I Aint a Swallerin That Archives - Friends For Fullerton's Future

April 1, 2024April 1, 2024A Step in the Right Direction

Congrats to Fullerton Planning Commission

It’s pretty rare when one of our commissions really does its job, so when they do I’m happy to advertise the fact. Last week the Fullerton Planning Commission re-reviewed the noise ordinance that was kicked back to them by the City Council for further consideration, and they excelled themselves.

Their performance was so rewarding it almost makes me want to overlook the first time this group unanimously passed virtually the same proposed ordinance in November, 2023. This time they really took their jobs seriously.

The staff report for the item, given by some guy named Edgardo, was the same nonsense they pitched before, and they essentially asked the Commission to rubber stamp it yet again.

But this time there is a problem. It seems that no matter how many words they throw at the issue, staff can’t talk around their own complete lack of effort at code enforcement in Downtown Fullerton. They admit it now, claiming (without a shred of evidence) that the existing noise level is unsupportable in court, and begging the question of why amplified music is then allowed outdoors at all – it wasn’t for decades. We were informed that a “vibrant” downtown (pictures of happy people) requires more noise, not less. The underlying theme was the usual tripe: DTF is an economic asset whose saloon proprietors must be coddled at all cost. Look the other way, fast!

Incredibly, our new friend Edgardo informed the Commission that current levels of noise are acceptable to the citizenry based on the fact that so few complaints are lodged. Complete balderdash, of course. Naturally the bald declaration of “acceptability” was unsupported by any complaint data, suggesting that if there is a record, it is an embarrassing one. And the Commission learned from public speaker Joshua Ferguson that the City doesn’t bother with code enforcement and almost never has, leading Commissioner Patricia Tutor to wonder if this lack of responsiveness might have caused citizens to give up complaining.

One poor lady, the owner of Les Amis was there to push for the proposal. Unfortunately, as she admitted, she does live music in her establishment without the benefit of the required entertainment permit. Oops. Code enforcement to the rescue!

Tony Bushala got up to speak, sharing his story of being driven out of his downtown home due the noise. He also produced a lengthy list of errors and omissions in the proposed ordinance and stuff that was just contradictory. It turns out that the public and the Commission were not presented with a complete underline/strike-out version, showing pretty clearly that counsel Baron Bettenhauser of the I Can’t Believe It’s a Law Firm, had not, as he claimed, looking up from his cell phone, read the damn thing.

One zoom caller named Maureen said the smartest thing of the night. She actually suggested that without actually hearing the sound on site, she (and presumably everybody else) was at a loss to really fathom the mystery of decibel levels.

Commissioner Tutor was particularly effective in asking pertinent questions, one of which, was how come, after 10pm when music is supposed to move indoors, isn’t the decibel level lowered. A really commonsensical question. She didn’t get a commonsensical answer. The acoustical consultant from some operation called Dudek explained that during their noise collection procedure, that seemed to be the general noise level.

Oops again. Commissioner Cox pounced on the fact that the collected data was based on a noise level that was one, currently illegal; and two, based on a situation where there is no code enforcement, thus kicking up the noise level that staff was claiming was acceptable! He didn’t say so, but it was pretty clear that Mr. Dudek Guy had been receiving coaching from staff on the noise levels they found acceptable.

The other main sticking point was where to measure noise from – a certain distance from the noise source or a certain distance from the property line; two choices were offered with the greater distance being recommended. Commissioner Mansuri was unpersuaded by staff. That issue tied everybody up in knots off and on for the better part of an hour. Finally it was concluded that the noise sampling site needed a rethink.

Finally, mercifully, Commissioner Arnel Dino moved that the whole thing come back in May with the entire code changes organized and clarified and that in the interim the Planning Commissioners would go out themselves with decibel monitors and experience for themselves the problems of sound accumulation, reverberation, etc. So that’s what is going to happen. Imagine that – first hand experience without the muddled abstraction of decibel levels on a piece of paper.

As usual it was obvious that our hand-wringing staff was pursuing their path of least residence by raising sound thresholds, making it harder to enforce even that, and refusing to enforce the requirements of the bar-owners’ entertainment permits – things like closing doors and windows. How many times have we seen staff guide the consultant they chose to get what they want? Happens all the time. And how many times must the public be subjected to uninformed or misinformed opinion passed along as Gospel truth by our public employees? Happens all the time. And when will the City Council demand honesty and competence from its bureaucrats? I’m afraid we all know the answer to that.

Fullerton, being Fullerton.

March 25, 2024March 25, 2024Ahmad Zahra

An Unhappy Anniversary

by Mr. Peabody13 Comments

And what anniversary might that be, Friends may be asking.

This Wednesday, March 27th, marks the one-year anniversary of a deadline date agreed to by the City of Fullerton and one Mario Marovic, a downtown bar owner. Not much of a deadline, huh?

By March 27th, 2023, Mr. Marovic was required to have started demolition of the so-called “bump out,” an illegally constructed room addition built by the Florentine Mob two decades ago on City property. Marovic had gotten rid of the Florentines, finally, but decided that the leasehold on the room addition was somehow ripe for the encroaching. So he began remodel work on the leasehold right along with the rest of the building that he does own.

Busted.

Meet the new proprietor, same as the old proprietor…

But Fullerton being Fullerton, where nothing seems to be done right in City Hall, and where downtown scofflaw saloon owners do whatever the Hell they please, Marovic seems to have decided that the deadline meant, and means, nothing. And why should he believe otherwise? He has seen firsthand how the City bureaucracy and the City Attorney bent all the way over for the Florentines – instead of making them obey the law.

Well, the Earth has made an entire revolution of the Sun.

The City Council may occasionally talk about this in their hush-hush, top secret “Closed Session” meetings, but the public is not to know what is happening, even as our money and property are being frittered away. We do know that Marovic has threatened a claim against the City, but so what? Why would that be cause for the City to ignore Marovic’s breech of contract and seize the public property that Marovic encroached on illegally?

The reason could be that our esteemed lawyer, Dick Jones of The I Can’t Believe It’s a Law Firm, believes upholding agreements is not a winning strategy. Of course this third rate pettifogger has won so few cases for us, and has lost so many that we may feel confident questioning his judgment.

Or, it could be that the feckless and spineless City Council has been individually persuaded by Marovic that it’s in their best interest to ignore the deal, and that they should just let Marovic keep raking in the bucks thanks to a Conditional Use Permit that was contingent upon the removal of the room addition.

March 14, 2024March 14, 2024Ahmad Zahra

Trail to Nowhere Pests Throw Party

by Mr. Peabody36 Comments

A Friend just forwarded notice that something called South Fullerton Community is holding a “recognition” celebration this Saturday. The cause? Recognizing “community leaders” for succeeding in pestering, insulting and generally annoying Councilmembers Dunlap, Jung, and Whitaker until the latter finally caved in and approved the $1.7 million State grant to build a recreation trail through the middle of the worst industrially blighted, drug-riddled and gang infested strip in Orange County.

Hubris doesn’t seem to be something the South Fullerton Community folk worry about.

Of course this unheard of group was obviously created by and exists solely as a prop for Councilman Ahmad Zahra. Ironically, they won’t be holding their victory party anywhere near the site of the Trail to Nowhere. That would be a bummer for the celebration.

The announcement says that Assemblywoman Sharon Quirk Silva will be there to recognize the achievement, which makes sense because she doesn’t have any. Senator Josh Newman knows better than to bless this disaster-in-waiting by his presence; but maybe Gas Tax Josh doesn’t know better. This is the same guy who passed a regressive tax increase on his constituents the day before he left town for a Caribbean vacation.

And still the problems of the Trail to Nowhere appertain: a fraudulent grant application that omitted mention of contaminated soil and lied about the number of potential users; 10 active testing wells for trichlorethylene on the site; gang graffiti everywhere; homeless encampments; and of the cost of ongoing maintenance that no one has accounted for. Then there is the rosy, 5 year old budget that won’t get the deal done and will require additional money that could be used on other facilities.

Will any of the celebrants care about the true facts of the Trail to Nowhere? They haven’t so far. Will any of them stand up in a couple of years and apologize for the harebrained scheme? Of course not. All the people in charge of this mess know it as a fact that government has no rearview mirror and that mistakes may have been made (passive voice) but:

Not enough money was spent.
The people in charge have retired.
Critical information was withheld by someone, possibly, but it was all a worthy gesture.
It’s not a disaster it’s a victory!!
Hindsight is 20/20.

Of course this being Fullerton the subject probably won’t come up at all, just as no one even bothers asking about the 20 year old embarrassment known as the Union Pacific Park.

I wonder if the party-givers have invited Messrs. Dunlap, Jung and Whitaker to their fete. They deserved to be recognized, too, and maybe even get a certificate of achievement.

March 11, 2024March 11, 2024Ahmad Zahra

Fullerton City News Opines on Noise Debacle Downtown

by Mr. Peabody17 Comments

A publication called Fullerton City News features a very detailed look on the embarrassing nuisance noise situation created by Downtown Fullerton’s scofflaw bar owners, and the even less than feeble efforts of the City’s code enforcement crew to do something about it. As FFFF noted, here, City staff’s latest response to the 15 year old problem is to let the noise get louder.

By the way, I enjoy the fun Fullerton City News masthead and logo. It’s a takeoff on the city seal, and a nice and well-deserved shot at the less than worthless Fullerton Observer pretending to be “independent.”

Here’s the story:

“Since 2009 the Fullerton City Council has been going back and forth with bar owners and their proxies on City Staff, specifically in the Community Development Department, over how loud Downtown Fullerton should be on any given night.

The short version of this story is that staff is trying to implement a “noise zone” in Downtown Fullerton. Despite building housing basically on top of the bars (and approving a hotel at the train station), somehow it makes sense to make this mixed-use residential area LOUDER.”

See the whole article, here.

March 6, 2024March 7, 2024Bad Cops

Cops Croak Combative Chemise-less Chap

by Joe Sipowicz41 Comments

The following is a Fullerton Police Department issuance:

Fullerton Police Officers responded to a restaurant located in the 1300 block of S. Brookhurst Rd on March 6 at 3:01 am regarding two males that were standing at the front of the doors, possibly under the influence of drugs. The reporting party, who was the manager of the business, was concerned for the employees’ safety as they began to arrive for work.

Officers arrived on the scene and contacted one shirtless male adult, who was uncooperative with Officers’ commands. The male began swinging a belt at officers as they attempted to contact him. Additional officers were requested, and once they arrived, they utilized a taser to attempt to subdue the suspect, which was ineffective.

The suspect continued to act erratically and was uncooperative as he refused to comply with officers’ commands. Officers then utilized a less lethal kinetic energy projectile and struck the suspect, allowing officers to take him into custody. At this time in the investigation, it is believed the suspect sustained a significant injury to the chest area as a result of the use of the less lethal kinetic energy projectile.

Officers began life-saving measures while paramedics responded. The suspect was transported to a local trauma center, where he was later pronounced deceased.

As is standard practice in Orange County, the Orange County District Attorney’s Office will conduct an independent in-custody death investigation.

The Orange County Coroner will release the deceased suspect’s identity.

It would be nice to take FPDs statement at face value, but given both the history of the department, it’s unreformed record, and the nature of police reports in general, it would be unwise to do so. I won’t comment on the propriety of this episode other than to point a out a few of the typical bias issues with the report that are clearly intended to sway public opinion in the police direction, regardless of the central facts of the actual encounter. We’ve seen it lots of times before in Fullerton.

It’s 3 o’clock in the morning at a restaurant, most likely the McDonald’s store, which is in the 1300 block of South Brookhurst. Two dudes are hanging out in front of the doors, as reported by the store manager, who is apparently concerned for the safety of his incoming employees, and who has called for the police. So far so good.

Except that the two are reported as being possibly under the influence of drugs. It’s also possible that they are not under the influence of drugs. And here’s where the narrative gets loosey goosey because we don’t know, and won’t know until the Coroner is done with the corpus delecti, oops, the body.

We learn from the report that the cops on the scene encounter “one male,” shirtless; male #2 presumably has decamped. The fact that the man is inexplicably not wearing a shirt at 3am is further non-evidence in the effort to direct us to the inevitable exculpation of the police.

We are informed that the man was uncooperative with commands. Not knowing what the commands were, we are left to assume they were legal commands. Mr. Shirtless, removes his belt and swings it at the cops as they try to “contact” him. Contact? Verbally? Physically? What for? Has he even broken any laws at this point? Your guess is as good as mine. Fearing for their safety (no doubt) the cops on the scene request back-up, which arrives. Is Shirtless still swinging the belt? Don’t know. But rather than physically restrain Shirtless, somebody decides he needs a Tasing as a form of attitude adjustment. Which, of course fails.

Now there are multiple officers on hand and Shirtless still remains uncooperative to commands and erratic, another subjective and loaded term. Is he still swinging the belt after the failed Tasing? Don’t know. Still no mention of an attempt at physical restraint by any of the multiple, presumably fit officers. At this juncture somebody decides to hit the man with a “less lethal kinetic energy projectile” which hits him in the chest. I don’t know what a less lethal kinetic energy projectile is, but I guess if you hit somebody in the wrong place (and I don’t mean the 1300 Block of South Brookhurst), you can kill him. In this case, the technique wasn’t less lethal.

The police offer “life-saving measures” that don’t work, either, and the man is hauled of to a trauma center where he is “later” pronounced deceased, although the wording implies that the death, not the announcement came later. We don’t actually know when the man died.

There are lots of specific questions about this encounter, such as several failed tactics and the possibility of escalation, none of which is offered in the press release. Will we find out? The DA won’t help with transparency and neither will the FPD. But, surely Mr. Shirtless has relatives, and the relatives will have lawyers.

March 4, 2024March 4, 2024Ahmad Zahra

A Tale of Two Trails

by Mr. Peabody54 Comments

A Friend has alerted us that the on-line version of the Fullerton Observer posted a story by somebody named “Emerson Little” about a little known Fullerton trail called the Lucy Van Der Hoff Trail. The title? “Lucy Van Der Hoff Trail Needs Maintenance.” It seems that almost nobody knows about this .9 mile “asset” even though it is City-owned.

Unfortunately, the “trail” is overgrown, full of trash, and is yet another shining example of neglect by our top-notch Parks Department. Fortunately, the intrepid Emerson took the trail and generously provided images. But let’s let Emerson tell it in his own words: .

“It’s maintained by the Fullerton Parks and Recreation Department and is listed on the city’s website as a connector. However, when I walked on the trail, it was rather overgrown and poorly maintained. In certain spots, there were quite a few lost objects and pieces of garbage, possibly swept down the pathway by rainwater.”

So, the City has completely failed at maintaining the Lucy Van Der Hoff Trail – even as a simple mountain bike trail. They seem actually have completely ignored it – a facility that should cost almost nothing to maintain. It’s alleged “connector” value is almost useless.

More from Emerson: “I stepped around some discarded plastic bags, bottles, pillows that were torn open, unidentifiable articles of clothing, pieces of broken wood, old soccer nets, and cans, making my way forward.” When the overgrown vegetation became too thick our brave explorer had to ditch the “trail.”

Finally, here’s Emerson wrapping up the tale of his Big Adventure: “So, while my hike was interesting, I really wouldn’t recommend taking the Lucy Van Der Hoff trail.”

And now, Friends, here’s an observation that seems to have escaped the keen notice of the Observers. The advocates of the infamous Trail to Nowhere on the old Union Pacific right-of-way tacitly believe (or pretend to believe) it is going to be maintained – 170 trees, hundreds of shrubs, water lines, irrigation systems, benches, paths, signage, light fixtures – and let’s not forget graffiti removal, etc. – even though there is no budget to do this, and the money can’t be looted from the Park Dwelling Fund which can’t be used for maintenance.

We’ve already seen the maintenance fiasco of UP Trail Phase I – the plant denuded, trash filled, urine soaked predecessor of Phase II that nobody in City Hall has given a rat’s ass about. And Fullerton is also facing a fiscal cliff thanks to years of budgetary mismanagement.

Several months ago FFFF received a comment from former City Manager Chris Meyers, warning about the foolishness of building something that doesn’t have a plan for maintenance cost. But Ward 5 Councilman Ahmad Zahra believes even talking about maintenance issues south of the tracks is “offensive,” the idea being that it’s great to give the “underserved” barrio “something nice,” but who cares what happens to it later. It’s like giving somebody a car when they can’t afford to buy gas, or insurance, or keep it running. Looks like Zahra’s colleagues all agree – even though the very same people can’t figure out how to open Union Pacific Park – another embarrassing disaster.

February 25, 2024February 25, 2024Ahmad Zahra

The Trail to Nowhere Complaint

by Mr. Peabody67 Comments

It’s a total waste of money, but it sure is short…

As has been predicted, a concerned Fullerton Friend has decided that the dismal Trail to Nowhere was such an insult to California’s taxpayers and to any commonsensical Fullerton resident that he was going to do something about it.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is Camp-750x1000.jpg

So he wrote a letter to the State of California Natural Resources Agency and addressed it to the Agency’s boss, Mr. Wade Crowfoot. I understand that the letter was sent by registered mail so it may be hard for Mr. Crowfoot to claim he didn’t get it.

Cynics will say that the California bureaucrats at these agencies don’t care how their grants are spent, or in this case, misspent. Their jobs are to dole out the dough without a backward glance. In this case there was no real forward glance either; judging by the initial approval, they swallowed Fullerton’s tale by the proverbial hook, line, and sinker.

Anyway, it’s a good synopsis of the various inaccuracies and falsehoods in Fullerton’s grant application. Here is the text of the letter, forwarded to us by its author:

Mr. Wade Crowfoot
Secretary for Natural Resources
California Natural Resources Agency
715 P. Street, 20th Floor
Sacramento, CA 95814

Dear Mr. Crowfoot,
I am writing to you as a concerned citizen of the City of Fullerton, to inform you of irregularities in a
Grant Application made by the City of Fullerton to your agency which resulted in the award of a Urban
Greening Grant to build a recreational trail on an abandoned section of the Union Pacific Railroad right-of-way.
This is a 2022 grant for $1,777,200.00, under Grant Agreement U29194-0 which itself was authorized by
Senate Bill 859.
The irregularities in the Grant Application falls into two categories: first, omission of pertinent
information required by the application; second, outright falsehoods about the projected positive
aspects of the project.
The application failed to alert the State that one of the adjacent properties to the proposed trail is
contaminated by trichloroethylene (TCE), a known carcinogen. The property (311 South Highland
Avenue) is identified by the EPA and the State of California Department of Toxic Substances Control
(DTSC). Reports have indicated a TCE plume emanating from 311 South Highland in a southerly direction, precisely under the proposed trail site. There are currently 10 Monitoring test wells along the proposed trail site and several others in adjacent properties.
The proposed project budget does not include any cost for additional testing, remediation, and/or
export. There is no inclusion of the need to rework or replace the existing test wells.
Beyond the unmitigated environmental concerns, the City of Fullerton Grant Application asserts
“connectivity” as a positive feature of the proposed trail. These assertions are demonstrably false. The
proposed trail does not connect to any businesses; it does not connect to Downtown Fullerton; it does
not create connections between parks and schools; it does not connect different parts of the City and is
actually contained within the same compact area. In fact, the proposal for Phase II does not even
connect to its predecessor, Phase I, which itself was a selling point in the Grant Application.
In truth, the proposed trail is a disembodied half-mile length of property that starts and stops without
reference to any other transportation corridors.
To the West, Phase II terminates with the Burlington Northern Santa Fe right-of-way at the back corner
of Independence Park, a park so poorly maintained that the playground, courts, and gymnasium have
been closed off to the public for several years. On the East, Phase II abruptly ends at a sidewalk adjacent to Highland Avenue, a North-South thoroughfare serving approximately 11,500 vehicles daily, per the City’s own traffic study in 2019.
Even if Phase II connected to Phase I, which it does not, Phase I itself stops at the back of the abandoned
Union Pacific Park which was closed due to contamination 15 years ago. There is no practical extension
in either direction.
Despite these facts, the City of Fullerton’s Grant Application included a projected 105,000 annual users, a number that is simply preposterous on its face.
The proposed trail does not pass through a residential neighborhood, but rather a blighted industrial
strip situated between two dilapidated, neglected, and run-down parks. In short, it doesn’t go where
anyone with common sense would want to go.
The existing abandoned right-of way has provided plenty of evidence of being unsafe. There is rampant
drug use, homeless encampments and two violent deaths over just the past few years.
The City of Fullerton cannot afford to maintain the proposed facility, as is clearly witnessed in the
condition of the trash strewn, dilapidated, weed-infested Phase I, a condition deliberately omitted from
the grant application. The idea that this area has been so poorly maintained but somehow the City will
be able to be good stewards of the area only AFTER the State grants it nearly $2 million more, is
insulting.
The $1.77 million grant represents resources that could, and should, be used elsewhere.
Fullerton’s Application was disingenuous, at best. At worst it included falsehoods dressed up in words
echoed back from the stated objectives of the Application Form in order to defraud the State.
In writing this I am hoping that your Agency will reevaluate this project, rescind the funding, and find a
better use of this valuable Grant money.
Thank you for consideration of this matter.

February 20, 2024February 20, 2024Behind Closed Doors

The Abdication

by Joe Sipowicz43 Comments

I’ve been watching Fullerton politics and governance for for a long time – since 2008 or 2009, in fact. One thing that has consistently struck me is the way in which Fullerton’s elected officials have completely and almost happily abdicated their responsibility to determine the direction of policy.

It has always been the goal, in principle if not in practice in modern representative democracy, that policy would be established by electeds, and administrated through a protected civil service bureaucracy.

Determining policy – the philosophical direction you want the town to take – isn’t easy in the “City Manager” form of government, a form deliberately created to remove any sort of executive authority from elected representatives. But with that set-up came something else, too: the difficulty of people’s representatives in establishing policy direction, and doing it without violating the Brown Act strictures on open meetings.

Nevertheless, the responsibility is still there, even if it easier to have photo ops, and ribbon cuttings and the like. Sadly our electeds have failed; failed with remarkable banality and complacency. Former Councilman and Fullerton Police Chief Pat McKinley once illustrated the point when challenged for his “failure to lead.” He exclaimed that councilmen weren’t there to lead – that was the City Manager’s job.

Lately the policy role abdication has been seen with the regurgitated, spit out, re-consumed and regurgitated again noise ordinance, an ongoing embarrassment that has plagued honest citizens for over fifteen years. I read the staff report on the recent noise effort, a report that justifies a decision to actually increase acceptable levels, protect offenders by including an ambient noise mask, and locates the noise metering away from the source whence it can be muddled by an equally noisy neighbor.

The staff report is nothing but a list of events that have occurred since 2009 when the City Council last expressed a coherent position. Nowhere in the staff report is there any discussion on the policy decisions behind any of the activities. Why not? Because there weren’t any. In the same way that the incredibly costly, drunken binge known as Downtown Fullerton has escaped any intelligent policy conversation, the noise nuisance issue, a subset of the former, has evaded policy discussion as City staff – behind the scenes – has diligently avoided doing anything to enforce existing code, and worked very hard to reduce the requirements.

So what has happened is a vacuum in which each new action seems disembodied from policy conversation; that’s because it is. And our council steadfastly refused to have an open and honest conversation of what it wants, abdicating its responsibilities.

There is a long list of issues that our elected representatives should be addressing from an overarching policy level and aren’t. This sort of thing takes thought; and some hard work in ascertaining whether your city employees are really doing the thing you want; or not, as in the case of the Trail to Nowhere. It’s easier just to ram through the Consent Calendar on the nod, rubberstamp the ridiculous, clean your plate like good kids, and move on to the photo ops and the trophy ceremonies.

February 16, 2024February 17, 2024Ahmad Zahra

Trail to Nowhere Gets Use

by The Fullerton Harpoon49 Comments

The other day FFFF noticed a gentleman who was actually an active bicycle user of the City’s much-vaunted recreation trail through the industrial wasteland of central Fullerton. In fact, this fellow has two bikes!

This poor chap seems harmless enough, but guy’s presence once again raises the several issues regarding the proposed $2,000,000 trail, mostly about safety and maintenance, but also about the homeless problem that has plagued the City’s Union Pacific right-of-way for two decades and actually helped close the dead Union Pacific Park years, and years ago. Potential users, even if there were any identified beyond the insane projection of 105,000 per year, would surely think twice about the neighborhood and the company they would be keeping whilst recreating on the Trail to Nowhere.

No one in City Hall, not staff, and not the incurious City Council who unanimously approved this waste of money, explained why the fate of the UP Park won’t also be visited upon the Trail to Nowhere. The physical conditions still appertain and the existence of the homeless and the Fullerton Toker’s Town gang is as prevalent as ever.

You would think that no one would want their fingerprints on this new disaster-in-waiting, but there seems to be the understanding that in Fullerton all you have to do is wait for a year or two and all past sins will be forgotten if not forgiven. This is called no-fault government, and man, we got it bad.

February 12, 2024February 13, 2024Ahmad Zahra

The Compartmentalization Effect. Or Worse.

by Fullerton Engineer17 Comments

Now that the Council majority of Dunlap, Whitaker and Jung have done a 180 flip-flop and accepted the so-called Trail to Nowhere grant, it seems like a good idea to remind Fullerton about some things that the City still doesn’t want us to know.

About eight weeks ago – several weeks before the Council flip-flop – I wrote a post about the presence of test wells on the Trail to Nowhere. These wells were installed to test the levels of trichlorethylene (TCE). Not only were the wells situated on the trail but also farther south, in the middle of the street in the 300 block of West Truslow Avenue.

I offered the fact that no one can do this sort of thing on public property without permits from the City of Fullerton and that surely the Engineering Department or Development Services Departments has records of those encroachments. The scope of the actual TCE contamination has been known for 20 years or more, and the State of California and the Environmental Protection Agency have known all about it. So has City Hall, since groundwater contamination in north Orange County was the subject of a massive lawsuit involving the Orange County Water District. Plus, someone was installing test wells on City property.

I asked how was this contamination could be omitted from the City’s grant application to the State Natural Resources Agency.

The grant has finally been accepted by the City, but the problem remains. Two problems, in fact. The contamination is still there, of course, and so are the test wells – an issue not addressed in the project budget. But an even bigger question remains. Was the omission due to a management problem – complete compartmentalization of City departments? Or, worse was the problem deliberately ignored?

In either case Fullerton has a fundamental problem the cause of which is clear: complete lack of accountability that appears cultural. City Manager Eric Levitt was preceded by a long leadership vacuum in which City Managers like Joe Felz and Ken Domer were simply along for the ride – chosen, apparently for their elastic sense of responsibility. Yet, Levitt has been around for two years and seems to show the same flexible attitude.

If departments are sequestered behind opaque compartment walls, there is a failure of corporate leadership, and an inevitable decentralization that was, and is, a recipe for costly failure. That’s on Mr. Levitt. If City employees knew about the contamination issue and either said nothing or deliberately lied to the State, that’s a problem of employees who feel utterly secure in their behavior, knowing that consequences for bad actions is not a problem; this is on Levitt, too.

In the specific case of the Trail to Nowhere, the three councilmembers who flipped their votes have some explaining to do, and not just about a matter of opinion, good idea/bad idea. They need to explain how and why the City application for the grant omitted mention of a real and present issue, and also what their City Manager (who just got an 8% raise) is going to do about it. If they don’t they’re part of the accountability problem.