We Get Mail ─ Jan Flory and Gretchen Cox up to No Good
Remember last year when Jan Flory claimed she was ‘retiring’ from City politics? Much to our chagrin, that never happened. Instead, she’s taken up a new calling with close pal Gretchen Cox.
A Friend was gracious enough to share a letter they plastered all over the neighborhood last month:
This isn’t some altruistic idea in the name of public safety. Gretchen and Jan simply have an aversion to the aesthetics of said land, with Gretchen living two houses away and Jan living further up the hill.
Leave it to these numbskulls to use traffic hazard as a ploy for the City to dole out money for appearances. The intersection already has a traffic signal and the frequency of traffic accidents is no worse than other major intersections across the city. Don’t like the appearance of the land? Fine. Focus on that. Don’t try to lump traffic concerns in at the same time.
What’s more, the timing of the letter is particularly obnoxious given that the property was listed for sale in February. Were they hoping to derail a potential sale so the City could swoop in and acquire the parcel?
Since the letter was written, the property has gone into escrow. What an awful way to welcome someone to the neighborhood.
Maybe Jan should put on her gloves and trim the bushes herself. Instead she tries to manipulate taxpayer resources to resolve her personal issue by making up some phoney safety issue. This is garbage.
Reminds me of the time when Flory tried to use the city to chase kids on bikes out of her neighborhood. What a mean old hag.
Code enforcement is weak because Flory gave all the city’s money to the police and fire unions. This is her own fault. LOL.
Brush and grasses grow on hills. This is not even a problem.
The brush helps prevent mudslides.
The Honorable Jan Flory should move into an association and join the homeowners board. Then she can tell people how short to cut their grass and what color to paint their doors. This neighborhood can’t stand her.
The property “pooches out”? That choice of words is downright embarrassing. And Jan Flory is/was an attorney.
Sorry Jan, but there is no code enforcement in Fullerton. Enforcing the basic standards of property maintenance usually involves offending someone and our staff doesn’t want to call any attention to themselves as that could jeopardize their absurd pension pot-o-gold which is the only thing on their minds.
Code Enforcement in Fullerton is a problem because of the structure of the Code Enforcement Division hierarchy which places the so called “Planning Director” in charge of preserving, enhancing and maintaining our buildings, housing and landscapes. That goal is diametrically opposed to “development” , i.e., the generation of development fees, which is the life blood of all the cities that have impending pension Armageddon looming. Fullerton is a mess everywhere because of that contradiction in missions. Until Code Enforcement is separated from Planning, Fullerton will get worse.
So Jan/Gretchen are concerned that the city may be sued due to the “dangerous” intersection at Marion and Brea.
One of the things that most of us learned from kindergarten was that we shouldn’t run up and down stairs, but I haven’t heard these two squawking about the city encouraging people to run up and down the new Hillcrest Park stairs. Considering the condition of the stairs as built, I can see plenty of reasons for future lawsuits, particularly as the stairs age (perhaps a nice way to say “fall apart”). So why do they have this sudden concern for safety? Surely it doesn’t have anything to do with where they live?
But besides this double standard, do these two have any idea what it would cost for the city to buy the property and then level off the hillside? The asking price for the property was $450,000. Perhaps previous poster to FFFF Fullerton Engineer can comment, but I would guess removing the hillside, building retaining walls (don’t forget the engineering costs), and street realignment could easily cost, at a minimum, another $500,000 to $600,000. While Jan and her buddy Jennifer seem to think the city budget is balanced and another $1,000,000 is just pocket change for our fine city, I don’t think we have the money for, or need, this “improvement”.
Don’t spend too much time running calculations because this will never happen. It only has comedic value.
does anyone on Fullerton’s city council care about west Fullerton? Before Governor Brown the second time powered off redevelopment funds to cities and towns, Fullerton only redeveloped downtown Fullerton. Now, Jan Flory wants city tax dollars to make her neighborhood pretty thus increasing her neighborhood’s property values.
“does anyone on Fullerton’s city council care about west Fullerton?”
No, but if it makes you feel better they are wrecking the rest of Fullerton too.
Looking at downtown, I’d say the city council not caring is the best that could happen to your neighborhood.
Ah, yes, Jan Flory, The Grinch of Northgate Heights. Gretchen must be her protege.
I also live in the neighborhood and this post is being forwarded among neighbors this morning. We received the same letter on our mailbox.
Jan is an insufferable bully. I want to share a story that took place, I don’t know, fifteen or twenty years ago. Jan used to get her daily exercise by walking the neighborhood in the evenings. One time she stopped to chat and began asking questions about a neighbor’s property. I found the questions strange and soon this obsession of hers became obvious. A month or two passed and I noticed the neighbor making changes to his yard. This guy was always friendly to my wife and I but seemed a bit standoffish. Another neighbor concurred. We didn’t know why until a year later when the neighbor approached us and apologized. I asked what for? He rattled off a few reasons to which I laughed and said those things never bothered me. He seemed both surprised and confused, apparently under the assumption we ratted him out to code enforcement. Nope, not us. We didn’t do it. We checked around and none of the adjacent neighbors had either. Then it hit me, the very things he was dinged for by code enforcement are the things Jan Flory had a curious interest in. Years later I met other neighbors who had been through similar experiences. They were also suspicious of Jan Flory.
Jan tries to portray herself as this strong woman when just the opposite is true. That foul mouth of hers is a facade for deep rooted insecurities. She throws her weight around by hiding behind code enforcement because she lacks the necessary social skills for pleasant discourse.
I suppose the natural response would be anger but you must keep this in perspective. Jan is not a level-headed person. She’s a miserable human being through and through. I’ve never met Gretchen but her and Jan seem like two peas in a pod.
I really wish the both of them would stop destroying the camaraderie of our neighborhood. What’s left of it.
“Jan used to get her daily exercise by walking the neighborhood in the evenings.”
Yes she used to walk me so I would poop on other people’s property and she wouldn’t have to clean it up. But man, if I took a crap in her yard, BAM, out came the broomstick.
Jan and Gretch. What a team.
Get how Flory pretends that the view from the new Pine Tree Stairs is offensive, completely ignoring the offensiveness of the view caused by the Pine Tree Stairs.
Flory is a boil on the butt of Fullerton.
So let me get this straight if you happen to file a code enforcement complaint to get your neighbor to maintain their property to some very minimum standard then according to you FFF supporters you are a terrible bully. Now if you use the recall process to try to get someone removed from office that was just recently duly elected then you are some sort of a hero? A huge double standard wouldn’t you say and just another reason not to take this site seriously. By the way since when is a retired city council person a big story just more diversions by the FFF crowd
The letter said Flory tried to use her influence as a councilman to agendize action against the property owner. That’s a (failed) abuse of power.
A recall is part of the democratic process in California. It’s part of the state constitution. If you don’ t like it, you’ll get to vote against it soon.
I’m not sure it gets more self serving than this. I suspected that the “Pine Forest Stairs” were something Jan wanted as a “crowning” achievement as she departed the city council and this reinforces that. I hope that the city holds the stair contractor accountable for the poorly finished project and at least has something to show for the wasted 1.6 million. That could have gone toward repaving streets, which the city is finally (and thankfully) been doing in east Fullerton. We have too much infrastructure work to do to have spent this kind of money on a pet project.
No, the first bad impression of their neighborhood is this letter, which should live in infamy. Do a search of their neighborhood, this letter should come up, dissuading people to buy there, driving their values down because of Gretchen and Jan’s overt meanness and authoritarianism. Truly, they are the despots of that neighborhood. There’s no junk in that yard, no old cars wedged into the hillside …102 Marion is not a hoarder’s paradise. This house is NOT a candidate for the show Hoarders.
What I see is a neighbor of Jan and Gretchen’s who was saddled with paying for hill stabilization on a lot that was probably improperly graded and never should have been built on WAY back in the day.
The hillside is moderately green, which goes with the natural state of the natural flora and fauna of California. (Sorry, lawns are NOT native). But most importantly, the owner has stopped it from falling onto the street below. They should be kissing that neighbor’s ass for taking on the expense. Too bad the Gretchen and Jan don’t make like the goats they are, go over there and start helping them weed. Baaaaaaaa!
I suspect that the city should be responsible for the unstable hill side. Brea Blvd was a 2 lane street until the city acquired, no doubt by eminent domain, part of the hill top lot to widen the street. Notice the south stuccoed wall above Brea Blvd. There is an opening with stairway in the wall that goes down to the steep drop off to the street below. Now why would someone have a set of steps to nowhere (unless you were the city parks and rec), steps ending in a steep bank of that nature? The lot used to be larger on the south side and the steps must have led down to a lower level. When the city cut off the hillside to widen Brea Blvd, they left the owner with an unstable bank. The lot wasn’t improperly graded when the house was built (the hilltop was just flattened for the house pad), the city made the hillside unstable by cutting it away.
Every neighbor who got this letter should tell the Despots of Marion to move to North Korea.