Hardly even pretending to be objective, Kennedy Sister Skasia just unburdened herself of a ridiculous account of how Fullerton, specifically Mayor Fred Jung, failed to declare Rosa Parks Day. Some out-of-towner named Bill Preston got up at the February 4th Council meeting and addressed himself to Mayor Fred Jung for the latter’s lack of a proclamation declaring Rosa Parks Day.
Billy Preston
Apparently poor Bill Preston’s “disappointment” left him with a “broken heart” (No I am not kidding), but he hopes to come back next year to present a “Rosa Parks Award – whatever that may be – to the City of Fullerton.
It’s not surprising how this apparent omission was not-so-subtlety elevated into some sort of deliberate offense by Jung himself.
Gloves are so Nineteenth Century…
Once we cut out all of Mr. Preston’s hyperbole about Rosa Parks’ influence on world history and his own critical role in honoring her legacy, we are led to this predictable paragraph added to the end by Saksia:
The Mayor’s decision not to honor Parks with a proclamation has sparked a significant discussion about the values of the community and how local governments recognize influential historical figures. This situation raises important questions regarding local authorities’ responsibility in honoring those who have made a significant impact on society, ensuring their contributions are remembered and that their stories continue to inspire future generations.
Very predictable.
Why write about news when you can try to make your own! (Photo by Julie Leopo/Voice of OC)
First we are presented with an unfounded accusation – that Jung himself deliberately decided not to honor Parks, an assertion with no basis in any evidence. Then we are informed that “significant discussion” about community values, etc. has been “sparked;” but evidently not significant enough for Skadia to let us know who exactly has been sparked, and what they are saying. Furthermore, “local authorities” in Skasdia’s opinion, are “responsible” to ensure, yadda, yadda, yadda.
No, honey, local authorities are responsible to pave the damn roads and make sure the street lights work among other local government responsibilities. Honoring heroes with “days” is not on that list, and there’s already way to much of that crap weighing down council meetings.
Someone please listen to me…
It’s become apparent that the Kennedy Sisters and their running dogs have made it their mission to attack Jung in any way possible – no matter how fucking stupid, which for them is pretty stupid.
Why write about news when you can try to make your own! (Photo by Julie Leopo/Voice of OC)
Oops. The crack Observer editor Skasia, younger member of the Kennedy Coven, has done it again.
This proud pillar of the 4th Estate decided a recap of the now dismantled Walk on Wilshire public hearing comments was in order, given that the vast majority of them yammered in favor of keeping it.
The look of vacant self-satisfaction…
Therefore it was necessary to regurgitate the usual cut and paste mishmash of what people actually said.
Anti-WoW speaker #7 was one of them. Here’s what The Observer recollects:
7) Layla, identifying herself as the landlord of the Wilshire Promenade called into the council saying ‘The street closure has negatively impacted our tenants, and 88 Cigar Bar, Slice, and ShabuShabu. We as landlords can’t make money – we need to drive through traffic. If it remains as is or is expanded we won’t make it.” (Fullerton Promenade Apartments is one of 252 apartment complexes owned by the largest operator of apartment complexes on the West Coast – the $18.5 billion Essex Property Trust, Inc.)
Notice how at the end the end Skakia appends the obligatory and Observer biased contextual facts, implying that “Layla” represents a conglomerate of massive wealth – suggesting that this vast enterprise can afford to chum a few bucks for the common good of Fullerton Boohoo, because it is so…so something.
Over here, ya dummy…
The only problem is that “Layla” has absolutely nothing to do with the Promenade Apartment Block, but rather, works for an entity, “Fullerton Promenade,” that owns some buildings on the south side of Wilshire Avenue – precisely whose small business tenants were the most affected by the idiot closure.Layla even named her tenants!
And then there’s the Promenade Apartments
This is exactly the sort of spiteful, inaccurate boobery that characterizes the Fullerton Observer and its crew of incompetent ideologues. I hope Layla isn’t waiting for a correction and apology, because she won’t get either.
Why write about news when you can try to make your own! (Photo by Julie Leopo/Voice of OC)
In the the online edition of their rag, the Fullerton Observer sisters, Sharon and Skaski explain their behavior in intentionally defaming named individuals as purveyors of lies. These were some of the people who contributed to Fullerton Taxpayers for Reform, a group that made it its mission to educate the public about the candidate Vivian Jaramillo in the 2024 City Council election.
Skaskia doubles, triples down on her assertion of slander and defamation against poor Cannabis Kitty Jaramillo by Fullerton Taxpayers for Reform, but claims there was no intent to “harm the reputations of its contributors.” Well, of course there was intent to harm; the inclusion of individual names directly linked to accusations of distributing falsehoods was obviously intentional.
Hmm. Did we lay an egg recently?
It is comical that if you think about it, the Kennedy Sister’s underlying excuse must be that they didn’t know what they were doing. Exculpation through ineptitude! That phrase should be prominent on their Observer header.
Is this a sufficient “full retraction and public apology?”
I don’t have the answer. Not yet anyway. But I know that the “I Can’t Believe It’s a Law Firm” of Jones and Mayer has been making bank on Fullerton for over 25 years as City Attorney. And I know that that the dismal legal counsel has impoverished the taxpayers of Fullerton plenty over the two and a half decades. I’m not going to recite the litany of legal failures we can lay at Jones’s doorstep – not yet anyway; we’ve already been doing that for years.
For reasons that escape Council watchers, Dick Jones somehow managed to escape getting the boot between 2020 and 2024, and I can’t think of anybody outside the Council who knows exactly why. Generally we can conclude that at least one member of the Whitaker, Dunlap, Jung triumvirate was protecting Jones and his minions, since it is incomprehensible that either Ahmad Zahra or Shana Charles would dump this chump.
Jail is for the little people…
Dick Jones is nothing if not a politician, playing the angles to keep at least three council persons happy at any one time, even alongside legal debacle after legal debacle. It’s worked through 4 different decades thanks to Fullerton being Fullerton. The Old Guard didn’t care and didn’t want to cause trouble; they were easy to push and persuade without too much trouble. The lamebrains like Leland Wilson and Mike Clesceri were afraid of their own shadows. Norby, I’m told, was just happy that the job was outsourced. The other dopes like Pam Keller, Sharon Quirk and Jesus Quirk-Silva could not have conceived of anybody holding Jones responsible for the legal advice he dispensed. For a fixer like Jennifer Fitzgerald he was the perfect running buddy, trying to accommodate anything she wanted.
Is Jones & Mayer still have a pulse?
Well, now Whitaker is gone, and if he was the fly in the ointment for the past 4 years, we may soon find out. Will Council newcomer Jamie Valencia take an independent stand and actually review Jones and Mayer’s record of failure? I sure hope so. It’s time that the City Attorney started giving out advice that avoids lawsuits instead of getting into them, with the result that he gets paid even more for failure.
I don’t know if Ms. Valencia reads this blog, but if so I sure hope she follows that link, above. She would find stories of Jones & Mayer’s incompetence, self-service, and ghastly legal decisions that have harassed Fullerton citizens, given away public resources and cost the taxpayers millions going back 25 years.
I’m sure Jonesy has already tried hard to wheedle himself into Valencia’s good graces, because that’s what he has always done. Will she go for it?
Hanging on to Fullerton should be a big deal to Jones and Mayer in terms of the future legal partnership. And I’m sure Jones figures that the loss of Fullerton could jeopardize his jobs in other cities like Westminster, La Habra, and Costa Mesa. True, Jones is 75 years old and may not even care anymore. Still, the firm must go on, and the junior partners such as the terrier-like Kim Barlow and the obnoxious hand-job lawyer, Gregory Palmer may still have a few years of legal bungling ahead of them.
One thing you can always count on in Fullerton elections is that concrete, real issues will never be discussed. You’ll hear mostly generalities about this or that topic. Even roads and taxes melt away in general promises and vague hand-wringing. But, when it comes to specific projects with all sorts of facts and figures involved, you can forget it. A charming characteristic of all local elections, and especially in Fullerton, is that people aren’t elected on their knowledge of anything, but, rather on their acceptability as wise people who will do the right thing given the opportunity.
This is all nonsense, of course. The electeds, knowing nothing are in no intellectual position to push back on the lamest of lame ideas that percolate through the “experts” in the bureaucracy. Not knowing and not learning and not working are the natural siblings of the councilmember’s natural tendency to acquiesce to City Hall staff anyhow. It’s easier just to attend ribbon cuttings and golden shovel ceremonies, I suppose.
Enhanced with genuine brick veneer!
And so it is that zero attention has been given by anybody (except FFFF) to various nonsense projects, the worst of which is the so-called boutique hotel project that started out as an idiotic scheme and naturally morphed into the worst kind of Redevelopment boondoggle. It even has a stupid name: It’s called The Tracks at Fullerton Station.
I’m not telling the truth and you can’t make me…
You may recall that the hare-brained idea was hatched by your former Mayor-for-Hire, Jennifer Fitzgerald who pushed a non-competitive agreement with some local dude who couldn’t build a birdhouse. Because the City had to declare the land on which the thing was supposed to sit as “surplus property” a deadline had to met to dodge a State law requiring first right of refusal to low-income housing “developers.”
Rather than shit-canning the whole thing, boobs Bruce Whitaker, Ahmad Zahra and Shana Charles approved of the project and the City actually deeded over the land before any agreements were in place. Pretty amazing, huh? Their convoluted reasoning was so dumb it doesn’t even deserve a description. That was December 2022.
They had me at boutique…
The even bigger problem was that by then the original guy (now deceased) had been pushed out and a whole new partnership had taken over. The new players were a pair of bums – Johnny Lu and Larry Liu who had a record of fraud, embezzlement, and bankruptcies in their wake, and creditors foreclosing on them. Why Fullerton’s crack economic development team and City Attorney failed to pursue even the slightest investigation of Lu/Liu’s record like FFFF did, has never been discussed. And it never will be, Fullerton being Fullerton.
I don’t know the current situation with this project. Two years have passed. Johnny Lu and Larry Liu had many milestones to accomplish certain actions per the agreement they finally signed. Did they? Who knows? Not the public, that’s for sure. Obviously, no one in City Hall wants to talk about this vast embarrassment, and an insecure council isn’t making them. And naturally, the Fullerton electoral process doesn’t discuss such things – bad form to discuss City failures, you see.
But the public has a right to know the whole story, because in the end, the entitlements granted to Lu and Liu are worth a fortune; even worse, the sales price of 1.4 million, less site clearance, is a tenth of the market value the City created with those entitlements. And the new density with hotel and with the new apartments Liu suckered the City into approving, just to keep the mess alive, is two and a half times the density the Transportation Center Specific Plan allows for housing. Go figure.
The mileage is terrible and the wheels are bald…
It’s also critical to remember that in Fullerton projects take on a life of their own through institutional inertia and the human instinct to dodge responsibility whenever possible. The Fullerton Clown Car has never had a rear-view mirror.
You can’t make this stuff up. Here’s a press release from DA Todd Spitzer’s office detailing the killing of a driver by Anthony Michael Hanzal, 43, of Anaheim, a drug-addled petty thief who was chased by Fullerton police for shoplifting some Legos from an Albertson’s the week before Christmas.
An undercover cop called in the crime and uniformed cops took over the pursuit of the big heist perp.
The pursuit turned into a high-speed chase on the 91 and in Buena Park and La Palma where the petty thief ran a red light and t-boned the car of his victim.
How in the world did a few bucks worth of plastic culminate in the death of a 67 year old woman in La Palma? Pretty obviously some poor decisions were made all around, but you have to wonder why the cops had to convert this almost ridiculous episode into a chase endangering an awful lot of people and resulting in a death and who knows how many tens of thousands of dollars in vehicle damage.
Somebody needs to do some hard thinking about this sort of thing. Will they?
Of course no OC DA press release would be complete without a stupid speech from Todd Spitzer, and he doesn’t fail to oblige us with this no-nonsense, tough on crime pabulum:
Funny plastic handcuffs graphic borrowed from Voice of OC
“Enough is enough. Actions have consequences and I am mad as hell that an elderly woman is dead because a drug addicted repeat thief decided to steal Legos from a grocery store and then lead multiple police agencies on a high-speed chase through Orange County in the middle of the day,” said Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer. “Marianne Casey’s family should be planning their holiday celebrations and instead they are planning a funeral because California’s soft-on-crime policies have created an environment where there is no accountability. Those days are over, and while may be of little comfort to Marianne Casey’s loved ones, if you commit crimes in Orange County, there will be consequences for your actions and there will be justice for victims.”
Ironically Ms. Casey is referred to as “elderly” even though she was only a year or so older than Spitzer himself when a completely unnecessary incident ended her life.
Thanks to the AI software employed by the Fullerton Observer we have a more or less accurate written account of the statement made by Fullerton resident George Bushala that caused all the fuss at the December 17th Fullerton City Council meeting. Included are the interruptions by Sharon Kennedy and her sister Skaskia in violation of rules of public behavior in the chambers.
Giving free speech the middle finger…
There may be additions or subtraction of which I am unaware, but the whole thing has the ring of truth – meaning minimal Observer opinion masquerading as fact – links to Observer articles should be followed with skepticism. I notice Sharon Kennedy is referred to as the current Editor of the Observer. I have no idea who “Erin” is. And of course the Observer ever accurate, identifies the wrong Bushala.
George Bushala Jr. stated, “Here are eight reasons why I don’t believe Zahra should represent our City Council members as mayor and why he undermines voter rights.
1. In 2018, after being elected to represent District 5, Mr. Zahra voted against allowing the voters of Fullerton to elect a replacement for an at-large seat vacated by Jesus Silva. Despite initially supporting a special election, he later opposed it, citing the cost. This contradicts his support for other questionable expenditures that far exceeded the projected costs of the election, raising concerns about his commitment to democratic processes and fiscal responsibility. (Click here to read the Fullerton Observer article) (Click here to read the Voice of OC article)
2. Mr. Zahra appointed himself to the Orange County Water District (OCWD), playing a key role in the appointment of Jan Flory to the City Council, which subsequently led to his own appointment to the OC WD Board. This raises concerns about a potential quid pro quo arrangement. Mr. Zahra seemed to support Flory’s appointment to the City Council in exchange for her backing his appointment to the OCWD Board. Such actions give the appearance of self-serving political maneuvering and erode public trust. (Click here to read the Daily Titan article) (Click here to read the Fullerton Observer article)
3. Mr. Zahra wasted public funds on a baseless lawsuit, supporting the expenditure of over $1,000,000 of taxpayer money to sue two local bloggers who downloaded a publicly available file from the city’s website. This lawsuit, which sought to suppress free speech and punish journalists for exposing city government missteps, was an unnecessary waste of public funds and a troubling attack on the press. (Click here to read the Fullerton Observer article) (Click here to read the Voice of OC article)
4. Mr. Zahra was involved in plagiarism and deceptive behavior. He falsely claimed authorship of an article in the Fullerton Observer that was actually written by staff at the Orange County Water District. This misrepresentation caused embarrassment for the newspaper.”
Sharon Kennedy, the current editor of the Fullerton Observer, shouted that the information being discussed was misinformation and lies as she stormed out Erin yelled at Saskia, calling her a loudmouth and telling her to be quiet.
Mayor Dunlap intervened from the dais, urging the audience to be quiet. “Let the man speak. Excuse me? Okay, you’regoing to take a recess in a minute. If you’re going to keep this up, knock it off,” he said. He then asked the police chief to help control the situation.
Bushala continued, stating, “This misrepresentation has caused Zahra embarrassment for the newspaper and raises doubts about Mr. Zahra’s honesty and transparency. His actions suggest a willingness to mislead the public for political gain.”
Saskia Kennedy shouted that Bushala was lying.
Mayor Dunlap raised concern again from the dais, insisting, “Let the man speak. You know what? We’re going to call a recess. Everyone has the right to talk. Knock it off. Can we behave like adults? If not, I’m trying to figure out if we can conduct ourselves like adults. Can you refrain from heckling? Okay, let’s get back on track.”
Bushala continued, “I’ll skip to point six: manipulating the 2022 election. During his reelection campaign, Mr. Zahra was accused of recruiting a fake candidate, Tony Castro, to split the vote with Oscar Valdez, the leading candidate in District 5. This manipulation of the electoral process undermines the integrity of our democratic system and puts Mr. Zahra’s commitment to fair elections into question. I was interrupted earlier, but I have two more quick points.
Point #7 addresses deceptive actions to gain U.S. citizenship. Mr. Zahra, a self-identified gay man, married a woman from Arkansas shortly after arriving in the United States, presumably to obtain citizenship. This action raises concerns about his ethics and integrity, particularly regarding the use of marriage for immigration benefits. While his sexual orientation is a personal matter, this maneuver to secure citizenship raises serious ethical questions about his character.”
Ahmad Zahra attempted to defend himself against slander and personal attacks but was shouted down by Mayor Dunlap.
Bushala then addressed point #8: the allegation of filing a false police report against Vice Mayor Jung. In 2021, Mr. Zahra was involved in filing a false police report against Vice Mayor Jung. Such actions not only undermine trust in public City Council members but also threaten to damage the public’s confidence in their elected officials. Fabricating accusations against colleagues sets a dangerous precedent and raises significant ethical concerns.
Mayor Dunlap stated, “We’re not going to allow disruptions during meetings, and we won’t tolerate cheering from the audience. If you wish to speak, you have the same right as everyone else to express your view within our democratic process. You can do this her in the chambers or on Zoom. However, we will not accept heckling from the audience. Whether you like me or dislike me, or if you agree or disagree with my views, it’s all in the process. But you veto, do it from the proper venue, which is to come forward to the microphone and allow others their opportunity to speak.”
The on-line version of the Fullerton Observer is now available to those inclined to be misinformed, or as in my case, to be entertained.
In the lastest version I discovered a lachrymose rewind of the November District 4 campaign by the loser, one Vivian “Kitty” Jaramillo.
Poor Kitty thought she had a lock on it, so no wonder her outrage that the plans went askew. She sued the City to make a district for her. She sat on the committee that endorsed her district. She had all the endorsements, a pile of money, the county party, and even a fake, perjuring candidate to help take votes away from her obvious competition: Linda Whitaker. She also had an $85,000 Independent Expenditure Committee mostly funded by out-of-town marijuana lobbyists, laundered through the grocery store workers union.
Why write about news when you can try to make your own! (Photo by Julie Leopo/Voice of OC)
Jaramillo had the undying love of her pals, the Kennedy Sisters at the Fullerton Observer, who could be counted on to whisk away her problems and drop innuendo on Linda Whitaker, when called upon to do so.
How could she lose?
Not really that agile…
What Poor Kitty and her Team Jaramillo failed to take into account was the arrival of a new face on the scene who raised lots of money and got the police and fire union support. And she didn’t figure on Fullerton Taxpayers For Reform, a political action committee with the means and issues to beat her.
Yes, I was a phony from Day 1. And it was obvious…
And she didn’t count on the Scott Markowitz scam to backfire badly on her as it became apparent that her own supporters were involved in the fraud.
Smart and willing to learn…
Jaramillo takes the time to swipe at her old pals in the police and fire unions, and of course her unnamed opponent, a smart professional, who, alas, doesn’t seem to know anything about Fullerton, unlike herself who has spent her whole life, yadda, yadda. Pathetic.
But I checked all the right boxes!
It would never occur to a self-entitled person like Jaramillo that her entire, adipose campaign was something right out of the year 2000 playbook: lots of endorsements, clunky mailers, paid precinct walkers, tons of money wasted on political “consultants,” etc. She had the agility of a canal barge. And the product itself was flawed: elderly, otiose, statist, whiny, self-righteous, “good guys” to the end. And for Miss Kitty, the end has finally come to her political aspirations.
Where’s the lie”
Kitty was undone, she says, by the wave of “lies” about her, but she never says what they are and why they are not true. Neither have her sisterhood at the Fullerton Observer who certainly would have had the journalists’ ethic to enquire, had they been journalists, so of course never did.
In the end, Kitty says she is grateful. And so are a lot of other people in Fullerton. And the Observer “editor” has thoughtfully provided the names of contributors to Fullerton Taxpayers for Reform so we know who to thank.
A few days a go a woman was hit by a car in the middle of Orangethorpe Avenue. She died at the scene. Here’s the dispassionate police department version of events.
Notice that there is mention of a bicycle, however, the now deceased woman wasn’t riding it, but walking it across the street for some reason, presumably to get to the other side.
Now here’s how the same press release appeared in the Kennedy Sister’s Fullerton Observer, purveyors of independent “journalism.”
Notice how the FPD is credited with verbiage that isn’t in their press release. It has obviously been re-written. But by whom?
The dead woman is identified in the Observer headline as a bicyclist even though she wasn’t riding it when killed. We can already see where this is going, since we know that her possession of a bike at the time of her death is irrelevant regarding the facts of the incident.
Why write about news when you can try to make your own! (Photo by Julie Leopo/Voice of OC)
This is the way of the Kennedy Sisters. Start off with your own narrative then create “facts” to fit it.
Take a jaywalker and turn her into a bicyclist-martyr. Then project the “tragedy” and the “grief” into a policy objective that fulfills your narrative. It’s twisted. And embarrassing when it becomes obvious you are oblivious to real facts.
And, being the Observer, the comments are part of the inevitable plot development.
Phil M.
That is usually the case and there were also bike lanes here too. The person in question was not going anywhere else but going to the other side of Orangethorpe. It is a foolish risky mistake lots of jaywalkers and “jaybikers” make without using an intersection with traffic lights.
EDITOR NOTE: According to police the bicyclist was walking her bike in the number one eastbound lane which is a designated bike lane when she was hit by the car.
Responding to a previous commenter, Phil M reminds us that there are bike lanes in Orangethorpe and addresses the jaywalking issue. the unnamed “Editor Note” says the victim was in the “designated bike lane” when hit.
So Phil M. responds with some facts and addresses some obviously erroneous conclusions made by “Editor.”
Phil M.
TO THE EDITOR: The number 1 lane is the lane closest to the center of the street. The lane for bicyclists is the ‘bike lane’ obviously, which the one closest to the sidewalk. Are you telling me that this person was riding their bicycle in the center of the street for travel?
EDITOR: Oh! You are absolutely right about that. The number one lane is the one closest to centerline. Thank you for that correction. So she was walking her bike across Orangethorpe when the car and truck hit her.
So “Editor” has finally clued in to the facts of the situation, (or is pretending to) but of course “Editor” will not observe that this is not a bike safety issue at all.
But in the meantime, Sharon Kennedy has chimed in by name, with the usual handwringing, still unaware, that as usual, she doesn’t know what the Hell she’s talking about.
The track record was poor…
Sharon K
Condolences to her family for this tragic loss. This is another good reason to make a dedicated bike lane all across Orangethorpe. Reduce cars to the other three lanes. Let’s name the new bike lane after her. Other cities are creating safe bike lanes – why can’t we?
Phil M.If you look on Google Maps in Street View, there are in fact bike lanes on both sides of Orangethorpe in that section. The person who crossed the street was NOT using the bike line to go east to west or west to east. They were crossing at a place without traffic lights get to the other side of Orangethorpe. Lots of people foolishly risk their lives to jaywalk and “jaybike” all the time in places like these quite often.
As we see, Phil M. is now well-aware of what he is dealing with – an emotional, fact-creating ideologue, and he feels constrained to point out real facts to Kennedy.
Yep. Already there…
There are dedicated bike lanes on both sides of Orangethorpe already. There is no need for a “new” one and even less reason to name it after somebody who wasn’t riding a bike or even obeying traffic lawswhen she died. It would make just as much sense to name it after the poor guy from Westminster who gets to carry this avoidable death with him for life.
And of course there is the perfect comment by one of the few people still permitted or interested in commenting on the Observer blog: “Amy.”
Amy
This is absolutely horrible and I am so saddened for this person and their family. No one deserves to die in such a senseless way. Please Fullerton, let’s build proper bike infrastructure so this never has to happen again.
Poor Amy had reflexively swallowed the bait the morning of the post, to pursue the obvious bike propaganda slant. Needless to say, she hasn’t yet returned to explain how this “senseless” accident could have been avoided by building “proper” bike infrastructure.
For 50 years California has enjoyed/suffered the benefits of CEQA – the California Environmental Quality Act. The intent of the law was to assess the environmental impacts of various projects proposed by private developers and even the government itself – be it dams, roads, civic projects, etc. Some projects, mostly the big ones, required EIRs – Environmental Impact Reports, that cited impacts and measures of mitigation.
If the paper fits, push it!
Now, I don’t pretend to be an expert on CEQA, but I’ve been told that all too often it is just a bungling paper chase that enriches “consultants,” and instead of addressing impacts, coughs up lots of gobbledygook and ginned up “studies” to talk around the problem. And this is just as true for governments’ reports as for those of developers.
Last night I listened to Fullerton’s beloved City Council vote for a new zoning law – the Housing Incentive Overlay Zone (HIOZ), including an explanation of why it was exempt from CEQA even though over 13,000 new units were being incentivized. The excuse was that no specific building was being proposed. You might think that is reasonable enough given that specific location has a lot to do with environmental impacts on thing like roads and street lights and traffic, etc.
And yet the new mandates from Sacramento dictate that because there is some sort of housing “crisis” new developments may be built “by-right” that is to say, without local controls over specific aspects of projects that would normally be comprehensively addressed in Conditions of Approval. Which means that those 13,000 units may not be attached to amelioration of the impacts they create.
And of course 20% of the new units must be reserved for low income tenants, another philanthropic mandate with unknown repercussions on the community.
Here’s the summation: the single-party legislature has serially made such a mess of California over the past 30 years that the fixes for the problems require that they jettison other mandates previously deemed critical, such as CEQA.
Locally, cities have been threatened with legal action by the State’s Governor and Attorney General if they don’t comply; and they are threatened by deprivation of State funding and grants by the Housing and Community Development Department, run by faceless bureaucrats. If cities try to fight back, like Huntington Beach has, the legal results are costly and a foregone conclusion.
And so Fullerton’s City Council went along with the inevitable, acquiescing to the demands of Sacramento in a sad 4-1 vote. Only Bruce Whitaker voted no in what is his last official vote.
I’ve heard it said that government spends half its time trying to fix problems it created during the other half. Sounds about right.
