Downtown Fullerton Archives - Page 22 of 24 - Friends For Fullerton's Future

May 22, 2009November 29, 2011Chris Norby

Fullerton Gov’t Hates Property Rights – and Kids on Bikes

What’s going on in Fullerton? Many city officials seem intent on “redeveloping” a city that has no blight — even as they have wasted $20,000 in bureaucratic expenses to make sure kids don’t ride their bikes in a vacant lot. As the economy worsens for everyone, the city just can’t get its priorities straight.

First, the redevelopment absurdity. The city claims West Fullerton’s commercial areas and East Fullerton industrial areas are “blighted” and wants to redevelop them. This could mean using “eminent domain” to forcibly take property from its rightful owners, then give it to other private owners for a supposedly “better” use. And it could mean using our hard-earned tax dollars to “help” the new owners redevelop the property.

At a recent City Council meeting, City Councilman Shawn Nelson ripped the redevelopment “argument” to shreds. “Clearly, the data has been manipulated, and it’s been manipulated for a purpose,” he said, referring to a report that supposedly proved the areas were “blighted.” He added, “This is not an objective report…. I don’t think that any… objective report would have reached the conclusion that there’s blight.” He pointed out that the supposed “blight” in Fullerton “doesn’t come anywhere near” the threshold set by the California Court of Appeal for imposing eminent domain. Click here for the YouTube of Shawn’s comments:

Second, the Fullerton Code Enforcement Department spent $20,000 and countless hours of staff and attorney time prosecuting local businessman Tony Bushala (admin) for allowing his sons and their friends to ride bicycles on three acres of vacant land he owns behind the Brea Dam. The bureaucrats grandiosely called the vacant lot “outdoor recreational facilities.” Will they next also call every home driveway in the city “outdoor recreational facilities” — and ban kids from using driveways to ride up to park their bikes in the home garage?

How silly. Isn’t it better to have kids riding their bikes on private property owned by one kid’s dad, than to have them hanging out somewhere else, possibly getting into mischief? And that $20,000 in wasted tax money could have meant half a year of work for someone in the private sector — instead of staying in an unemployment line in this severe recession.

After various bureaucratic wranglings, the Appeals Board found that “no nuisance exists.” But the bike incident produced an incredible 47 pages of documents. What a waste.

These are serious economic times. The go-go days are over. We need to save our money, both private and public. The city needs to stop attacking the private-property rights of citizens, whether by threatening to take their property through eminent domain, or by stopping kids from having innocent fun on family property.

Leave us alone!

May 20, 2009December 30, 2009Chris Norby

In the City of Galvin

by admin5 Comments

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!

May 19, 2009May 20, 2009Big Brother

Judge Jim Gray on Marijuana

by admin9 Comments

Marijuana. Decriminalize, tax and regulate. Makes a lot more sense than ban, spray and incarcerate. Of course, it’s just the dark-skinned ones that we jail mostly. For middle class kids, it’s just “experimentation”!

That was the message of retired Judge Jim Gray at last night’s packed meeting of the Neighbors United for Fullerton at the main library. Gray told the supportive NUFFsters that imprisoning marijuana offenders costs California taxpayers $1 billion yearly and taxing it would add $4 billion to state coffers. That’s a net of $5 billion!

Who are the big winners in the drug war? Prison guards, prison builders, drug lords, dumb politicians and Big Pharma. (Tough to profit from a plant that grows in the wilds!)

Elected officials attending–and positively responding–were Supervisor Chris Norby and Anaheim UHSD Board Member Katherine Smith.

Gray talked about all the costs of the entire drug war, but concentrated on cannabis as the one most likely to see real reform. AB 390 by Assemblyman Tom Amiano (D-San Francisco) would legalize and tax marijuana in California, to take effect only after federal law was changed to respect state autonomy on the issue.

How ’bout it Barack? Would society really have been better off had you been jailed back during your experimental youth?

There are just enough pro-freedom Dems and Reps to form a coaltion. Reefer Madness might soon be replaced by Reefer sanity!

May 2, 2009January 4, 2010Chris Norby

THE STRANGE & TRAGIC TALE OF HILLCREST PARK

by Fred L. Olmsted34 Comments

UPDATE: We are republishing this wonderful post by Fred Olmstead originally posted on February 21, 2009. We do so in order to highlight the fact that the park – suffering from real blight – is in the Redevelopment project area, and stands as yet another testament to the failure of Redevelopment. Sharon Quirk, are you reading this?

– The Fullerton Shadow

Loyal Friends of Fullerton’s Future, gather ‘round the cool glow of your computer terminals and follow a sad saga of miserable municipal negligence.

Located in the center of Fullerton is a resource of inestimable value, overlooked by almost everybody in and outside of City Hall: Hillcrest Park. Included in an early vision of the city it followed upon the City Beautiful, and natural urban park elements of the Progressive movement; and coincided nicely with the new auto culture of the 1920s, positioned as it was, along the original Highway 1.

Developed fully during the Depression in a rustic mode, the park soon after began a long decline into municipal irrelevance, and if anything, seemed to be perceived by many as a liability rather than a great asset. This tragic trajectory is a shameful blot on Fullerton’s history and is akin to placing your eighty-five year old mother in a criminally negligent nursing home.

After Don Bankhead and Fullerton’s Finest chased out the acid-dropping hippies in the 1960s, the park became a haven for perverts; trees began to die and were not replaced; erosion claimed many of the north and west facing slopes and was not arrested; as the infrastructure crumbled it was replaced by City Engineer Hugh Berry with incongruous cinder block walls and concrete light poles.

In the mid-1990s Redevelopment Director Gary Chalupsky, in a philanthropic mood, decided that Redevelopment funds could be used to address Hillcrest Park issues – the first official over-the-shoulder glance toward the park in years.

And here, dear Friends, the story turns from a chronicle of benign neglect to one of outright incompetence and, one might plausibly argue, a form of bureaucratic malevolence.

In 1996 the usual scoping/charette pantomime was performed with an historic park landscape architect, specially imported from Riverside. An odd thing happened: every time the consultant prepared a list of priorities for the park, the Community Services Department’s wishes kept getting pushed to the top. The Director of Community Services was Susan Hunt, a woman long known for her mindless turf battles with her constituents – (including the Isaak Walton Cabin in Hillcrest). Hunt was determined to hijack the process and divert resources from where they were needed to facilities that she and her department could control and perhaps even profit from.

Hunt was successful. The consultant, knowing whom it was important to please, seemed only too happy to abet the fraud that was perpetrated. The city council (including current Jurassic members Bankhead and Jones) went along. Chris Norby was there, too. Now he’s in charge of the County’s parks.

A new playground replaced the old one in the Lemon parking area even though no one had complained about the existing one that parents seemed to like. More egregious still, a new facility (known as Hillcrest Terrace) was built behind the Veteran’s building that could be rented out for social functions. But the real needs of the park – slope stabilization, plant cataloguing and replacement, the removal of inappropriate elements – went unaddressed – and the problems have continued unabated to this day, ten years later, as interest in the park waned again.

Last fall the City once again roused itself from its somnolence and created an ad hoc committee to consider issues related to Hillcrest Park. The time is, perhaps, propitious. Susan Hunt has disappeared into an overdue and well-compensated retirement, current Director Joe Felz is much more amenable to citizen input. It’s time to reclaim this park.

Hillcrest is still in the Redevelopment Area and remains affected by indisputable blight. This should become a priority for Redevelopment Director Rob Zur Schmied.

While we wonder if the Hillcrest Park committee will actually display the necessary independence from staff manipulation, and that they possess the necessary technical abilities, we wish them well. And we encourage citizens to make sure that this time any assessment of Hillcrest will objectively address the needs of the park and report directly to the City Council. Recommendations should be included in the City’s Capital Budget.

Hillcrest Park can and must return to being the crown jewel of Fullerton’s parks.

April 26, 2009April 26, 2009Downtown Fullerton

The Sunday Drive ( a break from everything else)

by thedivinemissk8 Comments

The canopies of trees hold the city together

Click to bigify images

The other day, while driving along Chapman, I was struck by the scrawny Bottle brush trees pruned to the point of embarrassment and disgrace. I’ve seen some of the worst examples of improper pruning of both trees and shrubs in Fullerton –both along boulevards and at private homes. Who are these morons with saws? I thought I’d share some of what I look forward to seeing when I go back.

Savannah is a cosmopolitan city with a mix of old and new. It’s an old city, one where history matters and has played a role in the shaping of it. One of the things that grabs the first time visitor are the trees. There are giant oaks draped with Spanish moss. The delicate but strong strands of moss takes over every thing from trees to camellias and azaleas. But the greenery seems to hold the entire city together giving it a level of comfort and sophistication.

There is a stately grandeur about these trees. Nowhere is this seen better than the oak alley planted along the road to Wormsloe Plantation. Wormsloe was built in 1740 by one of the original settlers, Noble Jones. What’s left of Savannah’s first fort are the “Tabby” ruins, a mixture of lime, sand, and oyster shell halves thrown in for good measure. While the ruins are interesting, it’s the alley that everyone remembers and associates with plantation landscapes.

Provide tranquility in the middle of the city. — Tranquility in the middle of the city.

One of my favorite finds was the discovery of two secret gardens. Secret meaning they’re private and I peeked through a fence. The two gardens shown here belong to townhouses along busy streets. They provide the owners respite in an area where funeral hearses are resurrected as tour buses, and the usual mix of tourists and business crowd the area.

Anyway, the grace of the trees and the way the moss takes over everything is part of what makes the city so beautiful. Further out, along the river, there is much scenery to take in as well. I find the natural landscape evocative of where I grew up. The bulrushes are beautiful as well. Here’s the dock over by a house we looked at to buy. This is the stuff of dreams as well.

April 25, 2009April 29, 2009Downtown Fullerton

Two Art Openings: Lost California and Lost Fullerton

by thedivinemissk4 Comments

Because she’s so terribly popular, The Divine MissK gets press releases like this one. Sometimes she has to rewrite them as well:

Eric Berg & Early California Antiques present
Lost California
Photography Exhibit

WHO: Eric Berg & California Antiques present “Lost California” rare Photography Exhibit.

April 29th, 2009, showing through to May 31st

WHAT: “Lost California” is a photography exhibit of rare and never before seen photos depicting the development of California from the orange groves and oil wells to Spanish revival and Monterey homes for which the city is famous. The exhibit includes personal photographers from the Marcel Picard estate. Picard, a noted director of photography of 1930’s films such as Adventures of the Masked Phantom and Get that Venus is best known for working with Will Rogers. All photos are available for purchase and in price from $20.00 to $2,500.00.

WHEN: Opening reception – Wednesday, April 29th, 2009 5pm – 9pm

WHERE: Early California Antiques –
4032 Melrose Avenue Los Angeles, CA 90029
Cross street South side on Melrose, just east of Heliotrope.

Eric Berg is excited to showcase over 300 black and white, hand tinted and original photographs in a show that chronicles life in California prior to World War Two. “Lost California” captures the majestic pacific coast to the lofty airplane factories. This exhibit will give viewers an up-close and Picard’s personal view of our history.

****************************

And just so you know that we’re not complete snobs who hang out on Melrose and wear black while hobnobbing with reality TV stars, we’re also pleased to tell you about something local.

How many others remember playing in homes decorated with Eames chairs, rice paper lamps and Knoll tables? Oh, please, The Divine MissK is now dating herself. She should stop before she tells you about Tang (the astronauts drank it, you know).

So here’s the release:

“Forever Fullerton: Julius Shulman
Open to the public April 4-July 19

Julius Shulman is one of the best known architectural photographers in the world. In the 1950s and 1960s, he did extensive work in Fullerton documenting houses and other buildings in town.” (Such an understatement!! Darlings!!! Why not drop the names A. Quincy Jones, Eichler and Case Study homes into the mix? In fact, does anyone else remember the Case Study Home show at the old “Temporary Contemporary Museum” way back when? If you do, then ten points to Hogwarts).

“A Conversation with Julius Shulman” (You should go to this. Astronauts would, you know.)

“Saturday, May 9 at 2:00 p.m.

$12 general admission/$10 museum members” (Mention this blog, get no discount and two big strong escorts who will throw you out!)

“Julius Shulman will make a rare appearance at the Fullerton Museum Center with Michael Stern and Alan Hess. Learn about the work Julius Shulman did in Fullerton during the 1950s and 1960s.”

April 23, 2009April 29, 2009Downtown Fullerton

Why is That Tree Hiding the Historic Rialto Theater?

by admin6 Comments

Some not so smart landscape planner hired by the Fullerton Redevelopment Agency thought he knew what he was doing when he choose to plant a tree right in front of the Historic Rialto Theater in downtown Fullerton. The Rialto Theater Building is one of the two remaining “Zig Zag Moderne” buildings in Fullerton. What do you think about the landscaping efforts of the Redevelopment Agency in downtown Fullerton?

April 22, 2009May 21, 2009Chris Norby

Fullerton’s City Lights – FUBAR From The Word Go – Tod Und Verklarung – An Epilogue

by The Fullerton Harpoon9 Comments

Thank you Forebearing Friends, for following this pathetic revelation to its conclusion. The unwinding of this concatenation of miscreance and misfeasance must be as hard to read as it has been to write. And yet now the conclusion is finally at hand!

By May 1997 the SRO deal was done. The final meeting was a mere formality. Everybody who was paying attention knew that Dick Jones – yes, all hat and no cattle Dick Jones – was going to eat up the tasty morsel that his own staff and collegues had put in front of him.

No. I'm Not Eating That... — Hmmm. Maybe some ketchup would help...

Terrified of personal loss, and with apparrently no confidence in City indemnification, he caved in to the ridiculous threats to protect his own pelt. All of his brave words of March were just so much verbal gas.

The meeting came and went. The project moved ahead and was ever so slowly built. Two years later the Fullerton City Lights was added to the Downtown scene. The city bureaucrats congratulated themselves on another job well-done: 7 years and several million dollars of public funds in the making – a large stucco box. The erection wasn’t much to write home about.

Perhaps the sorriest part of this saga was the behavior of Dick Jones – during and after the sad episode. He had eaten his crow – the feathers were still there on his bib for everybody to see. And councilwatchers were wondering if his former fulminations would now be directed at the staff and fellow councilmembers who had placed him in his embarrassing predicament. The answer came quickly. No accountability, no responsibility – nothing. Nothing but loud and consistent praise and support for the bureaucrats who had orchestrated his humiliation; he soon became notorious for his knee-jerk and unquestioning support of almost everything put in front of him by the City staff.

All that remained was the peridoc bluster: homespun nonsense, loud, rambling and often incoherent perorations. Deep-fried bloviations, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

donk

Read the rest of “Fullerton’s City Lights”: Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4 – Epilogue

April 21, 2009December 28, 2009Chris Norby

Fullerton’s City Lights – FUBAR From The Word Go – Act III

by The Fullerton Harpoon13 Comments

A New Team Was Brought in To Finish The Job

Loyal Friends, when we left off our last post the City’s chosen SRO “developer,” Caleb Nelson” was gone: whether he left voluntarily or was shoved aside is a moot point. He left behind an unstarted project, a history of City bungling, and an embarrassing hole in the cityscape. Sometime in 1996 Redevelopment Director Gary Chalupsky discovered a replacement. Apparently on his own authority he chose Agit Mithawalla to take over the project. No public hearing, no RFP, no prequalifications, no City Council approval. Behind closed doors a new deal was hatching.

Don't Ask Don't Tell!

And the City Council had changed. And changed again in the fall of 1996. Jan Flory was now on the Council since 1994, trying to rewrite Recall history and a sure bet to cover up any staff misfeasance. But the newly minted councilman Dick Jones was on the dais. He had run as the voice of conservatism in Fullerton and it was known that his pals in the Chamber were dead set against an SRO across the street. Public housing – the horror!

Across the street from us! No freakin' Way, Man — Across the street from us? No freakin' Way, Man

When the final agreements with Mithawalla finally reached the Council for approval in March 1997 a showdown was prepared by irate citizens who opposed the SRO project for one reason or another. Some cited inflated construction costs; some objected to deal for financial reasons; other attacked Mithawalla’s record of shoddy building in LA. When the vote came down the agreement was voted down 3-2. Bankhead and Flory, predictably, backed up the staff mess completely; Chris Norby rallied Jones and Julie Sa to oppose. Dick Jones gave the very first of his corn pone diatribes, in which he hurled invective against the project, its likely denizens, and the methadone clinic next door.

He was Big. He was Brave. He would soon come to regret giving voice to his peculiar worldview…

Read the rest of “Fullerton’s City Lights”: Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4 – Epilogue

April 20, 2009December 28, 2009Chris Norby

Fullerton’s City Lights – FUBAR From The Word Go – Part Deux

by The Fullerton Harpoon4 Comments

Gentle Friends of Fullerton, we left off our sad narrative with one Caleb Nelson, fly-by-night promoter, in possession of a multi-million dollar City subsidized “affordable” housing project on Commonwealth Avenue; a project that he had as much ability to undertake as a ling cod. Our “expert” City staff had chosen this dubious individual to build a multi-million dollar “SRO’ although they must have known he didn’t have the wherewithal to build a birdhouse. They had rejected a reknowned architect; they had helped destroy an historic building; and they were just getting warmed up.

We're the Fullerton Redevelopment Agency. We Know What We're Doing

As this venture entered its third year (1995) the Redevelopment staff had finally seen enough. Director Gary Chalupsky, who ostensibly joined the city in 1992 as an independent agent of change, but who, by this time, had lost most of his rigid members, acted. Caleb Nelson was shown the door, and in his place Chalupsky unearthed a low-income housing developer from LA by the name of Agit Mithawala.

Aw c'mon. You didn't expect accountability, did you?

The only difficulty was that Mr. Chalupsky had been given no authority to re-assign the development rights conferred upon Caleb Nelson to anybody. He did it all by himself. And he had to get the City Council help him cover his tracks…

By this time a politcal revolution had come and gone in Fullerton. Molly McClanahan and Buck Catlin were long gone, replaced by Jan Flory and, in 1996, F. Richard Jones. Fullerton was about to witness one of the most inglorious retreats in its history. Stay tuned for more…

Well if I hadn't shot off my big mouth... — It's all mind over matter, boys...

Read the rest of “Fullerton’s City Lights”: Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4 – Epilogue