Friends For Fullerton's Future
FFFF supports causes that promote intelligent, responsible and accountable government in Fullerton and Orange County
The Orange Line is comming to town, perhaps at the wrong time. Not only did the OCTA use eminent domain to grab 8 acres of property from my brother, but they also removed much-needed parking at the Transportation Center before the new parking structure was built. Talk about a bumbling construction schedule. Oh well that’s government for you.
Let’s be realistic. No matter how dire the situation gets, there’s no way our brain-dead state legislature will ever find their way out of California’s massive black hole of public employee pensions. Most of our representatives are too entrenched, too well-lobbied and too gutless to take effective action against the powerful public employee unions.
Thankfully someone is going to put real reform out for a vote to the people. Our Friends over at the California Foundation for Fiscal Responsibility have filed two pension reform initiatives with the state Attorney General’s office on Thursday, which will be put on the 2010 California ballot after the foundation gathers enough signatures to qualify.
The initiatives would apply a benefits cap to the benefit plans offered to all new state, local government, school district, university and special district employees beginning July 1, 2011. Savings to taxpayers are expected to reach over 500 billion dollars over the next 30 years if adopted.
The plan saves money by limiting guaranteed benefits for government works to 75% of pay and requiring employees to wait until they reach MediCare eligibility age before retiree health benefits kick in.
California will never escape the budget crisis and its massive unfunded pension liabilities without enacting legislation built on solid fiscal principles. CFFR spells out the new rules in “The 10 Commandments”
Democrat Bill Lockyer has admitted that the state will go bankrupt without serious changes to the pension system. Will angry voters support reform in 2010? I think so.
Dear Friends, a few weeks back we wrote a post about the issue of blight relative to the proposed Redevelopment expansion. So we have decided to collect some more images of blight to help you get the picture. Again, to be fair, and consistent, we have tried to stick to the City’s own standard (or worse) as we collected pictures not in the proposed area, but in the existing Redevelopment Project Area – to let you also see what a bang-up job the city is doing to eradicate blight already!
The Fullerton Interfaith Emergency Services (FIES) is a non-profit collaboration of local folks whose mission is to help people of marginal means subsist, learn job skills, and for some, transitional housing is provided in the FIES compound in the west 500 block of Amerige Avenue.
Imagine the surprise of the tenants at 504 W. Amerige when they recently received eviction notices from their landlord. It seems FIES wants to buy the multi-family property located next to their current assemblage of properties, and the residents have to go. Apparently there are several families living on this property including several kids and even an infant. Some have been living there for over fifteen years and must like it.
It seems nobody at FIES has made it their business to inquire about the fate of the current tenants who now have to find a new home with a comparable rent, and will somehow have to scratch up a new first/last payment on a new place; or if they did, perhaps they dismissed it as not their problem.
We don’t think it’s real nice of FIES to cause the eviction of employed, rent-paying citizens simply because their mission is to minister to people farther down the housing stock food chain. It’s particularly egregious since FIES routinely receives government subsidies to pursue its mission. It must be galling for a taxpayer to find himself on the receiving end of an eviction notice due to the efforts of a taxpayer subsidized organization.
We hope that the good folks at FIES can reach an accommodation with the current tenants to let them stay on until they can relocate, and/or provide monetary relocation assistance. That’s only fair. It would be a painful irony indeed if any of these people ended up as FIES clients in the future.
Finally, the issue of the FIES compound itself needs to be addressed. Is it appropriate for this facility to continue to expand at this location? Is it wise to aggregate this sort of transitional use in a single neighborhood? Continued expansion seems likely to hasten even more growth in the future. What are the permit requirements, if any, for this proposed use, and what does the City have to say about the dislocation of the existing tenants.
With all of the collaborative activities going on in Fullerton, maybe somebody can collaborate on some help for the residents at 504 W. Amerige Ave.
Teri Sforza has produced another fine Watchdog post over at the Register about the gravy train that already awaits MWD employees in retirement, including a list of over 40 of these watercrats who pull down over $100K a year in pension payements click here . The former top dog who retired in 1993 gets almost $225K per year and has received over $3.5 million since he stopped clocking in. Sweet. For him.
If that weren’t bad enough, now MWD wants to raise their pension formula even more. A few days ago we threw down the gauntlet to our City Council to be accountable for the upcoming vote by their chosen MWD representative, Jim Blake. Well, now we do it again. The vote is next week and we will be reporting back to the friends.
And remember. MWD cost increases are passed directly on to us. On top of that, in Fullerton 10% of gross water revenue (from your water bill) goes directly into the General Fund. And that’s a hidden tax increase, folks.
Here’s the MWD $100,000 club. If you know anyone on the list make sure he/she thanks the water rate payer for their largess:
| CARL BORONKAY | $224,812.80 |
| NORMAN TAYLOR | $191,512.08 |
| RODERICK WALSTON | $187,782.84 |
| DAVID PORTER | $170,075.76 |
| DOUGLAS MARSHALL | $149,733.12 |
| LAUREN BRAINARD | $148,945.68 |
| NORMAN FLETTE | $148,258.92 |
| JARLATH OLEY | $137,811.60 |
| JAMES GALLANES | $132,217.08 |
| ALBERT CHENG | $129,202.20 |
| MYRON HOLBURT | $120,516.84 |
| FREDERICK HORNE | $120,203.88 |
| GEORGE BUCHANAN | $119,561.76 |
| VICTOR GLEASON | $119,445.48 |
| MICHAEL YOUNG | $118,419.24 |
| STEPHANIE VENDIG | $118,418.76 |
| BARBARA KENNEDY | $115,249.92 |
| JAY MALINOWSKI | $114,198.00 |
| ROBERT LYONS | $114,192.36 |
| ALAN SMITH | $112,779.24 |
| GARY HAZEL | $112,212.36 |
| CAROL BALCERZAK | $111,909.60 |
| WILLIAM WATSON | $111,849.60 |
| EDWARD THORNHILL | $111,653.52 |
| $111,339.60 | |
| RONALD GASTELUM | $111,130.44 |
| JOSEPH SANTOS | $111,113.88 |
| EZELL CULVER | $109,106.04 |
| IZETTA BIRCH | $108,637.56 |
| ROBERT MOEHLE | $108,349.44 |
| TERRY HARMAN | $107,494.56 |
| LARRY DEFORGE | $107,363.88 |
| ALLIEN WHITSETT | $104,608.20 |
| JESSE CORRAL | $104,095.44 |
| MARSHALL DAVIS | $102,596.28 |
| EVAN GRIFFITH | $101,766.60 |
| NELSON LEE | $101,334.12 |
| LARRY HINES | $101,244.60 |
| PAUL SINGER | $100,597.08 |
| DAVID FURUKAWA | $100,353.48 |
UPDATE: The MWD Board will take up this matter at its meeting on Sept 15.
The Metropolitan Water District, one of the shadowiest and least transparent agencies in California is contemplating raising its employees pension benefits. The Register opines about it here and makes reference to an original story by Teri Sforza here .
With bad news about how its own pension plan has been rocked by huge CalPERS investment losses, and with financially teetering state and municipal governments it seems like a poor time for the MWD to be grabbing for more tax-payer backed gravy to benefit a giant gaggle of water bureaucrats. Plus, the MWD just passed along a water commodity rate to its members that we are all paying for.
Fullerton is original member of the MWD and has been represented for a long time, some say way too long, by a fellow named Jim Blake – as we wrote about here .
UPDATE: The MWD is scheduled to take up this matter at its meeting on September 15.
Jim has been on the MWD Board for so long that almost nobody can remember when he went on back in the 80s (1980s, that is). The people who originally appointed him are all long gone. But Jim has well-managed his continual reappointment without anybody else getting a shot at the job. Well, now he’s got an issue that may just spell trouble for his lengthy tenure.
Blake has always been a big pro-staff drum-beater, and its hard to imagine that if, left to his own devises, he wouldn’t go for the pension jack. If he goes for it now, the people who appointed him may discover that it is they who are ultimately responsible for the actions of their appointees. Under ordinary circumstances this might not bother Fullerton’s own pension spiking gang too much. But 2010 is an election year, and we feel certain that this the pension increase will become an issue if it goes through. The city council needs to know that this continued fiscal recklessness will not be tolerated.
Fullerton trash in green bins is gold to hundreds if not thousands of recyclers throughout North OC. People who are in the marginal business of recycling are now flocking to neighborhoods throughout Fullerton Monday- Friday. Depending on the day of the week that your trash is picked up you may notice people competing to score the goods from the green bin. It’s no coincidence that it’s green is it?
So who does the recyclable stuff belong to? Good question. Someone “inadvertently” forgot to label the bin Property of MG Disposal or Property of the City of Fullerton, and the recyclers believe that they are doing business as usual.
Most people understood that if everyone helped (recycled) by sorting our trash, then the hauling rates would be lowered (or at least not raised) and would save us a little money on our trash bill. But now that we are all sorting the “goods” for the recyclers on trash day it has become an added bonus for those in the shopping cart recycling business.
Is a crime being committed? Is anybody cited for it? Who makes up the loss for MG Disposal?
Did the city and MG Disposal leave out an important clause in the contract? Or is it just easier for everybody to look the other way?
The Fullerton Senior Center on Commonwealth was shut down by the County on Thursday after the City of Fullerton allowed a cockroach infestation to get out of control. An inspection report from the Orange County Health Care Agency shows that live cockroaches were found in a food storage area next to the kitchen after a roach sighting was called in by a concerned citizen. The center was shut down overnight and opened back up the next morning, just in time for Friday’s Senior Hawaiian Luau Party.
When it’s not being used to dish out extra crunchy meals to senior citizens, the City rents out the facility to create some healthy taxpayer-subsidized competition for Fullerton’s numerous privately-owned restaurants and banquet halls. These entrepreneurial establishments must pay taxes to the city, only to have the city turn around and use that money to subsidize a facility in direct competition with their own business. That just doesn’t seem right, does it? Fortunately for those business owners, the city is not capable of managing a safe dining facility.
It’s not hard to imagine that many of the city’s customers will be canceling their reservations until the city gets its act together. In the meantime, the old folks who eat lunch there every day should chew carefully.
By Kanani Fong
This isn’t about redevelopment, however, I’ve come across enough people in the community up at arms (read: thoroughly pissed off and confused) about health care reform. The current fight over healthcare reform has been made into a left/right debate. Reform has been needed for many decades, but all that’s been accomplished is adding more gatekeeper layers. Let’s put it this way: what we have now is a multi-layered butter cream concoction with slivers of cake that’s already toppled. The real fight is and has been between physicians and the health care insurers as well as the government.
For far too long, physicians have been vilified by both Democrats and Republicans as money wasters. (Ed Royce one gave a nonsensical analogy once at a Town Hall). Until one understands the nuts and bolts of how contracting works, all demands are merely –such as the ones listed on the Liberal OC blog are well-intentioned but quixotic. Believe me, I know they’re well intentioned, but like I say, until you clearly understand how many levels are already in the current system taking money at each, you really can’t get the breadth of the problem.
Because I’d rather write, do yoga, dress my voodoo dolls, plan the next trip, plot world domination one stilletoed heel at a time and walk the dog, I’ve written 5 articles on my blog about health care contracting and the industry at large. To pull up all five, simply go to my blog and type in “Healthcare” in the search box on the upper left hand side. Check it out here:
Here’s an item on tomorrow’s agenda to be addressed by the City Council behind closed doors:
2. CONFERENCE WITH REAL PROPERTY NEGOTIATOR
Property: 626 & 700 S. Euclid Street
Agency Negotiator: Rob Zur Schmiede
Negotiating Parties: Paul Kott, Pierre J. Nicolas Trust
Under Negotiations: Price and terms
Let’s get this straight. The Redevelopment staff (aka Rob Zur Schmiede) is asking for council permission to begin negotiations for a huge piece of property off Euclid, presumably to build low income housing. He’s trying to do it behind closed doors under the cover of the “closed session” where he can get the ball rolling on a project that has NEVER been authorized by anybody. The key phrase here is “price and terms” which justifies the secrecy but that in reality is being used as a fig leaf to hide the fact that the council is giving tacit approval to a project that has never been offically authorized by them, in public – even in concept. In fact the very nature of the request is the first in what will be a long series of incremental approvals. In fact, this process is called incrementalization for that very reason.
Well, WE object to these shennanigans even though it happens all the time. Authorization to negotiate price and terms is premature, and at this juncture issues that are not covered by under Brown Act exclusions are already occuring. What is involved is a secret commencement of the process that will lead to land use entitlements and rezoning. This is wrong, wrong wrong. This is obviously going to be a major project with major policy and CEQA implications.
The City Council should agendize this issue for a public hearing immediately with proper notification to all the neighbors. If they choose to go ahead with this (likely monstrosity), THEN they can schedule their “price and terms” meeting in the cozy confines of the backroom!