About Us Archives - Page 7 of 32 - Friends For Fullerton's Future

August 20, 2018About Us

The Friends for Fullerton’s Future candidate questionnaire

With the filing period now closed, the election season is in full swing for the first district election on Fullerton City Council history (the full list of candidates who have qualified and their candidate statements can be found here).

The transition to District elections is proceeding smoothly.

As someone who has run for office before, I know that the single biggest challenge for any candidate is raising enough money to get your message out so that voters even know who you are. Nobody likes the direct mail pieces that inundate our mail box during election season but the candidates who pay for mail are the ones most likely to win, like it or not. And as a voter who has cast a ballot in every election since his 18th birthday, my biggest challenge for every election cycle is sorting through all that BS to find out which candidates have an actual plan, and are sincere about and committed to that plan.

So as a service to both candidates and the electorate, we have prepared the official Friends for Fullerton’s Future City Council candidate questionnaire, which we will email it to all candidates who qualify for the ballot. Unlike most questionnaires, ours has no word limit. Brevity is always recommended, but if you think your position takes three or more paragraphs to explain, then that’s what it takes. Whatever you write, we will publish it, in full, and let other residents know where you stand and why. The first one to turn in their questionnaire will be the first article we will publish.

The complete questionnaire is below the cut.

(more…)

July 30, 2018July 29, 2018About Us

The Wheels are Coming off Rolling Hills Park

by Sean Paden8 Comments

A little over a year ago, we ran an article about the deteriorating condition of Rolling Hills Park (right around the time Parks and Recreation were gearing up for the premier of the so-called “fitness stairs”). We even made a little joke about the condition of a certain fire engine play set:

Hey, kids! This is what our City Manager’s car looked like after he totaled it!

Flash forward a year and the joke is a lot less funny, because this is what the foundation of this children’s toy looks like now:

But don’t worry! According to a July 25 email from the City to a concerned resident, this equipment is a “solid piece of play equipment” that “offers “safe play for the time being”

And it will provide many more years of play time for personal injury lawyers after that.

This denial does seem to be a pattern at Parks and Recreation – we also have the fitness stairs disaster (documented by Mr. Peabody here), which they continue to ignore, and the Laguna Lake fiasco, which was ignored until the statute of limitations on the architect ran out. At least in this case, the City allows that its current plan is to remove and replace all the existing play equipment as part of its upcoming renovation. To that end, our sources tell us the City has placed yellow tape around the dangerous equipment, which has proven to be an extremely effect deterrent in the past.

A community meeting concerning renovations to Rolling Hills Park is scheduled for August 15, 2018, at 6:30 pm, at E.V. Free Church, located at 2801 N. Brea Blvd., Commons Building, Room C-212. If you utilize Rolling Hills Park, or you are a taxpayer who would like to prevent another avoidable personal injury lawsuit, you may want to attend and make sure the City follows through on its promises. And if your neighborhood park is in similar levels of disrepair (or worse) remember: the squeaky wheel gets the grease. Complain loudly and often, and be sure to cc someone at FFFF when you do.

July 5, 2018About Us

Grand Jury Subpoeneth

by David Curlee34 Comments

Numerous officers within the Fullerton Police Department are receiving Grand Jury Subpoenas like the one pictured below.

Probably not a coincidence that the lucky recipients are, reportedly, the same officers on scene when former City Manager Joe Felz ran over the tree in November 2016.

You know what, I’d really hate to be former police chief Dan Hughes, or former Sergeant Jeff Corbett, right now!

January 23, 2018February 19, 2018About Us

While We Were Away: the Train Kept On Rolling

by Sean Paden13 Comments

The last substantive article to run on FFFF site before its almost four year hiatus was this little gem about the “College Connector Study”, a $300,000 study designed to convince the Fullerton City Council that a streetcar system in costing (in their estimate) $140 million was exactly what the City of Fullerton needed. Why? Well, because building the streetcar would encourage high density development all along the rail line, turning Fullerton from a two story bedroom community into a six story high density, high traffic eyesore.

And, just to be clear, that was the argument in favor of wasting $140+ million on the streetcar.

Based on that report, three members of the Fullerton City Council (Chaffee, Fitzgerald and Flory) voted to make a streetcar part of the City’s transportation plan.

For the next three years, progress on the streetcar has stalled, and a competing proposal in Anaheim (this one estimated at $325 million) was shot down by the City Council after a coalition of good government activists ousted the Chamber backed majority from power. Unfortunately (to borrow the tagline for the Friday the 13th Part VI poster), nothing this evil ever dies, and the Fullerton Trolley is back. And like all bad horror sequels, it’s even bigger and more elaborate than before, while making even less sense.

I present to you, the Orange County Centerline:

Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair! Nothing beside remains. Round the decay. Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare.

The Centerline (something which has been in various stages of development at OCTA for over a decade) incorporates the Fullerton plan, along with a proposed streetcar line through Santa Ana, and several other lines. The plan is to run the line all the way through Harbor Boulevard all the way up to the transportation center. This would probably explain why that streetcar has been popping up on the artist conception for the Fox Block (image above).

OCTA recently provided a presentation to the Fullerton City Council at Tuesday’s meeting, which can be found here . No mention of which government entity will pay for the project, but even if the OCTA picks up the entire tab, we will at a minimum be on the hook for the maintenance cost , just as Anaheim is with the ARTIC Wasteland. Anaheim taxpayers have been forced to dip into the general fund for every year of ARTIC’s operation, as the revenue generated ($1.6 million) is nowhere near enough to pay the operation ($3.9 million). But hey – the City of Anaheim was given a fancy trophy for agreeing to shoulder these expenses, so the tradeoff was totally worth it, in some people’s eyes.

The trophy is huge, gaudy, expensive, tacky, unnecessary and completely impractical. It’s the perfect metaphor.

The Streetcar/ trolley concept is an absolutely terrible idea for too many reasons to count. The cost is astronomical , the benefit miniscule, it will render the streets it is located on un-drivable (seriously, just picture trying to make it through Downtown Fullerton with that thing blocking traffic). Oh, and it will also further undermine bus service in the county, because the cost of running a streetcar line is substantially higher than rapid bus service.

So to sum up, the OCTA wants to take Orange County into the twenty first century by spending hundreds of millions of dollars developing a nineteenth century technology designed to service people who don’t need it, at the expense of the bus riders who do. Sadly, this is about par for the course for state and county government, minus the exceptionally high price tag. Lets give the Center Line project – and every other streetcar project proposed in Orange County – the quick, merciful death it deserves.

December 4, 2017December 4, 2017About Us

FPD Internal Investigation Statistics

by Joe Sipowicz21 Comments

We aren’t very nice, but we sure are expensive…

Hey, since 2012, we’ve fired 11 cops for cause. That’s about 8% of the average number of uniformed cops in Fullerton in any given year. Who they are and how badly they had to behave to get fired as Fullerton cops is a mystery. But based on past behavior FFFF has documented, it must have been pretty damn bad.

12 were suspended for one reason or another. It is not our privilege to who or why.

166 were “reprimanded,” whatever the hell that means. But it amounts to more than the entire sworn employees in any given year. Obviously many of our fine officers received multiple reprimands. Are they still out there peering through our windows at night? Who knows?

Here’s the site where you can peruse the data, such as it is.

And here’s a snapshot:

While statistics for the other categories actually seemed to get better as Danny “Gallahad” Hughes ended his dubious chiefhood the health of prisoners in the Fullerton jail took a major turn for the worse. This statistic is troubling given reports about behavior in the jail, perhaps the most egregious being that of Vince Mater who was too stupid not to get caught destroying evidence after the “suicide” of Dean Gochenour. It’s charming how jail injuries are written off as possible scraped knees. But of course what really happened to these unfortunates is shrouded in mystery.

Of course these are the published statistic and may bear no relationship whatever with actual events. How many cops were permitted to “retire” rather than face the music is something we shall never know, and will never appear in these tables. How many “Citizen Complaints” disappeared down the proverbial rabbit hole never to be heard of again must remain a mater of speculation; speculation about which is a perfectly justifiable pastime so long as the cops shroud their activities in a veil of secrecy.

November 14, 2017November 14, 2017About Us

Fish This: Burning the Budget

by The Fish15 Comments

Some things in life are perfectly predicable. Things like physics and math. They’re not really that difficult to understand, but some people in our society are a little slower than others.

For example, next week there will be idiots who put a frozen turkey into a vat of hot liquid fat because #Merica. Despite many public service announcements to the contrary, stupidity will have its unavoidable and predicable consequences.

Tonight Fullertonians will miss out on the discussion taking place behind closed doors at City Hall concerning the state of the city’s budget. Voters won’t get to hear about the new contract negotiations designed to help the massive multi-million dollar structural deficit, the $100,000,000 in deferred infrastructure maintenance, or the equally massive unfunded pension debt. Instead, we’ll get a null report from The Other Dick Jones ™, and the facade of all being well will continue into this year’s planned First Night festivities.

Like so many idiots with a tank of propane, recent City Councils had fair warning of the current financial crisis. The math just isn’t that hard to understand. Every year, every single year, since each of their elections, Fullerton has spent more from the general fund than it has taken in. Tens of millions of dollars in reserves have evaporated. *POOF* gone, without a trace.

At the current rate, Fullerton may be bankrupt in two years.

This Thanksgiving, while you’re enjoying your non-idiot prepared bird, I want you to remember tonight’s secret city council meeting. I also want you to remember a meeting held just last year.

Just last year, the council authorized the largest pay raises for staff in a decade.

“The budget is balanced!” — Jennifer Fitzgerald

“Fullerton is in excellent financial shape!’ — Jan Flory

Well, the math simply doesn’t lie. The budget was not balanced and the city was not in excellent financial shape. Jen and Jan dunked their frozen bird and lambasted all the chronic malcontents who protested their fine stewardship.

*POOF*

Like that, Joe Felz hit a tree, and their financial bird exploded, the raging predictable disaster apparent for all to see.

Tonight the Fullerton City Council will likely authorize reducing pay and benefits for city employees, just in time for the holidays. When this is over, some employees will have their salaries reduced or their hours cut. Others will simply lose their jobs. Many of those individuals are good people who do good work. This isn’t their fault, but it will be their house that gets burned down and it will be their life that gets ruined.

Now Jen and Jan, two of those responsible for dunking this turkey? Don’t worry. They’ll be fine. Jen just gave herself a $9000 raise and Jan retired.

Seems just, don’t you think?

November 13, 2017November 14, 2017About Us

Where’s Dino? Part 2

by Joe Sipowicz19 Comments

https://youtu.be/a9KyMyo-fcA

A few weeks ago FFFF ran a post on the status on Dino Skokos, the FJC security goon and “disabled” former LA Deputy Sheriff who beat up and handcuffed a kid on campus in October, 2016. Right after the video of the event went viral, the district snapped into defense mode, placing Skokos on administrative leave and putting its lawyer to work on an in-house “investigation.” FJC President, Greg Schulz declared his dedication to reaching a conclusion of the incident.

The Schulz Factor: happy-looking but not credible…

The winter had passed; spring had come and gone. Summer was well along when in July, Schulz was directly confronted on the subject. In Schulz’s long and winding stream of nonsense a shiny pearl accidentally popped out of its oyster in the river bottom sludge: Skokos “was not going to be an employee of the district.”

What that meant was anybody’s guess, and some, like me, were skeptical. Was Skokos still on leave? If so, why? Who knew?

So FFFF followed up on an earlier Public records Act request that had been ignored. When that was intentionally misunderstood we filed yet another one. And finally we finally got this:

According to this list, Skokos was on admin leave – meaning he was getting paid for doing nothing – until the end of September, two full months after Schulz said he was no longer going to be an employee of the district, and almost an entire year after he assaulted that kid. And coincidentally (or not) that date corresponds exactly with the peculiar day projected earlier in the summer that Skokos was to come off administrative leave.

And here’s the last insult to public transparency on the part of Schulz & Co.: we have no idea whether Skokos is still employed by the district – whether at FJC, Cypress, district HQ, or at some other locale.

So how about it Greg? You promised a conclusion to this incident over a year ago. Did that promise include actually telling us about it?

In the likely event that no answer will be forthcoming from Schulz, you might try broaching the subject by our able and eager Trustee, Molly McClanahan, who has a long history of demanding accountability from her bureaucratic underlings.

No, that’s not quite right, is it?

October 26, 2017About Us

WHY YOU SO MAD AT MILO BY T-REX

by T-REX6 Comments

We’ve asked our infamous commentator “T-REX” to share his ancient wisdom with our readers. After agreeing to provide T-REX with two large broom handles stolen from Fullerton Public Works, the Friends are proud to present the first in a regular series of dino related thoughts.

TODAY T-REX GET PHONE CALL FROM LADY AT HIGH SCHOOL.

LADY SAY MANY OOO-MANS WORRIES ABOUT “CONSERVATIVE PROVOCATEUR” AND SCHOOL FOR LITTLE OOO-MANS CLOSE EARLY.

T-REX THINK THIS SILLY. OOO-MANS USED TO WORRY ABOUT CONSERVATIVE ROCKS FALLING ON HEAD OR CONSERVATIVE SHARK EATING DANGLINGLY BITS.

SOMETIMES OOO-MANS WORRY ABOUT CONSERVATIVE DARK, BUT OOO-MANS MAKE CONSERVATIVE FIRE, SO NOT WORRY NO MORE.

MAYBE OOO-MANS WORRY TOO MUCH. MAYBE THEY FOCUS ON CONSERVATIVE READING AND CONSERVATIVE MATH FOR LITTLE ONES. MAYBE BEING TOO CONSERVATIVE AND CLOSING SCHOOL EARLY IS STUPID IDEA THAT TEACH LITTLE OOO-MANS TO BE AFRAID.

MAYBE YOU REACH OUT WITH THOSE BIG OOO-MANS ARMS INSTEAD OF HIDING IN CAVE OR CACKLING LIKE RABID CHICKEN.

JUST SAYING.

RAWRRRRRR!

August 30, 2017About Us

What?

by Mr. Peabody10 Comments

The other day FFFF received this image from an anonymous Friend. What it means and why it was sent is anybody’s guess, but it looks pretty funny, so I share it forthwith.

August 28, 2017About Us

Fish This: Fullerton Bars Need More Drunks

by The Fish9 Comments

You can’t make this stuff up.

At the last Fullerton City Council Meeting, a posse of local bar owners demanded that the city council allow them to stuff more drunken twenty somethings into their bars. They went so far as to claim their businesses were suffering because Fullerton’s FIRE CODE prevented them from making as much money as their peers in neighboring cities.

The response from our elected city council?

Absolutely. More drunks. And it was unanimous.

Now I know what you’re thinking. You’ve been to downtown Fullerton on a Friday night. You’ve seen young ladies puking on the sidewalk outside of the Tuscany Club at 9pm. You’ve seen young men getting into brawls behind Joe’s at 10:30. And you’ve seen the rivers of piss and vomit trickling into the parking lot behind Matador early in the morning. It all just glistens in the moonlight.

And of course a grand night out in historic downtown Fullerton wouldn’t be complete without a stabbing outside of the Continental Room, shootings on Santa Fe, and the drunk driving, more drunk driving, inevitably more drunk driving, and . . . did we say the drunk driving?

But hey, we need more drunks! According to Fullerton Bar owners (and I’m not making this up):

Under the current situation, if coming to historic downtown becomes a negative experience for patrons because they can’t get into restaurants and bars and they are uncomfortable with the crowded streets, sidewalks, and parking lots; they may go to other cities that offer a more positive experience. As a result, if business owners income’s (sic) decrease to where they are not profitable, some will have to close.

Wait, some of the 50 odd bars in downtown Fullerton will have to close if we keep the FIRE CODE as it is?

GOOD! And don’t the the door hit you in the ass on the way out.

Because let’s be honest. More people in bars means one thing: MORE DRUNKS.

Instead of caving into the Bar owners who profit on littering our streets and alleys with vomit and excrement each weekend, perhaps our city council should finally take a small step to restore civility.

Let’s not amend the fire code to allow for more drunks drinking. Let’s keep it exactly how it is and how about we shut down any bar that exceeds its occupancy limit down for a month. Fullerton’s current practice allows a bar caught breaking the law to reopen on the same night.

Betcha didn’t know that.

What do you think Fullerton? Do you want more drunks? Let your city council know how you feel about their vote, 5-0, to give you more of this, this, and this.

But hey, we’re just a bunch of malcontents. Maybe more of this, this, and this is exactly what you want.

Congratulations Fullerton Bar Owners. You went fishing for a handout and caught the means to finally bring some order to the shit show that is Saturday night.