In the City of Galvin
When we heard Mr. Frisbee mention former Redevelopment employee Terry Galvin’s name at the recent Council meeting regarding the McDonald’s boondoggle, we started to reflect on the span of his career.
Even though he has been retired for several years, Galvin’s influence still pervades almost every downtown debacle and disaster – including the ongoing McDonald’s relocation and the disgrace of the poisoned UP Park.
We though it might be fun to trace some of the highlights of Terry’s 25 year Redevelopment career to illustrate the influence one person can have over the lives and wealth of so many:
- Harbor Blvd. Removal of parking
- Construction and removal of concrete trestles along Harbor
- Pansy Law subsidy
- Bank of Italy demolition/acquisition
- Knowlwood Corner fiasco
- Depot North platform design failure and cover-up
- Allen Hotel blight-to-blight fiasco
- Permanent disfigurement and illegal remodel of original Masonic Temple building
- SRO catastrophe
- Eminent domain for now long-gone Toyota dealership
- Acqusition of UP (aka Paseo) park property & right-of-way
- Brick veneer and stucco on dozens of significant buildings
- Conversion of downtown Fullerton from commercial to high density residential
- Slotsy’s Depot platform embarrassment and cover-up
- Interference in contract @ Dean Block bld.
- The Depot ceiling screwup
To us the most interesting question about Galvin’s reign of error was how he managed to avoid discipline, let alone termination for his string of disasters that adorn Fullerton’s downtown like a string of cheap beads. It could only have happened in an environment free of accountability, and with the complicity of elected officials who not only tolerated this failure, but were also complicit in it.
And that, Dear Friends is why city councilmembers actually keep bragging about what has been “accomplished” in downtown Fullerton; and why, rather than disbanding the Agency, they prefer to expand it!
Wow, that’s quite a laundry list of major screw ups. I can not understand how someone could do so much damage and get away with it until FFFF came along.
I thought we were winding down on tales of redevelopment bungles, but it looks like we’re only 1/3rd of the way there.
Did I hear Frisbie correctly, when he said “honestly, our business is better suited for us where we are right now”?
What’s funny here WTF, is that many people that are reading our blog think that I’m making all this stuff up.
These are the facts my friend, you are being exposed to them as I see them. If there is another way to interpret what people say and do, please show me the way.
The Depot ceiling “screw-up” was more than just that. Galvin oversaw the replacement of the sheet metal soffit with stucco. His chosen contractor applied the lath and plaster directly to the sheet metal – an illegal application which meant that the work was never even inspected, and that the public was put at considerable risk. When Galvin was questioned, he lied in a memo passed on to the City Council claiming that the application was stronger than if it had been done right. Busted! But wait, this is Fullerton. No harm, no foul. No publicity.
Later the plaster and sheet metal were removed and the whole thing was redone – right.
Galvin should have been fired for that fiasco all by iteself. And he would have been except that in Fullerton government nobody ever has to pay for f-ups – even if the public is endagered.