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Dear Friends, back by popular demand, The Revenge of Dick Jones:
Sharon Quirk told me she was going to change her vote on the McD’s. She was disappointed in the way the staff presented no alternatives to leaving the McD’s at it’s current location. She has also told a good friend of ours the same story.
The $6 million McDonald’s move has become a community laughing stock. Even reporter Barbara Giasone, with a long record of fluffy features, ripped into the vote, and followed up with coverage of FHS student opposition.
Any council member voting for this is subject to an easy hit piece which could be the center of an opposition campaign. “Quirk / Keller and/or Bankhead spent $6 million of your tax dollars to move a McDonald’s 150 feet west–across the street from Fullerton High.” This issue will resonate with both fiscal conservatives (wasting $$) and social liberals (big corporate bail-out).
Changing your vote, Council Member Quirk, is the right thing to do. If you want the Fox project to succeed, put the money into the restoration, not to move a fast-food outlet!
The McDonald’s franchisee doesn’t want it. The high school administration doesn’t want it. And you can bet Fullerton voters aren’t going to like it when you get hit with it in the next election (same for Keller and Bankhead).
It takes a lot to keep the eight full time redevelopment staffers busy. With the economy tanking, widespread commercial vacancies and developer money drying up, the wheeling and dealing–at taxpayer expense–is a thing of the past!
Falling property values mean tax increment revenues are slowing to a trickle. Even the bond market is looking murky for RDAs.
So what’s a bored staff with a lot of time on its hands to do? With the only recent feather in their cap (a black eye) really is the $6 million McDonald’s move (150 feet west, right across from Fullerton H.S.) They need more self-justification.
Hence, the 18-month effort to expand the Fullerton Redevelopment Area by 25%, All the hearings, studies, consultant reports and pricey legal advice could keep any self-respecting bureaucrat busy in justifying their jobs. Never mind that the proposed new area does not meet the barest minimum legal justification for blight. Never mind that the County of Orange has found the legal backbone to oppose the $20-30 million in theft from its general fund.
Never mind that none of the hundreds of businesses affected have requested any redevelopment subsidies, nor the use of eminent domain to purloin property from their neighbors. Never mind that the state is moving to recapture lost redevelopment money.
Turf protection and self-preservation is the first law of any government agency or bureaucracy. The redevelopment staff has a tough charade to maintain. They must pretend that thy are curing blight while at the same time trying to prove that blight in Fullerton is actually growing.
Why did the City Council vote to extinguish several office buildings, all which contributed to Fullerton’s business zone and stock of professional offices, as well as our historic built environment? Besides a crappy deceitful plan called Jefferson Commons for more student housing on a private college campus, the city lost a huge asset, one that helped create the historic character of East Fullerton for the past 50 years. Shame on them!
Correction to this post: I have been informed that the project cannot legally be exclusively for students, despite the council repeatedly calling it “student housing”. It is a private development, and they cannot discriminate against non-students who want to rent there.
Fullerton Electric Co. is giving away free energy efficient light bulbs. The Fullerton Electric Co. is committed to the future of clean and efficient electricity in Fullerton and Orange County.
“We simplify green electricity. Small companies like mine can help make a difference right here in Fullerton. We believe in being proactive.” Owner Don Holly.
If you would like a free light bulb, just email Don at: Don@FullertonElectric.net It’s that simple!
Be sure to let Don know you are a Friend for Fullerton’s Future.
June 16, 2009……..Fullerton City Council Agenda
CLOSED SESSION
Item 1. CONFERENCE WITH REAL PROPERTY NEGOTIATOR – Per Government Code
Section 54956.8
Property: North and South Block of 100 West Amerige Avenue,
Fullerton, CA
Agency Negotiator: Rob Zur Schmiede, Director of Redevelopment and
Economic Development
Negotiating Parties: Richard Hamm, Pelican-Laing Fullerton, LLC
Under Negotiations: Price and terms
The Laing of the LLC is John Laing Holmes. Laing is a home builder with a reported debt of $500 million to $1 billion and is in Chapter 11 receivership. And furthermore, the word on the street is the front men of the LLC Hamm & Pellican are also on the verge of financial protection.
Exactly what kind of negotiations could our financially unexperienced City Council be doing with a group of financial wizards who are running amok in debt? When is the Redevelopment Agency going to realize the housing market has collapsed? If this project goes forward it will be a financial wreck for Fullerton.
Dear Friends, how many of you realize Pam Keller, Sharon Quirk, Don Bankhead and Dick Jones have already voted to place the Fullerton tax payers on the hook by guaranteeing the developer who’s in bankruptcy a 15% profit? Who besides us are willing to admit this project was a turkey from day 1?
Teachers are being laid off, we have fewer police officers patrolling the streets of our city, and our library is cutting back.
So why did Pam Keller, Sharon Quirk and Don Bankhead vote to spend 6 million of our tax $ to move McDonalds 150 feet closer to Fullerton High School?
The City bought two “Go Titans” banners and posted them on the railroad overpass above Harbor Blvd. Great! We’re all for the Titans. Titan fans glory in our four College World Series championships. Some recall the 1978 basketball season when we were one point away from making the Final Four, and our 1984 football season when we were ranked in Sports Illustrated’s Top 25 for much of the season, with a final record of 11-1. Banners do liven up a city, inform the public and boost community spirit.
So, why the kill-joy sign still posted at Malvern & Euclid, on the flood control channel fence? 
Like a scolding nanny, it reads “Do Not Post Banners On Fence.” This has long been a convenient and inexpensive way for youth sports, churches and community groups to advertise their sign-ups and activities. It is hypocritical for the city to post a banner above Harbor, but ban signs at Euclid. If the Titans want to maintain baseball supremacy, the prospective Little League dad must know how to sign up his junior slugger—and for decades moms & dads read the banners at Euclid & Malvern for just such updated info.
Safety concerns must be weighed, but a loose banner above Harbor will fall onto oncoming traffic. A loose banner at Euclid & Malvern will fall onto the sidewalk—or into the urban runoff in the channel. At Euclid & Malvern, the fences are low enough so the banners aren’t blocking anyone’s and since their on the south side of the street, motorists don’t even need to look their direction to check cross-traffic.
We’re all for a Titan banner on Harbor. But we’re also for the Little League and all manner of other banners on Euclid. That scolding warning sign is deterring community groups from getting their message out. You can bet it won’t deter politicians from their bi-annual blossoming of yard signs.
After a month of speculation, Councilman Dick Jones did reappear as Fullerton’s representative at the Orange County Vector Control District meeting held yesterday (to the uninformed—vectors are mosquitoes, fire ants, killer bees, rats, flies and other living things that really bug people).
At the May meeting, other city rep’s were abuzz at Jones’ Texas-twanged tirade that interrupted a staff presentation on property assessments. Bored, angered and irritated at all the background info he was getting, he suddenly cried out—“ENOUGH, ENOUGH, FOR GOD’S SAKE!” 
Jones nearly went off again, reported on-the-scene witnesses. After the Staff presented its recommendation on the assessments, Laguna Niguel Mayor Robert Ming presented an alternate motion, and passed out a written copy to the Board. This flustered Jones, who is used to the well-scripted staff motions of the Fullerton City Council. To Mayor Ming, he sarcastically yelled out “OH—YOU MEAN WE HAVE TO READ IT NOW?”.
There was tension in the room, as Board Members feared another meltdown. Ming calmed the threatening waters when he replied “Well, yes, it’s only one paragraph long”. The motion set higher standards of accountability than did the staff recommendation.
Whether Jones read the motion or not, we’ll never know. He didn’t vote for it, as did only 8 of the 31 Board Members (including Ming, Moorlach and Buena Parks Jim Dow). In a second vote, the staff recommendation was approved. People in Orange County politics must believe that Fullerton is a joke of a city with this kind of representation.