Friends For Fullerton's Future

February 24, 2010July 8, 2010Big Brother

Will Fullerton Cash in on DUI Checkpoints?

California Watch released a report last week suggesting that DUI checkpoints in many California cities are focused on revenue generation via vehicle impounds rather than stopping drunk drivers. OC Register data shows that checkpoints in some OC cities stop relatively few drunk drivers, but do cash in on massive impound fees through revenue-sharing agreements with local impound yards. Most of the impounds come from unlicensed drivers, not DUI arrests.

We couldn’t help but notice that Fullerton PD is ready to pitch the creation of it’s own impound yard to the city council in the coming weeks. Revenue generation is the motive.

Coincidentally, the city has planned six DUI checkpoints in Fullerton through the end of summer.

So what’s the problem?

First, the report states that many cities are ignoring case law that would prevent them from making many of the current non-DUI related impounds. The article quotes Fullerton attorney Martin J. Mayer of the law firm Jones & Mayer, who has warned law enforcement agencies statewide that this could become a big legal problem.

Second, many contend that DUI checkpoints are a violation of the fourth amendment – the right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure. Checkpoints stop dozens of innocent drivers in order to catch a single DUI offender. Unfortunately courts have ruled that protecting citizens from drunk drivers gives the state a compelling interest to ignore the 4th amendment.

But what happens when the courts find out that DUI checkpoints aren’t really about stopping drunk drivers, but rather impounding vehicles for cash?

It will be interesting to see how this plays out in Fullerton. The curious timing of the California Watch story, Fullerton PD’s impound lot proposal and the ramped-up DUI checkpoints does make one wonder if there is more to this story.

February 24, 2010February 24, 2010OC's Fourth District

Lorri Galloway Has Friends

by admin6 Comments

A quick google search of Lorri Galloway discovers this website, constructed during her 2008 re-election campaign.

The site appears to have been manned/operated by “researcher” and current Mauve County wholesale purveyor of sanctimony, Cynthia Ward, aka Colony Rabble, so you can take it for what it’s worth.

As a public service we pass it along.

February 23, 2010February 23, 2010Dead heads

Mauve County Mauve For Good?

by Mr. Peabody8 Comments

It seems that Matthew J. Cunningham, editor of the dismal Mauve County forgot the lesson he once learned when his wife left him in charge of the laundry and he threw his white bikini briefs in with the old lady’s red blouse.

For the past year Cunningham, has been studiously avoiding discussing the subject of why his mentor, boss Repuglican John Lewis was supporting Democrat Tom Daly’s campaign for County Supervisor; and even, some said, running it through a surrogate.

Only recently Cunningham brought on a contributor named Cynthia Ward to post pro-Daly junk and attack the other candidates. That backfired last Friday afternoon when Daly quit, and now the blog is stuck with a sanctimonious NIMBY liberal – one of those types who are Republicans only because dear old dad was.

Cunningham claimed from the get go that Mrs. Ward, who calls herself Colony Rabble, was brought on board to give an “Anaheim perspective;” better still he also claimed that his blog was a big tent “right-of-center” operation, presumably big enough to include a person who is about as conservative as Eleanor Roosevelt. Nobody was buying that load of horse shit.

So Daly is gone, but Ward is still around. Will anyone even notice? Consider the transparently orchestrated attack on Fullerton’s Shawn Nelson by some semi-literate goon named Thomas Anthony Gordon that came out of left field last week in mauve land. What was that all about? Pretty bad for a self-purported conservative blog.

Will the former “Red County” operators now do the right thing by getting behind the race’s only real conservative, Shawn Nelson, a man who actually lives in the 4th District? Don’t bet on it. The Mauve gang have already demonstrated their attachment to self-interest and revenue uber alles.

It looks like the mauve are mauve for good, and no bleach is gonna fix that load of laundry.

February 23, 2010February 23, 2010Dead heads

The CRA Endorses Sidhu. Oh Really?

by admin12 Comments

Harry'sFriend — Let me tell you. That was then.

The other day the OC branch of the California Republican Assembly voted to endorse Harry Sidhu in his carpetbagging quest to be our next County supervisor. Good heavens, now that’s a switcheroo! Just look what the CRA had to say about our buddy Sidhu less than two years ago – when the office-hungry politician ran for another job he wasn’t qualified for:

http://www.redcounty.com/orange-county/2008/05/sd33-mailbox-cra-drops-on-ie-c

P.S. Thanks to the Mauve County for access to their invaluable historical archives.

February 23, 2010February 23, 2010Dead heads

Just Like We Thought

by admin15 Comments

One of our Friends has alerted us that over at the Mauve County, blog where the atmosphere is getting bluer every day, Matthew J. Cunningham has scribbled out one of his tedious Excedrin-not-included posts, this time attacking an excellent post written on our blog by John Seiler, right here.

This was Seiler’s post that described the attempted smear on Shawn Nelson by somebody called Thomas Anthony Gordon – a semi-literate goon from Santa Ana, on the Mauve blog. We previously had some fun with goof-ball Gordo and his Mauve County playmates, here, and here.

What’s really funny is that Gordon is apparently incapable of addressing Seiler’s post himself – too much subtlety of thought going on, no doubt – so into the breach leaps Mr. Wordsmith to counterattack – a pretty good indicator that that Cunningham was the one who helped set up Gordon for all this nonsense in the first place, just like we thought.

What’s really funny, or pathetic, depending on your point of view, is that John Seiler is a strong libertarian conservative – the very traits that should be applauded on a “right-of-center” blog. But no. According to Cunningham, Seiler, whose keyboard Jerb couldn’t carry, is just another Ron Paul nut. Apparently Seiler’s concept of limited government is way out of fashion at Mauve Central where self-interest has always trumped principle.

Well, Jerb has one thing going for him. We know he reads our blog regularly. And even though he has stopped posting comments here under multiple aliases, we’re pretty sure that his ongoing contact with a citizen’s blog that promotes responsible government will do him some good.

February 23, 2010February 23, 2010Arts & Architecture

What’s Happening to The Hetebrink House?

by admin42 Comments

jheterbrink — This magnificent structure is like no other house in Fullerton.

About 23 years ago, the Chancellor of FJC told me that the NOCCCD was interested in acquiring the magnificent Mission Revival Hetebrink House because the JC needed more parking and the property would make a great parking lot. Little did he know that I was the founder of Fullerton Heritage. I was however, unable to convince him that the house was a significant structure and should not be torn down (especially with our tax dollars) for a parking lot.

The following week I introduced myself to the old-timer who lived on the property and who had been living there since he was 14 years old! His dad had built the house out of concrete bricks that were made on site. Oh, the stories John “Pete” Hetebrink told me about growing up in Fullerton were just amazing, I just wish I owned a video camera in those days.

Over the next several years Pete and I continued meeting and then one day I asked if he would like the house to be registered on the National Register of Historic Places to help save the house from the wrecking ball after he was gone. Heck, he was in his late 90’s at the time. He told me that decision would require both his sisters Hyacinth and Dorthy’s consent. So we arranged for a meeting at which time I had prepared an application for the National Register of Historic Buildings and Places. They were very exited that the house their dad had built and the house that they all grew up in was going to become a landmark. So we had a “signing party” and the rest is history.

Pete has since died, and the house has been passed on to other family members.

A friend of mine called me this morning and asked if I knew what was happening to the Hetebrink house, so I drove over there and this is what I saw.

The property had some serious structural problems twenty years ago that were unaddressed because the Hetebrinks didn’t have the resources to make the repairs. Things have only gotten worse as indicated by the deteriorated balcony at the second floor loggia.

Hopefully the heirs of Pete Hetebrink can start addressing the deterioration of this great house.

February 23, 2010February 24, 2010Shawn Nelson

Tonight: Fundraiser for Shawn Nelson at the Matador Cantina

by Travis5 Comments

Please join Congressman Ed Royce, Assemblyman Chris Norby, and the host committee for hors d’oeuvres at the Matador Cantina in Historic downtown Fullerton.

Matador Cantina
111 N. Harbor Blvd
Fullerton, CA

Reception 5:30-8:00 PM
Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010

Business Attire

TO RSVP PLEASE CONTACT:
J. Allen Pitkin (949) 232-8882

More information at www.nelsonforsupervisor.com/events

February 22, 2010February 22, 2010Arts & Architecture

Monday Haiku

by Yoshii The Bushido Poet2 Comments

Lucky bells jingle

A small cloud is pushed by spring winds

Pennies from Heaven

February 21, 2010February 21, 2010Dead heads

For Harry Sidhu Carpetbagging Isn’t the Worst of it

by Mr. Peabody14 Comments

He’s smiling because he’s thinking about how damn stupid you are. Too stupid too remember that his very first campaign act was to commit a fraud, a lie, a falsification of public documents: a phony voting registration address at the seedy Calabria Apartments in west Anaheim behind the Linbrook Pool hall.

How do we know it was a fake address? Well, Harry told us it was. He did that when his campaign handlers made him re-register at a more plausible although still dubious address – just four short weeks later! When he did that he acknowledged that his first address was just an outright lie; a lie perpetrated on you and me and everybody else in the 4th Supervisorial District. If you believe in the second address you have to admit the first one was a fake.

Now, why would Sidhu think he could get away with such an obvious thing and why would he do it in the first place? It’s really pretty simple. He has nothing but disrespect for the people he wants to represent; and of course the vast ego that drives the political ambition of a rich office hound. This is his third political campaign in two years, and his fifth in less than eight years.

The case is simple. Sidhu tried to carpetbag his way into the campaign with the fake address. And only when he got caught in that lie did he cook up yet another address – his third in a month. And so his own actions have proved what he and his handlers had hoped wouldn’t become evident: that Sidhu suffers from a very serious case of truth decay and bad case of disrespect for his would-be constituents.

February 20, 2010February 20, 2010Arts & Architecture

The Making of An Eyesore; And a Hell of a Climb, Too

by admin16 Comments

A little less than 20 years ago, some friends and I stood in front of the Fullerton City Council pleading with the Redevelopment Agency to build a pedestrian underpass at the train station instead of a steel bridge overpass. We had three reasons. The first was expense: an underpass was about half the cost of a bridge. Second was the matter of practicality and convenience: it is easier for a pedestrian to climb 24 steps versus 49; not to mention the cost of maintaining two elevators. Third, the bridge was going to tower over the Historic Santa Fe Depot – a real incongruous pairing and one in which the Depot suffered.

When the question was asked to the city staff during the public hearing about the possibilities of an underpass the Fullerton Redevelopment Manager Terry Galvin answered that an underpass would be too dangerous and could end up smelling like urine and besides, “nobody builds underpasses.” He even dug up an incident (and only one!) where somebody got stabbed – in Raton, New Mexico. Ooooooh, so scary! The fact of the matter is that an underpass would have been a mere 50 feet long – a little more than half the distance from home plate to first base!

The staff also dismissed Vince Buck’s brilliant idea of using the existing Harbor grade separation to get people from one side of the tracks to the other, a solution that would have been the most practical and cost efficient of all!

What has always bothered me about the city staff is that when they want something they will not give the city council all of the pertinant facts to make an intelligent decision; or they will deliberately inflate the project they want and diminish options they don’t want. And then the city council does not hold anyone on staff accountable for the messes they create. And that my Friends, is the history of Redevelopment in Fullerton.

A couple years later I was at the Oceanside train station and guess what?

Of course lots of local Metrolink/Amtrak stations now have underpasses including Orange, Tustin, Laguna Niguel and many others. Money was saved, citizens were spared visual monstrosities, and maintenance costs were minimized.

But in Fullerton we have Molly McClanahan (who voted for the bridge), and her immortal words: hindsight is 20/20.

Almost twenty years later and the City of Fullerton doesn’t even seem to bother with the graffiti etched into the elevator towers’ glass.