Public Gathering

It’s funny how, one by one, the advocates for the idiotic “Walk on Wilshire” determinedly reject common sense arguments against it’s continuance.

Gone but not forgotten…

The concept has been a money loser for the City. Who cares?

Created and perpetuated by “economic development” City employees as make-work for themselves, the thing is an economic sinkhole, just like the rest of downtown Fullerton, while the City suffers from a massive tsunami of red ink. Who cares?

Only one restaurant has deemed it worthwhile to fully participate in this financial disaster. Who cares?

The rights and interests of business owners elsewhere on Wilshire Avenue have been intentionally denied. Who cares?

The ability of motorists to use a public street bought and paid for by the public has been denied them. Who cares?

At the July 16th City Council meeting we learned what was valuable according to the advocates of this moronic scheme. It wasn’t really about “economic development,” because there isn’t any. It was all about the squishy, feel-good goal of a communal gathering space, as if this silly, blocked off space provided any better communal experience than private dining on the inside of a restaurant, or on the sidewalk.

The fact the that the Fullerton Observer has dedicated itself to defending this ludicrous scheme should be sufficient evidence of its idiocy. The real goal of this gaggle is to deny auto access to a public street; it’s the first small step to a utopia where everybody is poor, riding bikes and wearing Mao jackets. But that’s too nutsy even for them to propound openly. So they advocate for a “public gathering space” even though the “Walk on Wilshire” is not really open to the general populace at all.

What these people don’t acknowledge is that there is already a large public space in downtown Fullerton.

It’s called the Downtown Plaza, an acre of open space that already exists, and that can be used without any cost for those interested in the orgasmic experience of New Urban public gathering. There’s even a little parklet across the way. Here it is:

There it is. Take it.

There is absolutely nothing from keeping the City opening this huge space to public dining and permitting ALL the restaurants in Fullerton to cater their wares here directly, or through an on line application. There’s trees, green grass and blue sky overhead.

Bought and paid for…

Of course this would require almost no City involvement, and no project our economic development employees could put on their time cards. It was built a long time ago and, except for a few events goes mostly unused. But there it is. String some solar light in the trees, put out some tables and you’re good to go. There’s even a handy parking structure across the street.

Arbols y césped y cielo azure…

How about this as a “pilot” program: use the existing open space for that “al fresco” dining experience so beloved by Bruce Whitaker, and open up Wilshire Avenue to the people who want to drive on it, and for the businesses on Wilshire that need it for convenient access and parking.

Does this idea seem ridiculous? Why? At the very least it demonstrates the shallowness of the alleged arguments in favor of keeping Wilshire closed: the City doesn’t intelligently used the communal gathering space it already has.

And why not restrict outside dining to the sidewalks, where it belongs?

Café life. On the sidewalk.

Our City staff, and at least two of our City Councilpersons, maybe three if you count Bruce Whitaker, would rather shut down a public street to our detriment, but to their benefit.

NEW COMPETITION IN THE 1st DISTRICT RACE

A candidate has popped up to challenge Fred Jung for the Fullerton District 1 city council job.

His name is Matt Truxan.

I’ve never heard of this cat before but judging by his various facebook posts he is an old guard liberal. Here’s a recent post:

I can’t find much about this guy other than he wrote some sort of science fiction book and he likes to post “humorous” pictures of himself.

Probably not the best look for a candidate…

I think it’s a fair assumption that this person has been recruited by the far left in Fullerton to challenged Jung, who, as a Democrat hasn’t always pleased them. Ahmad Zahra can certainly be considered the prime mover of this rather hopeless campaign. As Truxaw himself points out, Jung is better funded than he is. At last count Jung was nearing $200,000 in his campaign account, a rather breathtaking amount. The goal here is probably to make him spend down his account, but Jung can still saturate the district with campaign promotion while spending a small part of the contents of that treasure chest.

I personally thought the lefty Dems would find somebody with a Korean name to make Jung spend his money. Maybe they still will.

Walk on Wilshire Limps Along

Gone but not forgotten…

Last Tuesday the Fullerton City Council considered extending the so-called Walk on Wilshire project, a staff-driven closure of Wilshire Avenue just west of Harbor to auto traffic and leasing the street to adjacent businesses to operate for outdoor dining. The “pilot” program term ended in June but “economic development” bureaucrats sure wanted to keep it going even though it’s over fifty grand in the hole so far, with little but wishful thinking promising success in the future.

Right off the bat, Mayor Nick Dunlap recused himself. Apparently his father is part owner of the adjacent the Villa del Sol building that has tenants who may or may not want the street closure ended. That left four councilmembers to deal with the item.

It turns out that the folks in City Hall commissioned another one of those surveys designed to arrive at a pre-determined conclusion that City Hall wants. We’ve seen that over and over and over again. Guess what? Everyone just loves them some Walk on Wilshire.

Public speakers included about five or six people nobody had ever heard of before, suggesting that they were planted by staff or a councilmember like Shana Charles to be there. Oh, they just oozed enthusiasm for the closure, rhapsodizing on the exclusion of cars, the walking and the bicycling and the ambiance, etc., all the touchy-feely stuff you would expect.

Why write about news when you can try to make your own! (Photo by Julie Leopo/Voice of OC)

Saskia Kennedy, editor of the yellowing Fullerton Observer got up to extol the virtues of the plan, proving that making the news is a lot more fun than responsibly reporting it.

Several adjacent business owners spoke, complaining about the unfairness of the closure that only benefitted three adjacent restaurants and that hurts their business. They included the owners of Pour Company, Les Amis, and The Back Alley Bar and Grill, and Tony Bushala who owns the historic building at 124 W. Wilshire.

Local hero…

Two other speakers, Joshua Ferguson and Jack Dean made excellent arguments against continuing the closure. Ferguson pointed out that the council was being asked to make a decision based on insufficient information, while Mr. Dean reminded the council that the business and property owners on Wilshire, many of whom were not even notified of the meeting, have a paramount interest in this endeavor.

When the chit-chat was all over it became clear that there was not a majority in favor of continuing the program until December. Zahra and Charles naturally wanted to prolong the boondoggle, Fred Jung and Bruce Whitaker didn’t. In a rambling discourse Whitaker went to great but unpersuasive lengths to explain his switcheroo, but did hit upon one truth. The Walk on Wilshire is completely driven by bureaucrats in City Hall, and nobody else. A motion for continuing the Walk on Wilshire until the end of the year failed on a 2-2 vote.

Cost analysis is hard…

But a waffling Whitaker was in favor of giving the participants three months to plan for the end of the program which wasn’t all that bad of an idea. However, Shana Charles thought she espied the eye of the needle and threaded herself though it, using all the arguments against the Walk on Wilshire to propose that staff review the mess, again, and come back, again.

The pirouettes were dizzying…

Waffling Whitaker agreed to a return of the item in three months to study up on the issue, as if there hadn’t been plenty of time to do that already. And so a council majority voted 3-1 to keep the patient on life support, and as usual nothing was decided and there was no specific direction. Staff is supposed to review something, anything, who knows what.

There never seems to be closure until it is approved by the bureaucrats who are the real profiteers on money losing schemes. It’s job security.

Yelp, Says Michelle W.

An amused Friend shared this Yelp review of lawyer Jan Flory, posted just about the time Flory was on the backstretch of her second lap around the Fullerton City Council track.

Don’t worry, Michelle. She never cared about us, her constituents, either. It’s always been about protecting the bureaucrats in City Hall – the ones she calls the “heart of the City; and protecting the Culture of Corruption in the Fullerton Police Department.

And I agree, Michelle. It’s too bad there isn’t a zero star option.

Thank You God!

What appeared to be a pretty tame fall City Council election may have just become a lot more fun.

The closer you look, the worse it gets.

Word on the street is that Jan Flory pulled nomination papers yesterday to run against Mayor Nick Dunlap in the 2nd District election in November.

Too much scotch, not enough water…

Who is Jan Flory? If you don’t know, take a spin through our files, here. You’ll find all sorts of entertaining stories about Ms. Flory and even about her creepy/pervy son Mike, who used to be a Deputy District Attorney and even tried to be a judge once.

Mike Flory Photo
How far did the apple fall from the tree?
Flory Call Log 01
Maybe not breast fed long enough…

Jan Flory was elected to the City Council in 1994 and voted off in 2002. In those eight years she happily allowed an illegal water tax, voted for the disastrous retroactive public safety pension spike and supported the culture of unaccountability that has helped us get where we are today.

In 2012 she hauled herself out of the stable to try another lap around the track.

See if you can find the old nag.

Her mission was to restore municipal authority to the Old Guard she represented, and to protect the Culture of Corruption at the Fullerton Police Department from any sort of reform. She informed us that the City Department heads were the “heart of the City.”

She put in her four years, patting her Chief of Police Danny Hughes on the fanny as they both walked out the door in 2016, a few days after the drunken City Manager, Joe Felz drove over a tree and tried to drive away. The ensuing cover up turned out to be expensive. Oops.

Poor Sappy.
Poor Sappy. So young, so vibrant…

But Jan wasn’t done with us. Not by a long shot.

When an opening on the City Council occurred in 2019 guess who was there to snap up the job? After her appointment she rewarded the unemployed Ahmad Zahra for his vote with a paying gig at the Orange County Water District.

In this last stint Flory was happy to continue her love affair with unbalanced budgets and was one of the members of the Council, along with Jesus Quirk Silva, Ahmad Zahra, and Jennifer Fitzgerald who waged a legal vendetta against this blog and specifically against Joshua Ferguson and David Curlee. Of course that harpy-like mission cost the taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars, but didn’t cost the perpetrators anything.

Ferguson and Curlee. The easy winners…

Well, I sure hope Ms. Flory really does want to run. The entertainment value alone is worth it. Who her constituency might be is unclear. There aren’t that many elderly liberals left in Fullerton. She might get the support of the yellowing, and thinning Fullerton Observer crowd, but a humorless, stick-up-the-backside septuagenarian is not likely to appeal to anyone under seventy.

Walk On Wilshire Coming Back

Closed but not forgotten…

Next Tuesday our City Council will once again address the issue of Walk on Wilshire, the bureaucrat-driven “pilot program” that closed off the 100 block of West Wilshire Avenue to street traffic so that three restaurants could set up shop in the middle of the street. The issue is whether to approve an extension of the idea. Pretty soon they’re going to drop the word “pilot” altogether, and we’ll know that City Hall has permanently squatted on the street.

As usual, the staff report is so poorly written that it takes some forensic work to figure it out.

Off we go, into the Wild Blue Yonder…

So far the thing has cost ninety grand, but more “enhancements” are projected – another $80,000. Staff says lease revenue for the past 27 months is less than $36,000, but somehow will go up to $40K a year once two more users build their “parklets” – a silly phrase that has currency among urban “planners.” That remains to be seen, but any way you slice it, with ongoing maintenance costs it will be years before the City recoups its outlay – if it ever does. This concept seems to have eluded the crack minds of our “Economic Development” employees, and our City Council that steadfastly spends more to get less back. But that is the constant theme of Downtown Fullerton.

It’s funny how depriving the taxpaying citizens of their right to drive on a public street is seen as a good thing in some circles – cars bad, bad, bad; and the impact on other businesses on Wilshire Avenue isn’t taken into account at all. Some folks seem to think the experience is cosmopolitan, likening it to a veritable Parisian vacation, but failing to note the difference between a sidewalk café and putting tables out in the middle of a road closed for that purpose – something no Parisian citizen would tolerate for a second.

Even though the staff report says it awaits City Council guidance, it is replete with pro-street theft propaganda, including another one of those ginned up polls done by Kosmont whose previous efforts include this hot mess. And it gets even worse.

Staff is requesting an “Asssement” opportunity to locate other places in DTF to recreate the money loser on Wilshire, “vibrancy” sounding ever so much better than bureaucratic busywork and inconvenient street closings.

Well the die is already cast on this one. Zahra and Charles just ooze sanctimonious support for this hare-brained idea; and Bruce Whitaker is all in for it, too, for some nincompoop reason – maybe because his wife likes it. Nick Dunlap recused himself last time and may do so again. Or he may just go along with more staff-driven nonsense. Only Fred Jung seemed really opposed to this scheme, but he’s going to be in the minority.

Fall Elections Draw Few Contestants. So Far.

In five days potential Fullerton City Council candidates for Districts 1,2, and 4 will be able to “pull” nomination papers. I don’t know why the phrase is “pull papers” but that’s what they call it.

At this point you can only tell who’s running by those who have created candidate committees. And that’s a short list, indeed. Committees are listed on the City Clerk’s webpage, here, under disclosures.

Dunlap-Jung
Anyone else?

In Districts 1 and 2 only the incumbents Fred Jung and Nick Dunlap have committees. This is not unusual as incumbents are hard to beat, but usually some brave souls sign up. Of course you don’t need to have a committee unless you plan on raising money above a certain threshold. I believe it’s a thousand bucks, but don’t quote me on that.

She wants what you have.

In District 4 there are two candidate committees on record. As previously noted one is for retired City employee Vivian Kitty Jaramillo who apparently used to write parking tickets back in the day.

Two Whitakers for the price of one…

The other candidate is Linda Whitaker, wife of outgoing councilman Bruce Whitaker. Neither of these candidates has any experience as an elected person, although Jaramillo has run previously and lost badly when council elections were held city-wide. She was subsequently party to a lawsuit to force district elections where she must have figured she has a chance of winning. She’s the Democrat anointed candidate and is supported by the Ahmad Zahra and Shana Charles, our megalomaniacal and dingbat councilpersons, respectively.

Jaramillo would be a very poor choice as a vocal tax proponent and the beneficiary of City CalPERS payments. A win by her would create a new council majority run by the manipulative Zahra. Ms. Whitaker would probably be better on some revenue raising issues, but some have suggested that she is the moving spirit behind her husband’s disastrous votes on closing Wilshire Avenue for the benefit of a few restaurants, and the support of the nonsensical “boutique” hotel. I don’t know if this story is responsible, but the votes are testament to exceedingly poor judgment. She might also be inclined to form a majority with Jung and Dunlap as her husband has done.

It remains to be seen if either Jaramillo or Whitaker intend to run vigorous campaigns and how much money they can raise to do it.

So far nobody else has shown interest publicly – yet. The deadline to return papers to the City Clerk is August 9th – only a month away unless an incumbent pulls out. Then the period is extended 5 calendar days.

It would be nice to see somebody else pop up to run in the 4th District, but time is running out fast.

Foes of Fullerton’s Future Fail

I wasn’t able to watch the Fullerton City Council meeting last night to see If my predictions would take place. But I’ve heard about it. Some did, some didn’t.

If I knew what I was talking about this wouldn’t be Fullerton!

The item for consideration of a plebiscite 13% sales tax increase, placed on the agenda by Ahmad Zahra and Shana Charles, went nowhere as I supposed it would. In the end the staff report was “received and filed,” a polite way of saying sayonara and into the round file with you.

Hey, you down there…

As predicted Zahra and Charles pleaded ardently for putting the tax on the ballot – even cutting the amount and placing some sort of sunset term. No takers.

What didn’t happen was the appearance of Zahra’s Zanies, his coterie of cult followers, to harass and harangue the Council majority. A little gaggle of folks spoke, discussion was held, and then the proposal was sent to the dead letter office. In almost no time the meeting was adjourned and everybody went home very early.

I wonder if Zahra even tried to marshal his forces, or whether he couldn’t muster any support. Why else agendize the issue knowing failure was certain. Maybe just to check the box.

Put your money in the bucket over there!

It could be that Ahmad’s Aimless Army was busy elsewhere, maybe even pursuing recreation on his famous Trail to Nowhere.

I don’t know if District 4 candidate, Vivian Kitty Jaramillo even showed up.

When the video is available I may get details of who said what, but I’m not sure it matters.

Bungling Boutique Boondoggle Blunders

Some folks have been asking about the fate of the idiotic “boutique” hotel project that had morphed into a hideously overbuilt hotel/apartment hippogriff that is twice the allowable density permitted per the City’s own Transportation Center Specific Plan. Of course the project was never contemplated at all in the Specific Plan, so who cares, right? Fullerton being Fullerton.

In an act of utter incompetence the City actually rushed the approval to transfer of title to the land, before the deal had received final approval. Then they gave it away the land for pennies on the dollar.

Friends may recall our last October post in which we discovered that the new “developer,” one Johnny Lu of TA Westpark LLC, was way upside down on loans he had somehow leveraged on apartment blocks in Irvine and was in default.

You may also recall that Lu started shifting the property to different corporations, the first of which, a Delaware corporation, was non-existent. And just for grins, Mr. Lu changed the property description, too, when he later deeded it back to his California Corporation.

Anyhow, it looks like Johnny has finally created and recorded the appropriately named Delaware corporation in March – only two years too late, but, hey, not bad for Fullerton, right?

There has been nothing but radio silence from City Hall as to the status of Mr. Lu and whether he has met any of the stipulated deadlines in the Development and Disposition Agreement, but as we have learned in the case of the Florentine/Marovich sidewalk heist, contractual obligations mean nothing when the “I Can’t Believe It’s a Law Firm” of Jones & Mayer is your City Attorney. Recently, cluelessly verbose Shana Charles indicated that the project was still alive and well. She didn’t mention Mr. Lu’s financial embarrassment, but then nobody else has, either.

And now for some sadly interesting news. It turns out the original Founding Father of the boutique hotel concept, Craig Hostert of West Park Development – the guy who sold the idea to Jennifer Fitzgerald, Jan Flory, Jesus Quirk Silva, Ahmad Zahra, Bruce Whitaker, et. al. – died in late May.

Hostert

Poor guy. He went to his Reward after getting pushed out of his own scheme, and sticking us with the appalling, metastasized mess the concept has predictably morphed into; showing that once again, no bad idea goes unappreciated in downtown Fullerton. Being Fullerton, of course.