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A friend just emailed us this image of some sort of gizzmo that has recently appeared in the front patio of Roscoes “Famous” Deli. We are not quit sure why anyone would have made a decision to put the gizzmo on a public sidewalk in downtown. It’s taking up space that could also be used as sidewalk dining. For some reason, this doesn’t seem right.
Do not enter into negotiations with the Fullerton Redevelopment Agency to move your McDonald’s restaurant 150 feet west to the Chapman / Pomona corner. Stay put.
There are many reasons for you to stay where you are. You some of them you know better than we do. But we have some political insights that might be helpful.
This move is completely unnecessary for you from a business standpoint. You’d said during the hearing that long ago then-Redevelopment employee Terry Galvin told you the city wanted you to move. Galvin didn’t speak for the council then and he certainly doesn’t now.
Terry Galvin has retired. There is a whole new council majority. Nothing obligates you to go along with this deal.
And, there are not the 4 votes needed for eminent domain. You cannot be forced to move. Stay Put!
In response to County Counsel’s objections to the original blight findings, the staff report asserts that “these parcels if developed will need to be assembled with adjacent properties to create a sufficient development parcel. Because these parcels are in multiple ownerships it becomes more difficult to assemble into a desired development site.”
My brother and I assembled 27 irregular shaped parcels along Truslow & Walnut Ave. without any RDA assistance. No subsidy, no eminent domain. The result is the Soco Walk transit-oriented condo complex.
Many subsidized in-fill projects made possible by eminent domain are failures, because they respond to government hand-outs rather than market realities. Up and down California there exist many Ghost Malls (Triangle Square / Costa Mesa, Carousel Mall / San Bernardino) built on the backs of dispossessed property owners and fleeced taxpayers.
Let’s not suffer the fate of Santa Ana’s “Renaissance Plan” with numerous agency-owned vacant lots (where home and businesses once stood) have festered for years of bureaucratic inertia. There are many other such examples.
Redevelopment staffs abhor small business districts with multiple ownerships, because they cannot control them.
They tarnish them with the blight label and threaten them with eminent domain to benefit some politically-connected developer who makes a killing before selling out and moving on.
Who thinks that government officials can do a better job of redeveloping areas than private individuals using their own money and taking their own risks? Bottom line: Do you trust the free market or city staff to make crucial development decisions for Fullertons future?
Tonight, the city council will consider the acceptance of a $41,410 Justice Assistance Grant (Homeland Security stuff) to purchase 35 tasers for the police department. Do we need tasers in Fullerton? Judith Kaluzny raises some good questions in this letter to the council.
Dear City Council Members:
I see you will consider the purchase of 35 taser guns, number 8 on June 16 agenda.
Tasers have been outlawed in several states, including New York, Rhode Island, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Michigan, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and in a number of cities, including Chicago, Baltimore, Indianapolis, and Philadelphia.
The use of tasers can lead to lawsuits for cities. There have been many lawsuits over mis- or mal- use. Do we really want to get into this dubious technology?
Judith A. Kaluzny, Mediator and Lawyer
www.judithkaluzny.com
Amnesty International provides a few examples of taser abuse:
There are 154 small businesses along West Commonwealth in the 2 1/2 miles stretching from Euclid to Dale. Many are run by entrepreneurs who own their own property. This variety of small business owners is why City Staff is declaring it blighted in their attempt to hoodwink the council into including it into a new redevelopment area.
In response to County Counsel’s objections to the original blight findings, the staff report asserts that “these parcels if developed will need to be assembled with adjacent properties to create a sufficient development parcel. Because these parcels are in multiple ownerships it becomes more difficult the parcels into a desired development site.”
Huh?
These parcels already ARE developed into a variety of small businesses, ranging from coffee shops to body shops, from florists to machinists, from preschools to flight schools. Staff sees this as blight. The new RDA seeks to “assemble” (under threat of eminent domain) these parcels, clear out the small businesses to “create a sufficient development parcel” under one ownership. And that’s not good for Fullerton.
One Commonwealth business owner (Aeromark) has already opted out, fearing consolidation of his small parcel. Other owners, beware!
No, West Commonwealth is not Irvine. Some planners may dislike the very variety that makes it interesting. But there is an edgy realism there, of small hardworking people actually producing goods and services for their customers–not because of some government mandate. The report goes on to say “development proposals are not financially feasible because acquisition costs have increased over the years rendering in-fill projects to be infeasible in many cases without redevelopment assistance.”
Let Commonwealth be Commonwealth!
Lawyers for the Fullerton Redevelopment Agency have a tough job in trying to defend the bogus blight findings that have been so effectively demolished by County Counsel Attorney James Harman and Friends for a Livable Fullerton‘s & FFFF Attorney Robert Ferguson.
They just came out with a weak 14 page response to the blight objections, in preparation for the scheduled hearing this Tuesday, June 16 (Item 14). If the council has any sense, they’d shelve this turkey project now.
Imagine, Fullerton Council Members, some of whom have been in office since the 90s, spending public money to prove that blight in Fullerton is growing. Blight growing on their watch!
One Page 11 of the Agency’s response, the report reads “Significant improvements are needed at the airport and its vicinity, including safety upgrades. The airport is affected by the lack of safety upgrades…”
Huh?
Admitting that its own airport is unsafe opens the City to serious liability. And if it is true, upgrades should be paid for by internal airport revenues (leases, tie-down fees, etc.) Property tax increment shouldn’t pay for airport upgrades, any more than for municipal golf course improvements. The airport is setup as an enterprise fund—self supporting.
The report clearly asserts that Fullerton Municipal Airport is blighted—and dangerous. If true, who allowed this to happen? If the airport has to be subsidized by redevelopment, than perhaps it should be shut down and sold off.
On Page 12 of the report, the crack Agency legal minds write: “Sam’s Club—This store is completely surrounded by properties with at least one significant condition of physical blight.”
Well, tell that to the Home Depot, which is adjacent to Sam’s Club, and one of the City’s biggest retailers. The City’s biggest home improvement center is now a source of blight!
The report is so full of blanket and sweepingly false statements that is difficult to fathom the legal minds behind it. But, then, if the facts aren’t on your side, you have to make them up!
A while back (6/3) FSD Trustee Hilda Sugarman inadvertently sent us an e-mail meant for someone else in which she directed this person(s) to read our post on the FSD laptop flop, asking whether it was “worth it” to “correct our errors.” We replied via e-mail and invited her to share these supposed errors with us. See? We’re nothing if not open to correction.
On 6/4 our intrepid Travis followed up with another e-mail, this time to the entire board, asking for additional specifics about the laptop program to help clarify points of confusion he encountered when talking to parents. Well over a week has gone by and so far nothing but a deafening silence from the biggest cheerleader of this coercive governmental shakedown scheme. We realize that the well-lubricated FSD bureaucratic machine is hard at work extruding “knowledge creators” for the 21st Century.
But not even a quick post correcting our so-called “errors”? That doesn’t sound so hard, does it? Maybe they can assign the task to an 6-year old for extra credit.
C’mon Hilda, we’re waiting! And how about the rest of the FSD crew?
So we did it. Friends for Fullerton’s Future has appealed the appalling decision by the Fullerton Planning Commission to grant a bogus “special event” permit to Jack Franklyn’s “Roscoe’s” in order to legitimize his ongoing violation of the City ordinance regarding outdoor amplified music in the C-3 District.
We’ve been over this already so there’s no need to rehash all the details except to say that for some reason the City has been complicit in this ongoing permit-dodging scandal: no permits, no code enforcement, a cooked-up noise study, a phony special event permit. The list goes on and on. Now the City Council will be able to weigh in on the subject. We expect lots of chit-chat but the real issue is so simple: the law says you can’t do it! If you want to change the law, then do it. But not before all the necessary CEQA responsibilities are met. And that means an EIR!
The fence has long been used by youth sports teams, the Muckenthaler, the Farmers’ Market, local churches and cultural groups to publicize community events to passing motorists. Now they are being scolded with the “No Banners” warning.
As the fences are along a flood control channel, we suspected the County put the sign up. But according to a June 9 memo from OC Flood Control Director Nadeem Majaj, the fence is city-owned and the warning sign was installed by city staff.
Why? There is no record of this ever having been before the City Council. Is this a precursor to a banner ban at other similar locations? (Yorba Linda & State College, Gilbert & Malvern, etc.)
The council should order this sign removed. The “Do Not Post Banners on Fence” will continue to taunt motorists with the heavy hand of city government, denying community groups their long-held location for needed free publicity…. Until the council takes it down.
Fruity Lexia in a box has been named the Official Wine of Friends for Fullerton’s Future.
Fullerton Friends spokesmodels Heidi and Karin enjoy their favorite alcoholic beverage between blogging sessions on FFFF.