Fullerton City Council Archives - Page 10 of 73 - Friends For Fullerton's Future

January 1, 2024January 1, 2024About Us

The Process & The Consultant

A few weeks ago I published a post on the extremely dubious efforts of a paid consultant to begin a renewed effort to raise a new sales tax in Fullerton. The consultant is an operation called FM3.

We’ve seen this movie before. Many times.

In an effort to build momentum toward justifying a new tax a consultant is tasked with cooking up a poll, a survey that is worded in such a way as to make the question of a new tax sound not only plausible but even desirable.

The information that is collected is meant to probe the electorate’s weak spots, just like an army might send out reconnaissance to figure out where to attack.

Another benefit is to begin the process of developing ballot statement language that will push and persuade voters to the correct decision – a decision that will always be to vote for the tax. The reasons will be a short recital of the usual, low-hanging fruit, public safety being at the top of the list, but with no explanation that our public safety corps – emergency medical personnel (formerly known as :firefighters) and cops already suck up the majority of Fullerton’s General Fund. Mention of parks, quality of life, libraries and now “homeless” will be thrown in to the pot; and infrastructure maintenance will be included, disingenuously, to get support of the more hard-headed voter, just like last time.

Measure S Covid Lie — Let me count the ways…

And of course this language will be also be used by the inevitable political action committee formed to wage the propaganda war.

Make no mistake about it. The consultant hired to undertake this effort will know at the outset what his mission is. He knows who hired him and he knows what his employer wants.

Here’s a fun little Aussie video that spells out the process succinctly:

And so it goes. The start of a charade in which the taxpayers foot the bill to be “educated” into supporting a pre-determined outcome. The line between education (legal) and propaganda (illegal) is not bright, as asserted by Councilmember Bruce Whitaker. The fuzzy demarcation is exploited all the time by government agencies – always based on information collected in the original poll.

No On S — Don’t Reward the City’s Stupidity

The hopeful part of this is that the electorate is not always as easily persuaded as is supposed by the would be taxers. This was demonstrated in Fullerton in 2020 when voters rejected the ill-considered Measure S, and property tax-based bond floats by Fullerton’s two school districts.

In the end the Council (Jung, Zahra and Charles) voted, vaguely, to keep the “education” process going, a process that we know is nothing other than political propaganda aimed at persuading a majority of voters and coordinating with a special political action committee set up to scare, cajole, and bamboozle the voters.

December 27, 2023Bike Nation

Another Concept

by Fullerton Engineer42 Comments

FFFF has been diligent chronicling the fate of the so-called Trail to Nowhere since last summer when City staff began a selective process of pushing for approval and acceptance of the State Natural Resources Agency grant.

Previously the City Council had directed staff to explore an option for the UP right-of-way that would be multi-modal option planned in conjunction with a wider area. This option became the step-child of City Hall, virtually ignored as staff brought back the original plan and worked an approval from the clueless Parks Commissioners.

Hugo and Alice. The radioactivity was undeniable…

In this way Parks employees ginned up their own special brand of momentum in which the ludicrous becomes the unavoidable.

Except the City Council disagreed and voted to reject the grant unless it could be spent on something useful to somebody, somewhere else in Fullerton.

But let’s think about it for a bit.

Why doesn’t the multi-modal paradigm that became known as Option 2, work? Running a motor viaduct between Highland Avenue westward alongside a green belt makes sense if there must be a bike path.

Phase 1. Asphalt street and parallel trail. The Horror!

Such a design could easily be incorporated into the 50 ft+ easement width. In fact, the exact same thing was already done in the City’s much vaunted Phase 1. The additional flexibility would be of tremendous benefit in the future development of the adjacent 30 acre area, where in-fill development is inevitable, given recent land planning requirements.

A roadway passing through the right-of-way could open up properties on both Truslow Avenue and Walnut Avenue to new configurations and provide commercial opportunities. Ultimately, the numerous deep properties on Valencia Avenue could have access to the new roadway as well.

Meantime, a Class 1 or a Class IV bikeway could built to the desired 10′ wide standard for a 2-way path with a 5′ DG path alongside, with plenty of room to spare. This configuration happens all the time. CalTRANS shares a design image:

As an aside, it’s kind of ironic that all the Trail to Nowhere advocates seem to think it’s a travesty to have a bike path running alongside what would essentially be a paved alley, but they never seem to mention the issue of their beloved bucolic facility running immediately adjacent to the busiest rail corridor in Sothern California.

Kids love choo-choo trains… (Photo by Julie Leopo/Voice of OC)

Oh well. We cant’s expect consistency from those guided by compete ignorance and political animus.

December 18, 2023December 18, 2023About Us

We the People, An Essay

by Emily Roe54 Comments

Intelligent commentary was not forthcoming…

You’ve got to hand it to some of Fullerton’s lefties. Their blind devotion to abstractions, knee-jerk reaction to anything threatening their cherished causes, and blindered view of a world of injustices perpetrated on the “underserved” is pretty impressive. One way or another.

Let me be your guide! (Photo by Julie Leopo/Voice of OC)

But one thing that has really struck me lately is the way in which these folk identify themselves with the biggest thing in a democratic republic: the people.

It must be part of human nature to think that what you hold dear must be what everybody should want. But in some, the misidentification takes on a delusional quality – it is what everybody wants.

I’m referring to the recent hubbub about the ridiculous “Trail to Nowhere,” in which a tiny Ahmad Zahra claque have bi-monthly wasted hours and hours and hours talking about how their desire is the will of “the people,” and how the City Council majority is not listening to “the people.”

Why repeat the numerous reasons why the proposed trail was idiotic? FFFF has already done that convincingly. Instead, let’s look at the nature of the chatter.

Such talk could easily be dismissed as just meaningless political rhetoric, but these people seem to actually believe they do speak for everybody, obviously, because they are so right. It’s hard to understand where such a blind self-righteousness comes from, but I suspect it comes from decades of educational indoctrination into certain ways of thinking.

But, consider the reality.

Intrepid reporter/newsmaker, S. Kennedy, top left.

A dozen or so speakers nattering on about something they stubbornly refuse to actually understand, but believing that they speak for the citizens of a mid-size city of 145,000 people is preposterous.

The vast majority of Fullerton’s residents don’t know anything about the Trail to Nowhere and, if presented all the facts instead of weepy and outraged propaganda of the Fullerton Observer, might possibly conclude that the Council majority acted in their interest.

December 14, 2023December 15, 2023Ahmad Zahra

The Poisoned Trail to Nowhere?

by Fullerton Engineer33 Comments

The subject of trichlorethylene (TCE) contamination along the proposed Trail to Nowhere has been the subject of discussion on this blog. The adjacent factory at 311 South Highland Avenue was the site of TCE spills for years and has been identified as such by the State Department of Toxic Substance Control and the federal EPA. The agencies identified a southerly moving plume off the property and directly under the trail site.

The contamination was included in a lawsuit brought by the Orange County Water District, but has not been remediated.

In previous posts FFFF identified old test wells on property to the west of 311 S. Highland.

It turns out there are new ones, too. Six of them, in fact, that were actually drilled on the trail site strung out along several hundred feet.

There are also new test wells that have been placed very recently even farther south – in the west 100 block of Truslow Avenue.

These test wells have been placed without any notification to the residents of District 5, so they told me when I traversed the area today; but, obviously the City is aware of these installations since encroachment permits are required to do this sort of work on public property.

So the question remains: what is the level of toxicity in the area – and not just on the impact to ground water, but to surface soils that might need to be excavated, treated, and removed. There is no budget to do toxic soils remediation, either in the Trail to Nowhere grant application, or in the City’s budget.

Maybe the soils along the Trail to Nowhere are clean, or at least of a level of toxicity that is not considered hazardous. Maybe not. Maybe it’s time to find out.

December 7, 2023About Us

A Modest Proposal

by Fred L. Olmsted26 Comments

I am going to make a modest proposal to the City leaders of Fullerton regarding the disposition of the grant money from the State Natural Resources Agency.

From what I understand, the main impediment to diverting the grant to the UP Park reconstruction is that there isn’t enough room on that site for the 168 trees that were promised along the Trail to Nowhere. The State thinks it’s real important to their mission to plant trees that will absorb greenhouse gases, primarily carbon dioxide.

I know a place that easily accommodate those trees. It’s called Hillcrest Park, a 100 year-old park that is used by everybody in Fullerton, and that regularly serves the underserved population people seem to care so much about.

Hillcrest Park has been abused, neglected, laid waste by the City for at least 60 years.

Historic elements have been removed, non-conforming materials introduced, and worst of all, trees have been allowed to die and have not been replaced.

The denuded northern and western slopes have been permitted to erode. A good deal of the landscaping that was done when the wooden stairs to Lions Field were built has died and is overrun by weeds.

So how about this proposal: Divert the grant money to the reforestation of Hillcrest Park. Instead of planting trees along a trail that doesn’t go anywhere and nobody would use, let’s help restore Hillcrest Park, Fullerton’s first official Landmark.

There is plenty of time to effect this proposal. The grant money stipulates that it must be spent by fall of 2025, almost 2 years from now. So how about it, officialdom?

December 7, 2023December 7, 2023Ahmad Zahra

Mayor Nick Dunlap

by Joe Sipowicz17 Comments

On Tuesday Nick Dunlap was appointed Mayor of Fullerton by the City Council.

Dunlap seems like a decent fellow. He’s been courteous and collegial and always seems to be engaged in meetings. Congratulations to him. Apparently he’s turned down the job in the past, maybe because he’s got a couple of young kids.

I’m not voting for Zahra and you can’t make me…

Fred Jung, the outgoing Mayor was chosen as Mayor Pro Tem, the person who runs meetings if the Mayor is indisposed.

The real story here is that once again Ahmad Zahra was passed over. Oh, the humanity.

His band of followers spoke emotionally for him. Why, you’d think he was the incarnation of St. Joan, St. Francis, Albert Schweitzer, Tiny Tim and Mighty Mouse, all rolled into one. Of course that little cavalcade was also the same group of folks who show up every week to challenge the ethics and honesty of the Council majority – at Zahra’s behest.

The system of rotation must be upheld they cried passionately. Fairness, they wailed. One guy got himself so wound up he looked ready to take punches at the air. The agitation. The furor! District 5 will have no Mayor some of the underserved proclaimed. The wailing and gnashing of teeth!

Even former Councilcreature Jan Flory hauled herself out of inebriate haze to deliver comments whose sole purpose was one last attack on Bruce Whitaker, challenging him to put aside his ill-humor and do the right thing by Zahra, hilariously neglecting to observe her own 30-year old, still unsatisfied vendetta against Whitaker. Clearly the stick up her backside remains firmly in place.

And this was before the vote.

But none of the offended folk seem to have reflected that there must be an excellent reason for Whitaker, Dunlap, and Jung to deny Zahra “his turn.” Those three obviously don’t like Zahra and don’t trust him. His penchant for self-promotion and his demeaning attitude toward them, so typical of the left-leaning know-it-all, has probably worn very thin. They know it is Zahra who has been orchestrating the ongoing harassment of them through his collection of oddball minions.

Zahra has been said to have filed a complaint to the police against Fred Jung for being a meanie of some sort, a claim that was refuted by everybody present. Zahra lied about being exonerated for a crime to which he pleaded guilty to have his record expunged. These aren’t good ways to earn trust and respect among your colleagues. And then there’s his ties to Melahat Rafiei the dope lobbyist and bribery queen who was just rung up by the US Justice Department.

Then, that very night, the public discovered that Zahra had gone behind the Council and City Manager’s back to talk to a State agency all by himself.

And who knows how many other shenanigans have been played by this unemployed, self-righteous, utterly transactional individual; and who knows what other skeletons might be inclined to tumble out of his closet?

And the end of the meeting Zahra was brought to tears by the injustice, choked up like a little child who wasn’t allowed to play on the monkey bars. The pathos was so thick it brought Zahra’s remaining followers in attendance to weep right along with the object of their affection.

December 2, 2023December 2, 2023Ahmad Zahra

The Thing That Wouldn’t Die

by Joe Sipowicz29 Comments

It’s Fullerton. There’s always a backdoor!

Fullerton City Hall watchers know one thing for certain. If the bureaucrats want something, it will never die. The issue may be voted down by a majority of the City Council, but rest assured, the item will sooner or later be back. The history of this sad fact is undeniable and goes back decades and decades.

And so the ridiculous Trail to Nowhere has been agendized for reconsideration on Tuesday almost four months after it was sensibly rejected way back in August.

How did this get on the agenda? It’s hard to believe that Jung, Whitaker or Dunlap asked to put it in on, but maybe the incoherent yammering of Ahmad Zahra’s gaggle of followers over the past fifteen weeks got to one of them to go along with Zahra and Shana Charles to put this on the agenda. I said maybe. Because it is also possible that the City staff did this on their own for reasons unknown. We’ve seen that happen before, too, when some non-existent legal pretext was drummed up by the I Can’t Believe it’s A Law Firm© of Jones and Mayer, or the equally maleficent firm of Rutan, formerly Rutan and Tucker, who defended the indefensible for years.

Because this is Fullerton, how this idiocy became officially resurrected will probably never be known. What hasn’t changed are the excellent reasons to reject the State grant. Again.

Here is a list, thoughtfully provided by the diligent FFFF research team:

Not safe – look at “Phase 1” Gangs and drugs
No identified users
No environmental testing done
Adjacent contaminated property – TCE
Numerous possible polluters up and down trail
Application contains false information about environmental testing
Doesn’t line up with “Phase 1”
No budget to modify “Phase 1”
“Phase 1” is deficient – 90 degree angles
“Phase 1” HAS NOT BEEN MAINTAINED. Maintenance is an issue
No connectivity to the east – blocked by SoCo Walk
Does NOT go to the Transportation Center
No connectivity to the West – BNSF ownership; possible High Speed Rail in right of way

We’ve had some fun here making fun of the complete waste of $3,000,000 on the Trail to Nowhere, but there is something else going on here – the reintroduction of something already decided. The issue should be dead and arguments about it, moot. But this is Fullerton, and it’s never over until City staff say it’s over.

November 20, 2023November 20, 2023Ahmad Zahra

The Trail to Nowhere Penalty

by Mr. Peabody29 Comments

Although its advocates keep whacking it like the proverbial dead horse, the near-disaster known as the Trail to Nowhere isn’t happening. We can thank Fullerton City Council members Dunlap, Jung, and Whitaker for pulling the plug on “Phase II” of the so-called Union Pacific Trail back in August. The proposal made no sense: it had few, if any potential users, ran through an area of heavy industry, was and would never be connected to anything else, cost nobody knew how much to maintain, didn’t even line up with its alleged Phase I, and cost $2,000,000 to build (if you can trust a City budget).

Perhaps most importantly, the council majority had previously requested that various trail options be considered in the context of a wider area plan. City staff essentially ignored that request and began a behind the scenes effort to drum up support for the original plan – an act of insubordination, really.

At the time no one told the three councilmembers that there was adjacent property with trichlorethylene contamination in the 300 block of Highland Avenue and plumes had drifted south, even though this information had been in the City’s possession for decades. Fortunately, Messrs. Dunlap, Whitaker and Jung had plenty of other excellent reasons to deny the grant funding for its intended purpose.

Another thing the City Council didn’t know was that if the grant application contained “false representations” – either intentionally, or through lack of reasonable effort – the grant could be rescinded and the State could demand whatever of its money had been spent. Here’s the relevant paragraph in the grant acceptance agreement:

In other words, had contaminated soils been detected on the “trail” the State may well have been inclined to demand whatever had been spent, particularly in light of the fact that the grant application falsely stated that environmental testing had been performed in 1998 and was not an issue.

We know this isn’t true because in the early 2000s the UP Park (after construction) was found to be contaminated, requiring mitigation; there is no way that the “trail” was somehow tested, but not the park site. We also know that very recent PRA requests identifying this specific issue returned no relevant documents.

Of course the State could have revoked the grant on the basis of the fraudulent application alone, had they discovered the misinformation, a municipal embarrassment, to be sure.

Fortunately, for the City employees who manufactured the grant application and snuck it past an incurious City manager, there will be no repercussion, not even a mild “talking to.” And fortunately for the rest of us, the City won’t be saddled with a stupid white elephant of Phase II that would have ended up looking an awful lot like Phase I.

Phase I’s inauspicious beginning. It gets worse.

So everybody should be happy, right?

November 17, 2023November 17, 2023Boohooism

Stupid Observer

by Mr. Peabody15 Comments

A guy named Mike Ritto writes a periodic column for our Friends at the Fullerton Observer called The DOWNTOWN Report that ostensibly deals with happenings in our economic sinkhole known as Downtown Fullerton, or DTF, for short.

In his latest piece Mr. Ritto promises A Brief History of Union Pacific Park. Hmm. This might be interesting, I thought. And so it is, but not for what it says, but for what it intentionally leaves out. It begins talking about the Union Pacific RR, the Santa Fe and even the Pacific Electric. Ritto eventually gets around to the park itself:

“…remnants of that UP line are the fenced-off, such as Union Pacific Park just to the West of the former station, where the tracks used to run.

That neighborhood needs a park, and as the residents look through the chain links and see, finally, grading and other preliminary work that is taking place right now, they know it is on the way. Approval of the park revitalization was covered in our August 7 issue. In addition, we are following developments in the proposed Union Pacific Trail, which would be an open space trail between this new park and Independence Park to the West.”

Somehow the UP Park history has become no history at all, just a mysterious space with a fence around it.

Of course Ritto omits mention that the UP Park was a park on which the City spent several million dollars in land acquisition and construction, and that the City closed down first because of toxic contamination, and then because of abundant crime. This latter fact gets no mention because Ritto is insistent that “the neighborhood needs a park” and remembering that the last effort failed would be extremely awkward – so let’s just forget it. Like his Observer pals he repeats the nonsense that the Trail to Nowhere is still a real thing.

To perpetuate the propensity for misinformation of which the Observer is (in)famous, Ritto remarks that approval of park revitalization has occurred, as reported in the Observer on August 7th. What really happened was the Parks Commission voted to recommend the the Trail to Nowhere to the City Council. The article itself, despite the erroneous headline, is really just a propaganda piece for the now dead Trail to Nowhere and has nothing to do with the UP Park site.

Fullerton Observer readers are often told that the effort is an all-volunteer affair, as a sort of apology for bad reporting, opinion masquerading as news, factual misrepresentation and basic spelling mistakes. The Kennedy clan has been doing this for forty years or more and there’s no likelihood that this will change.

November 15, 2023November 15, 2023Ahmad Zahra

The Taxman Cometh. Again.

by The Fullerton Harpoon36 Comments

A few years ago during the depths of the COVID pandemic, the Fullerton City Council voted to put a sales tax measure on the ballot. Since things were looking grim and with revenue falling off, the best course of action in City Hall seemed to be to lay it on to taxpayers. It was necessary to protect Fullerton’s quality of life, you see; or, to be more precise, to protect the pay and pensions of City employees, particularly the cops and “fire fighters” who suck up the majority of the municipal budget.

Well, the names have mostly changed, except for Ahmad Zahra, but the playbook remains the same.

At their November 7th meeting the City Council heard a report from a company called FM3 that had been tasked with producing a survey of resident concerns, and, significantly, to poll them about how to raise revenue. And lots of it.

Who actually hired FM3 in the first place is a mystery, but it must have been our illustrious City Manager, Eric Levitt, since no record of the Council approving a contract is found in the City Clerk’s database. So far they have been paid $49,000 – most likely sneaking under their City Manager’s spending authorization.

Before delving into the presentation, it’s important to note that FM3 is a consulting operation deeply involved in promoting government tax and bond efforts, and has been supporting liberal Democrat politicians for decades. One of the clients listed on their website is Carter/Mondale! On their splash page we find the slogan: Synthesizing Public Opinion To Help Achieve Your Goals, which is code for push polling that promotes your client’s goal of raising taxes.

The company conducted its polling of likely voters last spring, The “results” were presented to the Council on the 7th.

The concerns of the citizenry polled emphasized Fullerton’s rotten roads and included a bunch of stuff that the City has no control over and is merely being used as data filler. The options were presented by the pollsters.

Notice the inclusion of budget shortfalls on the list. According to FM3, 45% of those surveyed believe budget shortfalls are a extremely/very serious problem. Really? Then the other shoe begins to drop.

First, it’s curious that somehow data relating to 2019 and 2020 are shared. Where did that data come from? And what happened to 2021 and 2022? This presentation is just nonsense.

The bland term “additional funding” to the initiated means more taxes, but probably not to those polled. Not yet anyway, for the respondents are being artfully massaged by people whose job it is to push and pass tax proposals for their governmental “clients.” The bit about providing “the level of services Fullerton residents need and want” is telling, and so is the language. How does one’s “personal opinion” qualify one to opine on all Fullerton residents? The purpose is to loosen the respondents mind into the miasma of the common good, as defined by the principle beneficiaries – City employees. Then the other shoe hit the ground.

It didn’t take very long for FM3 to roll out a couple of “hypothetical” sales tax raising ballot measures, one a general purpose tax and the other more narrowly directed to infrastructure, although including the ambiguous phrase “to maintain rapid police, fire and 911 response.” The general purpose tax only requires 50%+1 ballot majority; the special purpose tax requires a 67% majority. The latter is an almost impossible threshold to get over.

Then FM3 rolls out some interesting language in their push for a general sales tax. Notice how these alleged concerns of the surveyed mimic the language of the typical “push poll.” FM3 is using language that will elicit super-high positive responses and suggest that others are already on board. The tiny text at the bottom of the slide tells all. But is all this dire language persuasive when it actually comes to voting?

Finally, FM3 sums it up by saying that a general sales tax is winnable. But is it? Somebody said the same thing about the City’s Measure S back in 2020 and it failed.

In the end the Council (Jung, Zahra and Charles) voted to keep the “education” process going, a process that we know is nothing other than political propaganda aimed at persuading a majority of voters and coordinating with a special political action committee set up to scare, cajole, and bamboozle the voters.

As Bruce Whitaker pointed out on the 7th, there is supposed to be a “bright line” that separates government information from government propaganda. But this line only in the abstract law. In practice the line dissolves almost completely.