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Category: Dick Jones
Mayor Dick Jones is a councilmember in the City of Fullerton. He is known for using his position on the council to serve out mindless babble and execute revenge on those who have spited him in decades past.
It must have been pretty hard for Pam to try to convince her supporters how much she “respected” them – right before she went ahead and stuck it to ’em. Keller’s campaign promise of 2006 was to have planning be “driven” by public input, blah, blah, blah etc., but you get the feeling watching this clip that she had already long since made up her mind to go with the dee-veloper, and was just throwing some verbal crusts for her loyal subjects to gnaw on.
Pam’s comments were well-received by the Chamber lackeys and downtown Redevelopment toadies in the audience, but those who opposed the monster project and had voted for Keller’s promises to represent them rather than development interests, must surely felt just a wee bit, um, betrayed.
The “I’m so torn” plaint, the goofy half-grins, the eye lash battings, (all part of the “I’m just a silly girl” routine), are a pretty annoying shtick. But Pam had better be careful with the coquette act because some lonely swains like Dick Jones seem to get off on it. Check out the hand kiss at the end of the clip and Pam’s apparent revulsion – and then her flippant threat to take back her vote. Enjoy:
According to our well-placed sources, Fullerton Mayor Don Bankhead and council member Pam Keller (hereafter referred to as Pam’nDon) made the rounds of the County Supervisors’ offices last week to try to strike a deal with the County not to sue the city on its illegal redevelopment expansion.
We can’t think of two less informed advocates of an issue, but they would never have been sent out if they hadn’t memorized their talking points as presented by Redevelopment legal promoter Jeff Oderman of the notorious Rutan & Tucker. Or maybe Jeff just wrote a figure on a piece of paper and sent them off with it.
Since the County and its attorneys have already gone on record opposing the expansion, we reckon than Pam’nDon went with checkbook in hand. The County objects to the loss of property tax revenue, especially when the whole scam is based on non-existent blight and the phony findings thereof. And so the County pot needs to be sweetened. A lot. Enter Pam’nDon. Of course it’s supposed to be all hush hush, but you know, these things have way of getting out, especially when the old slushola is being divvied up. Transparency is such a bitch.
We have an indication that the County will take the bait, and that, Friends is a story for another day.
If you’ve driven along Brea Boulevard lately you will have noticed that the north hill side of Hillcrest Park has been completely scraped as part of the so-called Lions Field improvements. Well, the hillside was suffering from total (and I mean complete) negligence on the part of the City for decades. What is being built, are large retaining structures to “stabilize” the slope. The only problem is that what the slope needed to stabilize it was appropriate landscaping – a solution that the parks Department ignored for years.
The addition of retaining structures in the park is inappropriate. More than that, it’s illegal. Hillcrest Park is a designated Fullerton Landmark (#6) and as such the types of alteration being proposed should have been reviewed in a public hearing by the Landmarks Commission. This never happened. It’s true that Hillcrest Park doesn’t fit into any of the categories included in the watered-down version of the Landmarks Ordinance passed by the City about 12 years ago. But adherence to the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards is one key. Another issue is that of demolition and replacement of historic elements. Even the watered down code has a spirit that has not been observed.
Once again the City has ignored its own laws, laws that you or I would be expected to follow. It has specifically ignored the Landmark Ordinance once again, a part of the Zoning Code that the City has habitually and serially abused over the years (if you want I’ll make a list).
For years the City has turned over the park to pervs and low-lifes while ignoring the historic built environment. And now it seems they are embarked on another form of abuse of an historic resource.
Watch Dick bobble head his way through convincing himself and Redevelopment agency director Rob Zur Schmeide that he knows all about redevelopment law as it relates to financing, bank loans, collateral, debt, you name it and Dick’s an expert, enjoy!
This clip is short but meaningful. Claiming East & West Fullerton are “blighted”, Councilman Dick Jones and the Redevelopment Agency wants to take “money” from the schools, police and fire departments, and use it to build “municipal auditoriums, affordable housing, and even homes.” Of course none of this is about good ol’ Dick. He’s doin’ jes fine up on the hill. Enjoy!
Yesterday we ran a post on the duplicitous way the City started the ball rolling behind closed doors on a big housing project that promises CEQA impacts on its neighbors. In fact decisions are already being taken that should have been done under the illumination of a public hearing.
The project even has a name, “Euclid Commons” that makes us wish to make a quick pit stop at the West Harbor Alley Improvement Project vomitorium. A couple of comments provided descriptions of what was being proposed that seemed to differ considerably and so we provide la tabula rasa for our Friends to chime in and see if any clarifications are forthcoming.
The issue of starting negotiations is being addressed tonight (Aug 4th) behind closed doors since the public can’t be trusted to even know that a project is now officially (if secretly) sanctioned by the City Council. There will be “reporting out” but no public comment. Really, what have they got to hide?
Some people are determined to talk. They just can’t help it. They believe that the more stuff they say the more informed they appear. Even if it’s just babble to the rest of us.
Well, I've got a heap 'o talkin' to do...
Take our own Councilman Dick Jones. If we didn’t mine so much pure gold out of this bonehead’s blathering we really would beg him just to shut up – if only to soothe our agitated synapses.
Oh boy, this is gonna hurt in the morning!
One of his favorite reasons for promoting Redevelopment expansion is that the money can be used to satisfy low-income housing mandates, imposed by the evil bastards in Sacramento, or Karakhastan, or Tanganyisha, or whatever mythical countries exist in his febrile imagination.
Hail, hail, Freedonia
The fact is that housing objectives come from SCAG – the Southern California Association of Governments – a bureaucratic local government consortium made up of people like Jones and guided by public employees. The housing targets, by income classification, are contained in the RHNA (pronounced “reena”) – the Regional Housing Needs Assessment, and are divvied up among local jurisdictions. These numbers are merely “goals,” not mandates. The whole thing is a bureaucratic paper chase and hardly anybody takes it seriously except far lefties.
We didn't get much done, but we built a huge stack of paper.
Which brings us to the point of this post. We wonder what Jones’ Republican backers like Ed Royce and Dick Ackerman think about Jones actively promoting the quasi-socialist RHNA objectives in Fullerton. He is sounding more and more like Sharon Kennedy with each passing meeting. So we have to wonder who’s coaching him on housing issues (well, no we really don’t).
Finally, Jones doesn’t talk about thereal mandate;it comes from Redevelopment law itself: the 20% property tax increment set-aside for “affordable” housing, a requirement created to help compensate when city planners and pols rip up lower income neighborhoods to gentrify them. The new expansion area includes little if any residential housing, so no housing stock is going to be displaced. But sooner or later that 20% set aside will start to accrue, and it will have to be used somewhere in Fullerton.
Somewhere in Fullerton. But not in Dick’s zero sub-prime neighborhood in the hills, you can bet the family farm on that. The buck will certainly stop there.
Watch Dick Jones question Redevelopment Director Rob Zur Schmiede about the availability of tax increment monies in the proposed extension area. Zur Schmiede responds that because of the merger with an existing area money would be available “immediately.” And Jones is off to the Camp Town races, perhaps not realizing that his Redevelopment director was only talking about existing funds – not new property tax increment. All he heard was “immediately.” So he sits up, pleased as punch, like he had just discovered radium. Uh–mmediately! Well, Land ‘o Goshen! You cain’t hardly beat uh-mmediate! Instant gratification – a predictable desire in a child; embarrassing in a septuagenarian.
The reality is that even if the Redevelopment extension survives a legal challenge, the depressed real estate market and property tax re-assessments will likely create a flat or even a negative increment for the near to mid-term future within the amendment area. This means that any Redevelopment funded projects here would have to dip into the also diminishing increment in the pre-existing project area. So why doesn’t Jones grasp this? Because the Redevelopment Agency has arrived upon the scene to cure all that ails us. HOT DAMN! IMMEDIATELY!
Is this really the guy we want making this decisions for us?
Below is an illuminating video clip of our old nemesis City Councilman Dick Jones defending redevelopment expansion in Fullerton.
Dick’s suggestion that blight exists because foreclosed houses are close to “those blighted areas”, makes absolutely no sense, and, in fact directly contradicts the specific legal findings he had to make to support Redevelopment expansion; but then again look who’s talking.
The other important question Dick’s little speech raises is whether or not he discussed this issue with Pam Keller prior to the meeting. Listen to when Dick he says “when this thing passes, I’m going to make a motion to have our attorney and our staff work with the County to….”, it was obvious he already knew it was going to pass. But how could he have known unless of course Dick had already gone over this with Keller, the ultimate third vote? This is not a Brown Act violation, but it sure would be if he had previously discussed this issue with either Don Bankhead or Sharon Quirk, and it’s pretty hard to believe otherwise. These guys habitually play fast and loose with the Brown Act prohibition against “serial meetings” so it’s not inconceivable.
While watching the youtube clip of David Espinosa tee off on the Union Pacific Park and the comment by City Manager Chris Meyer that the park was being shut down, we got to thinking. The Mayor was clearly not told by anybody that the park was being closed down – observe the standard “we’ll fix it, thanks, move along” comment by Bankhead followed by Meyer’s explanation.
Meyer went on to say that the problem of what to do with this “park” was being passed to the Community Services Commission for ponderment.
And we say: who in Hell gave Chris Meyer the authority to shut down a public park? Why wasn’t the Council asked to make this decision and how come they were never even told about it before the apparent revelation at the council meeting? Who gave Meyer the authority to assign this problem to anybody, let alone a lower committee without even informing the Council of his plans? Why wasn’t this issue agendized and discussed, in public, by the City Council?
These are mostly rhetorical questions, of course. The City’s staff wants to sweep this acute embarrassment under the municipal rug and the only way to do that is not to tell anybody. Even their bosses.
It also makes us wonder how much else in Fullerton has being undertaken by the City Manager on his own hook. It’s one thing to execute policy laid down by elected officials; it’s quite another thing to start taking on major policy decisions, and worse still, not tell anybody. Unfortunately this situation is symptomatic of two long-standing problems in Fullerton, two problems that fit together like pieces in a jigsaw puzzle.
First is the perfect willingness of our elected city council persons to abdicate their own policy-making responsibility and simply show up for the meetings, the Rotary lunches, the Chamber mixers, and the ribbon cuttings; second is the perfect willingness of the city managers to step into the authority void and run the show any damn way they please. It’s a perverse symbiosis.
This has got to stop. The results have been amply catalogued on the pages of this blog. And they aren’t very pretty.
