FFFF supports causes that promote intelligent, responsible and accountable government in Fullerton and Orange County
Category: Shawn Nelson
Shawn Nelson is a councilmember in the City of Fullerton. As the only conservative on the Fullerton City Council, he often asks difficult questions and votes alone.
I applaud the Orange City Council for taking the initiative here, to discuss State Assemblywoman Diane Harkey’s AB2121. Basically, Harkey’s idea is to pull the plug on the bond financing for the High Speed Rail (HSR) massive boondoggle. Our sources tell us Councilman Jon Dumitru has taken the lead on reviewing this issue.
Hell, the HSR isn’t even proposed to go through Orange, and their council is more concerned about the boondoggle than Fullerton’s is.The route, as proposed could cut a several mile long swath of destruction through Fullerton. And our council doesn’t seem able to even talk about it. Maybe because staff didn’t agendize it first.
Oops.
When are the people of Fullerton going to start electing people that stick up for Fullerton? A concerted opposition by our council could help kill this fiasco now.
Responding to mounting criticism about taking a bunch of property along the proposed right-of-way for its multibillion dollar boondoggle, the California High Speed Rail Authority took a step back the other day and voted 6-1 to entertain a shared track option previously discarded when they thought nobody was paying attention. Read all about it in the LA Times.
Even lobbyist and fixer Curt Pringle, the termed-out Mayor of Anaheim, joined the majority. Is he perhaps starting to fear a Buena Park, Fullerton, and Anaheim backlash that might spoil all of his crafty electoral machinations for 2010?
Well, it’s a step in the right direction, but it still begs the question of bureaucratic and rolling stock cost vis-a-vis minimal travel time gains to downtown LA.
The lone “no” vote came from Quintin L. Kopp, the former Bay Area politician who also advocated for the controversial BART extension to the San Francisco Airport. Apparently Kopp thinks it’s too late to be smart – always a bad sign.
On Tuesday the Fullerton City Council split from its own policy and procedures when it appointed Paul Webb to the OC Vector Board – to replace the ever- increasingly brittle Dick Jones.
The City Council’s policy has been to publicly advertise when a position is open for a committee or a commission. In this case, it should have either gone to Pam Keller who wanted to serve on the Vector Board or it should have been selected through an open and competitive interview process. Bankhead, Jones, and Nelson gave the job to Webb after an obvious behind-the-scenes arrangement. Once the obvious fix was in then Keller and Quirk went along for the ride. No bueno!
Anyway just for fun, listen to Paul Webb’s loopy statement about why he doesn’t have a conflict, and decide for yourselves if this is someone you think should represent Fullerton on a County board.
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
Taxes takin’ my whole damn check, junkies makin’ me a nervous wreck, the price of food is goin’ up, an’ as if all that shit wasn’t enough, this Tuesday evening the city’s considerin’ a water rate increase.
Furthermore, the city is going to use the rate increase to pay for the League of Cities baloney. The two spendthrift promoters of this idea are Don Bankhead and Pam Keller who in 2008 attended the League of Cities conference in Long Beach here and here, a mere 25 miles from their front doors and racked up $400 per night waterfront hotel bills.
The League of Cities is a do nothing operation run by bureaucrats for the purpose of promoting their own policies. Fullerton’s annual membership budget is $75,000 – not an inconsiderable sum, exactly why the City of Orange quit the League.
NO new taxes, NO bogus water rate increase. We all know Bankhead and Keller are going to vote for this tax increase and I suspect Dick “RINO” Jones will, too.
The other day one of our Friends asked Shawn Nelson for his impressions on the much-discussed High Speed Rail project. Our Friend has helpfully forwarded Nelson’s reply:
I have been struck lately by the supporters of the high speed rail and their seeming lack of common sense when it comes to problem solving; my observations have led me to believe that the current leadership of the program has become more focused on getting a pot of government gold to spend (the more the merrier) and enriching the myriad players involved in the process. By ignoring existing opportunities to run the rail project on the already existing lines of the Metrolink and Amtrak the current design for the high speed rail (HSR) to run from Anaheim to Los Angeles provides a windfall to those in the consulting industry by requiring countless hours of public outreach and environmental impact study.
Why aren’t the leaders of the program asking the basic questions and looking for basic answers? Case in point: I went to a presentation in Anaheim two weeks ago given by the project team of HSR. They explained that the HSR will be able to connect Anaheim and LA in 23 minutes. Of course to accomplish this the tracks would need to be able to cross existing streets that are not presently separated from the rail line (think at grade rail crossings with the drop arms and flashing lights) and some improvements to a curve in the tracks in the Buena Park area. They admitted that the first leg could be a stand alone service in case the rest of the project were never built!
After a few follow up questions we learned the existing system only takes 30 minutes as is and with a few of the improvements that are necessary for the HSR the Metrolink will be able to achieve the same speed as the HSR from Anaheim to LA. With a few of the upgrades being made to the existing system we could all make it to downtown LA in about 26 minutes.
In layman’s terms the first leg of the project is a likely multi-billion dollar effort to shave a few minutes off the average commute from Anaheim to LA. It would save ZERO time if we just made the grade separation improvements and ran an express line (i.e. no stops in between) once per hour! Is there anyone on the HSR board that is thinking this through? Clearly we do not need to spend billions of dollars to avoid running an express train once an hour to LA do we?
The concept of HSR in California could be a useful project tying the central parts of the state with the major metropolitan areas of the San Francisco Bay area and greater Los Angeles. Why isn’t the current effort focused on getting the communities in between tied in to the anchors on each end? Couldn’t Amtrak funding be tied in if the train went to the exact same locations on the route? As things stand now both ends of the line have currently operating rail systems that could be used and result in tens of billions in savings. Can’t the HSR start out by connecting the southern most terminus of BART with the northern most terminus of Metrolink?
Art Leahy, former OCTA president and now the current head of the MTA in Los Angeles, has gone on record acknowledging the problems with the existing approach. I applaud Art for standing up. He has a working knowledge of these systems and we should listen to him. I hope he takes a prominent role in the discussion going forward. Another public figure to recently demand some common sense be included in this process is Assemblywoman Diane Harkey of south Orange County who recognized the disaster we are walking into if we sell bonds to cover the costs for the current proposals.
There are a number of other problems such as why would our Measure M dollars be used to fund the vast majority of the HSR train storage facility/transit link planned in Anaheim? Isn’t measure M money generated here for the purpose of helping all commuters get around Orange County? This is a state and federal project not a local project. Getting people from San Francisco to Anaheim was never the purpose of Measure M. To make matters worse, the $140 million or so in Measure M funds being proposed for the train parking facility are desperately needed by cities like Placentia and Fullerton to finance underpasses at railroad grade crossings – grade separations that will make life better for everybody in North Orange County.
The road we are on now is going to exhaust all the funding available at the state and federal levels, enrich a few well-connected consultants, ruin many neighborhoods that don’t need disturbing and accomplish virtually nothing but duplication of service already provided. Why can’t common sense have a place at the table? Government doesn’t have to be the home of poor execution, but in order to get results that are good for the citizens we need to demand accountability before it is too late.
We’ve heard that 4th Supervisorial candidate Shawn Nelson was a no show at the Association of Orange County Deputy Sheriffs’ interviews this morning.
According to an informed source, Nelson had previously decided not to seek the sheriff union endorsement, and he didn’t want to waste their time interviewing him.
The AOCDS is a relatively powerful public employee union that has often demonstrated its willingness and ability to involve itself in local and County elections. How this may play out for Nelson is uncertain, although their endorsement was probably unlikely in any case given Nelson’s history as a pension watchdog in Fullerton.
If you don't interview me I can't let you kiss my ring. That's just common sense.
Certainly adhering to the new no-union endorsement policy of OCGOP boss Scott Baugh should help Nelson among those Republicans who believed that Baugh meant what he said, and that what he said meant something.
Down in Anaheim Cynthia Ward (aka Colony Rabble) has been trying to raise the profile of the California High Speed Rail (CHSR) project that will inevitably cut a swath out of neighborhoods as it makes its way to Curt Pringle’s Platinum Triangle Ghost Town.
In Fullerton (except for us) I’ve heard nary a word.
It’s pretty evident that this massive boondoggle was promoted to bamboozle the State’s electorate into floating another 10 billion dollars of indebtedness and to divert it into the pockets of huge engineering and public works contractors. Conservatives used to call this income redistribution. Now some of them call it jobs, jobs, jobs.
My good friend popular Mayor Curt Pringle has taught me this much...
It is telling that Repuglicans Curt Pringle and Harry Sidhu both back this massive waste, plus the unconscionable OCTA uber-subsidy for their ARTIC choo-choo stop, as does Anaheim’s own Precious Princess Lorri Galloway, a union puppet who can be expected to do anything necessary to promote expanded union membership.
But I digress, yet again. Damn. Sorry.
How come there has been almost no discussion about this monster project and its potential right-of-way through Fullerton? Buena Park has recently learned to its dismay that the HSR will either take out part of their station or dozens of newly built houses built as part of a TOD scheme. Does our City Council know something they’re not telling us?
No. We don't anticipate any big environemental issues.
So what is happening in Fullerton? There is only one available route from BP to Anaheim, of course, and it will have to follow the BNSF/old UP rights-of-way. What will this mean to property owners and businesses in the way? What sort of traffic disruptions will this cause over the major north-south streets over the years? Aren’t we entitled to know?
At the January NUFF forum Shawn Nelson came out against the HSR; but what of the other councilmembers? Isn’t it time for a public hearing on this topic if, indeed anybody in City Hall is serious about transparency?
Shawn? Sharon? Pam? Dick? Don? Is there something you’d like to share with us? Why not agendize this issue. Now. Let’s have at it out in the open.
And maybe this should be a campaign issue for the fall. And maybe we need somebody on the OCTA like Nelson who is not going to just go along with Pringle.
P.S. For some fun watch this CNN video that is really little more than an infomercial for HSR: what a sweet deal for the tiny percentage of California’s 40 million people who just have to get between LA and SF in a hurry (they won’t, of course).
Try not to giggle at Pringle’s performance, if you can.
There is a precinct walk event for Shawn Nelson next Saturday, March 27th which meets at Hillcrest Park. We will gather at 12:30PM for lunch and the walking will begin at 1:30PM. I believe we’re meeting in the main picnic area at the base of the hill. The place isn’t that big. You’ll see us.
A precinct can usually be walked within 2 or 3 hours, however you could certainly do part of it and finish later. Shawn needs our help on this. Shawn is a great guy and has many friends, however as a businessman and family man with many responsibilities, he’s not a professional politician who has made it his life’s work to do nothing more than develop warm and fuzzy relationships from people who want something from him. He just works hard for his family, his employees and for the taxpayers.
Let’s get this guy elected to to County Supervisor so that we have some continued defense against the insane power of public employee unions. Organizations like Friends for Fullerton’s Future and the Fullerton Association of Concerned Taxpayers are groups who fight for better government without regard for personal gain. Nearly all of those involved in groups like ours support Shawn because he is one of us.
2nd District County Supervisor and former County Treasure, John Moorlach, has endorsed Shawn Nelson’s campaign for 4th District Supervisor. Here’s the press release:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Dave Gilliard
March 18, 2010
(916) 626-6804
Orange County Supervisor John Moorlach
Endorses Shawn Nelson for Supervisor
FULERTON, CA — The Shawn Nelson for Supervisor campaign announced today that Orange County Supervisor John Moorlach has endorsed Shawn Nelson in the 4th district.
“Shawn Nelson is a proven watchdog for taxpayers in Fullerton. I am confident he will be a tremendous asset to the Board of Supervisors as we continue to lead the state in our fiscal pursuits, including downsizing, balanced budgets and public employee pension reform. Shawn will bring the financial acumen needed to deal with the annually increasing pension costs that Orange County is facing,” said Supervisor Moorlach.
Nelson now enjoys the support of two prominent Supervisors, Pat Bates and John Moorlach, as well as former Supervisor and current Assemblyman Chris Norby. In addition, Nelson is endorsed by U.S. Representative Ed Royce and the Lincoln Club of Orange County.
Shawn Nelson is a Fullerton City Councilman and the leading candidate for Supervisor in the 4th district, which is currently open due to the election of Chris Norby to the Assembly.
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Nelson for Supervisor 2010 • FPPC ID# 1316599
