Our Friend Joe Sipowicz has added a great insight to a recent post on Dick Jones and Redevelopment about the way staff placates city councilpersons who ask questions. We’ll just let Joe say it in his own words:
“Staff also has another trick that may have been part of this little play, especially if it wasn’t rehearsed after all. That is answering the question that nobody has asked. In this tactic the question that was asked is dodged through answering some other question. The answer given is true, but non-responsive. It’s amazing how many people fall for this.
“BTW, this is also a tactic that our old friend Matthew Cunningham keeps using although it doesn’t appear to fool anyone in the blogosphere. It’s amazing how much more capable of critical thought bloggers are than city councilpersons!”
Joe, we know just what you mean. Former Planning staffer Joel Rosen is a master of this technique. You appear to be responsive and ever-so forthcoming, but in reality you give away nothing, and most of the time the councilperson is to too afraid of looking stupid to persist in getting a real answer. It’s like asking someone what time it is and having them tell you they live in a green house with red shutters in the 300 block of East Wilshire Avenue. It may be true, but it’s completely irrelevant!
Watch Dick Jones question Redevelopment Director Rob Zur Schmiede about the availability of tax increment monies in the proposed extension area. Zur Schmiede responds that because of the merger with an existing area money would be available “immediately.” And Jones is off to the Camp Town races, perhaps not realizing that his Redevelopment director was only talking about existing funds – not new property tax increment. All he heard was “immediately.” So he sits up, pleased as punch, like he had just discovered radium. Uh–mmediately! Well, Land ‘o Goshen! You cain’t hardly beat uh-mmediate! Instant gratification – a predictable desire in a child; embarrassing in a septuagenarian.
The reality is that even if the Redevelopment extension survives a legal challenge, the depressed real estate market and property tax re-assessments will likely create a flat or even a negative increment for the near to mid-term future within the amendment area. This means that any Redevelopment funded projects here would have to dip into the also diminishing increment in the pre-existing project area. So why doesn’t Jones grasp this? Because the Redevelopment Agency has arrived upon the scene to cure all that ails us. HOT DAMN! IMMEDIATELY!
Is this really the guy we want making this decisions for us?
Below is an illuminating video clip of our old nemesis City Councilman Dick Jones defending redevelopment expansion in Fullerton.
Dick’s suggestion that blight exists because foreclosed houses are close to “those blighted areas”, makes absolutely no sense, and, in fact directly contradicts the specific legal findings he had to make to support Redevelopment expansion; but then again look who’s talking.
The other important question Dick’s little speech raises is whether or not he discussed this issue with Pam Keller prior to the meeting. Listen to when Dick he says “when this thing passes, I’m going to make a motion to have our attorney and our staff work with the County to….”, it was obvious he already knew it was going to pass. But how could he have known unless of course Dick had already gone over this with Keller, the ultimate third vote? This is not a Brown Act violation, but it sure would be if he had previously discussed this issue with either Don Bankhead or Sharon Quirk, and it’s pretty hard to believe otherwise. These guys habitually play fast and loose with the Brown Act prohibition against “serial meetings” so it’s not inconceivable.
Hopefully, saying “yes” to something means you understand what you are saying yes to. How many times have we said “yes” when we really have no idea what the results of that “yes” really meant? Hopefully not many.
How many times has our city council said “yes” when they really had no idea what they were saying “yes” to.
Fullerton or Toontown?
When is “No” better than “Yes”? Always, when you don’t know what you are talking about.
How to kill a Fox
When is it too late to be smart? Never.
Remember, it’s never too late to be smart. Just say “no” when you are not 100% sure about the results of what you are saying “yes” to.
Urban Futures has no idea about Fullerton's Future
Voting “yes” may comfort insecure or uninformed politicians, but it inevitably leads to disaster.
Every now and then we get a particularly perspicacious comment from one of our Loyal Friends that we think is worth posting separately. The following was written by Hollis Dugan in response to our post about the Fullerton Observer and its hermetically sealed philosophical environment. We have cleaned up his spelling for him. Explains Mr. Dugan:
I always sing in the bath tub...
What to me at least becomes the most bizarre angle of the Observer finally is that Kennedy is a left wing loon that probably never envisioned herself as the apologist for the establishment. The far left commie types like her came out of the 60’s and early 70’s AGAINST the establishment. Freedom from government tyranny and limits on liberty.
Now it seems, like boiling a frog, Kennedy and her ilk have let the heat rise so slowly it never occurred to them that they are the last protectors of the government machine controlling everyone’s liberty. Wake up Kennedy! Your values have been boiled right out of you without detection by anyone at your little rag.
Have the drugs done that much damage? You should be screaming from the rooftops how outrageous the thought of the City running its own blog to control the information flow (attempt to, anyway). Instead you are a meek little cheerleader for the inept and pathetic control mongers that can’t stand when others have an independent thought.
It’s not too late to become a fighter for liberty.
An old gas station was recently remodeled with a small addition along Harbor Blvd. And I might say it’s one of the most creative adaptive reuse projects we’ve seen in Fullerton for many years, and it’s very pleasant to look at. It has no fake columns, no fake second floors, no tile roof, it’s very simple and honest. Frank Webb Architects is the owner, designer and occupant of this very cool building located just north of Berkley on Harbor. This project had no redevelopment dollars and no subsidy. Friends for Fullerton’s Future welcomes Frank Webb, his partners and his employees to Fullerton.
It was supposed to be “affordable” housing for CSUF faculty. Well affordable to them – not to the taxpayers who paid for it, we presume. Last winter we ran a post about the “University Heights” boondoggle, and noted that the place was a ghost town. It was already open to any government worker who wanted a house and we wondered aloud when it would be open to anybody.
Living here could stunt your intellectual growth. Not to mention your equity.
The story took another turn last week when it came out that nine of the units were just going to be leased out, perhaps ending any hope of ever establishing a permanent egghead foothold on Elk Hill. The architect of this disaster, one Bill Dickerson of the CSUF Housing Authority, came out from under cover long enough to put his finger on the problem: in a declining real estate market nobody wanted to commit to a cracker box of sticks and stucco on a ground lease. Seems the academics had enough faith in capitalism to shun the slings and arrows of outrageous socialism themselves; and the educrats are left holding their own bag. The Heights sales agent also seems to be pinning his hopes on the next real estate boom.
That's not very good, is it?
As an amusing aside we note that the author of this story was our own beloved stuffed toy and Wurlitzer prize winner, Barbara Giasone, whose paper got the headline wrong – indicating that the units were to go on sale . Not that it really matters. Also, Fullerton Councilman Dick Jones who admitted that he “worked very hard” to bring about this debacle hasn’t said much about it lately.
Jones performs Shakespeare before an appreciative audience...
There is an object lesson here of course that will no doubt be lost on educrats and befuddled local electeds: stay out of the housing business and kill policies that encourage tax-payer purchased housing subsidies for public employees.
The other day on our post detailing Pam Keller’s love-in blog, one of our readers made reference to “a stack of yellowing Observers,” and another clever Friend inquired whether he was referring to the paper or its writers.
Today we had a visit from another Friend on our latest post about the Fullerton Observer and its hackish ways, using the great handle “They All Live in A Yellow Submarine.” This set us a thinkin’ about what a great metaphor the submarine can be, especially one that can’t blow its ballast tanks to surface and see what’s happening in the outside world. Its denizens are hermetically sealed in. Think Das Boot.
Who needs fresh air and sunshine? Not us!
Given The Fullerton Observer’s rather nasty penchant for submerging itself in a sea of City Hall Kool Aid we think the image is apt. Plus we’re getting a little bored with:
Back not long ago from Savannah, and now off to grab some work in NYC. Next month it’s another airport, another city, another hope that the little TV in the seat in front of me works. I hope the flight attendants don’t get snarky, and I wish one would give me the whole damned bottle of water rather than offering a little cup. I also hope the TSA doesn’t rifle through my bags and take things. So before I make friends with the seat tray table on Jet Blue, I wanted to mention my thoughts on Councilwoman Keller’s suggestion of a city blog.
If the city wants to blog, fine. There’s always room for more blogs in the blogosphere and there’s nothing anyone can do to prevent it. Doesn’t matter to me what format they take, but a blog without comments really isn’t a blog at all. What she describes is a Q&A page tacked onto their existing website.
After all, what makes blogging relevant and exciting is the participation of commenters who can add to a given topic.
For a very long time, it seems there was one primary means of public communication in this town. Whether or not you agreed with The Fullerton Observer, it was pretty much the only deal out there. There wasn’t a regular outlet for the mass dispersal of a differing viewpoint, so then it seems the slogan of Fullerton becomes, “More, more of the same!” But one day, along comes the blogosphere. Suddenly there’s a free and easy way to express oneself. So the Admin starts it. He’s just a basic blogger, not a techie, but it doesn’t matter. He has about 3 decades worth of stuff to say. More writers join. The sucker takes off. FFFF is horse with wings. It’s linking to other blogs and soon more and more people know about it and people can’t stop clicking on it because it’s saying so many things that people have felt for a long time.
It’s like someone said, “Okay, you can talk now,” and a torrent came pouring forth. At times it’s articulate, other times it veers into the lunacy of The Three Stooges. It’s not always a happy, jolly place where the birds sing and everyone holds hands in a permanent Stepford trance. No, there are rants, pouts, and the occasional barfing onto the screen. In other words: welcome to the blogosphere. Once you start, there’s no way of stopping.
The lessons for everyone to remember, but most especially those who detract from the blogosphere, are that it’s incorrect to think blogs have less importance and impact than publications in print. It’s also faulty to believe that blogs exist separate from the rest of the world. In fact, they are a reflection of it. All blogs, including FFFF are a vital part of the community. Their voice is as valid as any other.
