Friends For Fullerton's Future – Page 258 – FFFF supports causes that promote intelligent, responsible and accountable government in Fullerton and Orange County

July 13, 2010July 13, 2010Downtown Fullerton

Metrolink Expanding, But Where Are The Riders?

The following commentary was sent to us by a friend who is concerned about a questionable Metrolink service expansion from Fullerton to Laguna Niguel.

A fourth track is currently being built at the Fullerton Station, exclusively for Metrolink’s new Orange County service — dubbed Metrolink Service Expansion Program (MSEP) by the folks at OCTA. I believe the concept is flawed from the start, and last I heard it is costing taxpayers at least $417 million.

metrolink_spokeshole — Anyone up for a ride to Laguna Niguel?

I’ve asked numerous people at Metrolink how OCTA justifies the demand for this service. Nobody has an answer. Since it will run between Fullerton and Laguna Niguel only, it’s totally useless for commuters needing to get to Los Angeles. In my experience riding Metrolink, there are very few passengers riding such short distances in Orange County. If a person can afford $14 for a round-trip ticket Fullerton to Irvine and back, there’s a very good chance they already have a car and won’t bother to ride the train.

Furthermore, this service won’t appeal to bus riders unless OCTA drastically reduces the fares. That won’t happen… they just raised the fares again on July 1st. OCTA’s pipe dream to operate this service “every 30 minutes” makes a stupid idea all the more ludicrous.

There’s an angle to this which will affect the Fullerton Station (and the surrounding area) in a big way. Since the northbound trains terminate at Fullerton, the station area will become a layover terminal (akin to an airport) for people needing to get to Los Angeles. Suppose somebody takes the wrong northbound, thinking it goes to Los Angeles, and finds themselves in Fullerton having to wait HOURS for the next train to Los Angeles. There will be people sleeping on benches, sleeping on the ground, leaving their trash all over the place, etc, etc. The local restaurants will have to deal with freeloaders using their bathrooms. It just won’t be a good situation.

July 12, 2010July 11, 2010Dead heads

Who Should Pay To Clean Up The Mess in Downtown Fullerton?

by admin10 Comments

hooligan — Welcome to Downtown Fullerton

Surely not the businesses that don’t sell booze.

Last year a few downtown Fullerton property and business owners lobbied the City Council to impose an tax assessment on downtown Fullerton. The purpose of this “Business Improvement District” was to raise money to clean up the mess introduced into Downtown by the numerous booze joints and illegal dance clubs.

The first step was predictable: hire yourself a “consultant” who will tell you what you want to hear. But the price tag was too steep and the promoters couldn’t get a clear majority of the Council to go along.

But apparently now Councilwoman Sharon Quirk-Silva has changed her mind about hiring a consultant to meet and greet and spread the BID propaganda.

The direction here is all too clear: build up some momentum toward the idea and then rely on the self-interested parties to vote their interest and hope that the other property owners don’t catch on.

Well I think this stinks. Why should all the downtown property owners pay to fix the problems caused by the bar owners and their out-of-control customers, not to mention a City policy that has enabled all these problems? And let’s not forget – former police chief and council candidate Patrick McKinley who liked to look the other way.

And why should the taxpayers keep footing the bill?

July 11, 2010July 11, 2010Arts & Architecture

When is An Historic Resource Not An Historic Resource?

by Fred L. Olmsted20 Comments

kung fu — As quickly as you can, Grasshopper, snatch the park from its owners...

When it’s Fullerton’s Hillcrest Park, of course. Then it’s a resource of a different kind: an opportunity for City Staff to play upon the sentimentality of Fullerton’s park and history lovers to destroy the very resource that is ostensibly being saved.

They did it 15 years ago and they are doing it again.

I went to Saturday’s latest public meeting to “save the park” and witnessed something quite remarkable. Just like last time the City staff has employed a consultant to remake the park in its own desired form, replete with new facilities it can market or operate, while ignoring the true needs of the old girl.

But this time the ludicrousness of the whole operation became apparent immediately. A representative of the landscape architect hired to foist the exploitative plan informed us all what was wrong with Hillcrest Park. It has bad chi. And all these years we just thought it was neglect by the parks and police departments. Chi. Hmm.

So what’s the solution to clean up the chi and get things all aligned, nice and proper?

A restaurant, for one thing, down by the duck pond; and a new park entrance; new retaining walls along the Brea Creek and an abandonment of the interior roadways might just get that troublesome chi back in balance, we were informed.

Ye Gods! Chi. What’s next, park feng shui?

obi-wan-kenobi-01-large — Use the Force, Luke...

I don’t know how much we’re paying these yahoos to further destroy our park, but I’ll bet it’s a lot. And I’ll also bet that Redevelopment money is picking up at least part of the tab. And ultimately the only way to pay to comprehensively destroy this historic resouce is to use big piles of Redevelopment money to do it. Redevelopment destroying historic resources. That’s not a new theme.

Hillcrest Park is on the National Register of Historic places but nobody seems to treat it like it were. Only last year the City embarked on massive alterations to the north slope of the park without review by the Landmarks Commission.

Well, good luck Hillcrest. And in the meantime may the chi be with you.

July 10, 2010July 10, 2010Don Bankhead

Ever Get The Feeling…

by admin3 Comments

…that somebody is loading you up with a pile of road apples?

Manure — Be sure to pour it on nice and thick...

Good thing Sharon Quirk-Silva knows when to call for a tow. Had it not been for Quirk-Silva the city may have broken the law (again). Watch and see for yourself when Mayor Bankhead asks the police captain how he is supposed to break the law after the tow truck drivers explained to the city council the state law pertaining to private parties towing vehicles.

The city attorney Elena Gerli sure expends a lot of words, but she manages to evade the main issue: her proposed code amendment was created in a vacuum.

So how much per hour are we paying for this mumbo jumbo?

July 9, 2010July 10, 2010Parks and Trails

News Flash From Hillcrest Park Pals

by Fred L. Olmsted1 Comment

On Saturday morning from 9:00 to noon, the City of Fullerton and landscape architect Mia Leher will present two alternative master plans for the restoration/preservation of Hillcrest Park. The meeting is open to the public and will be held at the picnic pavilion near the recreation center.

Recently the north hill of Hillcrest Park was raped of it’s natural grade and historic landscape. For those of you that don’t know, the city of Fullerton Landmarks Commission is required by law to review and approve (or disapprove) of any changes to local and/or National Historic Landmarks. Hillcrest Park is both. To this day, the Fullerton Landmarks Commission has never addressed the issue of the Lyons Field renovation which included the north hill of Hillcrest Park.

This may be the last chance for real public input. If you want to be heard, the time is NOW. Please show up at the meeting on Saturday. If you can’t make it, you can still join Hillcrest Park Pals by sending an email to: HILLCRESTPARKPALS@GMAIL.COM.

July 8, 2010July 8, 2010Big Brother

Another DUI Checkpoint

by Travis19 Comments

Tomorrow night hundreds of law-abiding citizens will be stopped and questioned at a Fullerton DUI/license checkpoint while a few dozen officers stand around drinking coffee and earning overtime pay.

Unlike the previous checkpoint in May, the location of this one is being kept secret. If you want to know where the checkpoint will be, try hanging out at the local bars, where word of the location will spread immediately.

We’ve talked about how these checkpoints are extremely ineffective, nabbing only a couple of drunks while deploying a huge amount of police resources at our expense.

The police department has struggled to explain the lack of significant arrests, and has resorted to justifying the checkpoints as mere “safety education.” Our highly trained and well-compensated police officers have been reduced to handing out M.A.D.D. flyers in the middle of the street, one car at a time. That’s a task that could easily be done for free by M.A.D.D. volunteers in the bar parking lots. Of course, that approach wouldn’t be very lucrative for the police department.

These checkpoints are ineffective, invasive and expensive. It’s time to replace them with regular DUI patrols.

July 7, 2010Fullerton City Council

Time to Tow Jones & Mayer Away?

by Travis14 Comments

Attorneys are expensive for a reason… they’re supposed to be smarter than the rest of us. But once again our high-priced legal experts from Jones and Mayer have failed to impress.

In haste to find a new revenue generating scheme, the Fullerton Police Department worked with Jones & Mayer attorney Elena Gerli (of former bicycle nuisance fame) to draw up an ordinance that would raise towing fees and create a new “franchise opportunity” within the city. For Fullerton motorists, that translates to more fees for the same ‘ol service. But I digress.

A series of tow operators gave detailed testimony that passing the ordinance would be a violation of several state laws. The City Attorney then gave a sketchy rebuttal (more on this subject in a future post) that failed to mitigate the council’s concerns, Sharon Quirk-Silva quickly took the lead in sending the attorney back to the drawing board and calling for a study session to prevent another legal mess for our city.

Was our attorney outsmarted by a group of tow truck drivers? It seems like it. We’ll find out in a few more weeks, but not until they’ve squeezed out another round of billable hours.

Why do I feel like we’ve been here before? Let’s see… a bureaucracy’s insatiable desire to increase revenue combined with poor legal advice, leading to eventual lawsuits and thus diverting any potential “profits” into the welcoming arms of Jones and Mayer.

Ah yes, it’s the red light camera disaster all over again.

July 7, 2010July 7, 2010Repuglicanism

Double Losers

by Mr. Peabody15 Comments

We thought you might get a kick out of the list of repuglican losers who decided that backing the despicable carpetbagging scampaign of Linda Ackerwoman in 2009 was just not enough; they decided to double down on the comical carpetbagging perjuror, Hide and Seek Sidhu in 2010. The common denominator? Hard to tell – personal ambition, fear, stupidity, and complete lack of ethical compass all seem to be motivators for these people:

Fullerton Councilman Dick Jones

County Supervisor Bill Campbell

County Supervisor Janet Nguyen

Assemblyman Jim Silva

Congressman Dana Rohrbacher

Anaheim mayor Curt Pringle

Placentia Councilman Jeremy Yamaguchi

Former County Supervisor Cynthia Coad

Brea Councilman Roy Moore

Yes, it’s a pretty exclusive crew, if a bit motley around the edges. It’s not easy to find a collection of folks whose ambition is only outweighed by stupidity or cupidity, so you’ve got to give them some credit of a sort.

There may also be other members of this club. If you can think of any be sure to let us know.

July 6, 2010Fullerton City Council

On the Agenda – July 6th, 2010

by Christian3 Comments

Happy 4^th of July! Coming off of a nice three-day weekend for city staff we are faced with a council meeting tonight wherein we can expect to see our millions of tax dollars senselessly squandered away. View the agenda.

If you haven’t seen the agenda, please do. We start off with the usual property negotiations to gobble up more low-income housing so we can give it away to a private developer.

In open session we have the consent calendar which no sane person would actually consent to – but we already knew that.

Item 2 is the Public Works 7-year Capital Improvement Program wherein PW Director Hoppe concocts a way to spread some money over all of the broken infrastructure. Doing so shows the Feds that we mean well but have no money. The truth is if we wanted to, we could fix a few serious issues now and delay some of the more minor ones. But we won’t. We will wait and watch more roads crumble, precious water resources bubble up from broken water mains, and our sidewalks lifted up by city trees. Worth noting is that the Harbor Boulevard slope failure that has been threatening pedestrians and motorists for more than a year has been pushed back until FY2012-13. Oh well; what do you expect? The 7-Year CIP covers $70,874,000 of tax dollars.

Item 3 is a wireless carrier lease for the Euclid Tank Farm for $1,577 per mo with 4% increase each year.

(more…)

July 6, 2010July 6, 2010About Us

One Thousand Posts Later…

by Jan Florys Dog4 Comments

Well, Friends, this is our 1000th blog post.

Those thousand posts have taken us from the ridiculous to the sublime; from the arid steppes of Kharakhastan to the steaming jungles of Tanzanisha; into the squalid precincts of the Poisoned Park; through a sad litany of humiliating Redevelopment failures.

Friends around the world have darkened our blogstep, including irrepressible Barney Wewak, the Papuan Highlands tribal headman and 1974 Troy High School exchange student.

We have exposed the unintentional corn pone comedy of our beloved Doc HeeHaw; we have chronicled the heavenly observations of Jan Flory’s deceased canine (me). We have skewered repuglican miscreants and Democrat boohoo spendthrifts. We have awarded coveted Fringie Awards© to the deserving among us.

We have shared the serial nonsense of the Yellowing Submariners at the decrepit and irrelevant Fullerton Observer. We noted the vacuousness of the local mainstream media.

We have blasted unscrupulous carpetbaggers – from the revolting Linda Ackerwoman to the comical Lorri Galloway and the even more comical #2 – Hide and Seek Harry Sidhu whose phony residence at the now infamous Calabria Apartments must rank as the stoopidest stunt ever pulled by an OC politician.

As the Fullerton Redevelopment bureaucrats like to say: much has been accomplished, yet much remains to be done. With the perpetual misbehavin’ and idiocies of our electeds to provide us constant inspiration, we seemingly will always have job security!