Sort of Good News From the Fringe: Best Vote 2009

Okay, Friends, the pickings were worse than slim. They were virtually non-existent.

Still, in a generally all-round depressing year, accountability-wise, a few bright spots appeared. Here are our nominees:

1. The Vote to let the people decide on term limits. Kudos to Shawn Nelson, Pam Keller, and Sharon Quirk-Silva for deciding to let the people of Fullerton decide whether or not 12 years in enough time to be on the city council. Naturally Don Bankhead and Dick Jones opposed the idea correctly realizing that such an idea is a direct indictment of their own sad, useless multiple-term careers on the council.

2. The Death of The Great $6 million McDonalds move. Nelson, Quirk-Silva and even Jones got this one right right. The only problem is that an apparently insubordinate staff brought back a new plan later on with – you guessed it – McDonald’s still being relocated again. And with even more embarrassing architecture than ever. Of course this undermines the whole significance of the first vote. But in a thin year you take whatever you can get.

3. The Redevelopment Expansion. Like desperate rats clinging to shipwreck debris Pam Keller, Don Bankhead, and the egregious Dick Jones demonstrated their complete cluelessness and willingness to be led down the Redevelopment garden path. But Shawn Nelson and Sharon Quirk-Silva weren’t fooled by the blatantly phony findings of blight that provided the corrupt underpinnings for whole tottering edifice. Later on they opposed the shameful backroom deal cooked up with the County to buy off the latter.

4. The very recent vote on the Richman Housing project – a no-bid, staff make-work project that ignores the housing needs identified by housing advocates as the most pressing. Sharon Quirk-Silva saw through the bureaucratic self-interest and voted no.