Round round get around
I get around
Yeah
Get around round round I get around
I get around
Get around round round I get around
From town to town
Get around round round I get around
I’m a real cool head
Get around round round I get around
I’m makin’ real good bread
(with apologies to Brian Wilson)
On a previous post we regaled our Friends with the story of lobbyist and cash-conduit Steve Sheldon and his nautical fund raising effort on behalf of Sharon Quirk who later voted to approve his god-awful Jefferson Commons monstrosity.
Don't buy a used car from this man...
What we didn’t share is that Sheldon is also a politician – President of The OC Water District and he’s having a “debt retirement” party!
We suppose he didn’t make enough money foisting the loathsome Jefferson Commons on us to pay off his debt himself. Instead he’s asking other lobbyists to do it! What’s really interesting is the names on the “Honorary Host Committee.” These are the politicians who get into the party for free, and thus are actually being lobbied by the irrepressible Sheldon as he high-steps for other lobbyists! See if you recognize any names on the list.
Woohoo! Open Bar, baby!
We note that our own Don Bankhead is on the list – another aye vote for JC (no, not Jesus Christ). At least Sharon Quirk had the good sense to stay off that list. With majorities of their city council members on it, we’d be really worried if we were residents of Garden Grove or Santa Ana.
The very job title shouts out: "Nineteenth Century!"
H/T to Art Pedroza over at The Orange Juice Blog for this. Apparently our fellow blogger 4th District Supervisor, Chris Norby has a real-life opponent in his 2010 bid to be Clerk-Recorder (say, why is that job elected, anyway?). “Hugh” Nguyen who used to work as a functionary in the Clerk-Recorder’s office is not only running, he’s hired a top-level GOP campaign consultant – Scott Hart and is even having a fund raiser. Hmm.
This is a story that relates a chain of events that goes back many years, Gentle Readers, so please be patient. For those who don’t think Redevelopment spends half its time fixing mistakes it created with the other half, we promise that you will learn a lot about the way your city has been run – in three bite-size installments.
Why can't they leave stuff alone?
Way, way back in the 1980s Terry Galvin of the Redevelopment Agency cooked up a deal with the Union Pacific Railroad to acquire their Mission Revival depot on Truslow and Harbor. It was properly seen as a valuable historic resource, but damn the luck! It was on the wrong side of the tracks! Galvin’s plan was to relocate it to its current location on Harbor and Santa Fe, attach a weird-looking wood box addition to it, and present it to his pals at The Spaghetti Factory for $1 a year. The first of Fullerton’s subsidized restaurants offered cheap carbs to the masses, and why not? They weren’t paying any rent!
25 years of corporate welfare...
But how does this narration tie into something called “Paseo Park” you ask? Patience, Friends, patience.
As usual the Redevelopment “experts” created more problems than they solved, for the empty lot created by the relocation was soon to become a permanent dumping ground for trash and junk – right next to Harbor Boulevard in the veritable gateway to Downtown Fullerton! And the painful irony: blight as a by-product of Redevelopment! But it was in the barrio so nobody cared.
The UP site with the Allen Hotel in the distance: blight in the foreground, blight in the background, courtesy of Redevelopment.
But cleaning up junk on railroad property is not nearly so fun as playing Monopoly with other people’s money, and the problem festered for years and years – almost twenty to be exact; until the Union Pacific decided to unburden itself of this section of track and the adjacent depot site. Despite the fact that that the railroad was in negotiations with private citizens to buy the old depot site, the Redevelopment Agency led by Gary Chalupsky intervened, and acquired the property itself – with the ludicrous intention of building a trail and an adjacent park. The “trail” itself was utterly useless since it effectively ended at the Highland Avenue grade separation on one end, and the SoCo Walk project at the other. The park occupied the former depot space between Truslow and the trail. Check out the aerial.
And all the property was removed from the property-tax rolls forever.
How about Another Utility Tax Fix?
Apart from the trail to nowhere, the park project itself was a dubious venture from the start. The location was not auspicious, and nobody from the community really wanted it. Sparsely attended “community” meetings showed that people on Truslow were concerned about on-street parking and getting rid of blight – not creating more. And they weren’t interested in a hang-out for the local gangs and borrachos by creating a “pocket park.” Well the City never let that sort of thing stand in the way of progress.
Skeptical observers noted that vast Richman Park was only a few blocks away, but this did not dampen enthusiasm in City Hall for a land grab: Susan Hunt, the Director of Community Services, was in a facility building mood – and that’s all that counted. Redevelopment money was there to grease the skids.
Read the rest of the Paseo Park Chronicles – Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3
Fullerton taxpayers are looking down the barrel of a major increase in pension payments next year. The CalPERS agency has lost as much as 37% of its assets in the stock market crash and taxpayers are contractually obligated to make up the difference.
Our Friends at the California Foundation for Fiscal Responsibility just released a report called the CalPERS $100,000 Pension Club. In their handy database, we located the annual pensions of 26 City of Fullerton employees who are bringing home over $100,000 a year post-retirement at our expense. We believe in an open government where the residents of Fullerton know what they are paying for — so here is the list:
Name
Annual Pension
Position
JAMES “JIM” REED
$163,512.96
Fire
MICHAEL MAYNARD
$137,565.84
Police
DANIEL CHIDESTER
$136,680.84
Fire
FRANK PAUL DUDLEY
$131,197.20
Development Services Director
ALLEN BURKS
$131,152.92
Police
ANTONIO HERNANDEZ
$124,902.12
Police
H HUNT
$124,157.88
RONNY ROWELL
$122,712.12
Police
STEVEN MATSON
$121,586.16
Police
GEORGE NEWMAN
$120,332.76
MARK FLANNERY
$118,563.48
Director of Personnel
DAVID STANKO
$117,924.00
Police
ROBERT HODSON
$117,606.60
Director of Engineering
DANIEL BECERRA
$114,625.56
Police
PHILIP GOEHRING
$112,821.12
Police
BRAD HOCKERSMITH
$111,957.96
Fire
JEFFREY ROOP
$111,382.32
Police
NEAL BALDWIN
$110,694.12
Police
ROBERT “BOB” RICHARDSON
$107,643.48
Police
DONALD “DON” PEARCE
$105,858.00
Police
CAROLYN JOHNSON
$105,078.48
Library Director
PAUL TURNEY
$103,674.36
RONALD “RON” GILLETT
$103,431.72
Police
MICHAEL PARKER
$103,069.32
CSUF CIO
ARTHUR WIECHMANN
$102,113.88
Police
JONATHON “JON” MCAULAY
$100,036.32
Fire
Though we did our best to identify the contributions these individuals made to our city, some of the names do not ring a bell. Perhaps our loyal audience can fill in the blanks for us.
Say Fran... we really stuck it to those dumb taxpayers.
We are not against paying market rate for talented and motivated professionals to run our dear city — our disdain lies with the cloud of financial uncertainty that pension plans represent to our taxpayers. Historically, pensions are gleefully spiked in rosy times, with little thought given to potential long-term risks.
Out in the real world, we often use a calculation called “Total Compensation” — the sum of all salary, health benefits, taxes and retirement contributions for a given employee. This number allows both the employee and the employer to calculate the exact compensation of the employee and to ensure that it is comparable to that of similar jobs at other businesses. Businesses can see exactly what they are paying for an employee and thus how that will affect their budget for years to come.
With pensions, no such calculation is possible because an employer is making a future commitment based on unlikely investment forecasts stretching 50 years into the future. As we are about to painfully learn, those forcasts can be incredibly wrong. If we don’t change the way we compensate city employees now, we will continue to foot the bill for a very long time.
This YouTube clip of a recent Fullerton Redevelopment Agency strategy/workshop session is a must see for anyone who wants to see how their decisions are made. The audio has been artfully overdubbed to protect councilmembers from appearing ridiculous and thus preserving the dignity of their office.
UPDATE: In our carelessness we omitted citation for the image of “Donald’s Serva-teria. We got it here, and apologize for the oversight.
– Joe Sipowicz
In our previous post here we identified the buildings at the Hope University campus as “Exaggerated Modern.” Being unusually perspicacious, we have anticipated that some of our Friends will want an explanation of what this architectural term means, and that some even may suspect that we just make this stuff up for fun.
And so we have called upon the good offices of Dr. Ralph E. Haldemann, Art History Professor (Emeritus) at Otterbein College, Ohio – our adjunct Arts and Architecture editor – to expound upon the term he so helpfully provided for our prior post. We reproduce his scholarly explanation below:
Ralph E. Haldemann, Ph.D speaks...
The term “exaggerated modern” simply means a style that uses the materials and structural emphasis of Modern architecture, with exaggerated features: soaring, cantilevered roofs, expansive and often canted storefronts, and the deployment of exposed structural elements like precast concrete, steel trusses, etc., to emphasize engineering virtuosity. The style is resolutely exuberant, commercial, and auto-oriented. The style dominated American roadside architecture between 1955 and 1965, and even made inroads into high-style architectural efforts such as the buildings at Hope U.
A full flowering of the Exaggerated Modern
Exaggerated Modern ought not to be confused with the term “googie” – an applique design phenomenon that in some ways parallels Exaggerated Modern. Googie themes tend to be kitschy renditions of popular 1950s scientific imagery – atomic, astronomic, and zoological (amoeboid shapes); or fun arrangements of geometric shapes, patterns, and colors, etc. These energetic and playful themes will very likely be housed in structures exhibiting Exaggerated Modern attributes, or on attached or adjacent signage; but the two notions should not be conflated.
Now that's "googie"!
Professor Chester H. Liebs has aptly described the outlines and history of Exaggerated Modern in his magisterial book From Main Street to Miracle Mile, Little Brown & Co., Boston, 1985. cf. pages 59-64. click here to see
We have it on good authority that when Hope University hightails it from Fullerton to points south, the Exaggerated Modern buildings on their erstwhile campus may be in danger. How come? Because the very entity that built them in the 1960s – CSUF – is said to be eager to reacquire the property. Based on their recent architectural efforts, a massively overbuilt campus, plus the need to house more students like sardines, the future isn’t too hopeful for the buildings on the Hope U. campus.
Whoa, dudes. Time for class!
The complex of buildings that originally served CSUF as graduate student housing, bookstore, and cinema with their glass walls and soaring roofs have been recognized by many for their architectural value – but never by a governmental entity – and in government land planning thats all that really counts. They have not been recognized by the City, the County, or the State as an historical resource and at present have nothing standing between them and a possible wrecking ball except Fullerton Friends willing to work to preserve them.
Who wants to live in a student warehouse? Nobody, that's who.
If we set aside the irony of the CSUF buying back property they once owned, and focus on the aesthetic importance and the sound construction used and the opportunity for creative re-use, we can only conclude that these buildings are worth saving!
Please call State Assemblyman Mike Duvall (714/672-4734) immediately to let him know what you think; e-mail Fullerton City Council members (Council@ci.fullerton.ca.us) to let them know that this complex of buildings deserves to be an historic district. Don’t forget to call Chris Norby, County Supervisor at 714/834-3440 to ask for his support.
If you are a member of the heritage group be sure to tell your board that you want these gems of modern architecture preserved – unlike the buildings currently being demolished on Chapman Avenue to make way for the “Jefferson Commons” monstrosity.
WORKING TOGETHER WE CAN SAVE THIS RESOURCE FOR THE PEOPLE OF FULLERTON, ORANGE COUNTY, AND CALIFORNIA!
Wow. Style and substance. Don't see that much anymore...
P.S. We have asked our Arts & Architecture Department to develop an educational post to define just what “Exaggerated Modern” is. We hope (no university) you will stay tuned.
Yes, it may be said. Their dead are a lot fancier than ours.
The admin thought it best to give everyone a break and take you on a ride to Bonaventure Cemetery in Savannah. I suspect he wants a break from his Crackberry. Just take a break, hold the posts until Monday. I’ll take the Lord’s day, you plot the barbs you’re planning for next week.
Going to the cemetery is something I was raised doing. A few times a year, we’d clean up around where our grandparents lay, put flowers on the grave, then walk around trying to find the most unusual headstone, or better yet, go toward the pauper’s end of the cemetery and see how many had been added. But inevitably, the graves that always made us pause were those of children our age. Because we were a cemetery family, there wasn’t a summer vacation where we didn’t stop in at some obscure cemetery to visit its dead. Even photographs of funeral pyres taken during a trip to Nepal passed around after dinner were not considered unusual. Which reminds me, someday I’ll have to tell you about my labrador’s ashes.
And so a trip through Thunderbolt to see one of the grandest cemeteries in the nation was a natural thing for me. It’s off the road to Tybee Island, past stately Georgian brick homes, rib shacks, a perfect 50’s Buick and Cadillac dealer and other assorted businesses. Bonaventure used to be the outskirts of town –typical placement for a cemetery, and the city of Savannah grew around it.
"Eliza Wilhemina Theus" died 1895
Locals have said that “to be buried in Bonaventure Cemetery is better than being alive in most other places.” For almost 200 years, confederates, war heroes, city founders, children and gentlewomen have been buried here. They even moved some of the colonials here, like Noble Wimberly Jones. (Which, I think, is a smashing name).
Savannah deftly combines beauty and tragedy. This is the city that provided the bedrock for Flannery O’Connor, Conrad Aiken, and a wistful Johnny Mercer. From obelisks, sculptures, wrought iron fences and replicas of pearly gates, the cemetery is shaded by large trees covered with Spanish Moss. Each grave tells a story. Eliza Wilhemina Theus was the devoted wife of a southern gentleman and confederate soldier named Thomas Theus. He erected this large statue for her, then waited eight years before passing himself. Corinne Elliot Lawton died the night before her wedding in 1877. She sits waiting on the steps of her grave, the epitaph reads, “Allured to brighter worlds and led the way.”
"Allured to brighter worlds and led the way."
There are plots with entire families, many with small graves for children, even statues that look like them. There are soldiers from every war: from The War Of Northern Aggression, the Spanish-American War, and all others after. At the end of our wander, we came across the resting place of one of my favorite poets, Conrad Aiken, who penned these words:
I cannot remember the softness of a kiss,
The fleeting warmth of a breath.
The evening falls, and brings me only this —
The melancholy of some forgotten death.
Poet and writer, Conrad Aiken
After seeing so many graves, we finally reached the Wilmington River. With its sweeping views, tragic stories of the dead, beautiful sculptures and towering trees, Bonaventure is one of the great romantic cemeteries in the country.
Ironically, Thunderbolt is one of the areas I’ve been looking for a home in. It could be that one day, I might end up here myself. But before I do, I’d prefer to fulfill the destiny of becoming one of the local eccentrics who stops by, walks the dog, and has a chat with Miss Lawton.
For more on my trip to Savannah go to my blog. Then type in “Savannah” in the search box.
We don't leave until we find out what's going on in Fullerton
Former Fullerton tourists and bon vivants Jean Claude DuMonde and Charles Louis Verlaine getting excellent wifi connection, and enjoying illuminating and witty FFFF blog posts along the seedy cobblestone streets of Marseilles, prior to embarking for North Africa to participate in the Paris-Dakar rally.
My husband and I attended the opening night reception of Fullerton Museum’s new Forever Fullerton exhibit featuring the classic photography of world-renowned mid-century architectural photographer Julius Shulman. This was an especially exciting treat since I’ve admired his iconic images for years. But what made it even more special was the exhibit was comprised entirely of photos he took here in Fullerton during the 50s and 60s. More specifically of the Forever House tract of mid-century modern homes designed by Eichler design team Jones and Emmons. Click here to read more.
