Stupid Observer
A guy named Mike Ritto writes a periodic column for our Friends at the Fullerton Observer called The DOWNTOWN Report that ostensibly deals with happenings in our economic sinkhole known as Downtown Fullerton, or DTF, for short.
In his latest piece Mr. Ritto promises A Brief History of Union Pacific Park. Hmm. This might be interesting, I thought. And so it is, but not for what it says, but for what it intentionally leaves out. It begins talking about the Union Pacific RR, the Santa Fe and even the Pacific Electric. Ritto eventually gets around to the park itself:
“…remnants of that UP line are the fenced-off, such as Union Pacific Park just to the West of the former station, where the tracks used to run.
That neighborhood needs a park, and as the residents look through the chain links and see, finally, grading and other preliminary work that is taking place right now, they know it is on the way. Approval of the park revitalization was covered in our August 7 issue. In addition, we are following developments in the proposed Union Pacific Trail, which would be an open space trail between this new park and Independence Park to the West.”
Somehow the UP Park history has become no history at all, just a mysterious space with a fence around it.
Of course Ritto omits mention that the UP Park was a park on which the City spent several million dollars in land acquisition and construction, and that the City closed down first because of toxic contamination, and then because of abundant crime. This latter fact gets no mention because Ritto is insistent that “the neighborhood needs a park” and remembering that the last effort failed would be extremely awkward – so let’s just forget it. Like his Observer pals he repeats the nonsense that the Trail to Nowhere is still a real thing.
To perpetuate the propensity for misinformation of which the Observer is (in)famous, Ritto remarks that approval of park revitalization has occurred, as reported in the Observer on August 7th. What really happened was the Parks Commission voted to recommend the the Trail to Nowhere to the City Council. The article itself, despite the erroneous headline, is really just a propaganda piece for the now dead Trail to Nowhere and has nothing to do with the UP Park site.
Fullerton Observer readers are often told that the effort is an all-volunteer affair, as a sort of apology for bad reporting, opinion masquerading as news, factual misrepresentation and basic spelling mistakes. The Kennedy clan has been doing this for forty years or more and there’s no likelihood that this will change.
It’s amazing how little they get right.
Is that a bathroom in the photo of the former UP Park?
Yes. Rick Lloyd Crane, Architect.
G. Damit – what were the people thinking at that time thinking when they chose to design, build, and add a bathroom (I’m sure there were 2, mens and womens) in a neighborhood park that NOBODY wanted, except for for borrachos, hypes, $5 B.J. hookers, Fullerton City Staff, namely; Susan Hunt, and Co.?
No things will never change, really. That Jesse Latour guy was a big boohoo but lacked the proper Kennedy venom and bile. The Observer used to be sort of refreshing before it became a fifth column for the incompetent bureaucrats in City Hall.
This happened during and after the Recall of 1994 when Ralphie Kennedy went all in for a couple of buffoonish Repuglicans and a feather-headed Democan’t who voted for a completely unnecessary tax.
Ritto says, “…remnants of that UP line are the fenced-off, such as Union Pacific Park just to the West of the former station, where the tracks used to be.”.
That abandoned section wet of the fenced off U.P. Park has never been fenced off. This guy, Mike Ritto’s mind is fenced off!
The old UP station sat EXACTLY where the park was built so he got that wrong, too.
“west of”, not “wet of”.
It says a lot about the dumbness of the Trail to Nowhere when its diehard supporters have to keep repeating the same lies about it.
Here’s a person called “Amy”: “I really hope the city honors the voices of its constituents and builds the UP Trail. It would be such a beautiful and peaceful addition to the downtown landscape.”
She has no idea that the alleged trail is not in DTF. Completely unaware of where it really is and what it looks like there.
It is really sad. But that’s how the “Obervers” roll. Everything is seen through the light of “progressive” abstraction (spending money on cherished ideals good; getting results, unnecessary) and nothing through the light of hard reality.
This blog is used for my schools unit on misinformation and how to understand what is fake and paid for by bushala and his cheap VPN pals. This blog is a joke that gets views from my students, the more you write the more it hurts your “movement” but helps me with my class. So keep going or dont, its helps me out either way
School’s.
You’re an idiot. Leave them kids alone.
And “dont.”
And “its helps me out either way.”
Are you Jose Quirk-Silva? Definitely a public school empployee.
Make sure you get them to read the Observer to get a real sense of what illiterate propaganda looks like.
A long time ago this same Mike Ritto chap defended DTF businesses after the Kelly Thomas murder made world-wide news. “They didn’t do anything wrong.”
Except that 50 out of control bars created the Wild West Show and the FPD Culture of Corruption that led to Kelly’s death.
https://www.fullertonsfuture.org/2011/voices-of-fullerton-establishment-speak/