The OC Register is reporting, here, about one Albert Morales, a former Sunny Hills band instructor charged with sodomy of a then sixteen year-old student in 2006.
If you notice item 12 on the Fullerton City Council agenda for Tuesday, good for you. It means you have pondered other idiocies – from the moronic CSUF “College Town” boondoggle through the closed session legal embarrassments involving Chief Danny Hughes and his goons in blue.
Which is a nice segue back to item 12. According to staff the City’s insurance well is dry due to a couple of big payouts in 2012. That’s bad news because now the City will have to issue a big chunk of debt so that the FPD payouts can proceed apace and Garo Mardirossian can get that 2014 Ferrari.
Of course the cash, raised by the sale of bonds will cost the General Fund a nifty $500,000 a year for the next couple of decades. City Manager Joe Felz will be enjoying his massive pension by then, so who the Hell cares, right?
Ironically, the cases of Veth Mam, Trevor Clarke, Edward Quinonez and Ron Thomas will drain the coffers yet again, requiring even more debt for fiscal year 14-15. The staff report says we need to protect Fullerton’s credit rating by issuing new debt. That’s a creative argument. I think we could protect Fullerton’s credit rating by eliminating the Culture of Corruption.
Friends, here is a letter sent to Mayor Bruce Whitaker and thoughtfully provided to us from a citizen who live in the Chapman Park neighborhood across the street from the proposed site of a County homeless shelter.
I omit this individual’s name and number to spare them annoying calls from the bureaucrats but it was included in the letter to Whitaker:
Subject: proposed homeless shelter
Mr Mayor,
This is in regards to the proposed homeless shelter to be opened in the old Linder’s Furniture building on State College in Fullerton. I am a long time Fullerton home owner (almost 30 years) and live in the Chapman Park tract directly across State College from the proposed site. I would like to voice my adamant opposition to this project! If the shelter goes in at this site you are opening us up to security and safety issues, property value drops & outright living in fear. We have a park in our tract that will potentially become the hangout for the people of the shelter, all they have to do is walk across State College Blvd and they are at the pedestrian entrance to our housing tract. This park is a little league park full of kids on the weekends, and homeowners including myself walk the park frequently in the mornings and evenings. A great many of the homeowners in this tract are older single women like myself who live alone and the thought of our community/tract being opened up to this kind of influx of homeless and mentally ills is frightening. I have already had my house broken into and robbed in the recent past and what is being proposed will bery likely increase the chance of this happening again. It’s bad enough that our neightborhood has been turned into a parking lot by the students from Cal State Fullerton and the city won’t help us with that issue, now we are going to be asked to have the residents of this shelter desend on us also. I know this seems like the old “not in my backyard” standard but truthfully this is a very disconcerting and potentially dangerous situation for us. It seems like there must be an available building in a more industrial location rather than this one so close to homes, little league fields and schools. And what happens when the over/under pass project reaches State College?
I know my voice probably doesn’t matter and nothing will change as it appears deals have already been made and this is being railroaded through but I hope at the very least that the pedestrian entrance at the corner of State College and Fender will be completely sealed up. And when our houses get broken into or tagged and the mentally ill and homeless accost us at the park I hope you will personally come visit us to see what you have allowed.
Sign me
A very unhappy Fullerton resident
Hopefully this tax-payer’s voice will matter, although the odds seem against it.
In the wake of the Kelly Thomas murder at the hands of the FPD, two different yet eerily similar tactics emerged for deflecting responsibility away from the cops.
Fullerton’s antique liberal crowd quickly banded together so that society itself could be blamed, not the FPD: the problem was not murderous, corrupt or even incompetent cops. Oh, no. The problem was one of homelessness and the solution was to provide a homeless shelter! Why Kelly would probably even be alive today!
On the other hand, the anonymous cop-protectors keep insisting that the problem lay with poor parenting for Kelly’s death, as if a schizophrenic, 35 year-old man was somehow the responsibility of his parents, and as if that somehow exculpates the six cops who beat him to death and stood around laughing as he died in a pool of his own blood.
Of course both groups relied heavily upon a completely comical whitewash of the FPD Culture of Corruption by paid-for opinion of Michael Gennaco.
Two different cliques, two very similar tactics.
The County of Orange’s attempt to cram a permanent homeless shelter in east Fullerton across the street from single-family homes and an elementary school have taught us four things, so far.
First, it is very clear that no Fullerton elected representatives were told anything about this high-handed plan. Second, the County can do it with or without the City’s agreement. Third, nobody at the County gives a damn that they will be paying $3.15 million for a broken down old building that nobody knows the cost to make habitable. Four, the media will never report any of this.
As to the first point, here is a report about a meet and greet event by Fullerton Mayor Bruce Whitaker, who asked the County for a few weeks’ delay so that the City Council could learn just what the County has in store for us. Request denied.
And here is an e-mail we received from some local resident who says he has just started a petition to seek redress:
Subject: Homeless shelter
Hello!I’ve started the petition “Fullerton city council: Stop the County from opening a 24/7 homeless shelter at 301 S St College Bl” and need your help to get it off the ground.Will you take 30 seconds to sign it right now? Here’s the link:Here’s why it’s important:
This is a 29,000 square foot building that is located near an elementary school, park and houses. This homeless shelter will make Fullerton the dumping ground for homeless. Crime will increase and spread to the whole area. This deal is being done without much awareness from the public. A life long friend of County Supervisor Nelson stands to make nearly 100k from the deal. This is bad for North OC. This shelter will end up looking like skid row in downtown LA where crime and drug use is rampant. Fullerton is not LA.
You can sign my petition by clicking here.
Thanks!
Well, good luck with that! Apparently the County can do whatever it likes and your County Supervisor isn’t interested in your opinion.
It appears that the good folks down at the County of Orange, allied with the local professional do-gooders are intent on placing a regional homeless shelter at 301 S. State College, in Fullerton.
The only problem is that nobody decided to let the neighbors know; or, even our own City Council, it seems.
The County Board of Supervisors voted 5-0 to proceed with the purchase of the old Linder’s Furniture store for $3,150,000. Yes, you read that right. Fullerton Mayor Bruce Whitaker showed up to the meeting asking for more time so that his City Council could at least be afforded the opportunity to at least get briefed on the matter (gee that would have been nice). Some neighbors showed up, too, but to no avail. They may as well have stayed home.
The project, apparently the brainchild of our own Supervisor Shawn Nelson, is located across the street from a single family neighborhood and an elementary school, too. It’s hard to tell what is motivating Nelson, but judging by comments to the Voice of OC and the Register he seems intent on proving to the housing bureaucrats and Fullerton’s liberals what effective leadership looks like. Unfortunately he forgot that leaders need to build consensus around their ideas, not dictate them from on high.
Anyway, the pictures of the building on the County’s website show a decrepit 45 year-old building that I think is going to have to be completely rebuilt before humans can spend the night in it. Nobody has even begun to calculate those costs, although the County has 150 days to do “due diligence” whatever that may mean. You may count on many times the purchase price before they are done; running the operation will be a non-profit paid for by you and me.
The other four Supervisors are probably snickering at Nelson behind his back. They’ll get credit for their humanitarian propensities. East Fullerton gets the booby prize.
Manny Ramos and Jay Cicinelli, two of the six Fullerton cops who presided over the death of transient Kelly Thomas on July 5th, 2011 were told today by Superior Court judge Froeberg that they would be standing trial in June for the death of the schizophrenic homeless man. Their running buddy, Joe Wolfe the third Fullerton cop charged, has another hearing to dismiss in March.
According to the judge there was sufficient evidence to go to trial. Of course we already knew that; and we also know that newly minted Chief Danny Hughes, the boss of the Fullerton Six told them they did a good job that night. He also claimed there was no Culture of Corruption in the FPD, and other bedtime fairy tales.
Kelly Thomas was killed eighteen months ago.
Dear Friends, we received the following e-mail from an unhappy resident of the neighborhood around Chapman Park, across the street from the location the County is proposing to buy for $3.15 million to transform into a permanent homeless shelter.
It always interests me to see that those politicians and bureaucrats who support obnoxious land uses of one kind or another always seem suitably removed, geographically, from any undesirable effects of their decisions.
Take the case of the permanent homeless shelter proposed by the County (and possibly our own City Council – nobody really knows what has been agreed to behind closed doors – with zero input from us) on State College. It would be located across the street from the Chapman Park neighborhood where we live. To the north are two story apartments and an elementary school; right next door and to the rear are other commercial properties. But it is a long, long way from any residence of the decision makers. Surprised? Not me.
We will be told that such facilities need to be built where public transportation exists. Okay. But in the next breath we learn that getting the homeless out of downtown Fullerton is required. How come? That is the very heart of the transportation network in north Orange County. La Palma Park in Anaheim is ground zero for the homeless population of north orange County and is located astride not one but THREE bus lines.
Since the County’s only requirements are that their shelter be on a bus route and away from downtown Fullerton, here’s a thought. Let’s build the shelter next to Hillcrest Park, or near the Brea Dam – near two bus lines – on City owned property that won’t cost anybody a dime. Of course it would be pretty near where Jan Flory and Doug Chaffee live. Or maybe it could be built on some open space in Coyote Hills – near the Euclid bus line and not far from Jennifer Fitzgerald and Shawn Nelson’s homes.
Another effort by the lawyers for the FPD cops charged in the murder of transient Kelly Thomas has failed.
The Voice of OC(EA) has the story succinctly, here. Apparently the issue will be revisited again on the 18th in Judge William R. Froeberg’s court, but from the statements made by the judge it sure looks like this will go forward.
Fullertonstories is reporting here, that the County of Orange wants to build a homeless shelter on south State College in Fullerton. They may be soon buying the Linder Furniture store for $3,000,000.
This may not be good news to the folks who live in the single family neighborhood across the street and who take their kids to the Commonwealth Elementary School which is virtually adjacent to this site. The folks I know over in the Chapman Park area have heard nothing about this venture, which makes me wonder whose big idea this was and why the neighbors have not even been informed.
Amazingly, it would appear from the article that the County’s “search criteria” only included that the shelter be on a bus line and moved away from Downtown Fullerton. Nice.
How much of this “plan” has already been secretly approved by our own City Council goes unmentioned. Has a deal already been work out with the City? It’s hard to believe the County would buy real estate without the approval of the City Council, or at least the City staff.
Apparently the County Board of Supervisors is voting on this purchase Tuesday. I wonder when the government plans on telling anybody about this.