Friends For Fullerton's Future

April 23, 2009December 15, 2010Big Brother

Departing Police Chief Brings Home The Bacon

2009pigbook — Porktacular reading material

Just in time for his retirement, our beloved police chief Pat McKinley brought home a $100,000 federal earmark for his new body armor which he designed in a partnership with seasoned police contractor Safariland, a subsidiary of Europe’s largest military contractor. Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez congratulated herself for rooting up the money for the high-priced vests as part of the Omnibus Appropriations Act.

What could be wrong with this earmark? It’s nothing but free money for the City of Fullerton – an unconditional gift from the federal government, right?

But the earmark qualifies as official government pork according to government watchdogs.

Citizens Against Government Waste have identified 10,160 projects at a cost of $19.6 billion in the 12 Appropriations Acts for fiscal 2009 that symbolize the most egregious and blatant examples of pork. All of the items in the Congressional Pig Book Summary meet at least one of these criteria, but most satisfy at least two:

Requested by only one chamber of Congress;
Not specifically authorized;
Not competitively awarded;
Not requested by the President;
Greatly exceeds the President’s budget request or the previous year’s funding;
Not the subject of congressional hearings; or
Serves only a local or special interest.

Officer Rubio shows off his new vest while demonstrating a choke hold for our unsuspecting photographer.

There are two sides to every slab of government pork: on one hand, earmarks return a portion of Fullerton citizens’ federal tax dollars back to the city itself. If Fullerton doesn’t grab it’s share of the pie, the money will merely be assigned to some other bloated project in some other needy town far, far away.

On the flip side, earmarks represent the very worst in fiscal responsibility and big government. Appropriations Committee members arbitrarily pick winners and losers by earmarking funds for specific recipients. Lobbyists and their congressmen bypass authorizing committees directly for pet projects, creating a giant fiscal free-for-all that undermines the Constitution and makes states and localities increasingly beholden to the federal government. Finally, the federal deficit grows unchecked and our taxes increase via the debasement of our currency.

Pork projects have haunted this nation since our early years, but they have always been reviled by fiscally responsible citizens. Thomas Jefferson considered earmarks “a source of boundless patronage to the executive, jobbing to members of Congress & their friends, and a bottomless abyss of public money”. If Jefferson knew about the exponential increase in federal earmarks over the last decade, he would likely rise from his grave to scribe a brand new Declaration of Independence.

In the end, the chiefs’ friends at Safariland are $100,000 richer, our police have new vests that cost twice as much as the old, and most importantly, the fruits of our labor have been lost in a sea of unaccountability.

April 22, 2009May 21, 2009Chris Norby

Fullerton’s City Lights – FUBAR From The Word Go – Tod Und Verklarung – An Epilogue

by The Fullerton Harpoon9 Comments

Thank you Forebearing Friends, for following this pathetic revelation to its conclusion. The unwinding of this concatenation of miscreance and misfeasance must be as hard to read as it has been to write. And yet now the conclusion is finally at hand!

By May 1997 the SRO deal was done. The final meeting was a mere formality. Everybody who was paying attention knew that Dick Jones – yes, all hat and no cattle Dick Jones – was going to eat up the tasty morsel that his own staff and collegues had put in front of him.

No. I'm Not Eating That... — Hmmm. Maybe some ketchup would help...

Terrified of personal loss, and with apparrently no confidence in City indemnification, he caved in to the ridiculous threats to protect his own pelt. All of his brave words of March were just so much verbal gas.

The meeting came and went. The project moved ahead and was ever so slowly built. Two years later the Fullerton City Lights was added to the Downtown scene. The city bureaucrats congratulated themselves on another job well-done: 7 years and several million dollars of public funds in the making – a large stucco box. The erection wasn’t much to write home about.

Perhaps the sorriest part of this saga was the behavior of Dick Jones – during and after the sad episode. He had eaten his crow – the feathers were still there on his bib for everybody to see. And councilwatchers were wondering if his former fulminations would now be directed at the staff and fellow councilmembers who had placed him in his embarrassing predicament. The answer came quickly. No accountability, no responsibility – nothing. Nothing but loud and consistent praise and support for the bureaucrats who had orchestrated his humiliation; he soon became notorious for his knee-jerk and unquestioning support of almost everything put in front of him by the City staff.

All that remained was the peridoc bluster: homespun nonsense, loud, rambling and often incoherent perorations. Deep-fried bloviations, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

donk

Read the rest of “Fullerton’s City Lights”: Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4 – Epilogue

April 22, 2009December 28, 2009Dick Jones

Fullerton’s City Lights – FUBAR From The Word Go – Chapter The Fourth

by The Fullerton Harpoon5 Comments

Loyal and Patient Friends, our long narrative of the City Lights SRO is coming to a sordid climax, and a merciful denouement. We have witnessed incompetence, vindictiveness, cultural vandalism and bureaucratic usurpation of authority, But we’re still not finished. The SRO project appeared dead. The elected representatives had killed it. Democracy at work! But as long-time city-watchers know, the project is only dead when staff says it’s dead, and none of the architects of this disaster – City Manger Jim Armstrong, Planning Director Paul Dudley, or their puppet, Redevelopment Director Gary Chalupsky, wanted it dead. Because that would be an admission of what everybody else already knew – they were largely incompetent.

We left off with Dick Jones at a March, 1997 meeting waxing voluble about drug users and their nefarious ways. Nuh-uh, not in my city! Unfortunately, Jones discovered that getting the foot into the mouth is a whole heckuva lot easier than extracting it.

Need some barbeque sauce? — Need some barbeque sauce with that?

Jones was not acute enough to pick up on clues that the City Manager, Flory and Bankhead were not going to let this die. He should have been clued in during the March meeting by the Agency attorney, who, at the insistence of Flory, Bankhead, and a clueless Julie Sa, gave a legal opinion in public stating that Mithawalla could have a case against the Agency. Here’s where the story gets a bit murky, culpability-wise, and who orchestrated what, so rather than accuse anybody we’ll just let you – the Friends of Fullerton – draw your own conclusions.

It Ain't Over 'Till We Say It Is....

A civil rights lawsuit was adventitiously filed against Jones and the City by some guy nobody knew, claiming that the targets of Jones’ tirade were protected under the Americans with Disabilities Act; Mithawalla was waiting in the wings to go after the City for breach of contract – although clearly no contract had been established. With enough proper coaxing from people who wanted this project to live, Dick Jones, the Big Man with The Big Mouth suddenly experienced a case of shrinkage.

A new hearing was held in May 1997. The stage was re-set to take up the SRO project one more time. It didn’t matter that the Council majority had already spoken. The City Staff, the Redevelopment Attorney, Flory and Bankhead were determined to have the last word in order to remind everyone who really runs the City of Fullerton.

Read the rest of “Fullerton’s City Lights”: Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4 – Epilogue

April 21, 2009December 28, 2009Chris Norby

Fullerton’s City Lights – FUBAR From The Word Go – Act III

by The Fullerton Harpoon13 Comments

A New Team Was Brought in To Finish The Job

Loyal Friends, when we left off our last post the City’s chosen SRO “developer,” Caleb Nelson” was gone: whether he left voluntarily or was shoved aside is a moot point. He left behind an unstarted project, a history of City bungling, and an embarrassing hole in the cityscape. Sometime in 1996 Redevelopment Director Gary Chalupsky discovered a replacement. Apparently on his own authority he chose Agit Mithawalla to take over the project. No public hearing, no RFP, no prequalifications, no City Council approval. Behind closed doors a new deal was hatching.

Don't Ask Don't Tell!

And the City Council had changed. And changed again in the fall of 1996. Jan Flory was now on the Council since 1994, trying to rewrite Recall history and a sure bet to cover up any staff misfeasance. But the newly minted councilman Dick Jones was on the dais. He had run as the voice of conservatism in Fullerton and it was known that his pals in the Chamber were dead set against an SRO across the street. Public housing – the horror!

Across the street from us! No freakin' Way, Man — Across the street from us? No freakin' Way, Man

When the final agreements with Mithawalla finally reached the Council for approval in March 1997 a showdown was prepared by irate citizens who opposed the SRO project for one reason or another. Some cited inflated construction costs; some objected to deal for financial reasons; other attacked Mithawalla’s record of shoddy building in LA. When the vote came down the agreement was voted down 3-2. Bankhead and Flory, predictably, backed up the staff mess completely; Chris Norby rallied Jones and Julie Sa to oppose. Dick Jones gave the very first of his corn pone diatribes, in which he hurled invective against the project, its likely denizens, and the methadone clinic next door.

He was Big. He was Brave. He would soon come to regret giving voice to his peculiar worldview…

Read the rest of “Fullerton’s City Lights”: Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4 – Epilogue

April 20, 2009December 28, 2009Chris Norby

Fullerton’s City Lights – FUBAR From The Word Go – Part Deux

by The Fullerton Harpoon4 Comments

Gentle Friends of Fullerton, we left off our sad narrative with one Caleb Nelson, fly-by-night promoter, in possession of a multi-million dollar City subsidized “affordable” housing project on Commonwealth Avenue; a project that he had as much ability to undertake as a ling cod. Our “expert” City staff had chosen this dubious individual to build a multi-million dollar “SRO’ although they must have known he didn’t have the wherewithal to build a birdhouse. They had rejected a reknowned architect; they had helped destroy an historic building; and they were just getting warmed up.

We're the Fullerton Redevelopment Agency. We Know What We're Doing

As this venture entered its third year (1995) the Redevelopment staff had finally seen enough. Director Gary Chalupsky, who ostensibly joined the city in 1992 as an independent agent of change, but who, by this time, had lost most of his rigid members, acted. Caleb Nelson was shown the door, and in his place Chalupsky unearthed a low-income housing developer from LA by the name of Agit Mithawala.

Aw c'mon. You didn't expect accountability, did you?

The only difficulty was that Mr. Chalupsky had been given no authority to re-assign the development rights conferred upon Caleb Nelson to anybody. He did it all by himself. And he had to get the City Council help him cover his tracks…

By this time a politcal revolution had come and gone in Fullerton. Molly McClanahan and Buck Catlin were long gone, replaced by Jan Flory and, in 1996, F. Richard Jones. Fullerton was about to witness one of the most inglorious retreats in its history. Stay tuned for more…

Well if I hadn't shot off my big mouth... — It's all mind over matter, boys...

Read the rest of “Fullerton’s City Lights”: Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4 – Epilogue

April 20, 2009December 28, 2009Chris Norby

Fullerton’s City Lights – FUBAR From the Word Go – Part I

by The Fullerton Harpoon17 Comments

We're From The Fullerton RDA And We're Here to Help!

Damn. Another Fullerton Redevelopment Agency saga of screw up. This one is a bit long and I bring it to you Dear Friends of Fullerton in serial form.

Way, way back in the early 90s the Redevelopment Agency was still trying to figure out how to buy down the ever-increasing affordable housing set-aside monies it had illegally accumulated over the years, and which a lawsuit had forced it into spending. One type of project that was acquiring some cachet at the time was the SRO – Single Room Occupancy – a long term hotel-type rental for people in fairly marginal economic circumstances. The County had pledged a million bucks of its own to sweeten the deal.

The City solicited proposals. One came from the Bushala family for a site they already owned at Harbor and Truslow. Their partners were to be Baronne-Galasso who had done numerous similar efforts in San Diego, and their architect, the well-published Rob Quigley. http://www.robquigley.com/

The City entertained a second proposal from a gent named Caleb Nelson who seemed to be living out of his truck, along with the very silent “San Gabriel Partners” whom the public never saw. The City staff went so far as to select a site for Mr. Nelson since he owned nothing and couldn’t find City Hall without a map. Unfortunately, the chosen site on Commonwealth Avenue, included the historic Grimshaw House, a Victorian stick-style house c. 1894 that had mysteriously been left out of the 1979 historic survey – maybe because a block building then housing a thrift store had been plunked down in front of it and it was easier just to ignore.

The Grimshaw House, c. 1894, formerly on Commonwealth Avenue

For reasons too complicated to explain here, there was no way the City staff was going to do business with the Bushalas. Some bad blood there! So behind the scenes an ambush was orchestrated by a couple of city council members, senior staff, and an enterprising housing tax-credit entrepreneur, Doug Chaffee, to undermine both the Bushalas as slumlords, and Baronne-Galasso as bankrupts at the final hearing. On a 4 to 1 vote the SRO project was awarded to Caleb Nelson in the Spring of 1993. An opportunity for forward-looking architecture had been deliberately squandered.

Once the deal was done Redevelopment moved in to vacate the property. The historic Grimshaw House, intentionally put in harm’s way by the City, became an attractive target and was set on fire – twice – by an arsonist.

It was finally razed. A rare Nineteenth Century house, the oldest remaining structure in Downtown Fullerton, and connected to one of the early pioneer families of the County was gone – with nothing but sighs of relief from the good folks at the City.

Things Are Going Just Great! Have A Sucker!

Years passed. 1993 rolled into 1994, and 1994 into 1995 with nothing happening on the site. Despite the City’s attempt to portray him as a sound individual, it was becoming increasingly difficult to hide the truth about Mr. Nelson and what he might be able to build, given the resources at his disposal.

Does It Come With A Balcony? — A Room With A View - And A Balcony

And this where the story gets really interesting…

Read the rest of “Fullerton’s City Lights”: Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4 – Epilogue

April 19, 2009April 20, 2009Fullerton's Design Standards

Who Says “Affordable” Housing Has To Be Ugly?

by The Fullerton Harpoon8 Comments

Not Friends for Fullerton’s Future. We subscribe to the opinion that good architecture – innovative, attractive, engaging architecture, need cost no more than bad architecture – non-functional, boring, banal, tacky architecture. So there’s really no excuse for housing developed by non-profits to be substandard, especially when it relies on huge governement subsidies.

Here’s an example of a subsidized housing project on Chapman Avenue. A hodgepodge of “styles”It was built during the mid-90s and can only be described as, well, really bad. The building closest to the street is a stucco box with flush, cheapo windows, and fake shutters – which have been removed, or mercifully fell off. Well maybe we’re just imagining the shutters. The parking structure actually has little roofed stucco boxes stuck on to the front of it, no doubt to make it look “residential” from Chapman Avenue. We wonder what kind of an idiot would mistake a parking structure for a house; or who wouldn’t be offended by someone’s effort to fool him.

A more recent aesthetic travesty was perpetrated by Habitat for Humanity on Valencia Avenue in the barrio. The theme here seems to be fake Craftsman; the awkward angles and ridiculous fenestration make it look as if an untalented child drew the elevations. Oh boy! fake rock plinths for the porch posts.

Hard to believe, but the apartments the City is buying and demolishing in order to build this other stuff looks better – even boarded up with plywood!

Now, our purpose here is not to belittle people trying to do good, or even to make fun of untalented children. But rather to point out that neither of the these two examples needed to end up like they did – if in fact an intelligent design review process had decided that low income people shouldn’t have to live in cheap-looking, ugly housing.

Of course we have an ulterior motive for this post. First, the Redevelopment Agency is going to be spending ever-increasing amounts on subsidized housing in the coming years, with or without expansion. Regardless of one’s opinion about this sort of government activity we want to make sure that these projects achieve the highest design standards – not the lowest – as has been the case (see also the recent post on the Allen Hotel). Second, and more specifically, we are extremely concerned about the upcoming Richman project. The selected developer, the Olson Co., is not known for their aesthetic creativity, and will, if allowed, cough up another McSpanish McMess. Their architect is the same individual responsible for the Habitat for Humanity project.

It’s time for Fullerton’s Friends to insist on better, sustainable architecture when it’s subsidized by the taxpayers.

We’re all paying for it. Now and in the future.

April 18, 2009October 17, 2011Dick Jones

The Mysterious Case of the Disappearing Downtown Sidewalk

by The Fullerton Shadow25 Comments

If You Turn Sideways You Can Just Squeeze By — Warning: Sidewalk Narrows Ahead!

The twisted narrative of how the Florentine Family’s “Tuscany Club” managed to expropriate a public sidewalk is yet another tale of woe showing how badly our elected officals and their alleged professionals have manged to screw up Downtown Fullerton.

Back in 2003 the Florentines made an agreement with the Redevelopment Agency and City for an “outdoor dining” lease on the Commonwealth Avenue sidewalk at the intersection with Harbor Boulevard (forget for a moment that any outdoor patrons there would have to spend their time looking at the architectural monstrosity across the street).

Now, outdoor dining to you or me would suggest an open air space surrounded with a moveable fence or rope, and with furniture that could be picked up and taken inside. Well, that’s not what it meant to the Florentines who started construction of a foundation and a masonry wall in the public right-of-way! Sure, there were outcries of anger and dismay among the community over this blatant grab of public property, but these seemed to fall on deaf ears and the construction kept going until in the end the whole thing was completely enclosed. A private room addition right there on the public sidewalk!

Many months passed by, but the issue refused to die quietly. Finally, a big hearing was held, ostensibly to explain the situation to an outraged group of citizens. Mr. Florentine proclaimed his innocence – a victim of circumstance! The Director of Development Services, an obviously affronted F. Paul Dudley, stood up to say how he had been in control the whole time, had done nothing wrong; and that if he had to do it all over again he would do the same thing!

The only problem with this near-tearful oration was that Dudley had no authority to let any one put a building on public property. Only the Agency and Council could do that – after a public hearing. So the building was an encroachment into the public’s right-of-way, and the offending structure should have been immediately removed. Naturally the Fullerton City Council went along with the sham. After all, nobody really expects accountability or responsibility in Fullerton, right?

First You Stake Out Your Turf. If You Wait Long Enough They May Give It To You!

Sometime later the terms of the lease of were officially (and very quietly) modified, effectively whitewashing the whole sorry mess; but not before some valuable lessons were learned by careful observers about how things work in Fullerton.

April 17, 2009December 28, 2009Don Bankhead

The Fullerton Observer – Shilling For City Hall Again

by The Fullerton Harpoon8 Comments

Redevelopment Expansion Looks Good From Where We're Standing

In its mid-April edition, our old friends (lower case f) at The Fullerton Observer pulled their typical stunt of shilling for the bureaucrats and bureaucrat loving politicos over at City Hall.

County Supervisor Chris Norby had submitted to The Observer an essay on the proposed redevelopment expansion that we had previously posted on this very site. Not content to print the letter and let responders respond – on their own and without coaching, The Observer apparently gave Norby’s letter to the City where somebody in Redevelopment wrote a “response” in the form of a series of “facts” – really just disembodied statements meant to show how the City, at least, was following the minimum requirements of the law.

The City’s response was handed to Don Bankhead, Chairman of the Redevelopment Agency, who dutifully affixed his signature and sent it back to the Observer – who then published “two views” on the proposal just like they were an unbiased news operation – a real journalistic endeavor, in fact. Check out the scam on page 11.

http://www.fullertonobserver.com/artman/uploads/fomaprils_001.pdf

We are not surprised by this behavior since it has become fairly common for The Observer. Sharon Kennedy habitually adds editorial comment to letters submitted by people she doesn’t like. But to actually go out and solicit response to a commentary strikes us as pretty craven, even for her.

Friends who have visited this website recently have been treated to examples of Redevelopment incompetence in Fullerton. Don Bankhead and the people he represents in in the Redevelopment Agency may want you to think that redevelopment is here to serve the people of Fullerton. We know better. It’s here to serve the bureaucrats, subsidized developers, bond lawyers, consultants and various other camp followers who make their livelihoods of this charade.

First We Talk You into It — First We Talk You Into It...

April 17, 2009April 20, 2009Fullerton City Council

Just Wondering: Covenant Of The Lost Art

by thedivinemissk32 Comments

Guggenheim Productions — Industrialist Norton Simon

Update: Please check recommended reading list based on what’s come up in the comments at: Of Interest.

As long as we’re going down the hallways of myopic design and architecture in our fair city, there is a bigger but forgotten side story that bears remembering. After all, a loss this big should never have happened.

Since almost 40 years have passed, the story bears repeating for those who were too young, and others who are new to the city.

When one sees the Hunt Library through the eyes of an architectural aficionado, one can’t help but be stunned. How did this building get here? Along with the now shuttered and desecrated Hunt Foods, it was part of an overall design by nationally renown architect William Pereira. Pereira, an architect and designer of office buildings (The TransAmerica Building), museums, university campuses (UCSD) and entire cities (the Irvine Masterplan) designed the now forlorn library. Why was this here? How? The old Hunt Foods was shuttered –a victim of an economic move out of state. I requested the records from the city clerk and read how this building came into being. In addition, I revisited my salad-days haunt in Pasadena, watched a movie, and read the only biography of Norton Simon. (Later, the book & movie were donated to the Hunt Library).

The TransAmerican Building At one point, the Hunt Library was part of the campus of Hunt Foods, owned by an entrepreneur and industrialist Norton Simon. In 1927, he and his family purchased an old orange juice bottling company in Fullerton. Over the years, they added more produce and vegetables and most notably proceeded to turn tomato sauce and ketchup into gold.

He became rich –so rich that he bought other companies. He also collected art. Loads of it. Art was on the walls of his home, in the Hunt offices and in the Periera-designed library next door. He shared his art with school children. It has been hailed as the most significant private art collections in the world. In it are collections of the Impressionists, Old Masters, Flemish, Baroque, East Indian, and Asian artifacts —his curiosity about the world was answered by art.

By 1974, he wanted to find a home for his collection.

The rest of the story and the sad conclusion may be seen in the video below.

Simon died in 1993.

Just Wondering: What else would have developed along the industrial corridors where the museum would have gone? What impact would a deeper appreciation for culture and art have on the values of a community? How would having a world class collection of art supported smaller venues such as The Muckenthaler, The Fullerton Art Museum, and even those things budgeted under community services? What effect might this have had on future building projects? What can we learn from this, and is there a place in our city for an aesthetic shaped by a deep understanding of art and culture in a time when bigger, cheaper, homogeneous and beige is deemed more reasonable?

At a time when sweeping changes are being proposed, when city services are being cut, and when we can point to regrettable changes in our downtown landscape, it’s time to see the relationship between how we make choices to live as well as art and design.

“Art is the signature of civilizations.” –Opera Singer Beverly Sills