Fitzgerald Hates on the Haters
It looks like I might be a “hater”. As one of only a handful of people to come out against the “Pine Forest Staircase” I’m going to make the leap that Fitzgerald is talking about me and therefore will respond accordingly.
Let us take the points in reverse order.
This is not a “New” community amenity as this is one of Fullerton’s oldest parks. All of those people who remember the Duck Pond aren’t having a massive shared delusion as it really did exist. The city let this park fall apart and is now trying to sell it as a win that they’re finally fixing what they themselves broke.
Fixing something you broke isn’t an act of respect. The city let this park fall into complete disrepair owing to budget constraints and poor management as folks like Fitzgerald prioritized six-figure pensions for her friends (Danny Hughes, Joe Felz, et al). To make matters worse the city council has yet to budget for more staff to maintain this park once it is completed. Add to that the likely budget cuts coming thanks to her (and her cohort’s) over spending on FPD/FFD Overtime/Pensions.
The Pine Forest Stairs are shoddily constructed and were significantly overpriced. “People like them and use them” Fitzgerald and her friends claim. Do you know what else they’d like and use? Better made stairs that cost less.
This type of fiscal deflection is ludicrous from an elected official who should be demanding the best bang for our buck and not running interference for developers. To be fair this is a common refrain from elected officials. One needs only listen to Bruce Whitaker justifying overpaying for a park because it’s in the “Gem District“. The council literally rewarded owners for their negligence at a premium price in the instance of Pearl Park.
This project isn’t restoring the park to it’s “original grandeur” as you do not restore something by completely altering it. This is a renovation and not a restoration. A bridge nobody will have cause to use is further destroying what was the duck pond and the pine stairs are totally new. Words matters and the idea that this is a “restoration” is an outright lie. Is the city putting the trees back into the park? No. They were too busy pumping water into Laguna Lake to bother putting any of it on the trees they let die and then had to remove.
And finally let us talk about Fitzgerald’s economic illiteracy here.
“A fantastic use of park fees”.
Park Fees are fees the city takes for new development. When the city allows a new mega-apartment complex to go up they collect a bucket load of money for the purpose of adding or improving parks. I’ve addressed this issue before here.
If this is a legal use of fees is debatable but is it a good use let alone a “fantastic” use of fees?
No.
This is nothing more than Jennifer Fitzgerald perpetuating the ‘Broken Window Fallacy’ as explained by Frédéric Bastiat.
I’ll sum it up simply.
The city council and city management broke Hillcrest park and are now using millions of dollars that could have been used to buy land in Coyote Hills or to fix our long neglected “Poisoned Park” or even to purchase Fullerton’s now most expensive park which Whitaker was all too happy to overspend taxpayer’s money upon.
This money is being used in the least efficient way possible because it is fixing that which never should have been broken. It wasn’t an accidental breakage either. Hillcrest Park has suffered decades of neglect as council after council ignores any semblance of accountability while generation after generation of overpaid bureaucrats toil away on grand schemes to fix what they should have been protecting in the first place.
Fitzgerald’s reasoning logically follows that we should neglect and destroy all of our parks in order to spend money fixing them. Wouldn’t that just be “fantastic”?
After years of unbalanced budgets we can’t really expect much more from Fitzgerald or the Fullerton City Council but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be outraged at their cavalier attitudes or sheer incompetence.
I still naively expect elected officials to work for what is in our best interest and to be able to explain away criticisms without resorting to childish colloquialisms.
Fitzgerald might be correct in that “haters will always hate” but it is also true that economic illiterates will never math.
Great post.
Whenever I see somebody using the term “hater” I’m pretty sure it is being used by an incompetent baboon or somebody looking to obscure malfeasance. In the case of Fitzgerald it looks like both. Why Whitaker is going along with all this happy horse shit remains a mystery.
Pretty sure she’s calling the stairs the new amenity.
Grammar would dictate otherwise.
Not really. And just because you’re a grammar Nazi doesn’t mean the author is.
So your argument is that Fitzgerald doesn’t know how to write a paragraph?
I prefer grammar/spelling/punctuation snob. Have a wonderful weekend!
I’ve noticed that the people who can’t write are often the biggest defenders of bad writing.
It’s Monday. But you knew that, right?
You and Matt need to get a room.
Building a bridge that no one will use is an outstanding use of park fees?
Not quite sure where we should slot that in the Fitzgerald Ladder of Idiocy. I’m thinking two rows below “The budget is balanced!” and one above “Joe Felz is a dear friend of mine and was a fantastic city manager.”
I’m still trying to figure out how common construction grade pressure treated Douglas Fir transformed into Pine Forest Stairs.
It was transformed very badly!
I had a chance to try out these stairs recently. The first thing I noticed that I found quite irritating is that the squeak when you walk on them. The sound of loose nails A better & modern choice for a park stairway would have been composite material and skrew’s to mount them instead of nails. The lack of any kind of new greenery growing here but mostly weeds makes it look unfinished. Compared to other parks around the county the trail system in the park and broken rails along the pathways are an embarrassment.
Yea, a squeak is so irritating. If that’s your biggest complaint, they did a pretty good job on the stairs.
Except that isn’t the biggest problem, but one of many – including shoddy workmanship, incompetent design, and inferior materials. Other than that everybody did a “good job” on the stairs. At least they managed to cash our checks without losing them.
I suggest you read the other posts on the disastrous “Pine Forest Stairs”
How can anybody in their right mind defend that wooden pile of crap? And a bridge NOBODY is going to use? And how about using Park Dwelling Fees to “restore” a fountain that’s been out of commission for 50 or 60 years while Hugo the Clown denies the use of those funds for rehabbing existing park facilities. Shameful.
it is not Fullerton city council members money, it is our tax dollars that we, the good people of fullerton, want used to restore our parks.
I really hate that woman. She’s just despicable. But I guess Jesus hasn’t told her to quit lying to the public yet.
How about some updated photos to see if ANY of the construction defects have been addressed?
So each cop costs us about a quarter mil to roll out each year. And that includes all the GED thieves, felons and kidnappers. I’d try happy talk too if I were Fitzgerald. Of course now that she’s taking her council pay we know she’s given up on her political future so why the concern about appearances?
I thought this was just her personal online dribblings but I now I see that “haters gonna hate” actually came from her official city council Facebook account. Stay classy.
to hate, hates, hating are verbs. I know language is morphology meaning shape shifting, but to this date hate is not a person. And it is this same dolt who controls the finances of Fullerton, decides what gets built or not in this city and forms municipal policies that directly impact the people of Fullerton. The loci of power should be closest to the people meaning municipal governments play the most important role in representing the interests of the people( as opposed to whining for hand-outs from the federal government. But self-serving, incompetents, like Fitzgerald, and harkening to the recent past Pat McKinley, Dick Jones, make a good argument for fascism and dictators instead of a republic government.
The old duck pond was a nice place just as Lions Field when Boy Scout meetings were held in the old clubhouse and there was real grass to run and play on instead of artificial turf that contains carcinogens for our children to breathe.
Many of us remember what our town was like and are trying to hang on to as much as we can of what it used to be.
And that was before the City let Hillcrest Park fall into decrepitude and before Susan Hunt kicked out all the volunteer activity there and misdirected funds to create facilities public employees could shake down the public for. Now we get poorly built wooden stairs to nowhere and bridges meant to look at, not walk over.
Too bad the City bureaucrats aren’t looking out for the people who pay their salaries.
Don’t forget the City tolerates all those perverts, too. All those six figure City employees went way out of their way to kill Hillcrest. And now we’re supposed to cheer the multi-million dollar boondoggles of Fitzgerald, or we’re “haters?”
Just how many dollars are you talking about for how many stairs and how do the costs compare to similar projects elsewhere in Orange County?
First, the stairs themselves are a strange priority given the fact that other park facilities go wanting. Second, the quality of construction and lack of competent inspection and project management make a cost comparison almost irrelevant.
This is a poorly designed and constructed boondoggle.
Not sure why Joshua feels Jennifer is referring to him as being a hater. I doubt she thinks about him at all.
You could be right. Joshua doesn’t have a dollar sign tattoo’d to his forehead. Thta;s what really grabs Fitzy’s attention. That and glow in the dark statues of Jesus.
Fitzgerald is this generation’s Susan Hunt and Don Bankhead rolled into one*. What a telling sign that publicly elected Gina Fitzgerald is quick and happy to put down ANY discussion or debate about the prioritizing, quality, and the bidding process of any project funded with our tax dollars. It’s VERY manipulative of her to sweep their mistakes under the rug by calling any and everyone a ‘hater,’ rather than taking responsibility for $1M that could have been spent much more wisely. What better way of castigating concerned citizens than by calling them HATERS and trying to hide. Sorry, Gina. Your actions have wasted money, time, and are largely for self preservation.
There wasn’t a clear cut need for stairs that will quickly fall into a state of disrepair, and indeed, already have serious construction issues. An argument could be made for the need for $1M in park renovations, including planting, erosion control, re-pouring and fixing existing concrete steps throughout, expanding parking, general maintenance and to bring this park back to the state that was envisioned by the original landscape designer, George Seupelt (though, sans the camping part).
What’s telling about Fitzgerald is that by labeling anyone who disagrees with her as a hater, she’s making yet another last ditch attempt to preserve her own career, rather than by serving the best interests of the electorate.
*Read: https://www.fullertonsfuture.org/2009/the-strange-tragic-tale-of-hillcrest-park/
Sorry, wrong first name. Jennifer. She’s that unremarkable.
So, forgive me for asking the obvious…where would one find the original plans for the park? And how does the City get away with alterations to a site of historic significance (whether listed or not it’s potential gives it some semblance of consideration for CEQA, right?)
There are no original plans. The park was mainly built up over a period of 15 years or so 1920-1935-ish. It has been listed as a landmark since the City adopted that list (and the applicable code) in 1979. Alterations should have been reviewed by the Landmarks Commission and the Sec Int Standards should have been applied. Of course neither of things ever happened. I don’t know if these latest additions were even given a categorical exemption – most likely if anyone even thought about it at all.