Redevelopment Archives - Page 12 of 23 - Friends For Fullerton's Future

July 18, 2010July 18, 2010About Us

To Hell In A Handbasket

If you spend much time driving around Fullerton you become painfully aware of the sad state of the streets. The deteriorating infrastructure underneath is a disaster just waiting to happen. Some folks might characterize this as blight. I know I do. And yet when it comes to dealing with blight, the one and only mission of Redevelopment law, our agency would much rather spend millions on subsidies to commercial developers, land “write-downs,” low income housing, crummy remodels, fire sprinklers for dance clubs, transforming a useful alley into an elevated pedestrian paseo, purchasing a poisoned park, and relocating a McDonald’s for $6,000,000, etc. etc.

One of the key points of our settlement negotiations with the City over its Redevelopment project area expansion will be to require the Agency spend a significant portion of its funds on infrastructure replacement – the very “talking point” that the pro-expansion mouthpieces used at the public hearings in the first place.

July 16, 2010July 16, 2010Redevelopment

Redevelopment vs. the Principles of the California Republican Assembly

by Greg Sebourn12 Comments

I was recently asked by a fellow member of the CRA why I felt that Redevelopment Agencies were bad for the public. After my long dissertation (found throughout this blog and elsewhere), I boiled it down to the CRA’s own principles.

7. That the market economy, based upon capitalism and free enterprise, allocating resources by the free play of supply and demand, is the greatest system for creating personal freedom, a strong constitutional government, and is the most productive supplier of human need.

8. That when government interferes with the free enterprise system or attempts to control the economy by taking from one individual to bestow upon another, it diminishes the incentive of the first, the integrity of the second, and the moral autonomy of both.

Redevelopment TAKES (purchases at “fair market value”) property from one person and GIVES it (usually for FREE) to another under the auspices of “the public good”. On it’s face it should be apparent that this practice is inconsistent with the CRA’s principles. The public coffers should not fund private development and give one developer/investor an unfair advantage over another.

citypoint-redevelopment — A private pool at City Pointe, funded by your taxes through Redevelopment. No, you may not use it.

June 14, 2010June 14, 2010Boohooism

Downtown Fullerton Redevelopment Failure

by The Desert Rat11 Comments

In 1974 the various Redevelopment project areas were created in Fullerton, including the area that includes the downtown.

This was at the very tail end of the urban renewal era of social engineering that gutted old neighborhoods and districts across the land only to see the creation of bureaucrat-planned ghost towns and vast housing projects that nobody wanted to live in.

Although the downtown area was pretty much left to its own devices in the 70s, the 80s saw a new and noxious interest in re-inventing the area according to the whims of the Redevelopment manager and whatever cookie-cutter standardization idiocy was emanating from central planning workshops. Anybody remember the embarrassing concrete trestles?

True, the old businesses were leaving, put out of business by a new Mall culture. But what was the cure? Specialty retail, standardized street furniture, stamped concrete paving, design guidelines, and a plethora of silliness whose only aim seemed to be to create a roofless mall (an obviously pointless goal) – and provide employment for the Redevelopment manager. Hideous trees were planted that destroyed the sidewalks and on-street parking was removed, spelling final doom for what was left of the downtown businesses, but it was all part of the Master Plan, see? And new Master Plans kept being spit out every five years or so.

And while the City professed an interest in historic preservation, and even took credit for it, historic buildings kept disappearing – either completely or under a wall of brick veneer.

Things weren’t working. A ban on churches and pawn shops and junk yards couldn’t alter the fact that the low rents were pulling in businesses that weren’t “specialty retail.” They were mom and pop second hand stores masquerading as “antique” this and “vintage” that.

Ah! Much had been accomplished, but more work needed to be done. Job security for life!

The FFFF pages are strewn with the ugly history of the late eighties and the nineties when an unaccountable city staff engaged in boondoggle after boondoggle with a complaisant council going along every step of the way, and always taking credit for “revitalizing” downtown Fullerton.

Much had been accomplished, but clearly more work needed to be done.

Huge apartment blocks were approved, giving away millions in profits to favored developers through entitlements and grants. City streets were handed out like Monopoly deeds. The hope was that a captive residential audience would have to patronize downtown business. Synergy was the watchword of the day!

Much had been accomplished, but clearly more work needed to be done.

A new phenomenon was beginning to emerge in the late 90s. The subsidized restaurant. And a new booze culture was coalescing. Was it policy or accident? Who can say now. But what is inescapable is that for more than a decade the City’s actions and lack of actions had demonstrable effects. And the effects weren’t salutory. The restaurants morphed into bars and the bars morphed into bootleg night clubs and dance halls. The latter weren’t shut down; they were permitted. And then they were subsidized by the taxpayers with free fire water lines.

Every night the downtown area was filling up with drunken out of towners; fights, rapes, a murder. The City Manager wrung his hands. The downtown area was costing over a million dollars a year more to manage than it was bringing in in revenue.

Much had been accomplished, but clearly more work needed to be done.

In the 2000s the merry chase for revitalization continued apace with lustful Redevelopment eyes alighting on a vast Fox Theater project, cynically calculated to leverage popular interest in the Fox Theater. Aha! The anchor project that would make all the other pieces fall into place: success was at hand! Sure, we could move the McDonald’s a couple hundred feet. Six million? No problem! Environmental impacts? No big deal.

Then there is the Amerige Court monster. Aha! The anchor project that would make all the other pieces fall into place: success was at hand! Environmental impacts? No big deal.

And now Redevelopment in downtown Fullerton is 36 years old. Let’s put this in perspective: Fullerton was founded in 1886. And that means for 30% of its life span downtown Fullerton has had Redevelopment. And in 2010 the very sort of business that redevelopment bureaucrats find abhorrent starts up in the very heart of Redevelopment territory. See the irony yet? I do. It’s not about sex, it’s about failure. Oh, well.

Much has been accomplished, but clearly more work needs to be done.

June 13, 2010Fullerton City Council

The Register Finds Time for Sex

by The Fullerton Savage6 Comments

It’s been a couple of months since The Fullerton Savage’s debut on this blog drew over sixty responses to the story of a new sex oriented shop in downtown Fullerton. Now the Register has gotten into the act with a story about the same subject. Adam Townsend, the author, and many commenters on this blog seem to think I had something inherently against the business in question. This is what Mr. Townsend wrote:

‘The author called the shop’s merchandise “trash.” ‘The blog said that seeing the underwear-clad mannequins and other sexually-oriented merchandise would harm children and said allowing the business to operate was “engendering blight.’

To be fair, I did use the word “trash”, but trashy isn’t the worst thing to associate with lingerie. I never wrote that the sight of the busty mannequins etc. would “harm children.” I did write that they would get “quite an education” from looking into the shop’s windows. Remember, we are The Education City!

So maybe Adam Townsend got the wrong idea about my attitude toward a sex-themed business. No big deal, but where he really blew it in his article was when he wrote that I ‘said allowing the business to operate was “engendering blight.”‘

No, Mr. Townsend, what I asked was “Is there any better evidence of redevelopment engendering blight?” This is no small distinction. Shops like The Naughty Teddy are sometimes cited as examples of blight when cities are trying to establish redevelopment zones. Downtown Fullerton has been a redevelopment zone since 1973. My point, Mr. Townsend, was that despite nearly forty years and millions of dollars spent to push out pawn shops, lure in restaurants, add trees, build signs, commission murals, rehab storefronts, brick street medians, redesign traffic signals, build mixed use developments, and whatever else The Redevelopment Agency unilaterally decides is good for the area, in the end a 5,000 square foot shop that sells lubricants, videos and sex toys to the 21-and-over only crowd is open for business near a major intersection downtown.

Well, just for the record, I don’t really care what consenting adults do for sex and I don’t care what a business sells, as long as both are safe. But if a city spends millions of taxpayer dollars trying to turn a downtown into restaurant Disneyland or whatever it is they are trying to do with it, I would really like to know how The Naughty Teddy fits into their vision for the whole place.

Did the business lie on their application to the city, as has been claimed, or are they the victims of a prudish municipal mindset? I don’t know. Several tattoo parlors have already opened downtown, and the city is right behind that curve. Look for an agenda item concerning the classification of tattoo parlors on the next council meeting agenda.

April 27, 2010Redevelopment

The Missing Conversation with the Redevelopment Department

by The Fullerton Savage4 Comments

Last Thursday marked the second in a five part series of presentations at the Fullerton Museum Center entitled “Conversations with your City”. Organized by Fullerton City Council member Sharon Quirk-Silva, each evening features managers and directors of some of our city’s most prominent departments, including Police Chief Michael Sellers and City Manager Chris Meyer. June 24 brings Parks and Recreation Director Joe Felz, followed by August 26 with Fire Chief Wolfgang Knabe, and ends with an October 28 double header with Engineering Director Don Hoppe and Maintenance Services Director Bob Savage. Just about everyone you’d want to talk to as an active member of your community, right?

Conspicuously missing are the Community Development and Redevelopment Department directors. As it happens, Community Development (aka Planning Dept.) Director John Godlewski will finish his contract with Fullerton very soon. Who knows when his successor will be hired, so perhaps it was just awkward to try to schedule someone to speak with the public about that department.

But Redevelopment is something of a puzzling omission. Why was Redevelopment Director Robert Zur Schmiede not included in this series of conversations with our city? After all, his department’s current fiscal year budget is over $ 13 million, about twice that of the Parks and Rec. Dept., and nearly twice the budget of Community Development (see them all here.) Redevelopment does big things. You’d think they would be proud to talk to us about their past accomplishments and how they can be more responsive to all of us (because you know that’s what everyone else will say is the goal of their departments).

Did no one invite Mr. Zur Schmiede to the party? Or does it go without saying that the Redevelopment Department simply isn’t thought of as being accountable to the people of Fullerton? Mr. Zur Schmiede answers directly to the Redevelopment Agency, better known as your city council. Wouldn’t you like to have an hour or to ask Robert Zur Schmiede a few questions about how his agency operates?

April 19, 2010April 19, 2010Redevelopment

Will Redevelopment Borrow $50 Million for Affordable Housing?

by Christian11 Comments

Have you ever been robbed? Some robberies are violent and involve weapons or threats of force. Others are of a white-collar nature. Don’t be fooled, you are robbed either way. One robber let’s you know he is taking your money while the other is much more insidious and calculating. Our Redevelopment Agency is the latter.

Item 10 on this week’s council agenda deserves some attention.

According to the staff recommendation signed by Ramona Castaneda, for our illustrious Land Czar Rob Zur Schmiede and Charles Kovac, these fine public employees would like to sell a bond. They say that their autonomous agency could net between $26,900,000 and $32,000,000 in proceeds. That sounds like a great idea if you like to squander public money. The Staff report states that the debt service payments over a 17-year term would be approximately $2,900,000 per year starting September 20100 and ending September 2027. Okay, so check my math: $2,900,000 x 17 years = $49,300,000.

That’s a cost of nearly $50 MILLION! We are cutting staff hours, cutting services and rethinking the way we do business… at least everyone else is. Our Land Czar wants the money so he can build MORE affordable housing. That’s laughable since his agency has single-handedly destroyed and displaced more homes than any other in Fullerton. Oh, but wait! What’s that Doc? Oh, he says it’s that law, we just gotta do it! No we don’t.

Of course missing from the discussion about this venture seems to be the little matter of the lawsuit that Friends for Fullerton’s Future has filed against the Redevelopment Agency’s expansion plan. Is Zur Schmiede counting on tax increment from the proposed expansion area to pay off his bonds? Better hope not.

April 6, 2010April 6, 2010Dick Jones

A Letter to the City Council by Judith Kaluzny

by admin9 Comments

UPDATE: A version of this item is back on the agenda for tonight’s council meeting. Council denied the $69,997 expenditure last year. Now the Redevelopment Agency has broken the project into smaller increments, hoping that it can slither its’ way through in 2010.

A POST UPDATE FROM A FRIEND:

This item failed on a split vote last night. Keller and Quirk against, Jones and Nelson in favor, with Bankhead absent.

I read the state laws regarding business improvement districts. The process is that business people sign a petition to the city council. It is not the job of redevelopment to gin up a petition to give the appearance of support for this new taxing agency.

Cameron Irons did a survey February 2008 and got about 10 responses regarding a BID, mostly negative.

Sharon Quirk as councilmember said in 2007 that people should pay for the privilege of doing business downtown.

Maybe you want the money for city improvement, but it is not RDA’s place to create a demand for a taxing agency business people rejected in a private survey–the appropriate kind for a BID–last year.

Please do not waste money on this ill-advised venture. Vote no on Item 17 on May 19.

Yours truly,
A downtown business person,

Judith A. Kaluzny, Mediator and Lawyer
149 West Whiting Avenue
Fullerton, California 92832

March 30, 2010March 30, 2010Behind Closed Doors

12 Years Was More Than Enough. The “F” Is For Fail

by The Desert Rat6 Comments

jones-gone-wild1 — The worst thing I've ever seen...

And now, a year and a half after Fullerton Councilman Dick Jones was re-elected to a fourth dreadful term it only gets worse.

During the fall of 2008 FFFF shared Joneses’ mastery of the rude, ignorant, nutsy outburst. We even got creative. Last year we chronicled Jones’ comical misunderstanding of Redevelopment, as well as his crazy melt down at a Vector Control meeting. And just last week we related the story of Jones standing up during a meeting, walking out, and quitting the Vector Control Board.

Even if we give him the benefit of the doubt on the female cop derriere incident, I wonder how long the people who have propped up this asinine buffoon can continue to look the other way.

Well, enough is enough, already. This guy has spent 14 years making himself a laughingstock, and it seems he won’t be satisfied until he does the same thing for Fullerton.

February 20, 2010February 20, 2010Arts & Architecture

The Making of An Eyesore; And a Hell of a Climb, Too

by admin16 Comments

A little less than 20 years ago, some friends and I stood in front of the Fullerton City Council pleading with the Redevelopment Agency to build a pedestrian underpass at the train station instead of a steel bridge overpass. We had three reasons. The first was expense: an underpass was about half the cost of a bridge. Second was the matter of practicality and convenience: it is easier for a pedestrian to climb 24 steps versus 49; not to mention the cost of maintaining two elevators. Third, the bridge was going to tower over the Historic Santa Fe Depot – a real incongruous pairing and one in which the Depot suffered.

When the question was asked to the city staff during the public hearing about the possibilities of an underpass the Fullerton Redevelopment Manager Terry Galvin answered that an underpass would be too dangerous and could end up smelling like urine and besides, “nobody builds underpasses.” He even dug up an incident (and only one!) where somebody got stabbed – in Raton, New Mexico. Ooooooh, so scary! The fact of the matter is that an underpass would have been a mere 50 feet long – a little more than half the distance from home plate to first base!

The staff also dismissed Vince Buck’s brilliant idea of using the existing Harbor grade separation to get people from one side of the tracks to the other, a solution that would have been the most practical and cost efficient of all!

What has always bothered me about the city staff is that when they want something they will not give the city council all of the pertinant facts to make an intelligent decision; or they will deliberately inflate the project they want and diminish options they don’t want. And then the city council does not hold anyone on staff accountable for the messes they create. And that my Friends, is the history of Redevelopment in Fullerton.

A couple years later I was at the Oceanside train station and guess what?

Of course lots of local Metrolink/Amtrak stations now have underpasses including Orange, Tustin, Laguna Niguel and many others. Money was saved, citizens were spared visual monstrosities, and maintenance costs were minimized.

But in Fullerton we have Molly McClanahan (who voted for the bridge), and her immortal words: hindsight is 20/20.

Almost twenty years later and the City of Fullerton doesn’t even seem to bother with the graffiti etched into the elevator towers’ glass.

January 15, 2010July 14, 2010Behind Closed Doors

Fullerton Decision-makers Lied To. So What’s New?

by admin9 Comments

Last year just before Christmas the Fullerton City Council voted 3-1 to approve the idiotic Richman housing project, a staff-driven boondoggle that makes zero planning, housing, or economic sense. We wrote about it here.

We also wrote about the review of the same fiasco-in-the-making by the Planning Commission here, in which we lauded Commissioner Bruce Whitaker for his solitary stance in opposing it. As the YouTube clip shows, Whitaker objected on economic grounds citing the project’s dubious fiscal foundation.

This position was immediately questioned by Commissioner Lansburg who inquired about it of the city attorney, Tom Duarte:

Commissioner Lansburg: is it within the Commission’s purview to look at this from a financial standpoint or are we only to look at this from a planning standpoint?

The city attorney Mr. Duarte answered: In the commissions purview its a land use issue, the city council will look at the financial impact.

Well, the project was passed by a Commission majority, with only Whitaker dissenting.

Subsequently Commission Chairman Dexter Savage addressed the following communication to staff, seeking clarification of the issue.

And now, Lo and Behold, the issue has been agendized by the City Council; and just look at staff’s response: economic considerations are indeed within the purview of a planning commission in many respects, and are nowhere prohibited.

This response begs several questions. Why did the city’s attorney misinform the commission? Is he incompetent, or was he motivated to press the approval of a project near and dear to the hearts of the city staff, without any reference to the law.

Why did the staff present like (John Godlewski) not correct him? He countersigned the above memorandum contradicting Duarte, yet was at the meeting and said nothing.

The facts can really only be interpreted in one way. Both the attorney and staff were more interested in the approval of the project, no matter how bad, than in the service of the public interest, or the truth, or the law.

Now the entire matter has been brought to the City Council for its enlightenment as agenda item #16 at the January 19, meeting. But it’s really to late for the Richman project – a Redevelopment/housing staff concocted project that has all the tell-tale signs of a disaster in the making.

And Friends: there you have it.