Fullerton Observer was going to have a Page One sob story recounting how Pam Keller was robbed of her birthright. The only question was who was going to write the tale of woe. That duty fell upon Liberosaur Vince Buck, who’s been an uncompromising shill for the idiotic council lefties for years and years.
Not known for agility
Mr. Buck is not given to hysteria, so the tenor of the article is pretty calm. Still, the assertions therein were, as usual, appalling pea-brained: the woman was rejected by the boys; and it was her turn; Bankhead and Nelson voted they way they did for political reasons (Oh no, the horror!).
Of course Buck didn’t bother to correct the previous erroneous assertions of his editoress that other localities have a “rotation” – implying some mechanism for school yard-type “sharing” of the mayor-ship. He also didn’t share the choice irony that The Observer has endorsed the chowderheads Bankhead and Jones time and time and time again.
Vince Buck awaits the salad
What was really funny was Buck’s claim that Nelson voted for Bankhead to get the latter’s endorsement for his upcoming Supervisorial campaign, while in the next breath he (accurately) reminds us of how little the Bankhead endorsement did for the Ackerwoman. Of course, we already knew that, and Nelson must, too! Bankhead’s endorsement is as worthless as Zimbabwean currency.
Oh, boy! Pudding cups!
It just doesn’t seem to have occurred to poor, cliche-riddled Vince that maybe Nelson just really dislikes Pam Keller. And by dislike we mean a don’t-walk-ahead-of-him-down-a-dark-alley sort of dislike.
It's a long wretched journey, but it sure isn't worth it when you get there...
We have almost exhausted ourselves relating the long and troubling story of the Poisoned Park, AKA the Union Pacific Park, a perfect case study in local government overreach, squandered millions, and zero accountability from our “very, very good” City Manager or anybody else for that matter.
with a spring in his step...
First the Redevelopment Agency interfered in a private sector transaction; then they unwittingly acquired contaminated property. Then they built a park that nobody but cholos and borrachos used (good thing half of it was fenced off!). Several million bucks later city staff sat on an embarrassing disaster whose magnitude could only be minimized by comparing it to other historical Redevelopment fiascoes.
But now to the point of this post. On Tuesday, the council voted to apply for grant funds to continue the “trail” westward from Highland, even though they had been informed of a toxic plume under the property. More millions spent on more contaminated property! And still no explanation about the fact that this idiotic “trail” has no provision to take pedestrians, cyclists (or horses, yee haw!) over the at-grade crossings at Highland and Richman; and no coherent vision about how this thing is supposed to function at all.
When the issue of contamination popped up, City Engineer Don Hoppe made some noise about how they had looked into the issue (yeah, sure Don); ever helpful City Attorney Jones suggested that the application be made anyway while some sort of site check up be performed.
Huh? Once again nobody seemed real curious about how the City got stuck with contaminated property (no doubt mistakes were made and hindsight is 20/20). Instead of accountability they seem more more interested in chucking more good money after bad.
Like chickens with their heads left on
And of course it didn’t really seem to bother anybody that the City’s previous efforts on the Union Pacific right-of-way have been a titanic debacle from start to…well, there will probably never be a finish.
Now that's not very good, is it?
The thought process behind the original, ill-conceived acquisition still seems to be driving things along: it’s there, we’re the City, and there is an opportunity to own property, play park designer and trail manager, not to mention playing around with millions of dollars of somebody else’s dough.
Well it happened last night. Joe and I made a quick trip out to Pechanga to blow our lottery winnings and so we missed it.
Wait 'til next year. If there is a next year.
Pam Keller was denied her turn in the Mayoral tether ball court, forgetting that to be Mayor you need three votes. Her posse must be sorely disappointed with the shut out. The Yellowing Fullerton Observer will no doubt be putting out a special edition decrying the end of civilization, and the barbarians at the gate, and whatever other nonsense they can cook up; maybe they can get some delish quotes from the gal with no “political whatevers.”
Anyway, Friends, get ready for a tsunami of self-righteous boohoo outrage.
Those little marshmallows really make the cocoa better...
Don Bankhead, who has been on the City Council since right before The Flood, will be mayor again next year. He voted for himself, as did Dick Jones and Shawn Nelson. We have been told that Ol’ Doc Jones coughed up a supremely sublime HeeHaw Moment that we will be sharing later. Apparently Nelson kept his mouth shut, which shows unusual perspicacity for a politician; we have to wonder if he isn’t still plenty pissed off at Keller for her attacks on him after he stood up for the citizens of Fullerton on the pension spike finagle last year.
As a consolation prize Keller got to stay mayor pro tem, a pretty useless ballot designation, but at least the word mayor is in it.
For dyed-in-the-wool government apologists like Dick Jones, Jan Flory, Dick Ackerman, Sharon Kennedy, Don Bankhead, et al., Redevelopment blunders are conveniently overlooked, when possible; when not possible, some lame defense is mounted, such as: mistakes were made (passive voice obligatory) but we learned and moved on; hindsight is 20/20 (Molly McClanahan’s motto vivendi); the problem was not too much Redevelopment, but too little!
But when any reasonable person contemplates the collection of Redevelopment disasters along Harbor Blvd. between Valencia Drive and the old Union Pacific overpass, the only conclusion he or she could draw is that the Fullerton Redevelopment Agency should have been shuttered years ago, and the perpetrators of the manifest failures crowded onto a small raft and set adrift with the Japanese Current.
We have already described in nauseating detail the “Paseo Park” debacle; and the Allen Hotel fiasco; we haven’t yet had time to talk about the “El Sombrero” pocket park give away (we will).
But instead of wasting too many perfectly good words, we will share with you Friends a Redevelopment pictorial essay with just a little piquant commentary.
First there’s the strip center known as Gregg’s Plaza. Brick veneer, of course. Even the veneer is so disgusted it’s trying to jump off the building.
The standards of the RDRC were established early.Pop goes the brick veneer...
Across the street is the Allen Furniture Store. When they got their rehab loan somebody forgot to tell them that a storefront is a storefront – not a jailhouse. So why are there bars on the dinky little windows? And pink stucco?
Stone walls do not a prison make; nor iron bars a cage...
Jumping back across the street we re-introduce ourselves to the egregious Allen Hotel, perhaps the biggest Redevelopment boondoggle of all, a mess that we have already admirably documented, here. As we noted then, the add-on was unspeakably awful (and expensive). The front is, well, pretty awful, too.
The once and present tenement...
It could have been worse. Well, no, it couldn't...
What was sold, in part, as an “historic preservation” project ended up violating just about every standard in the book. The original windows were ripped out and replaced with vinyl sashes; the transoms were destroyed and replaced with sheets of plastic and surface applied strips supposed to simulate leaded glass.
Just say something. They'll believe anything...
Across Harbor we discover the “El Sombrero Plaza,” another sock in the face to any Fullerton windshield tourist. Forget the stupidity of the sideways orientation and the Mission Revival On Acid stylings (which attain a kind of crazy Mariachi deliciousness); this development included the give away of part the adjacent public green space so they have parking for a restaurant. The owner never did develop a restaurant, of course (more on that story later).
Ay, caramba! The extra parking that was supposed to be for a restaurant is now used for a storage container!
And finally we come to exhausted collapse at another one of the Fullerton Redevelopment Agency’s low points. And by low point we mean the complete, unmitigated disaster of the Union Pacific Park, ably chronicled here; and in a whole series here, here, and here.
Maybe the less said, the better...
The poisoned park: dead as a doornail. An aesthetic, pratical, and policy disaster. And no one has ever stood up to take responsibility for the total waste of millions of dollars.
Embarrassing from the beginning. How many $100,000 pensioners had their fingers in this pie?
Well, there you have it, Friends. Redevelopment in action; Redevelopment creating blight, not eradicating it. No accountability. None. Zero. Zilch. And some people wonder why FFFF has sued to keep Redevelopment from expanding.
