Category: FJC

Fullerton Junior College is the oldest community college in continuous operation in California. Its operator believes that the elimination of the word “junior” from its name will confer academic status on the institution, and hence, themselves.

Posted onBehind Closed Doors

Meanwhile Back @ The Ranch – Part 4

by 10 Comments on Meanwhile Back @ The Ranch – Part 4
Grossly overfed…

Yes, Friends, FFFF still has some catching up to do, what with being sued by the legal beagles at the crack I Can’t believe It’s a Law Firm of Jones & Mayer. Enduring legal attacks from the the people whom you are paying to represent you is pretty annoying. Sort of like a boil on the butt – aggravating but not life threatening.

It Wasn’t Here a Minute Ago

So now I belatedly draw your attention to the ongoing saga of the Fullerton College Stadium From Nowhere, a sad tale that has been going on, seemingly forever. FFFF first wrote about it, here, over ten years ago. We’ve been opining on this brainless proposal ever since.

Back then we noticed that the proposed football stadium emerged out of nothing – never mentioned in the environmental impact documents connected to the bond expansion projects, a blatant oversight that would have slipped through if nobody had been watching. Then, as now, the clueless Trustees of the North Orange County Community College district are looking for ways to use up the bond money they have chiseled out of us in two massive bond floatations.

Nothing intelligent was forthcoming…

In the latest news, the trustees have finally been forced to actually approve, in public, this project. It first passed in October by a slender 4-3 majority that included the support from Fullerton’s Molly McClanahan, who has never said no to a bureaucratic scheme, no matter how hare-brained. For McClanahan the answer to outraged neighbors was to halve the size of the stadium capacity, splitting Solomon’s baby right down the middle. Good idea right? No, Molly, dear, because if you took the time to really understand the situation you would know that the campus doesn’t need a football stadium at all, no matter how many stooges are lined up in front of you in a big hurry to waste tens of millions of dollars.

Fullerton already has two plausible venues for Fullerton JC football, the stadium at CSUF paid for by the City, and the stadium at Fullerton High School right across the damn street. Of course there is no need to play games in Yorba Linda, and no need to build thousands of seats for people who will never show up for an FJC sporting event of any kind.  But let us not stand in the way of progress with common sense or facts. Rather, let’s get on the Hornet bandwagon and follow the lead of our eminently able educrats.

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Posted onA Step in the Right Direction

Yes, two stadiums are too many

by 7 Comments on Yes, two stadiums are too many

Regular readers know we have already covered the the proposed Fullerton College stadium in detail (see here, here and here). In a nutshell, the NOCCD Board of Trustees want to turn Sherbeck Field into a 4500 seat football stadium so the Hornets can play football in their own stadium instead of their current location, or the Fullerton High School stadium located less than three tenths of a mile away.

The horror.

The residents around Princeton Circle have been fighting this boondoggle for awhile and appear to be getting organized. They have website, http://www.sharethestadium.org,  and are passing out campaign signs, to spread the word that the Sherbeck Field proposal is a costly and unnecessary boondoggle and should be scrapped.

Admittedly, they don’t hammer on my biggest objection to the stadium – the fact that the funds to build it only exist because the voters passed Measure J in 2014, based on the (since reneged) promise to improve the Veterans Centers on campus, but perhaps their approach will be more effective long term. Either way, this is a good sign that the Trustees have a  well deserved fight on their hands.

Regardless of where you live, the conduct by the NOCCCD Trustees is a slap on the face for every taxpayer who believes in fiscal accountability and responsibility, or who believes politicians should keep their campaign promises. If you want to help the effort to force some accountability by the NOCCCD, be sure to pay the sharethestadium.org folks a visit.

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Posted onBad Cops

So Whatever Happened to Dino Skokos?

by 10 Comments on So Whatever Happened to Dino Skokos?
No, there is no happy cartoon dinosaur in this story…

You remember Dino, right? He was the guy who retired from the LA Sheriff Department with a disability and then took a job as a campus security guard at Fullerton Junior College.

In October 2016 Dino assaulted a student for failing to acknowledge his august authority:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9KyMyo-fcA

FFFF followed up, here, and here to document the remarkable lack of progress in separating this miscreant from his source of employment. Recently FFFF asked the North Orange College Community College District for a list of employees on administrative leave to see what sort of fish might be caught in the broad net. Here’s what we got back:

Fullerton College Employees on Administrative Leave from January 1, 2016 to present:

Robert Smitson – Fall 2015 to January 31, 2016

Jerry Stokes – Fall 2015 to January 31, 2016

Cynthia Wafer – September 2, 2016 to October 31, 2016

Dino Skokos – October 14, 2016 to September 30, 2017

Eileen Anguiano – February 28, 2017 to May 3, 2017

Scott Goss – May 18, 2017 to August 31, 2017

Beverly Pipkin – June 27, 2017 to July 31, 2017

Alan Gonzalez – June 29, 2017 until further notice

For some reason Skokos is not only still on leave, that leave is projected to continue for another ten weeks, meaning that the guy who attacked and falsely arrested that kid will have been on administrative leave for almost one year.

There are still lots of questions that haven’t been answered, and some that have not yet been asked (until now), such as:

  1. What happened to the “independent” investigator, Currier and Hudson?
  2. How much has Currier and Hudson charged us for their “services?”
  3. Has the student who was assaulted and falsely arrested sued the taxpayers, and if so, what are the details?
  4. Was there a settlement when no one was looking?
  5. What happened to the Fullerton Police Department in all of this; did they ever bother investigate this themselves? If not, why not?
The Schulz Factor: simple and happy-looking but not believable

Here’s the choice nugget from the FJC  president as quoted in The Hornet, way back in October, 2016, reassuring his workers, educrats and students that FJC is dedicated in settling this matter:

President Greg Schulz promised the college’s full dedication in reaching a conclusion regarding the incident.

And next time you see her clucking and harrumphing about town be sure to ask your NOCCCD Trustee, Molly McClanahan, what the Hell is going on. Good luck getting an intelligible answer!

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Posted onChronic Failure

How does Joe Felz manage the great city of Fullerton?

by 35 Comments on How does Joe Felz manage the great city of Fullerton?
Let’s drink to all my new ideas…

What is that supposed to be some sort of joke?

No, indeedy! The Fullerton JC news operation called The Hornet sat down with our now former Fullerton City Manager Joe Felz back in the halcyon days of October when things couldn’t have looked rosier for our A Number 1 bureaucrat. As you can imagine, the “story” was an almost useless saccharine glob.

However, a couple of really interesting statements did stumble from Felz’s possibly sober lips.

First there was this shiny pearl:

“‘…why don’t we focus on who we are.’ Felz said, stating the city needs to focus on things to be proud of such as the downtown area.”

I want to make you feel proud.

Proud of the downtown area? Another joke? In business terms, downtown Fullerton is an abject failure – at least as far as the taxpayers are concerned, costing a million and a half more annually to police and clean up than it brings in. Maybe Felz was proud of the profit he helped provide for his pals, lawless bar owners like Jeremy Popoff who is still operating his business, Slidebar, without  CUP, as required by the municipal code, almost three years after he postponed his own hearing.

And then this radiant gem:

“Felz has many new ideas for the future of Fullerton and he is highly optimistic about the years ahead.” 

Well that happy future went up in smoke the early November morning Sober Joe jumped the Glenwood Avenue curb, ran over a tree, and tried to drive off. And it gives the lie to the sappy farewell notice read by our choked-up lobbyist-mayor, with its formulaic “I’m quitting to spend more time with my family” bullshit.

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Posted onEducation Uber Alles

The Sherbeck Stadium Swindle

by 42 Comments on The Sherbeck Stadium Swindle

Fullerton College is going to ruin the nearby neighborhoods when they build the boondoggle that will be Sherbeck Stadium and they are going to use the fact that you residents didn’t yell at them as the very reason for building an unnecessary Stadium when there is already a High School stadium literally within walking distance of the College in a town with another already under-utilized stadium at C.S.U.F..

If you don’t want Fullerton College to go ahead with their plans you need to write a letter to them to tell them why you’re against it. You have until tomorrow, 03 December 2016, to get your letter postmarked & in the mail or they will ignore you and you’ll have nobody to blame but yourself for sitting out on this issue.

I don’t even live in the neighborhood and I’m writing a letter on behalf of a friend of mine who does live in that neighborhood. Because I’m a friend and it affects both his and Fullerton’s future. That’s why I’m here in the first place.

(more…)

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Posted onBehind Closed Doors

The Sound of Silence

by 31 Comments on The Sound of Silence
I would have done it even cheaper...
I would have done it even cheaper…

Not much has come out of Fullerton Junior College lately on the case of cop-turned-security guard Dino Skokos who handed out an unwarranted beat down on an undernourished FJC student in October.

A writer for The Hornet named Madalyn Amato,  reports that although an “independent investigator” has been engaged, nothing else has been forthcoming. The fact that the investigator, a law firm called Currier & Hudson, solely specializes in acting as defense counsel for government agencies, should send out appropriate warning bells. See where this is going?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9KyMyo-fcA

In the aftermath of outrage, the bureaucratic playbook is being executed as expected.

First, ignore any criminality on the part of the district employee and announce an independent investigation, with the goal of diverting responsibility, or even better, procrastinating ’til everybody’s forgotten about the incident.

Naturally, the independent investigator is really just a carefully selected government defense pettifogger, hired to relieve the agency of as much liability as possible and absorb any leftover PR issues. Of course, hiring a law firm comes with desirable effects, such as the benefit of attorney client privilege. See, it’s easier to control an investigation if the investigator can’t actually reveal any findings detrimental to the institution.

The cleanup is underway
The cleanup is underway

And now we wait. The employee takes a paid vacation, the real police fail to deliver a criminal investigation, and NOCCCD eventually pays out a quiet settlement to the victim who will make a deal in a civil courtroom. Nothing to see here.

Close enough...
Close enough…

And now let’s let Fullerton Junior College President Greg Schulz take us home via The Hornet article:

President Greg Schulz promised the college’s full dedication in reaching a conclusion regarding the incident.

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Posted onAbout Us

Don’t Kneel to Fullerton College’s Football Stadium Demands

by 14 Comments on Don’t Kneel to Fullerton College’s Football Stadium Demands

So who’s up for a proposed construction project that could “substantially degrade the existing visual character or quality of the site and its surroundings” and could “create a new source of substantial light or glare would adversely affect day or nighttime views in the area” according to the Environmental Impact Report?

Doesn’t sound appealing? Well, you may want to attend the scoping session on Thursday, November 17, 2016, at 6 pm, at the Fullerton College Student Center, Rooms 224, 226 and 228 (don’t ask – I’ll be wandering around campus myself) and let them know.

I should note that this little boondoggle is not the City’s doing, for once. For this we can thank the North Orange County Community College District and their Board of Trustees. The Master Plan Initial Study, which discussed the Environmental Impacts on Section 6.3, can be found here: )

fc-map

Pictured: Sherbeck Field. Not pictured: Rooms 224-228. Also not pictured: The football stadium that already exists across the street.

Some time ago, the NOCCCD Board of Trustees were considering the idea of building a football stadium on campus, thus sparing their football team the humiliation of playing football at <gasp> a high school stadium – and one that’s less than 100 yards away from the campus proper, to boot. Residents of the Princeton Circle neighborhood objected, and the plans for a football stadium appeared, to the residents at least, to be scrapped. Now the trustees are looking to add 4,500 stadium seats and field lighting that could remain on until 10 pm. In addition, while I have not independently verified this, nearby residents contend that the proposed lighting would consist of six 100 foot tall LED towers, which if true would cause a significant amount of light pollution.

(more…)

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Posted onFJC

Planned Parenthood

by 47 Comments on Planned Parenthood

The wife and I were having a discussion over dinner about the pros and cons of Proposition 30, and its claim to save education from a devastating blow of the budgetary axe. Then I remembered this post I’d uploaded some time ago in 2011 about the NOCCCD’s “School of Continuing Education”, and decided to re-post it. So if you happen to be sitting on the fence with this one, well, I won’t tell you how to vote, but it might help to keep in mind how tax dollars have been spent in this particular scenario. Enjoy!

The North Orange County Community College District (NOCCCD) is the proud parent of Fullerton College and its younger sibling, Cypress College. But apparently the nest wasn’t quite complete, as NOCCCD decided years ago that it wanted yet another baby, and popped out the abundantly productive School of Continuing Education (SCE) on Wilshire Blvd., across the street from Fullerton College. Amazingly, SCE has no academic courses, but has new buildings, deans and even its own Senate like a regular university!

Well, the Senate has to meet somewhere, right?

And what does this seemingly well-greased, finely-tuned bureaucracy manage to provide for the taxpayers? A substantially rich offering of classes, such as (read this carefully):

  • How to Sell on eBay
  • Digital Scrapbooking
  • Blogging for Beginners
  • Toddler Fitness
  • Raising Caring Kids
  • Bartending Workshops
  • Latin Cardio Blast
  • Journey Back into Time for Older Adults
  • Needlecrafts, Knitting, Crochet for Older Adults
  • History of Comedy and Humor for Older Adults
  • Beginning Drama for Older Adults
  • Draw and Paint Animals (ages 5+)
  • Making Yummy Snacks (ages 6-10)
  • Sing and Learn Chinese for Parent and Child (ages 0-6)
  • Cheerleading (ages 4-7)
  • Public Speaking for Children (ages 8-12)
  • Career Exploration (ages 9-12)
  • Please Pass the Manners (ages 5-7)
  • Teen Etiquette (ages 13-17)
  • Puppetry and Storytelling (ages 3-6)
  • Readiness for Kindergarten (ages 4-5)
  • How to Be a Best Friend (ages 5-8)
The bartending workshop is the best in North Orange County!

Okay, just in case this list hasn’t left you completely baffled, keep in mind that the SCE’s course offerings are funded by the North Orange County Community COLLEGE District! Do these classes have ANYTHING to do with college? Don’t offerings like these really belong in the domain of something like parks and recreation?

Meet the new freshman class of SCE!

Despite the inappropriateness of these course offerings, the Chancellor of the NOCCCD, Dr. Ned Doffoney (one can only imagine what kind of salary the title of “Doctor” delivers) continues to cradle the SCE as a fresh newborn, giving it his support and blessing as only a chancellor can do.

Meanwhile, administrators at the colleges are suggesting the cancellation of 46% of the courses that were offered this year, a move that is likely to prevent significant numbers of students from graduating and moving on to university because they need classes in chemistry, calculus and business. Well, at least we can all take comfort in knowing that senior citizens will fully comprehend the History Of Comedy, or that toddlers will know how to make Yummy Snacks!

Did somebody say Yummy Snacks?
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Posted onArts & Architecture

Fullerton College’s New Building Dun Goofed

by 34 Comments on Fullerton College’s New Building Dun Goofed

When this blog kicked off several years ago, one of the first subjects of our discontent was the fake McSpanish horrors being constructed at Fullerton College.

Well,  the buildings are complete and FJC students are submitting their feedback…and boy are things looking ugly. Here’s a hilarious clip of some dudes highlighting a few of the creepier features:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DAVMr9iCds
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