Sharon Quirk Archives - Page 18 of 20 - Friends For Fullerton's Future

May 21, 2009May 23, 2011Dick Jones

Is there a Drought of Qualified Candidates to Represent Fullerton on the MWD?

"The Drought is not over" Jim Blake — "The drought is not over" - Jim Blake

For 21 years, Jim Blake has represented Fullerton on the Board of Directors of the Metropolitan Water District. He was appointed back when Reagan was President at the urging of Councilman Buck Catlin, and is supposed to help oversee MWD’s $2 billion annual operations, bringing and distributing Colorado River water into Southern California.

Blake’s re-appointment every 4 years has been rubber stamped by the city council, without interviewing other potential candidates. Why? Can anyone possibly believe he is the only qualified person in Fullerton to hold this position?

This must stop now. Special district members who have been on their boards too long end up representing the bureaucracy – even if they didn’t have this inclination to begin with. And Jim Blake has always been of this mindset. He has endorsed nothing but liberals and RINOs for Fullerton City Council – just the sort of people that slavishly support bureaucrats and are likely to reappoint him!

We need a new face at the MWD. Someone who can approach water issues with a new and independent perspective. Our next representative on this powerful 37 member board must be interviewed and thoroughly vetted by the council. Applications must be solicited from throughout the city.

The job of MWD Director is a demanding one without pay, with many trips up to its L.A. headquarters. No appointment should be rubber stamped. There are a lot of knowledgeable, talented people out there who need the opportunity to step up.

New blood, new ideas and new voices – let’s hear from them!

The MWD Directors Executive Committee struts its stuff...

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 18, 2009July 1, 2009Don Bankhead

Burgers or Books

by admin7 Comments

A McDonald’s eatery near Fullerton Union High School, where one-third of the ninth-graders in a multiyear study were found to be obese.

(Christine Cotter, Los Angeles Times)

March 12, 2009

Sharon Quirk, we promise you one thing, you will never regret changing your mind on this one.

May 15, 2009January 5, 2010Fox Theatre

Quirk Could Switch Vote on $6 Million McDonald’s Move

by admin19 Comments

Credible community sources report that Councilwoman Sharon Quirk has second thoughts about her vote to commit $6 million in redevelopment funds to move McDonald’s 150 feet east—right across the street from her alma mater, Fullerton High School.

The move is opposed by the HS District due to traffic concerns on congested Pomona Ave. Health-conscious parents point to studies showing kids at high schools within 500’ of fast food outlets have 5% higher obesity rates. Councilman Dick Jones complained that the redevelopment agency is stuck paying for the entire move—that the supersized multi-national McDonald’s Corp is paying nothing.

This is a one-sided deal that deserves to be deep fried!

Quirk is within her powers to re-agenize the item and vote against it. She could join Jones and Nelson to counteract this Big Mac attack on our wallets and waistlines.

Will Fullerton High School’s venerable arches soon be in the shadow of the Golden Arches? Or will Quirk wisely put the $6 million back in the redevelopment kitty to fight blight at some more appropriate location?

FUHS is the only high school with two alumni in baseball’s Hall of Fame (Who are they, bloggers?) So, step up to the plate, Sharon. Get off your sesame seed buns and get this back on the agenda. This is a civic embarrassment that only you can reverse!

May 14, 2009January 4, 2010Don Bankhead

Steve Sheldon Gets Around

by The Fullerton Shadow19 Comments

Round round get around
I get around
Yeah
Get around round round I get around
I get around
Get around round round I get around
From town to town
Get around round round I get around
I’m a real cool head
Get around round round I get around
I’m makin’ real good bread

(with apologies to Brian Wilson)

On a previous post we regaled our Friends with the story of lobbyist and cash-conduit Steve Sheldon and his nautical fund raising effort on behalf of Sharon Quirk who later voted to approve his god-awful Jefferson Commons monstrosity.

What we didn’t share is that Sheldon is also a politician – President of The OC Water District and he’s having a “debt retirement” party!

We suppose he didn’t make enough money foisting the loathsome Jefferson Commons on us to pay off his debt himself. Instead he’s asking other lobbyists to do it! What’s really interesting is the names on the “Honorary Host Committee.” These are the politicians who get into the party for free, and thus are actually being lobbied by the irrepressible Sheldon as he high-steps for other lobbyists! See if you recognize any names on the list.

We note that our own Don Bankhead is on the list – another aye vote for JC (no, not Jesus Christ). At least Sharon Quirk had the good sense to stay off that list. With majorities of their city council members on it, we’d be really worried if we were residents of Garden Grove or Santa Ana.

May 12, 2009May 18, 2009Dick Jones

Fullerton Redevelopment Agency Working Out the Kinks

by The Fullerton Harpoon4 Comments

This YouTube clip of a recent Fullerton Redevelopment Agency strategy/workshop session is a must see for anyone who wants to see how their decisions are made. The audio has been artfully overdubbed to protect councilmembers from appearing ridiculous and thus preserving the dignity of their office.

May 7, 2009January 5, 2010Don Bankhead

McDonald’s On the Move; Free Speech Locked Up

by admin5 Comments

One of our sharp-eyed Friends took a photo of this banner last Tuesday morning. By Tuesday night, it was gone.

During its brief life, it asked the telling questions:

Why is the City Council spending millions of tax dollars to move the McDonald’s?

How did the Fox project morph into subsidizing teen obesity?

The sign hits McDonald’s hard, though—to be fair—McDonald’s doesn’t want to move at all. Just like the residents who lived in the demolished homes didn’t want to move. Redevelopment hard at work!

Who tore the sign down? City crews or the McDonald’s owner are the likely suspects.
Who’s afraid of a little free speech?

After all, that fence is paid for by the taxpayers, just as everything else in this $6 million supersized boondoggle!

And it was covering the eyesore of the vacant lots where vintage homes once stood.

Take pity on your campus, you FHS alums Quirk and Keller! Listen to the District Board members. Superintendent Escalante told City Manager Armstrong back in 2001 that the school does not want a McDonald’s across the street or its drive thru lane accessing already congested Pomona Ave. That information has been covered up for years!

May 6, 2009January 4, 2010Dick Jones

Avast, Landlubbers…And Let Us Spin Ye a Fulsome Yarn; We Be Callin’ It: The Curse O’Quirk’s Cruise

by The Fullerton Shadow26 Comments

Back in the balmy summer of 2007, the weather was great – just perfect to spend some time on the water. Lobbyist, front-man, promoter, and all-round cash-conduit Steve Sheldon (not pictured, left) hosted a cruise on his boat the S.S. Cash Cow around Newport Harbor, to be followed by a scrump-diddly-umptious dinner at a swank Newport Beach restaurant. It wasn’t free. Lucky invitees had to cough up $1000 a piece for the priviledge, and that ain’t chump change. The beneficiary of this lobbyist largesse: Fullerton City Councilwoman Sharon Quirk.

A little Dramamine goes a long way... — A little Drammamine goes a long way...

Now, Loyal Friends, why would Sheldon organize such an event? Because that’s his job! He represented the “developer” of the massive Jefferson Commons project over by CSUF that would require a general plan amendment and a zone change, demolition of historic buildings, loss of OP zoning, and the usual slide-and-glide job on the required EIR. When you’re in Sheldon’s business you don’t take chances, and of course you wheel your bets.

Any way you slice it, Sheldon performed a big favor for Quirk; and guys like Sheldon know it’s natural for nice people to repay favors.

Among the attendees of Sheldon’s nautical shake down included representatives of John Laing Homes and Pelican Properties – the would-be developers of the “Amerige Court” project – another mammoth project that threatens to consume downtown Fullerton.

Environmental impacts? No, we don't foresee any big problems...

And so (to return to our maritime theme) on one pleasant summer day, the developers of two of the biggest proposed monstrosities in Fullerton’s history spent a lovely summer afternoon schmoozing with Mayor Pro Tem Sharon Quirk – presumably sharing the wonderful plans they had for the future of Fullerton. There were a lot of good feelings on board that afternoon, even before the sun crossed over the yard-arm.

Love, exciting and new, come aboard - we're expecting you!

Hardly more than a year had passed before Quirk had voted to approve both these overbearing projects – with their dubious environmental reviews, and the evident negative externalities the get-rich-quick entitlements foisted on the rest of us.

Arrrrrrgh! The key to the City! What a deal ya scarvy dogs...

Now, in logic there’s a fallacy known as the post hoc, ergo propter hoc, which means that just because B follows A, it doesn’t follow that A caused B. And we’re not claiming that Quirk’s vote was bought by the high-rolling developers and their front man. Quirk could probably come up with all sorts of reasons for supporting these projects on their own merit. We can’t think of any ourselves, but if you can, Devoted Readers and Friends, please feel free to share them. And if Ms. Quirk is reading this, she, too is invited to explain why these projects are so good for Fullerton. We will be happy to give her response its own post – but only if she promises to write it herself!

May 6, 2009July 14, 2010Dick Jones

Led Down The Garden Path; Fullerton on Track For More Redevelopment

by The Fullerton Harpoon32 Comments

Last night we sat through the horrendous hearing on Redevelopment expansion. It was really a pretty painful thing to have to endure.

fingernails2

City staff and their consultant put on a performance that can only be termed embarrassing. To describe it any farther would do an injury to my synapses, and so I’ll pass. Their presentation was eviscerated by Councilman Shawn Nelson and several speakers from the public – notably former Councilman Conrad Dewitte, former Congressman Bill Dannemeyer, GOP Central Committe member Bruce Whitaker; and perhaps the best of all, Jane Reifer . We note that our lawyer Bob Ferguson showed up too. We can smell a lawsuit coming.

The case boils down to this: you can’t create a Redevelopment project just because you need the money. It’s been done for years, but judges are finally starting to uphold the law. About time.

One of the words that the cheerleaders of the expansion kept using was “tool” and this sure was appropriate since city staff and the Jones/Bankhead team dredged up a number of tools to come to the meeting and add moral support.

There was Theresa Harvey of the Chamber of Commerce who mumbled and stumbled her way through a statement clearly not written by her; a character by the name of Rick (or Dick – can’t remember) Price representing an outfit that goes by the hilarious name “Fullerton Positive” and wears smiley face buttons on their lapels; John Phelps – one of the biggest welfare recipients in Fullerton’s Redevelopment history ; and former councilman Peter Godfrey – who could only be seen from behind. It was nice to see Peter again, if only his backside, to remind us of his vacuous tenure on the council and recall that he was one Linda Lequire whip crack away from voting to keep the obnoxious Utility Tax.

As expected Bankhead and Jones were shilling hard throughout the hearing, Jones giving one of his brilliantly cuckoo rants complete with crazy gesticulations.

I can keep this up all night... — Once you wind me up and set me down there's no telling where I'll go...

Since Pam Keller recused herself, Sharon Quirk became the necessary third vote and she kept noncommittal, sensing no doubt the political pitfalls of either position. She asked a lot of questions that seemed rehearsed with staff, and acted like she wanted more information from the lame consultant. We have to question her sincerity since she’s already had plenty of time to lay out the ground rules before last night – the proverbial 11th hour. And so we got the strong sense of a kabuki performance. The simple fact is that Quirk could have killed the deal last night. The fact that she permitted the monster to live indicates she will be going for this when it comes back on June 18th.

May 4, 2009December 28, 2009Dick Jones

Fullerton Chamber of Commerce Supports Big Government, More Government interference in Marketplace

by The Fullerton Harpoon17 Comments

Once you check in, you don't check out...

It seems a little strange that an organization that purports to support the interests of business would allow itself to become an impotent pawn in a game run by and for city bureaucrats. And yet that is exactly what has happened.

This afternoon the City Council received an e-mail from Theresa Harvey, Executive Director of the Chamber in support of the proposed Redevelopment expansion on tomorrow night’s City Council agenda. The letter attached to the e-mail would be comical if there weren’t so many dues paying members of the Chamber who will get screwed by Redevelopment.

I'm Theresa Harvey and I Have Absolutely No Idea What I'm Talking About...

Harvey starts out by trotting out all the old cliches about infrastructure, housing and business climate. What she utterly fails to mention is how Redevelopment diverts a finite amount of disposable income of consumers from existing businesses to new ones; how it invites bureaucratic interference in business decisions, thus impinging on entrepreneurialism; how it requires business and property owners to endure the idiotic design review process; how it selects favored businesses and “developers” as winners, to the detriment of others. In short: Redevelopment does not work. it is a government ponzi scheme that leverages bonded indebtedness off of property tax revenue; it discriminates against the majority of businesses in favor of a few; and any policy or program that discriminates against the majority of business is, by definition, ANTI-BUSINESS!

Ms. Harvey decorates her tribute to Redevelopment by citing the “charm” of downtown Fullerton. Anyone who has been reading these pages lately knows that whatever charm Fullerton has, it has in spite of Redevelopment, not because of it. Does she support giving away public sidewalks? Does she approve of squandering millions of dollars to move a fast food outlet 200 feet? Does she like giving away free public land to developers? She must. She must like it a lot.

I Represent the Biggest Business of All - Government! — We're the Chamber of Commerce and We Represent the Biggest Business of All - Government!

You would think that the businesspeople on the Board of the Chamber of Commerce would have enough sense to grasp these simple notions. But when you reflect on the fact that our old friend Dick Jones, a government educated doctor, used to be the president of the Chamber, the institutional dysfunction of this group can be discerned in much clearer focus. The Fullerton Chamber of Commerce has become nothing but a sissified adjunct of City Hall, confusing their own alleged mission with that of the City apparatchicks.

To the members of the Fullerton Chamber of Commerce: stop paying your dues until your Executive Director and Board start defending business instead of government expansion and bureaucracy!