The Observer Archives - Page 13 of 14 - Friends For Fullerton's Future

September 16, 2009January 9, 2010Fullerton BooHoo

Fullerton Observer Sinks To New Low

The Yellowing Sub Dives even Deeper — The Yellowing Sub dives even deeper

UPDATE: According to an e-mail we received yesterday, our acquaintance “Tenant” reminded us that he did indeed have a follow up conversation with Ms. Kennedy about his situation. We apologize for that error. However the basic thrust of this post remains. You can’t be a reporter and an advocate for this or that specific cause or organization at the same time.

And just to remind our Friends: we are a blog – not a journalistic endeavor and we have never tried to get anybody to believe otherwise.

To those Fullerton Observer observers who still believe that Sharon Kennedy has an atom of journalist integrity, or any objective standards either, we present the most recent Observer edition as our evidence to the contrary.

Last week we posted a story about how Fullerton Interfaith Emergency Services intended to expand their compound in the 500 block of West Amerige Avenue, and in the process how the current landlord had told his tenants to vacate the premises so he could close the deal.

What we didn’t share was the fact that one of the tenants had actually contacted Sharon Kennedy. According to this individual she evinced considerable interested in his plight; but the tenant never heard back from her.

In the Observer’s mid-September issue she gave an answer. Buried in the middle of an article about unrelated FIES issues the author tucked in a few lines about the FIES acquisition of property on Amerige. The article notes matter-of-factly that relocation help would be available for those tenants who need it. Check out left column halfway down page nine.

Of course there was no mention of the fact that previously none of the tenants had been notified that “assistance was available,” no mention of what the criteria for qualification are, and no mention of who at FIES told her that they were going to help anybody.

It sure looks to us like Sharon Kennedy was trying to help her pals at FIES cover up an embarrassing episode long after the fact. Wow! What a crusading reporter!

Well, at any rate, we are glad that someone may be getting something, sometime, somehow. We’ll check in to see what FIES is doing to make things right for the folks they are dislocating.

In the meantime a whole lotta irony is still goin’ on: several genuine, non-subsidized affordable housing units are taken out of the available housing stock and the property, soon to be owned by a non-profit, will be taken off the property tax rolls. Hooray!

hey everybody, we gotta stick together... — Hey everybody, we gotta stick together...

August 7, 2009August 8, 2009About Us

More Fun and Games At The Fullerton Observer

by The Fullerton Harpoon8 Comments

The hey, and the hey, and the hey, hey, hey! — Professor Frink speaks: with the insinuating and the smearing, and the hey, hey, hey!

Our dear pals at the Fullerton Observer are at it again. In their latest (August) edition someone named Kevin Frink used the “Council Shorts” feature to take a shot at one of Fullerton’s Friends – Jack Dean check out page 4. The topic was the hearing on the Redevelopment expansion scam, and here’s what Mr. Frink had to say:

Several residents spoke in opposition

of the proposed action before the council/

redevelopment agency including Mr.

Kiker, Mr. DeWitt and Mr. Dean, the

later representing the Fullerton

Association of Concerned Taxpayers

(FACT), (a group responsible for

extremely dirty and misleading campaign

tactics in past city council and school board campaigns).

We suspect that Frink had coaching from his editor to insinuate a completely gratuitous and unsubstantiated claim about FACT’s political activities. The fact that this parenthetical attack had absolutely nothing to do with the issue at hand and is based on on the Observer’s notion that to oppose any statist, pro-government union candidate is tantamount to a crime, just backs up our previous criticisms of the Observer as a hack-run shill for City Hall. Those who have defended the Observer as some sort of journalistic paragon take heed. This is the type of stoogery you are defending.

Meanwhile the Yellowing Sub sinks deeper.

P.S. Could Mr. “Kiker” have been our very own Travis Kiger? If so we have a celebrity in our midst. Travis was that you?

July 22, 2009December 28, 2009The Observer

Amphibian Assault

by The Fullerton Harpoon4 Comments

Every now and then we get a particularly perspicacious comment from one of our Loyal Friends that we think is worth posting separately. The following was written by Hollis Dugan in response to our post about the Fullerton Observer and its hermetically sealed philosophical environment. We have cleaned up his spelling for him. Explains Mr. Dugan:

I always sing in the shower... — I always sing in the bath tub...

What to me at least becomes the most bizarre angle of the Observer finally is that Kennedy is a left wing loon that probably never envisioned herself as the apologist for the establishment. The far left commie types like her came out of the 60’s and early 70’s AGAINST the establishment. Freedom from government tyranny and limits on liberty.

Now it seems, like boiling a frog, Kennedy and her ilk have let the heat rise so slowly it never occurred to them that they are the last protectors of the government machine controlling everyone’s liberty. Wake up Kennedy! Your values have been boiled right out of you without detection by anyone at your little rag.

Have the drugs done that much damage? You should be screaming from the rooftops how outrageous the thought of the City running its own blog to control the information flow (attempt to, anyway). Instead you are a meek little cheerleader for the inept and pathetic control mongers that can’t stand when others have an independent thought.

It’s not too late to become a fighter for liberty.

July 21, 2009July 21, 2009The Observer

It Goes Down Okay, But Has Trouble Getting Up

by The Fullerton Shadow8 Comments

The other day on our post detailing Pam Keller’s love-in blog, one of our readers made reference to “a stack of yellowing Observers,” and another clever Friend inquired whether he was referring to the paper or its writers.

Today we had a visit from another Friend on our latest post about the Fullerton Observer and its hackish ways, using the great handle “They All Live in A Yellow Submarine.” This set us a thinkin’ about what a great metaphor the submarine can be, especially one that can’t blow its ballast tanks to surface and see what’s happening in the outside world. Its denizens are hermetically sealed in. Think Das Boot.

Observers at work — Who needs fresh air and sunshine? Not us!

Given The Fullerton Observer’s rather nasty penchant for submerging itself in a sea of City Hall Kool Aid we think the image is apt. Plus we’re getting a little bored with:

July 19, 2009December 28, 2009Chris Norby

History Repeats Self: Fullerton Observer Soliciting For City Hall Again

by The Fullerton Harpoon13 Comments

A City Job Opening? — Does this job come with benefits?

A few months ago we went after Sharon Kennedy and her Observer’s shameless pandering to City Hall when she passed along a letter from OC Supervisor Chris Norby opposing Redevelopment expansion to her pals in the government. Some Redevelopment flunky put together the “official” response, Don Bankhead affixed his X to it, and the two were printed side by side.

Well she’s at it again. Check out page 8 of the July edition. Same technique, same result.

Now, we have nothing against the City getting out its propaganda, even if it is full of baloney. But this habit on the part of Kennedy of sharing an editorial writer’s submission so that it can be immediately rebutted without counter response is so unfair that, well, we feel justified in accusing Sharon Kennedy of being just a wee bit biased in the stuff she prints.

Why not print the submission and let the City respond if it feels inclined to do so? Why not let the debate go back and forth – fairly, and see who can develop the more compelling argument? Oh, yeah. That’s right:

July 1, 2009December 28, 2009Dick Jones

The Fullerton Fabricator & City Hall Apologist

by admin9 Comments

did anyone see where I put my barbeque sauce? — Ronald, where did you put my barbecue sauce?

The Fullerton Observer continues to sink to new lows in its coverage of important Fullerton issues. Or lack of coverage.

In its most recent edition it published a redevelopment article which was simply an interview with RDA Director Rob Zur Schmiede, whose very job depends on RDA expansion. Wow, that’s cutting edge investigative journalism!

The Observer has totally ignored the RDA’s $6 million McDonald‘s move. An evil corporation making kids fat, a giveaway to the rich, money intended for blight going to promote junk food! Fast Food Nation was written by muckraking journalists that the Observer should emulate. $6 million to help McDonald’s make high school kids fatter!

The Observer has completely ignored the story that has excited even usually tepid reporter Barbara Giasone. They will NOT embarrass the council majority that it helped elect with their endorsement. Jones, Bankhead, Quirk, Keller were all backed by the Observer.

Could it also be that the Fullerton RDA–is paying for quarter page ads in the Observer?

The Observer has published two pieces by Supervisor Norby expressing the County’s opposition to the RDA expansion, but only after leaking both articles to city staff in time to write rebuttals. The rebuttals themselves are not fact-checked by anyone and are filled with lies.

In the current July 2009 edition (Page 4) Kennedy bewails the 1994 recall of Bankhead after he “voted to support a ½ cent utility rate increase to keep the city from going bankrupt”. Three wrong statements in one sentence!

It was NOT a utility rate increase, but a utility TAX on gas, water, electricity and cable TV. It was NOT a half cent but 2%. It did NOT keep the City from going bankrupt. In fact, it was repealed soon after the recall and has saved us Fullerton tax payers over $ 100 Million dollars over the past 15 years and the City is just fine!

True to form, the Observer has supported every city, county and state ballot measure that increased taxes, most of which went down in defeat. It especially likes sales tax hikes, which disproportionately affects the poor–the supposed constituents of a “progressive” paper.

May 27, 2009December 30, 2009Dick Jones

Design Review Member Steve Lynch on Jefferson Commons

by admin8 Comments

Stucco, Styrofoam, and lots of it — Stucco, styrofoam, but where's the parking structure?

Greetings Everyone-

I would like to apologize to you for the manner in which I left the meeting last night. I wish I could fabricate a better reason than being absolutely disgusted with JPI Development for their thinly veiled deception of the RDRC and Staff…but I can’t. I felt my blood pressure elevating and thought it was best for me to leave before making any more comments regarding their six shades of shadiness. As you may have guessed by now I believe the JPI group deliberately misrepresented the mass of the parking structure in the colored elevation drawing that they presented to us at the RDRC meeting in which they earned our approval. I also believe it was a calculated move for them to casually slip the actual scale of the structure into the elevations in the construction drawings and hope nobody caught it. If I am not mistaken Heather caught this little “revision” and that is why they were a last minute addition to our agenda last night. If I had to do it over again I would have dug my heels in and tried to sway the other members towards my belief that what JPI presented last night was significantly different than what was approved, however, I felt at the time that would have been futile as the other members didn’t seem too affected by the change. Perhaps in the grand scheme of things none of this is going to make any difference to anybody and the building will get built and the citizens of Fullerton will be none the wiser to what the building should have looked like, but I know, and the sense of satisfaction I once felt for having collaborated on this project is now a bit corrupted. When the minutes are being drafted for last nights meeting I would like the record to reflect my true feelings as accurately as possible.

Jay/ Heather…if it’s not in violation of any policy, I would like this email shared with the other members of the committee.

Regards,

Steve Lynch

Last October, this letter was sent to the Fullerton Observer, but NEVER got published.

April 17, 2009December 28, 2009Don Bankhead

The Fullerton Observer – Shilling For City Hall Again

by The Fullerton Harpoon8 Comments

Redevelopment Expansion Looks Good From Where We're Standing

In its mid-April edition, our old friends (lower case f) at The Fullerton Observer pulled their typical stunt of shilling for the bureaucrats and bureaucrat loving politicos over at City Hall.

County Supervisor Chris Norby had submitted to The Observer an essay on the proposed redevelopment expansion that we had previously posted on this very site. Not content to print the letter and let responders respond – on their own and without coaching, The Observer apparently gave Norby’s letter to the City where somebody in Redevelopment wrote a “response” in the form of a series of “facts” – really just disembodied statements meant to show how the City, at least, was following the minimum requirements of the law.

The City’s response was handed to Don Bankhead, Chairman of the Redevelopment Agency, who dutifully affixed his signature and sent it back to the Observer – who then published “two views” on the proposal just like they were an unbiased news operation – a real journalistic endeavor, in fact. Check out the scam on page 11.

http://www.fullertonobserver.com/artman/uploads/fomaprils_001.pdf

We are not surprised by this behavior since it has become fairly common for The Observer. Sharon Kennedy habitually adds editorial comment to letters submitted by people she doesn’t like. But to actually go out and solicit response to a commentary strikes us as pretty craven, even for her.

Friends who have visited this website recently have been treated to examples of Redevelopment incompetence in Fullerton. Don Bankhead and the people he represents in in the Redevelopment Agency may want you to think that redevelopment is here to serve the people of Fullerton. We know better. It’s here to serve the bureaucrats, subsidized developers, bond lawyers, consultants and various other camp followers who make their livelihoods of this charade.

First We Talk You into It — First We Talk You Into It...

April 13, 2009April 18, 2009Chris Norby

So Who’s Responsible For Downtown Fullerton’s Architectural Disgrace?

by admin9 Comments

March 31, 2009April 18, 2009The Observer

On a Clear Day You Can See Forever

by The Fullerton Harpoon18 Comments

On March 7th 2009 people from all over the state descended on Fullerton to enjoy their right to political free speech. Depending on whom you talk to, the crowd, that came by bus, train, bicycle and by foot, numbered in the thousands, with some accounts placing the total over ten thousand.

The “tax revolt” sponsored by popular radio entertainers Ken and John of KFI, was big news. No matter how you figure it.

And yet the non-Friends of Fullerton’s future over at The Fullerton Observer ignored the story completely. Check out their mid-March and early April issues to see if you can find a single reference to this huge event. None.

Okay, later in the month the Observer’s patron saint Obama the Good hove into Orange County and we gagged our way through Pam Keller’s giggly tribute to the event, complete with her characteristic abuse of the perpendicular pronoun. Still, not a single solitary mention of the largest crowd ever assembled in downtown Fullerton? Yet room for all the usual Observer dross?

If the crowd had assembled to support raising taxes and spending more money on government employee unions you can bet your bottom dollar that the Observer would have been all over this like flies on… well you get the point.

Update: thanks to James Crum’s comment I indeed did discover an article in the mid-March edition by a T. DeMoss; relegated to page 8, of course, under the “ObserverHeader” headline: Radio Fans In Fullerton. Hardly a clear statement of any content relating to the assembly. When I reviewed the Observer headlines I naturally missed the connection. Actually the DeMoss article was really pretty objective and kudos to him/her. But to remind our friends of the typical Observer editorial bias, a story about a demonstration by locals against cutbacks in the local schools made the front page, as usual.

Also lurking at the bottom of the second page was this gem at the end of the letters section, but not signed by anybody. Hmmm. Now this is the Observer we’ve come to know and love. Some kooks show up at an event and everybody gets painted with the same brush. Almost like racial stereotyping.

Racists at the Tax Revolt Radio Show

Among the raving fans of the selfserving Clear Channel radio talk show hosts who invaded Fullerton on March 7th were notorius members of several hate groups including KKK off-shoots and the Minute Men. How did this group get a permit for this gathering? Let’s hope they aren’t allowed back in town. To see for yourself go to http://www.youtube.com and punch in Racists at KFI AM 640 event