Friends For Fullerton's Future

August 18, 2009August 19, 2009Fullerton City Council

County Deploys Certified Helmet Fitters

There’s an item on tonight’s council agenda that highlights the ridiculous overhead that government do-gooders can add to otherwise trivial tasks. In this case, the Orange County Health Care Agency wants to give out 300 helmets to poor kids in Fullerton. Sounds like a simple task, right? Buy 300 helmets and give them out, hoping that kids will smash their melons a bit less frequently.

But that’s not how government operates – in this case, the county hires Helmet Fitting trainers to train Helmet Fitters to fit helmets on juvenile fittee’s. Before that can happen, Helmet Fitter trainee’s must be Helmet Fitter certified, presumably by some kind of Helmet Fitting certification authority.

But we can’t have certified Helmet Fitters running around without releasing the city from Helmet Fitting risk. And we can’t have Helmet Fitters fitting helmets without filling out a Helmet Consent Form. In case you think I’m making this up, here is the text from the grant request:

This grant provides 300 helmets for distribution to low income children under age 18 living in Fullerton. Parks and Recreation staff and volunteers will be trained and certified as Helmet Fitters by the County of Orange Health Care Agency. Prior to receiving a helmet, each recipient and/or parent of recipient will receive helmet safety education by the certified Helmet Fitter, complete the Voluntary Release Assumption of Risk and Indemnity Agreement form and the Helmet Consent Form

This obvious make-work project would be comical if it wasn’t a complete waste of city and county resources. If this task must be done, please give the helmets to some non-profit who can tackle it without all of the overhead.

August 18, 2009December 28, 2009Chris Norby

Alternative Slogans For Norby’s Campaign

by The Fullerton Shadow14 Comments

OCCampground

Okay, we really couldn’t resist it. Yesterday we posted here about Chris Norby’s County Clerk campaign website. The slogan that appears on the site is so funny that it invites humor: Preserving Your Vital Records. Wha?

That was the really best campaign consultant John Lewis could come up with? Preserving your vital records? If that doesn’t mobilize the troops, then we don’t know what will!

But, seriously we feel compelled to offer Norby helpful alternatives, such as:

Red Tape is Fun!

The Job Ain’t Over ’til The Paperwork’s Done!

Bureaucracy Drives the County Forward!

Your Non-vital Records Will be in The Dumpster By Morning!

Okay, Friends. Now it’s your turn to share your ideas. Let’s give Mr. Norby a hand here since John Lewis seems to be so useless!

August 17, 2009August 17, 2009Chris Norby

Norby Website Up; Fundraising Success Seems To Be Main Thrust

by The Fullerton Shadow28 Comments

Chris Norby’s campaign for County Clerk has a website: http://www.norby10.com/ . When you go there you see a lot about how much money he’s raised and lots of pictures of Chris, but virtually nothing about ideas or plans on how to run the department – just lots of platitudes about accountability, etc. One “idea” actually talks about getting other counties to follow the “OC model.” Isn’t that the job of their county clerks?

He also addresses Tom Daly’s campaign for supervisor as a foregone conclusion, and we’re not too sure about that click here .

The image on the website of Chris superimposed on the Old Courthouse may not be a hot idea since it might tend to keep some old jokes about Norby sleeping there going.

OCCampground — "Preserving Your Vital Records?!!" Wow, throw 'em some more red meat, Chris!

Anyway, check it out for yourselves. We have sometimes supported Chris in the past, but this campaign is becoming a bit problematic. The website does not allay any of the suspicions raised by commenters on our last post that Chris is just running for this because he needs a government job click here. It is apparent that Norby is running this campaign as an “insider,” and that doesn’t bode well, either.

August 17, 2009August 17, 2009Watch Your Wallet

Cockroach Infestation/Luau Party at Fullerton Senior Center

by Travis19 Comments

The Fullerton Senior Center on Commonwealth was shut down by the County on Thursday after the City of Fullerton allowed a cockroach infestation to get out of control. An inspection report from the Orange County Health Care Agency shows that live cockroaches were found in a food storage area next to the kitchen after a roach sighting was called in by a concerned citizen. The center was shut down overnight and opened back up the next morning, just in time for Friday’s Senior Hawaiian Luau Party.

When it’s not being used to dish out extra crunchy meals to senior citizens, the City rents out the facility to create some healthy taxpayer-subsidized competition for Fullerton’s numerous privately-owned restaurants and banquet halls. These entrepreneurial establishments must pay taxes to the city, only to have the city turn around and use that money to subsidize a facility in direct competition with their own business. That just doesn’t seem right, does it? Fortunately for those business owners, the city is not capable of managing a safe dining facility.

It’s not hard to imagine that many of the city’s customers will be canceling their reservations until the city gets its act together. In the meantime, the old folks who eat lunch there every day should chew carefully.

August 17, 2009August 16, 2009About Us

My Travels Through Tanzanyisha – Part II

by The Fullerton Harpoon7 Comments

My cab driver was a young man named Cornelius. He has a wife and already five kids, and lives in a patched together sheet metal shack on the wrong side of Ushanda’s perimeter beltway. Like lots of Ushandans he steals government electricity from a bootleg transformer and an extension cord. He showed me a photo of his family standing in front of their ramshackle house. He seemed eager to talk. Especially about Country Western music.

He wore a pink shirt and said he loved Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson. And Kristofferson. Cornelius sang a soulful rendition of Sunday Mornin’ Coming Down as we zig-zagged our way along Mombazi Boulevard, past the foreign embassies, some now empty, and into the downtown district. He wasn’t bad. He does karaoke two nights a week in a Ushandan club.

We entered the curved and cracked asphalt driveway of the Ushanda Hilton at about 3 PM. The sunlight now slanted through the decorative palms, but the heat and humidity had become even more oppressive. Cornelius said that modern Country was just overproduced pop music now. I agreed and paid him. He seemed very happy to get American cash. Tanzanyishan paper dollars are virtually worthless.

Like the once gleaming buildings of the business district, the hotel is a reminder of better days – when foreign investment was still seen as a plausibility, and also a shabby symbol of lost hope. It is air conditioned, barely, although this God-sent amenity often relies upon a diesel generator rather than Ushanda’s over-taxed, and unpredictable power grid.

At the lobby desk some problem was not getting solved. Africa.

A well-fed, but obviously frazzled American, wearing a crumpled white linen suit and white shoes, with a wild shock of white hair, was arguing volubly with the desk clerk. A high-pitched Southern twang held forth. Nearby stood a sad, starched, yet wilting woman of indeterminate age, all too familiar with the script.

Ah have a reservation, dammit! I am sorry sir, but we do not have it here. Well you better look again, son, Ah’m from Texas, and Ah’m a doctor! Sorry sir, but I cannot find a reservation for you.

Reservation? The place was damn-near deserted. I figured out pretty quickly what was going on. Ugly American Doctor was getting jerked around by a Third World hotel clerk. He would get his room all right, but not right away. I was enjoying the performance, but I was becoming damn thirsty, too. Peeking meekly around Doctor Phogbound I gave the clerk a quick wink of approval and asked if I could check in. I had a reservation. Marlowe. Yes, sir!

In need of something cold I headed across the lobby to the hotel bar, leaving the dreadful Phogbound in drawlful fulmination.

Ah’m a colonel. By Golly, Ah’m important! Ah know a congressman!

I had an uneasy feeling our paths would cross again.

Angry Doctor in Ushanda Hilton lobby. — Blustering doctor in Tanzanyishan hotel lobby.

August 15, 2009August 16, 2009Friends Around the World

My Travels Through Tanzanyisha – Part I

by The Fullerton Harpoon16 Comments

A few hectic weeks before I had not even heard of the place: Tanzanyisha. Yet, here I was, flying low over the lush tropical rain forest, as our DC 8 made its descent into the Mombazi Airport.

Ushanda City swept into view below: several aging glass and steel mid-rise towers of the 1960s International Style, hearkening to the early halcyon days of the Republic when the hated British had finally pulled out and independence was relished like the sweet, ripe fruit of the mango. A wide perimeter of low-lying bungalows, corrugated steel shacks, and shipping crates housed Ushanda’s hungry populace, and spread out to meet the uncertain edge of the steaming jungle.

And then we touched down.

Down the rolling stairway and onto the hot, shimmering midday tarmac. Suddenly I became aware of soldiers. Everywhere. Heavily armed. Rifles. Bandoliers. Grenades. I remembered the words of Richard Longtree, the often lyric author of Modern Journeys in East Africa, that I had purchased in Cairo and read on the plane:

Tanzanyisha has endured five military coup d’etats since 1990. Five regime changes. Five new constitutions each more outlandish and hollow than the one that came before. The people weep, but their tears are dry.

Inside the sweltering concourse large fans rippled the giant sheet of fabric bearing the vast likeness of Tanzanyisha’s newest President-for-Life, General Jonas Mombazi; Jonas Mombazi, DDS, who had risen from civilian dentist to rebel commandante, and finally self-promoted to his new and august position. His middle-aged face betrayed nothing about his personality; he hid his bad teeth behind bland, indifferent lips. A dentist should have good teeth. Since 2007 thirteen thousand of his countrymen had gone missing.

General and President for Life: Jonah Gombazi — General and President for Life: Jonah Mombazi

I got my duffel bag. The trip through customs was a perfunctory affair; a sullen looking soldier in camouflage fatigues and a black beret cast a quick glance in my direction and quickly jerked his head toward the exit. My passport was stamped and I stepped outside into the intense heat and near-blinding light of Jonas Mombazi Boulevard, a palm lined, four-lane strip of concrete that led into the potholed streets of Ushanda City. Twenty years of constant tank traffic had left its angry, chiseled marks.

Mad dogs and Englishmen. Noel Coward was right.

August 14, 2009December 28, 2009About Us

So Who Does Fullerton’s Chamber of Commerce Really Represent?

by The Fullerton Shadow25 Comments

Our good friend Joe Sipowicz asked a really good question today on another post. Asked Joe:

How many Chamber board members have received subsidies, favors, or looks-the-other-way by the police in the past? Does the Director owe her job to the influence of City Council members? Inquiring minds want to know.

Well, Joe, we have inquiring minds too, and decided to check out the Chamber’s board of directors. And what we found ain’t pretty:

http://www.fullertonchamber.com/AbouttheChamber/BoardofDirectors/tabid/65/Default.aspx

A 21 member board. Lets review some of the members, who they work for and see what other telling associations we can discern (in no particular order):

1.Albert Napoli – MWD ( a government sanctioned utility monopoly)

2. Mark McGee – MG Disposal (sole garbage contractor for the City of Fullerton)

3. Burnie Dunlap– St Jude Hospital (former member Brea Redevelopment Agency!)

4. Daniel Kang – Grace Ministries (non-profit Church; beholden to City for gobs of entitlements)

5. Ron Hurst– Fullerton Marriot (Hotel originally built by money put up by the Fullerton Redevelopment Agency

6. Chris Reese – CSUF (a government educrat!)

7. Pat Butress – So Cal Edison (government sanctioned utility monopoly)

8. Jack Franklyn– Heroes (well-known recipient of City look-the-other ways for non-permitted construction and out door amplified music, etc.)

9. Kerry Stock – Costco (Fullerton’s original big-time redevelopment project)

10. Ryan Dudley – The Cellar (son of former Develpment Services Director, Paul Dudley – hmm THAT name sounds familiar!)

11. Cameron Irons – Vanguard Investments (and former partner in downtown restaurants operating out of Redevelopment subsidized buildings)

12. Leland Wilson – Realtor (former Mayor and Chairman of Fullerton’s Redevelopment Agency!)

Okay, we’ll stop there since we are way past a board majority; a majority of folks who have connections to redevelopment, government, family ties, or lots of reasons to be grateful to the City of Fullerton. And we mention in passing their Executive Director, Theresa Harvey, former director of the Fullerton Boys and Girls Club (non-profit operated in building owned by City, etc., etc.).

Please note that we have also passed over a couple of downtown bankers (that relationship needs to be explored), some sort of political consultant, and a lawyer. It appears as if the Chamber board is almost devoid of anybody actually making and selling anything. But, boy do they have ties to the Fullerton City government, government in general, or operate in government sanctioned monopolies.

Is there really any wonder why this crew supports Redevelopment expansion – the greatest anti-business threat in Fulleron’s history? Most of them are connected to the government, and hardly any of them are really in the kind of real, honest-to-goodness retail or manufacturing businesses of the sort that Redevelopment preys upon.

August 14, 2009August 14, 2009About Us

A Brief Essay by “Chamber Star”

by The Fullerton Harpoon11 Comments

Loyal friends, we keep inviting Fullerton’s decision makers to come to our blog to give their side of the story when they perpetrate what we feel is a particularly egregious screw-up. None have yet taken up the gauntlet and we really can’t blame them. Who wants to be swarmed by an angry squadron of Friends after a public policy fiasco? Responding directly to the public is ever so much more difficult than reading a script.

Yet our site has been visited, and visited often, by an individual who styles him/herself Chamber Star. We’re not sure what this handle means, precisely, and whether this person is actually even affiliated with Fullerton’s Chamber of Commerce. But since we have unloaded many rounds into the Chamber’s fleshy leadership tissue, we feel pretty confident in assuming that Chamber Star holds some position of authority in that organization. But we could be wrong.

We like Chamber Star because Star’s is the voice of unquestioning support that the City of Fullerton has come to expect from their friends in the Chamber leadership cadre. So much so, in fact, that the Chamber has actually come to embrace the anti-business Redevelopment proposal.

A while back we invited Chamber Star to write a post for our blog so that his/her attitudes and beliefs could be shared with the Friends in order to present a rounder view of life and times in Fullerton. We reproduce Chamber Star’s essay verbatim, below:

First, let me thank FFFF for giving me an opportunity to tell a different side of the story, a different view point, if you will. I hope that when people have read this they will understand a little bit more about the way I feel about Fullerton.

We should all be on the same team: Team Fullerton. We should all want what’s best for our great City and all work for the same goals. We cannot do this if we are pulling in different directions. That’s why the Chamber leaders have taken up a consistent and rather courageous position of supporting the people at City Hall who are always working hard to make Fullerton a great place.

It is very easy to criticize the City staff because their jobs are both difficult and have to be carried out under the critical and often unfair light of public perception. Their skill sets are highly developed to perform complex missions that none of us could do in a hundred years. And yes, the atmosphere can be hostile as is evidenced by this very blog!

Redevelopment in particular is an area that demands great skills of a wide variety. And if mistakes happen (nobody is perfect, including the operators of this blog), we have to remember that redevelopment staff are taking risks for all of us. So I wholeheartedly support Redevelopment in Fullerton and wish to see it expand. If possible we should have it throughout the City. Again, it’s easy for Monday morning quarterbacks to take shots at our fine staff, but not very fair. These are top flight professionals who deserve our respect and support. These folks are helping to develop new business in Fullerton, and raise sales tax receipts so we can afford to hire and keep the very best public servants in the State. And that’s why the Chamber of Commerce supports City staff and Redevelopment. You can’t have all the things you want like municipal auditoriums and graffiti removal and mandated affordable housing without the all-important Redevelopment funds.

And finally I would like to say that I have a lot of confidence in our elected officials. I believe in democracy and believe that we will elect good people who have good judgement. I support them and have confidence in their judgement because if they didn’t have it they probably wouldn’t have gotten elected in the first place. Time and time again they have shown how consistent their judgement and wisdom really is. And our leaders know that they have to work closely with their staff to get what’s best for all of the City. I would also say that many times it is necessary for the City Council to do its business behind closed doors to keep important facts secret. And that’s really for the good of everybody, too.

Thanks again FFFF for letting me share my views. And remember: look forward to the future and not backwards! Fullerton’s best days are still ahead!

Thank you Chamber Star for sharing your views.

August 14, 2009December 30, 2009Arts & Architecture

The North Platform Fiasco – Allegro Molto e Vivace

by The Fullerton Harpoon12 Comments

Loyal and Patient Friends, our sad narrative of The Great North Platform Disaster now draws to a merciful conclusion. We have shared all the dismal failures of the landscape architect, Steve Rose, the Redevelopment manager in charge, Terry Galvin, and Design Review Committee members that were evidently incompetent or unqualified.

Trees and planters block the platform; staff obstruction was almost as bad.

The design failure was complete and palpable. Yet as diverse groups of citizens displayed their unhappiness with the ludicrous and costly elements of the project, the City Staff dug in their heels in a rear guard action to deflect blame by ignoring the obvious and fighting to keep the mess they had created. Newly minted City Manager Jim Armstrong led the effort to defend the indefensible. He went so far as to accuse one of the leading critics of the design mess of “making the City look like shit.”

Former Fullerton City Manager Jim Armstrong shovelling hard. — Former Fullerton City Manager Jim Armstrong doing what he did best: shovelling hard.

The City Council, to its credit, would have none of it. They ordered construction halted. Even the Fullerton Observer demanded to know who was in charge. In what may have been the last show of independence by a Fullerton City Council, the majority demanded that the incongruous and useless elements be removed. The lone dissenting vote was that of Molly McClanahan, the eternal staff suck-up, who as Mayor tried backdoor sabotage with the State – which was also providing funding for the project. City staff was going into attack mode behind the scenes.

well fed and ready to attack... — Honest citizen tastes like chicken?

In the end the Council (with the sole exception of Chris Norby) lost its collective nerve and settled on a partial removal of the worst offending aspects of the project. The huge planter was split into pieces, allowing platform access through the middle.

The miserable trees were completely removed.

Look ma, no trees... — The urban forest retreats. Civilization on the march...

The canopies were salvaged though the construction of alcoves cut out of the still useless block bulkhead wall.

Fullerton platform "alcove" designed by our City Council...

The wretched benches and comical little trash cylinders remain to this day. Go to the depot. You can check it out for yourselves.

It was never disclosed whether Steve Rose was back-charged for the cost of all the changes that had to be made, or whether he actually billed the City for remedial design work. Thousands upon thousands of dollars were wasted on building useless construction and then having to remove it. And what happened to the parties responsible for this complete fiasco? You mean you can’t guess by now?

We'll be hanging on to this card... — Oh, we'll be hanging on to this...

Nothing, of course. The proponents of sensible and functional design were blamed by staff for making the City look bad; the whistle blowers were turned into the villains of the melodrama. Chalk up another big win for the escape artists at the Fullerton Redevelopment Agency.

August 13, 2009December 30, 2009Arts & Architecture

The North Platform Fiasco – Adagio Molto

by The Fullerton Harpoon16 Comments

Useless walls and canopies, obstructive planters, and trees on the platform: The Great North Platform Disaster was shaping up to be one of the jewels in Redevelopment manager Terry Galvin’s cockeyed crown. Local landscape architect Steve Rose had outdone himself in a seeming effort to waste money and to foist comical design elements onto the public and the taxpayers of Fullerton. But, there’s more.

Ah, historical bench! Quick, put it in a museum. Or a landfill.

The historic benches on the platform were jettisoned; they were to be replaced by “street furniture” that was comprised of modernistic plastic coated wire chairs, and undersized waste receptacles, and that had nothing to do with the Spanish Colonial Revival architecture of the depot. It was later realized that ash trays had been omitted.

What is this, an episode of the Jetsons?

Looks a bit like a robot. Can anyone say "overflow?"

It just didn’t seem possible that the design choice could have been any more inappropriate or comical. And yet there it was, the final insult added to injury. What would the public reaction be? What would Fullerton’s City Council do? What would City staff do to put a happy face on the disaster?

You’ll find out tomorrow!