A new month, the same old weeping by the Fullerton Observer about how the good ol’ boys are keeping poor Pam Keller from her entitlement to be mayor when the next term starts. It’s not fair! Not fair!
(Ed. – Never a word about Keller’s dismal votes on massive projects or her unique working relationship with FSD/Fullerton Collaborative, but that’s another story.)
We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: the person who is entitled to be mayor is the council person who can get two other people on the council to vote for him. Pretty simple. Nothing else really matters.
The author of this indignant drivel lays out a conspiracy tale of events behind the scenes to keep a Democrat out of the presiding chair; and as usual the plot centers around Shawn Nelson, without whom the Observer would have a lot less to natter on about. Ironically the tangled web includes Observer favorite Don Bankhead and by necessity another Observer endorsement recipient – Dick Jones! Observer chickens coming home to roost? God, let’s hope so!
Politics might be going on. The horror! Of course despite the Observer trying to emphasize the ceremonial (i.e. non-political) aspects of the mayorship, the fact is it is a very coveted title when re-election time rolls around – as it does for Pam Keller, next year. Aha! Politics!
So is a scheme being worked out to elect somebody else mayor for 2010? Possibly. Quite likely, although since none of the supposed principles would be likely to talk to Sharon Kennedy about it, it seems much more likely to be a pure guess on her part. Our congressman Ed Royce loves to meddle in these affairs; to him it seems easier than simply turning on the light and opening the closet door to discover that there really is no monster in there. Just some mops and brooms.
And speaking of politics, maybe The Observer should quit endorsing Ed Royce puppets like the chowderhead Jones and focus on somebody who could actually be counted on to support Keller for mayor. Oh no! More politics.
We’ve made a pretty big deal on this blog about the use of brick veneer, specifically, the way our Redevelopment Agency has always insisted on slathering it on to stuff to try to give the false appearance of historic structure, or under the guise of matching what is supposed to be the building material par excellence of downtown Fullerton: red brick.
We thought it was about time to get an historical perspective on the uses of architectural veneer – particularly masonry veneer, and so we have once again called upon the good offices of Dr. Ralph E. Haldemann, Professor or Art History (Emeritus) at Otterbein College, and our adjunct Arts and Architecture Editor. Doc?
When you want to find out, go to the best...
The question of the role of veneers in architectural history is really quite fascinating, but requires an amount (admittedly minimal) of erudition. I will try to sum up some thoughts on the subject.
In pre-modern times the nature of building materials basically necessitated that structural materials were de facto finished materials as well – although historical exceptions are not uncommon: we know of course, that the Romans during the Imperial Era were fond of using stone veneers on brick buildings to dress them up. Such uses of marble veneer were often used in the Western Mediterranean basin countries in Romanesque and Italian/Venetian Gothic buildings.
The use of plaster cement or lime-based coatings on brick, especially non-fired brick, has an ancient lineage that reaches forward into the adobe buildings of California’s own Mission period; however neither this application nor the modern use of lath and plaster on studs can be considered a veneer.
Medieval Europe, particularly in the non-deforested climes of the north, saw a rise in timber construction in which the structural members were exposed and the interstitial areas filled with plastered wattling. Again, such fill even though non-structural, cannot rightly be called a veneer.
With the advent of structural iron and steel, fill materials in modern commercial architecture remained brick (for practical and fireproofing reasons). However, terra cotta facings with ceramic finishes attached to the underlying structure became the norm from the 1890s through the 1920s; the wide adoption of moderne styles in the 20s and 30s often replaced highly detailed terra cotta with simpler and smoother concrete and even ceramic tile finishes. These uses generally applied a finished masonry surface over an unfinished substrate of common brick. These are veneers.
It was really in American domestic architecture that brick veneers (almost exclusively brick) captured the imagination of a growing bourgeois sensibility. After the industrial age had ushered in standardized lumber, machine made nails and mass produced balloon-frame wood houses, a longing for the perceived hominess and historicity of brick set in. This was aided by several cultural American Colonial Revivals, particularly in the early 20th Century that coincided nicely with eras of vast suburban expansion. It was all mostly a real eastate come-on.
The use of phony brick surfaces continued unabated in the little cracker box houses of the ’50s and persists happily to this very day, particularly in subdivisions where an emotional attachment to American historical antecedents is being peddled.
The use of fake brick fronts in commercial areas followed the same suburban trajectory as the use of the material in domiciles. It too persits today, particularly where city fathers and chambers of commerce wish to deal out a conjured up historical image for their otherwise unremarkable and humble burgs.
Modern architectural theory held that this sort of use of non-structural masonry veneer is fundamentally non-truthful, meretricious and basically a middlebrow (or lower) affectation. And so it is! And yet the Robert Venturi school of Post-Modernists embraced such use for its exuberance, color and tactile properties, as well as potential (often ironical) historical connotations. However it must be said that when the historical connotation is wrong, or the deployment is meant to be deceptive or even slavish, a real aestheic problem exists; and can, if left uncontrolled, lead to real civic embarrassment.
It takes guts to align yourself with the ragtag group of truth-spewers known as Friends for Fullerton’s Future. If you’ve got the stuff, become a fan of FFFF on Facebook. Bonus commentary, extra snarky remarks and invitations to special events await you. So get over there and click “Become a Fan”!
UPDATE: And once you join, don’t forget to invite your friends!
At least they said they did. We will certainly forgive you if you have your doubts. The boys in The Van were given an extra allocation of medicinal mushrooms after their last supposed Ackerman phone call coup, and, well, that’s an ingredient that could produce almost any kind of weird hallucination.
Anyway, here’s what the Undercover Surveillance Unit claims to have captured. Make of it what you will.
(phone ringing)
Dick Jones: Ahhm a comin’ (heavy panting noises) Hello?
Dick Ackerman: (a grunt) Dick Ackerman here.
DJ: Dick! (wheezing sounds) Sorry, ah’m a little winded. Long way from the privvy.
DA: Quit talking and listen. That asshole Nygren did a poll. Roski’s pulling out. Two goddam miserable weeks left and that punk Roski’s pulling out on me. They’re all out to get me. No respect. Goddammit I’m Dick Ackerman. Okay, look, I’m outta dough. We’re outta dough. Linda’s outta dough. Hitting up all my Fullerton friends. Our Fullerton friends. Linda’s Fullerton friends.
DJ: A poll (wheezing and coughing). What kinda poll? (coughing)
DA: (several guttural noises) Don’t worry about that. Forget about it. I need some dough. We need some dough. Linda needs some dough. We gotta keep hitting that bastard Norby. Right up ’til the end. At the end. After the end (distinct snarling sound followed by an apparent bark).
DJ: That Norby, boy, he’s a real troublemaker. A real Brutus. Et tu Brutus? (unattributable sputtering sounds)
DA: What?
DJ: Huh?
DA: (a series of staccato grunts) Shut up and listen. What can I put you down for? The limit, right?
DJ: Ahhumm. Well, ah ain’t gonna hide the fact, Dick. S’been a tough year. Reeeal tough! (two phlegmmycoughs)
DA: (a snarl) Why you ingrate, if it wasn’t for me you’d just be another loud-mouthed Rotarian. You’ve got more money than Croesus. Sell one of your thirteen cars and pony up, goddammit!
DJ: There was a poll? (more asthmatic wheezing)
DA: (a bark) Goddammit you jackass, forget about the poll! I’m putting you down for $1200. A guy’s coming up to Fullerton today to wash my car at Dolan’s place. I’ll send him over to pick up the check.
DJ: Norby. That sumbitch tried to stop our Redevelopment expansion. That’s a brilliant plan. He’s a trouble maker. And he’s buddies with Bushala. Suin’ his own city! Got a name fer boys like that back in Galveston: sumbitch.
DA: Yeah. I tried to shut up that punk too. Didn’t work. Everybody’s useless. Out to get me. Get us. Get Linda. (several low growling sounds) But forget about that.
DJ: (a long wheeze) Heh-heh, did ah ever tell ya about the Eye-talian family that used to run Galveston?
DA: What? Shut up and listen. My boy will be around for the check at ten or eleven. His names’s Mike. Or Matt. Or Milt. Something like that. Won’t do my tires right (a snarl).
DJ: Huh?
DA What?
DJ: There was a poll?
Unidentified Female Voice in Background: Dick, that white van is back behind the statue garden wall!
DA: Hell. Damn peacocks are gonna go off again. Okay. Get off the line you idiot. And write that check. Now.
Friends, have you noticed the sudden subsidence of big glossy mailers sent out by Ackerman, Inc. and Alliance for California’s Tomorrow (ACT) attacking Chris Norby? You know, the ones that take uncorroborated testimony from a disgruntled ex-County employee fired for misfeasance and turned into third person language to make it look like somebody was a witness to her bogus claims?
We were getting pieces almost everyday (sometimes two) ladled out of the Ackerwoman slop-bucket, but that has stopped. Even Ackerwoman’s obsequious press agent Martin Wisckol has noticed it – and actually tried to figure out why. The ACT has run out of money. The last dough they spent went to a poll – and no more money has come in since.
Possible poll results that look bad for Ackerwoman, plus the fact that the majority of permanent absentee voters who are voting have already mailed in their ballots may well mean that the investment value in Ackerwoman’s candidacy has been reassessed.
So, have Ed Roski, the Indian casinos, and the other anti-Norby interests finally given up on the Ackerwoman campaign? Wisckol asked Jim Nygren, the parasite who runs ACT. Nygren said he was told to keep quiet. Apparently Roski doesn’t care for idle chatter.
Here’s an e-mail we received from a Sunny Hills High school student that raises some good questions about the lack of communication betweenHigh School District and the NOCCCD and why FJC requires that people pay to park when nobody is using the facility.
This past Friday night, I went to the Sunny Hills vs. Fullerton H.S. School football game at Fullerton High which happens to be right across the street from Fullerton Junior College which happens to have a parking structure right across the street from the high school’s stadium. I parked in that parking structure and ended up getting a parking ticket for not having a Fullerton College parking permit. I did not think that at this time (7:00-9:00pm) on a Friday night anyone would be checking for the parking permit because of the event that was going on at the stadium. There were many cars parked in the structure who were apparently also going to the game that did not have a parking permits. The officer that gave me the ticket was named Officer Gonzalez, I believe.
Is Fullerton College really in that much of a budget crunch that they need to go out and give a bunch of high school students parking tickets to collect twenty seven dollars? If people didn’t park in this structure we would be parking in the residential areas to the north of the stadium which would bother the residents that live near the stadium. The group that issued the ticket is discouraging students from going to high school promoted events. Can’t someone from the High School District and the College figure out a responsible plan that would assure people can go to the football stadium, watch a football game and not get a parking ticket?
This might become a regular feature: an FFFF reader just sent in a quick summary of interesting items up for discussion/vote at tonight’s Fullerton City Council meeting.
If there is anything else that needs to be brought up before tonight’s meeting, this is place to discuss it.
——————–
Nothing too exciting for the open session.
FFFF and Tony make the #2 Closed Session Agenda for tomorrow night’s meeting. Oh, to be a fly on that wall!
Heads up on Item #15 of the Open Session Agenda. Is management taking a pay cut? Great idea, take one for the team!
Item #16 looks like a ban on cell phone use. This matter concerns the use of cell phones and other electronic communication devices by Council Members and staff during Council meetings. One can only wonder what would be so important that it needed immediate attention by staff and council. Maybe it’s to deter all out secret bidding/bribing? Who knows! Sounds like a good idea to me.
Aside from the MILLIONS of dollars being allocated and reallocated into various projects, it looks like a quiet night…
For most people the idea of being one’s own boss is an alluring if somewhat daunting proposition. With the freedom and self-responsibility come the risks – of freedom and self-responsibility.
So imagine the pleasant prospect of being your own boss, answering to nobody, and at the same time enjoying the safety of a government job with a regular paycheck and pretty good benefits. This is what Fullerton City Council woman Pam Keller gets by being the Executive Director of the Fullerton Collaborative and remaining an employee of the Fullerton School District. The people who print out her paychecks have no idea how she’s spending her time. She doesn’t answer to them. And the Collaborative Board seems to have shown very little interest in her doings, possibly because she’s actually in charge. Pretty sweet gig if you can get it.
Pam Keller - Teacher on Special Assignment
The memorandum of understanding between the Collaborative and the school district lists a series of vague directives to be accomplished by the Executive Director through the school year. The two most specific of Pam’s duties are “assist schools to link with community partners for support services” and “increase awareness of schools regarding community services”.
So essentially her job is to communicate with schools. What does that entail? Fire off a couple of emails, make a phone call every once in a while? No, that would only consume a few minutes per day. There must be more to this $51,000-per-year job.
If we give her the benefit of the doubt, it’s likely that the achievement of these goals requires Pam to spend most of her workday meeting with teachers and parents, visiting schools and attending parent/teacher meetings.
Is that what she does? How much time does she spend with teachers and parents? What are her work hours? Since she really is only accountable to herself, does anyone else know?
Regular teachers must answer to parents, principals and ultimately the Superintendent. Who does a “teacher on special assignment”, funded by an outside organization, answer to? Does Superintendent Mitch Hovey appraise her performance? Could he take appropriate action if he didn’t think she was performing well? He certainly has no incentive to question her since the Collaborative pays her salary regardless.
Ultimately, we expect that the Fullerton School District will have to answer this question: Does the perverse nature of FSD’s employee arrangement with the Fullerton Collaborative cause harm to the public by diluting accountability and hiding conflicts of interest?
It was a fun party with an open bar. And then Dave Lopez showed up…
We missed an Ackerwoman press release about a week and a half ago (sorry but we really hate going to that site). It touted Fullerton “educational leaders” who have endorsed Linda Ackerman: Hilda Sugarman, Ellen Ballard, Minard Duncan, and Lynn Thornley – a who’s who of Fullerton RINOs and liberal educrat types. It’s really hard to find any term other than “followers” to describe this little band, but such are the extravagances of campaign rhetoric.
Our old pal Minard was even assigned his own hilarious quotation: “I first got to know Linda when she was a member of the PTA at Rolling Hills School in Fullerton. She has been a vital member of our community for over 30 years…” A member of the PTA? Well whoop-de-doo! Is that Duncan’s threshold for being qualified to serve in the Sate Assembly? Guess so. And of course trust Minard to use the wrong (present) tense. She hasn’t lived in our community for over 30 years. She spent the last ten living in another community!
Well, we know Ackerwoman’s residency is a lie, even if Minard won’t talk about it: she lives in Irvine and rents an address in Fullerton. She also advertises herself in this press release as “an independent businesswoman” and we now know that that’s a falsehood on two counts. We have also discovered her fake charity that diverts lobbyists contributions towards Hawaiian vacations for her and her pals in the legislature, although such flagrant fraudulence seems not to have made much of an impression on Duncan and his pals on the FSD board.
It’s sort of depressing to see these folks turning a blind eye to prevarication and misrepresentation. Makes you wonder a bit about what kind of values are being passed along via the FSD.
Maybe I was just dizzy from balancing all those budgets...
UPDATE: HERE’S AN INFORMATIVE POST WE RAN A COUPLE OF WEEKS AGO ABOUT HOW GOVT REVENUE RAISERS DO IT AND EVADE THE “TAXER” LABEL. THE OTHER GIMMICK IS ‘FEE” INCREASES. IT TELLS YOU ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT ACKERWOMAN’S HOLLOW NO TAX PLEDGE.
Yesterday we published an e-mail from Joe Sipowicz about the lame-brain “no tax pledge” signed by Mrs. Linda Ackerman, presumably to shore up uncertainty about her conservative credentials. She needs to.
As Joe trenchantly pointed out, there are all sorts of ways to raise revenue without calling them taxes. Let’s cast our minds back a few months.
Back on April 14 of this year, never dreaming of ever becoming a candidate for political office, Linda Ackerman went along with the pro-government revenue crowd – voting to raise MWD water rates by an astounding 19.7%. That’s right folks. A 20% commodity increase for the water MWD provides to local water purveyors – like the City of Fullerton; and to the OC Water District for basin replenishment.
Here’s the excerpt from the April 14, 2009 MWD meeting minutes.
47859 Regarding the water rates and charges, Business and Finance Committee Chairman Grunfeld remarked on the unprecedented amount of time both Directors and staff spent on the rates and charges, keeping in mind their fiduciary duties and general responsibilities to the 19 million people that Metropolitan serves via their respective member agencies. Committee Chairman Grunfeld then moved, seconded by Director Santiago, that the Board adopt the CEQA determination and approve Option #2 set forth in the revised board letter signed by the General Manager on April 7, 2009, with an amendment to add Item (d) and:
a. Approve an 8.8 percent increase in water rates, plus a $69/AF Delta Supply Surcharge for a total average increase of 19.7 percent, effective September 1, 2009; b. Adopt Resolution 9087 to Impose the Readiness-to-Serve Charge;
Minutes -9- April 14, 2009
c. Adopt Resolution 9088 to Impose the Capacity Charge, said resolutions entitled:
Resolution 9087: RESOLUTION OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF THE METROPOLITAN WATER DISTRICT OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA FIXING AND ADOPTING A READINESS-TO-SERVE CHARGE FOR CALENDAR YEAR 2010
Resolution 9088 RESOLUTION OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF THE METROPOLITAN WATER DISTRICT OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA FIXING AND ADOPTING A CAPACITY CHARGE EFFECTIVE JANUARY 1, 2010
and
d. Direct staff to work with the member agencies and the Board to evaluate the historical cost-of-service methodology utilized by Metropolitan, including a review of additional fixed charges, including property taxes, with the intent to ensure that all rates and charges recover the full cost of service when the Board establishes rates for the 2010/11 fiscal year .
Comments were made by Directors for and against the motion with emphasis on the treatment surcharge and decreasing reserves. The Chair called for a vote on the motion.
The following is a record of the vote on the motion:
Ayes: Anaheim (Dir. M. Edwards, 3,466 votes), Beverly Hills (Dir. Wunderlich, 2,033 votes), Central Basin Municipal Water District (Dirs. Apodaca and Hawkins, 11,185 votes), Eastern Municipal Water District (Dir. Record, 6,731 votes), Inland Empire Utilities Agency (Dir. Santiago, 8,440 votes), Las Virgenes Municipal Water District (Dir. Peterson, 1982 votes), Long Beach (Dir. Lowenthal, 3,984 votes), Los Angeles (Ayes: Dirs. Grunfeld and J. Murray. Absent: Dirs. Quiñonez and Sutley. 40,455 votes), Municipal Water District of Orange County (Ayes: Dirs. Ackerman, Dick, and Foley. Absent: Dir. Bakall. 34,917 votes), San Diego County Water Authority (Dirs. Barrett, Lewinger, Pocklington, and Steiner, 38,213 votes), San Fernando
Minutes -10- April 14, 2009
(Dir. Ballin, 150 votes), Santa Ana (Dir. Griset, 2,169 votes), Santa Monica (Dir. Abdo, 2,332 votes), West Basin Municipal Water District (Dirs. Gray and Little, 13,663 votes), Western Municipal Water District of Riverside County (Dir. Lopez, 8,456 votes). Total 178,176 votes.
Noes: Burbank (Dir. Brown, 1,803 votes), Calleguas Municipal Water District (Dir. Grandsen, 8,160 votes), Foothill Municipal Water District (Dir. J. Edwards, 1,272 votes), Fullerton (Dir. Blake, 1,457 votes), Glendale (Dir. Kavounas, 2,226 votes), San Marino (Dir Morris, 399 votes), Three Valleys Municipal Water District (Dir. De Jesus, 5,031 votes), Torrance (Dir. Wright, 2,186 votes), Upper San Gabriel Valley Municipal Water District (Dir. Robinson, 7,257 votes). Total 29,791 votes. Not Participating: Pasadena (Dir. Brick, 2,037 votes). Total 2,037 votes. Absent: Compton (Dir. Arceneaux, 362 votes). Total 362 votes.
The Chair declared the recommended water rates and charges and resolutions to impose charges for fiscal year 2009/10 passed by 178,176 ayes, 29,791 noes, 2,037 not participating, and 362 absent.
Thanks, for that one Linda! Anything else you’d like to share with us?
