Friends For Fullerton's Future

April 17, 2009December 28, 2009Don Bankhead

Oh, No! Not Another Horror Story!

Deception, Incompetence and Damn Proud of It

Okay, another story of Redevelopment incompetence run amok. Sorry, but it’s like eating potato chips; once you start…

A visit to the City website will reward you with a list of historic buildings, including what they are calling the Landmark Plaza.

The inclusion of this structure (see image above) on the list is obviously meant to be self-congratulatory and take credit for historic preservation. Unfortunately nobody seems able (or willing) to recall what actually happened. So we’ll help out.

In the late 80s a fly-by-night “developer” wanted to remodel this historic building. The Redevelopment Agency decided to help out by giving the guy a third loan. Since the building was listed as historic the Landmark Ordinance required general adherence to the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for Rehabilitation. These were serially violated when the developer removed the roof and created an outdoor walkway on the second floor, removing the then useless windows in the process. Other character defining features such as a marble stairway were removed as well.

The Agency staff knew all this. In fact before construction started it solicited an opinion from the State Office of Historic Preservation that informed the City that the remodel violated the Standards, would put the building at risk for nomination to the National Register of Historic places, and jeopardize potential tax credits. Yet the City went ahead, approving the work and subsidizing it!

Well, not long afterwards the “developer,” predictably, headed for the tall grass, and the Agency was left holding the bag. Standing in third place, their near-million dollar loan was gone – unless they bought out the folks at the head of the line. Which of course they did. More of our tax dollars at work.

In 1993 after the work was finally done, guess what the City did? They nominated their building for the National Register, turning the process on its head. To their credit the Heritage group of the time opposed this as a reward for deception and incompetent rehabilitation, but the nomination went through with a little political arm twisting.

Soon after the building was sold at a huge loss, but at least returned to the property tax roll.

There are Heritage group brass plaques on this building now, and a spot on the City’s website: a testament to self-delusion, self-congratulation, and abuse of the Fullerton taxpayer.

Well, sure, mistakes were made but hindsight is 20/20!

Our honor roll:

Molly McClanahan

Buck Catlin

Don Bankhead

Dick Ackerman

April 16, 2009April 16, 2009Friends Around the World

Fullerton Friends Around The World!

by The Fullerton Harpoon6 Comments

Dusty Hopes to Relocate The Family To the (Sunny) Hills of Fullerton

FJC Maintenance Department employee Dusty Bickle enjoys an amusing FFFF blog post as he takes a break from visiting the old homestead in Greenbrier County, West Virgina, where the family has a long and respected tradition of distillery and exersize of 2nd Amendment rights.

April 16, 2009December 30, 2009Don Bankhead

The Strange And Terrible Knowlwood Saga

by The Fullerton Harpoon9 Comments

knowlwood2 — A gosh darn barn right here in Downtown Fullerton!

20 years ago the buildings at the SE corner of Harbor and Commonwealth burned down under strange circumstances, including what was left of the Sterns and Goodman store (why do historic structures keep burning down in Fullerton?). Unbeknownst to the good folks of Fullerton, perhaps the worst example of Redevelopment ineptitude was about to begin.

The owner of the property, Pierre Nicholas, proposed to build a bank building on the corner – a suitable use for the 100% corner any reasonable person would have to agree. But not the entrepreneurial geniuses who ran the Redevelopment Agency at the time – Terry Galvin and his boss Hugh Berry. The problem? Banks don’t generate any sales tax revenue and that’s what Redevelopment is all about. At one hearing a defensive Councilmember Buck Catlin exclaimed “they wanted to build a bank” with the same tone of disgust one might mention a whorehouse or an opium den.

And so Friends, the City embarked on a course to acquire a lengthy ground lease to prevent the owner of a property to develop it the way he wanted . Nicholas went along. Why not? Income with no effort on his part.

The Redevelopment bureaucrats already had their favored developer lined up – Sanderson/J. Ray (from Irvine!)who, in cahoots with the City, had worked out a deal with Knowlwood Restaurants to occupy a restaurant on the southerly part of the site.

The subsidized Kwowlwood was eventually ground out of the Redevelopment process – a barn shaped object clad in stucco and brick veneer (pictured, above). Yeehaw!

Meanwhile the development of the corner languished as the developer was finding tenants, and presumably a loan, hard to come by during the early 90s recession. The developer did get permission to put parking lot on the corner and just added insult to injury. The 100% corner – a parking lot!

By 1995 the project was finally moving ahead. The developer proposed a stucco palazzo with a ludicrous dome covered with green glop. But worst of all the entire second floor was a fake! The developer still couldn’t rent it out and decided to do a movie set storefront instead. Check out this image:

As a Phallic Symbol It Comes Up A Little Short

The roof is a giant bowl! This is not a joke. Just check out the picture below if you can’t believe it. The City’s heretofore 5 year saga was reduced to this sort of comic charade. Lights were placed on the floor of the area directly behind the windows to make it look like there was real space up there. To top off the irony, the designer of this mess actually got offended by the suggestion that the geraniums in the second floor planters be plastic to save water!

Maybe It Could be Used As A Swimming Pool During The Summer

Well, the City Council went along with this fiasco from start to finish with the exception of Chris Norby. And none of them ever did anything to act on their displeasure if they even experienced such an emotion in the first place. They were:

Molly McClanahan (former Councilmember and current NOCCCD Trustee)
Don Bankhead (current Councilmember)
Dick Ackerman (former Councilman, Sate Assemblyman, and State Senator)
Buck Catlin (former Councilmember)

and, lest we forget:

Julie Sa (twice elected former unintelligible Councilmember, current whereabouts unknown)

By the time the building was built and occupied 7 long years had passed – 7 years of lost property tax, and the addition ludicrous new buildings that never should have been built in the first place. For many Redevelopment watchers “Knowlwood” has become synonymous with Redevelopment boondoggles.

Oh well! As Molly McClanahan was once heard to say: hindsight is 20/20! An excellent motto for the Fullerton Redevelopment Agency.

April 15, 2009December 28, 2009Downtown Fullerton

The No Tell (Allen) Hotel – What Goes Around, Comes Around

by admin8 Comments

Gee, Molly. You Didn't Think We Would Remember, Did You?

Almost twenty years ago Fullerton made its first significant foray into the quagmire of affordable housing, acquiring the the Allen Hotel and turning it over to a fellow named Jose Zapeda. Mr. Zapeda’s job was to accept a huge subsidy to “renovate” the original building and build a new addition. Apartments were to be low income.

The total taxpayer payout exceeded one million dollars – a tidy sum, to be sure – over $70,000 per unit, in fact. Cynics claimed that the exorbitant subsidy was just a way to buy down the quickly escalating affordable housing spending requirement of Redevelopment law that the City had ignored for years.

The usual suspects were on board. Perhaps the most comical (and racially charged) comment came from then City councilmember Molly McClanahan who bragged: “we’re giving them one of their own” as if Mr. Zapeda, because he was Mexican American, was more qualified to build and run a low income housing project – inhabited by – Mexicans! Molly also proclaimed that she liked the simplicity of the proposal, as if a stucco box with flush vinyl windows and stick-on brink lintels over the windows was somehow virtuous.

Allen Hotel - The Once and Present Tenement

The replacement of the original fenestration with plastic windows, and the transom glass with fake leaded lights (grid glued on the back!) just showed that historic preservation was being used as a pretext for the big subsidy. With the passing of the years it’s truly hard to see how this eyesore has avoided targeting by Redevelopment as blight – since it was blighted from the moment its “designer” put pencil to paper.

April 14, 2009December 30, 2009Chris Norby

The Morgan Group Adds Its Indelible Signature to Downtown Fullerton

by admin9 Comments

What happened to Whiting Ave. — The monster that swallowed Whiting Ave.

Almost ten years ago the Morgan Group developers contributed this gem to downtown Fullerton’s inventory of beautiful buildings. For some reason Fullerton’s leaders thought the idea of another faux-Renaissance palazzo built of wood studs, stucco, and styrofoam details was just what the doctor ordered.

Well maybe the doctor did order it. Sometime check out the contributions made by partners of the Morgan group to Dick Jones’ 2000 city council campaign. Hmmm.

Well, we got more high-density, crappy architecture, more traffic on an already deficient intersection, the aesthetic engulfment of the beautiful and historic church next door, etc., etc.

A picture is better than a thousand words

What did The Morgan Group get? Free land, plus a gift of a public street (the 100 E. block of Whiting – an original street from the 1886 town site grid) and who knows what else. Who approved this disgrace? Let’s have a looksee:

Don Bankhead (current Councilmember)

Dick Jones (current Councilmember)

Jan Flory (former Councilmember)

Chris Norby (former Councilmember and current County Supervisor)

Julie Sa (twice elected former unintelligible Councilmember, current whereabouts unknown)

April 14, 2009April 15, 2009Fullerton School Board

We Have A Winner….

by The Fullerton HarpoonLeave a comment

Okay So It's Not Cash..... — Okay, So It's Not Cash.....

A few weeks ago we (when you blog you get to refer to yourself in the first person plural – like royalty and editors) solicited alternative mottos for Fullerton from our Loyal Friends. We (I) have chosen a winner that seems to adequately reflect the disaffected Fullertonian zeitgeist. It comes courtesy of our Friend “EW”:

Fullerton: Smug and self-assured, welcome to the city that sleeps

Well done, EW.

April 13, 2009December 28, 2009Don Bankhead

What Kind of Idiot….

by The Fullerton Harpoon9 Comments

…would put a bench facing a blank wall six feet away. Oops, forgot – those bars in the blocked up windows are a real attraction. Seriously, has any sober person ever sat on this bench?

By the way, this 90s remuddle of Fullerton’s first Masonic Temple that you see was subsidized by us – the taxpayers of Fullerton – and approved by the Redevelopment Agency “experts” and the city council. Be sure to thank Molly McClanahan and Don Bankhead next time you see them.

April 13, 2009April 18, 2009Chris Norby

So Who’s Responsible For Downtown Fullerton’s Architectural Disgrace?

by admin9 Comments

April 11, 2009April 12, 2009Fullerton's Design Standards

Win an Original FFFF “TERM LIMITS” t-shirt

by admin6 Comments

fake3392135869_b2ae8a32751 — ADMINS #1 CHOICE

Dear Loyal Friends, considering the number of comments received on the prior post , the majority of you have agreed that WTF’s idea for a contest to see which is the ugliest and cheapest looking piece of cardboard crap to come from Redevelopment is a good one. So, email images of your ugliest and cheapest looking piece of cardboard crap to come from Redevelopment to: fullertonsfuture@yahoo.com. I’ll post them, and our loyal Friends will select the winner.

The lights on the floor sealed the deal for me

The winner will receive an original Friends For Fullerton’s Future “TERM LIMITS” t-shirt.

April 9, 2009April 18, 2009Fullerton's Design Standards

WHAT DO ALL THESE THINGS HAVE IN COMMON?

by admin32 Comments