To Hell In A Handbasket
If you spend much time driving around Fullerton you become painfully aware of the sad state of the streets. The deteriorating infrastructure underneath is a disaster just waiting to happen. Some folks might characterize this as blight. I know I do. And yet when it comes to dealing with blight, the one and only mission of Redevelopment law, our agency would much rather spend millions on subsidies to commercial developers, land “write-downs,” low income housing, crummy remodels, fire sprinklers for dance clubs, transforming a useful alley into an elevated pedestrian paseo, purchasing a poisoned park, and relocating a McDonald’s for $6,000,000, etc. etc.
One of the key points of our settlement negotiations with the City over its Redevelopment project area expansion will be to require the Agency spend a significant portion of its funds on infrastructure replacement – the very “talking point” that the pro-expansion mouthpieces used at the public hearings in the first place.
Thanks for the update on the lawsuit. Hope everything goes well.
That’s quite a pothole.
Why thank you Joe!
Did you see my “work” in Florida? Swallowed up a whole Camry I did..
Seriously..the streets in Fullerton are terrible and when riding on a bike..they are even dangerous..bike lane or not!
Something is wrong when you have to sue your own government to get them to fix a few potholes. They’d rather build McDonalds than worry about streets.
#4 Don’t think of it as suing our government. Redevelopment Agencies are not there to govern. They were created to eliminate blight. Instead, because they have the ability to tap into our current and future tax dollars, they have been portrayed as a money making enterprise. This has made it very easy to garner unwitting support from the politicians who are being spoon fed lies by the redevelopment bureaucrats. The lawsuit is necessary because our elected officials have failed to control their employees lust for power and fame and have become tools of their employee’s unions and their political action committees. At last, the local citizenry (FFFF) has the ability to put them all in check. The days where the bureaucrats’ self serving interests dominates another feeble-minded Council are over. The FRA can make the choice: cut your nose off to spite your face or accept community oversight.
Good move on requiring infrastructural repairs from the redevelopment agency. Now, just why did they plant trees that lift up the sidewalks all over the city?
Helena, that’s called “job security”.