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July 19, 2024July 19, 2024Ahmad Zahra

The Poison Park Gets Some Federal Dough

At last Tuesday night’s Fullerton City Council meeting the annual CDBG show took place.

CBDG stands for Community Development Block Grant – money that is doled out by the Department of Housing and Urban Development to local governments to fritter away with no accountability after slicing off the lion’s share for themselves to “administer” stuff.

The local do-gooder community surround this federal largesse like hungry koi wanting to be fed. Some get money, some don’t. Most of these applicants are centered in the homeless industrial complex, that cluster of NGOs that are the recipients of untold government paychecks who are never held accountable for anything.

One of the items that caught my eye was money – $350,000 for the abandoned Union Pacific Park – the municipal embarrassment that has created an eyesore on Truslow Avenue for two decades. It was described in two different documents. The first mention is in the staff PowerPoint presentation:

This laconic slide is most unhelpful since there are no details. We know it’s a 1.4 acre park, but we also know there is a plan for a new park; so why this cryptic reference? You can’t boil a government potato for $350,000, so what’s the plan, a partial rehabilitation?

We know if the walkways are “damaged,” it was because the City damaged them last year – when pressure was put on staff by the City Council to reopen the park. Do they mean sandblasting the graffiti?

The term “sports courts” is unhelpful because there is only one – an old basketball slab. Some people wanted pickle ball courts but can you do them without the rest of the park? What gives?

The staff report is accompanied by a slightly more specific “action plan” that gives details about the various grant applications. Here we discover this:

There is no existing trail in UP Park, so what are they talking about? Who knows? Are they referring to the dilapidated Phase I of the dismal Trail to Nowhere? Do they want to fix the barrio’s equestrian trail railing? No, the public may not know, but one thing is certain: nobody in City Hall wants to discuss the failure of the UP Park and Phase I of the Trail to Nowhere; they just want to waste more money on them.

The presentation did elicit a few words from some staff guy who stood up saying the City wants to add new “courts” and ADA improvements at the little parking area, language implying that there is indeed some sort of concept to rebuild this park in pieces, an idea which makes sense in a perverted sort of way – everything about this park has been screwed up by City staff since the proverbial Day One.

Tellingly, not one councilmember bothered to question the idea of phasing construction of anything, and whether this is a good idea. It may be that some of them want to plant grass and then forget about the Big Plan. If that is the plan, no one wants to talk about it publicly, and the UP Park Committee has vanished, never to be heard from at all.

At this point the piecemealing pantomime is good for appearances, and the appearance seems to be to be seen doing something, no matter how futile the flailing.

I guess the otherwise laughable piecemealing means that this next inevitable failure will happen in less a less expensive manner.

July 10, 2024July 10, 2024Ahmad Zahra

Fall Elections Draw Few Contestants. So Far.

by Disillusioned Ex-Hippy29 Comments

In five days potential Fullerton City Council candidates for Districts 1,2, and 4 will be able to “pull” nomination papers. I don’t know why the phrase is “pull papers” but that’s what they call it.

At this point you can only tell who’s running by those who have created candidate committees. And that’s a short list, indeed. Committees are listed on the City Clerk’s webpage, here, under disclosures.

In Districts 1 and 2 only the incumbents Fred Jung and Nick Dunlap have committees. This is not unusual as incumbents are hard to beat, but usually some brave souls sign up. Of course you don’t need to have a committee unless you plan on raising money above a certain threshold. I believe it’s a thousand bucks, but don’t quote me on that.

In District 4 there are two candidate committees on record. As previously noted one is for retired City employee Vivian Kitty Jaramillo who apparently used to write parking tickets back in the day.

The other candidate is Linda Whitaker, wife of outgoing councilman Bruce Whitaker. Neither of these candidates has any experience as an elected person, although Jaramillo has run previously and lost badly when council elections were held city-wide. She was subsequently party to a lawsuit to force district elections where she must have figured she has a chance of winning. She’s the Democrat anointed candidate and is supported by the Ahmad Zahra and Shana Charles, our megalomaniacal and dingbat councilpersons, respectively.

Jaramillo would be a very poor choice as a vocal tax proponent and the beneficiary of City CalPERS payments. A win by her would create a new council majority run by the manipulative Zahra. Ms. Whitaker would probably be better on some revenue raising issues, but some have suggested that she is the moving spirit behind her husband’s disastrous votes on closing Wilshire Avenue for the benefit of a few restaurants, and the support of the nonsensical “boutique” hotel. I don’t know if this story is responsible, but the votes are testament to exceedingly poor judgment. She might also be inclined to form a majority with Jung and Dunlap as her husband has done.

It remains to be seen if either Jaramillo or Whitaker intend to run vigorous campaigns and how much money they can raise to do it.

So far nobody else has shown interest publicly – yet. The deadline to return papers to the City Clerk is August 9th – only a month away unless an incumbent pulls out. Then the period is extended 5 calendar days.

It would be nice to see somebody else pop up to run in the 4th District, but time is running out fast.

June 13, 2024June 13, 2024Ahmad Zahra

Revenue Enhancement Time. Plus Lies and More Lies

by Joe Sipowicz8 Comments

Last Tuesday the Fullerton City Council voted 4-1 to approve the ’24-’25 city budget. Whitaker, as usual voted no. The budget projects big deficits as we’ve already heard.

After that the Council was presented with “revenue enhancement” ideas – the same old nonsense that we’ve already talked about, here. At first these ideas were simply floated to make it look like somebody had given some thought to find other ways, however silly, to address the tsunami of red ink; but in reality the point was to push a general sales tax, a movement that had been subtly going on for many months.

However the proposals agendized last Tuesday did not include a sales tax this fall, a sure indicator that the City Manager has polled the Council and knows he doesn’t have the votes to put it on the ballot. But that didn’t stop Councilmembers Charles and Zahra from pitching and pitching and pitching the idea; and finally supporting each other to get the issue of a sales tax on the an agenda, pronto, in time to schedule it for the November election.

But before that happened the public was treated to some of the most blatant and self serving re-writing of Fullerton history I have ever heard.

If I knew what I was talking about this wouldn’t be Fullerton!

Shana Charles started off with long-winded blabbering that was irrelevant, self-contradictory, confusing, and erroneous. Of course – “decimated” staff, the ill-effects of right-sizing,” reduced response times – the usual liberal litany of problems were simply meant as an introduction to the sales tax proposal. Her complaint was that previous councils had made mistakes, not by exercising fiscal restraint, but by “cutting to the bone.”

Charles then lauded the wonderful benefits that the City of Placentia derived from it’s Measure U sales tax that saved it, having declared bankruptcy – a statement completely false. She failed to mention the fact that Placentia has saved millions by getting their “fire fighters” out of the paramedic business, an idea of which her Fullerton fire fighter union pals are terrified.

While patting herself on the back for very recent staff and service level increases, she failed to see the rich irony of her own incompetence on the edge of a precipice: a situation well-understood when she voted for last year’s budget.

More economic development, better wardrobe…

If Charles blathered nonsense, Zahra just lied about Fullerton’s recent fiscal history, most likely because he has been on the City Council for 6 years, and has his greasy fingerprints all over the budgetary disaster.

According to Zahra, our problem reaches back decades and only now is the Council addressing the problem. Of course our City Councils have made bad decisions over the years, but the current disaster is of very recent vintage and has also occurred while he has been on the City Council.

For several years in the mid and late teens Fullerton was dipping into reserve funds to pay the freight, even as Zahra’s allies Jan Flory and Jennifer Fitzgerald and Jesus Quirk- Silva were lying to the public about the budget being balanced. It wasn’t. In fact the City continued in its cavalier way until Fred Jung and Nick Dunlap joined Bruce Whitaker on the council in 2020.

Measure S Covid Lie — Let me count the ways…

Zahra related how he, as a precinct-walking candidate, noted how people wanted better roads and how his predecessors had promised them, too, but that they failed. He didn’t note the fact that Fullerton’s public safety employees were hogging up bigger and bigger shares of the budget – as they still do.

The subject of Zahra’s failed 2020 Measure S sales tax came up, a sore subject, apparently, since his underserved constituents in D5 voted for it. So let us not stop from revisiting it, and right now! Charles chimed in that well she people she spoke to voted against it because there was no sunset provision, and, get this – because there was no oversight committee!

As an aside, I have to share that Zahra made an hilarious little speech about he could not support an infrastructure improvement bond because voting for municipal debt would keep him awake at night!

Bruce Whitaker made just about the only insightful comment of the discussion, namely: that cities can control costs but they can’t control revenue, an observation that flies in the face of the revenue enhancement propaganda, but that is perfectly true. As has been stated here before: nobody even knows if an Economic Development Manager even pays for himself in terms of incremental tax increase.

I will wrap this up by acknowledging a Zoom caller who actually did make a good revenue enhancing and who identified a huge fiscal problem: downtown Fullerton, the annual sinkhole that makes millions for the scofflaw club owners and that leaves the taxpayers with a $1,500,000 bill. He suggested a special assessment on these eager party entrepreneurs to pay for the havoc their booze and their customers cause. Not surprisingly, none of the council members even mentioned the problem. They never do.

May 7, 2024May 7, 2024Behind Closed Doors

Coming to a Theater Near You

by Disillusioned Ex-Hippy15 Comments

On this week’s Fullerton City Council agenda I caught a glimpse of the upcoming May 21st agenda forecast:

AGENDA FORECAST (Tentative)
Tuesday, May 21, 2024

APRIL 2024 CHECK REGISTER
MONTHLY COMMITTEE ACTIVITY AND ATTENDANCE REPORT
DISPOSITION AND DEVELOPMENT AMENDMENT FRONTIER
COSTA COURT AREA STREET REHABILITATION PROJECT
ALL CITY MANAGEMENT SERVICES CONTRACT
SENATE BILL 1383 COMPLIANCE ACTION PLAN FOR SERVICES AND PROGRAMS
CHAPMAN PARKING LEASE
FOX BLOCK
REVENUE OPTIONS

Not all that interesting until you get to the bottom.

Yeah, it was ugly as sin, but there sure was a lot of it…

The Fox Block, a never ending saga and a classic example of a tail wagging a dog. For years the “rehabilitation” of the historic Fox Theater structure has been used to support all sorts of God-awful lunacy, including residential land acquisition and demolition, new grotesque clown architecture, and the six million dollar relocation of the McDonalds restaurant a couple hundred feet to the east. The “Fox Block,” as the boondoggle came to be known, is a living fossil of the bad old Redevelopment days, when any nonsense could be got away with by City staff playing with Monopoly money. Damn accountability. It’s the Fox Block!

Why this is on the agenda is as yet unknow, but I noticed that one of our Friends “Fullerton Historian” suggested it may have to do with extending a development agreement or some other similar concept. Then I saw the third bullet point above: Disposition and Development Amendment with Frontier. “Frontier?” That’s all? What is this? Frontier Real Estate is our “partner” on the Fox Block, meaning we’re probably taking the risk and they’re goon get any reward – if there is any.

M. Eric Levitt. Will he save us from ourselves?

And finally we see an item simply called “Revenue Option” an oatmealy sort of phrase, but one that FFFF has already discussed. At this meeting the City Manager, Eric Levitt, will try (without too much unseemly enthusiasm) to tie dangling threads heretofore described here: a push poll created to drum up support for enhanced public services; a review of the likelihood that general sales tax might pass at 50%; and a precipitous budgetary cliff looming ahead.

See where this is going? Let’s see who stands up and demands that for our own good we must have a tax increase.

April 16, 2024April 17, 2024Bruce Whitaker

Whitaker for City Council

by Grover Cleveland39 Comments

Yes, Friends, you read that correctly.

Bruce Whitaker is serving his final term this year representing Fullerton’s Fourth District, and apparently his wife, Linda Whitaker, has decided to carry on the family tradition.

Here’s her recipient committee listing on the California Secretary of State’s website:

Mrs. Whitaker has been around politics alongside her husband in Fullerton and the County for 30 years, and so has institutional knowledge of how things go (or don’t go, as the case may be), and would be bound not to take staff bullshit at face value. The extent to which she shares her husband’s political philosophy remains to be seen, but I’m sure we could expect a conservative, anti-tax mindset.

She has the Whitaker name going for her. Bruce Whitaker has been on the Council for almost 14 years and won the inaugural Fourth District election in 2020. In politics, name recognition is a big deal. Just as importantly, she will have access to County Republican resources to help her, directly; or, just as likely, in the form of independent political action committees.

This bad news for Vivian “Kitty” Jaramillo, the choice of the Democrat officialdom in the Fourth District, and someone who has allegedly accused Linda Whitaker’s husband of racism. If she had been thinking about an easy path to victory, she’ll have to think again.

I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if the OC Democrats try the same ploy they rolled out in District 5 in 2022; namely, creating a fake candidate to draw votes away from Mrs. Whitaker. On the other hand, this is a heavily Latino district and a Latino candidate or two would certainly have the same effect on Jaramillo.

March 21, 2024Ahmad Zahra

The 2024 4th District Election

by The Fullerton Harpoon34 Comments

As the Friends know, Fullerton’s First, Second and Fourth City Council District representative jobs are up for election this fall. And while it’s a little early to speculate on who’s going to run and what the outcome might be, it’s fun to do a little introductory review.

Incumbents Fred Jung and Nick Dunlap are incumbents in the First and Second Districts, respectively. If they want to run again, and I haven’t heard they won’t, the power of incumbency is hard to beat.

The Fourth District, currently represented by Bruce Whitaker will be wide open. Whitaker is termed out after 12 long years on the Council and his replacement will decide the balance of the Council if Dunlap and Jung run, and are re-elected. The current 3-2 division is based on ideological difference, the difference is between looking out for the taxpayers – at least once in a while – and doing whatever idiocy the bureaucracy wants to perpetrate.

At this point the candidate pool seems weak. Last time Whitaker squeaked by past a dude named Aruni Thakur, a school board member who didn’t live in the district. Could Thakur do the (fake) carpetbagger routine? He had the full support of the unions and the County Democrat Party four years ago, but it wasn’t enough for poor Aruni, who was hammered with his carpetbaggery. With no incumbent this time around his political greed might pull him in.

Then there is a woman named Vivian “Kitty” Jaramillo, an individual who has made a nuisance of herself recently attacking the Council majority with the usual feigned outrage. Ms. Jaramillo is retired from “work” as a life-long municipal employee whose professional career started in Fullerton handing out parking tickets and graduated into being a code enforcement busybody. She would be a perfectly reliable yes vote for anything floated by city staff, and just the sort of running buddy Ahmad Zahra dreams about to support a sales tax. Word on the street is that the OC Dems are already behind her candidacy, which would preclude the aforementioned Thakur from getting involved.

Jaramillo ran for the City Council in 2012 and came in 7th in a city-wide election. Two years ago she was appointed to the redistricting committee where she championed the failed, ridiculous district map meant to keep the lamentable knucklehead Jesus Quirk-Silva in office.

Jaramillo’s other claim to fame, besides pestering the City Council these days, is suing the City in 2015 to create city council districts – very likely so she could run herself someday when Whitaker termed out.

So far no one from a more responsible philosophical perspective has raised their hand in D4, but as noted above, it’s still early in the year and filing doesn’t take place for almost another five months.

January 1, 2024January 1, 2024About Us

The Process & The Consultant

by The Fullerton Harpoon33 Comments

A few weeks ago I published a post on the extremely dubious efforts of a paid consultant to begin a renewed effort to raise a new sales tax in Fullerton. The consultant is an operation called FM3.

We’ve seen this movie before. Many times.

In an effort to build momentum toward justifying a new tax a consultant is tasked with cooking up a poll, a survey that is worded in such a way as to make the question of a new tax sound not only plausible but even desirable.

The information that is collected is meant to probe the electorate’s weak spots, just like an army might send out reconnaissance to figure out where to attack.

Another benefit is to begin the process of developing ballot statement language that will push and persuade voters to the correct decision – a decision that will always be to vote for the tax. The reasons will be a short recital of the usual, low-hanging fruit, public safety being at the top of the list, but with no explanation that our public safety corps – emergency medical personnel (formerly known as :firefighters) and cops already suck up the majority of Fullerton’s General Fund. Mention of parks, quality of life, libraries and now “homeless” will be thrown in to the pot; and infrastructure maintenance will be included, disingenuously, to get support of the more hard-headed voter, just like last time.

And of course this language will be also be used by the inevitable political action committee formed to wage the propaganda war.

Make no mistake about it. The consultant hired to undertake this effort will know at the outset what his mission is. He knows who hired him and he knows what his employer wants.

Here’s a fun little Aussie video that spells out the process succinctly:

And so it goes. The start of a charade in which the taxpayers foot the bill to be “educated” into supporting a pre-determined outcome. The line between education (legal) and propaganda (illegal) is not bright, as asserted by Councilmember Bruce Whitaker. The fuzzy demarcation is exploited all the time by government agencies – always based on information collected in the original poll.

No On S — Don’t Reward the City’s Stupidity

The hopeful part of this is that the electorate is not always as easily persuaded as is supposed by the would be taxers. This was demonstrated in Fullerton in 2020 when voters rejected the ill-considered Measure S, and property tax-based bond floats by Fullerton’s two school districts.

In the end the Council (Jung, Zahra and Charles) voted, vaguely, to keep the “education” process going, a process that we know is nothing other than political propaganda aimed at persuading a majority of voters and coordinating with a special political action committee set up to scare, cajole, and bamboozle the voters.

November 15, 2023November 15, 2023Ahmad Zahra

The Taxman Cometh. Again.

by The Fullerton Harpoon36 Comments

A few years ago during the depths of the COVID pandemic, the Fullerton City Council voted to put a sales tax measure on the ballot. Since things were looking grim and with revenue falling off, the best course of action in City Hall seemed to be to lay it on to taxpayers. It was necessary to protect Fullerton’s quality of life, you see; or, to be more precise, to protect the pay and pensions of City employees, particularly the cops and “fire fighters” who suck up the majority of the municipal budget.

Well, the names have mostly changed, except for Ahmad Zahra, but the playbook remains the same.

At their November 7th meeting the City Council heard a report from a company called FM3 that had been tasked with producing a survey of resident concerns, and, significantly, to poll them about how to raise revenue. And lots of it.

Who actually hired FM3 in the first place is a mystery, but it must have been our illustrious City Manager, Eric Levitt, since no record of the Council approving a contract is found in the City Clerk’s database. So far they have been paid $49,000 – most likely sneaking under their City Manager’s spending authorization.

Before delving into the presentation, it’s important to note that FM3 is a consulting operation deeply involved in promoting government tax and bond efforts, and has been supporting liberal Democrat politicians for decades. One of the clients listed on their website is Carter/Mondale! On their splash page we find the slogan: Synthesizing Public Opinion To Help Achieve Your Goals, which is code for push polling that promotes your client’s goal of raising taxes.

The company conducted its polling of likely voters last spring, The “results” were presented to the Council on the 7th.

The concerns of the citizenry polled emphasized Fullerton’s rotten roads and included a bunch of stuff that the City has no control over and is merely being used as data filler. The options were presented by the pollsters.

Notice the inclusion of budget shortfalls on the list. According to FM3, 45% of those surveyed believe budget shortfalls are a extremely/very serious problem. Really? Then the other shoe begins to drop.

First, it’s curious that somehow data relating to 2019 and 2020 are shared. Where did that data come from? And what happened to 2021 and 2022? This presentation is just nonsense.

The bland term “additional funding” to the initiated means more taxes, but probably not to those polled. Not yet anyway, for the respondents are being artfully massaged by people whose job it is to push and pass tax proposals for their governmental “clients.” The bit about providing “the level of services Fullerton residents need and want” is telling, and so is the language. How does one’s “personal opinion” qualify one to opine on all Fullerton residents? The purpose is to loosen the respondents mind into the miasma of the common good, as defined by the principle beneficiaries – City employees. Then the other shoe hit the ground.

It didn’t take very long for FM3 to roll out a couple of “hypothetical” sales tax raising ballot measures, one a general purpose tax and the other more narrowly directed to infrastructure, although including the ambiguous phrase “to maintain rapid police, fire and 911 response.” The general purpose tax only requires 50%+1 ballot majority; the special purpose tax requires a 67% majority. The latter is an almost impossible threshold to get over.

Then FM3 rolls out some interesting language in their push for a general sales tax. Notice how these alleged concerns of the surveyed mimic the language of the typical “push poll.” FM3 is using language that will elicit super-high positive responses and suggest that others are already on board. The tiny text at the bottom of the slide tells all. But is all this dire language persuasive when it actually comes to voting?

Finally, FM3 sums it up by saying that a general sales tax is winnable. But is it? Somebody said the same thing about the City’s Measure S back in 2020 and it failed.

In the end the Council (Jung, Zahra and Charles) voted to keep the “education” process going, a process that we know is nothing other than political propaganda aimed at persuading a majority of voters and coordinating with a special political action committee set up to scare, cajole, and bamboozle the voters.

As Bruce Whitaker pointed out on the 7th, there is supposed to be a “bright line” that separates government information from government propaganda. But this line only in the abstract law. In practice the line dissolves almost completely.

August 20, 2023August 20, 2023Ahmad Zahra

Union Pacific Park to Reopen!

by Mr. Peabody44 Comments

The humiliating story no one wanted to talk about.

After years of being fenced off by the Parks and Rec. Department, the Fullerton City Council voted to reopen the Union Pacific Park in the 100 W. Block of Truslow Avenue. The park, brainchild of former Parks Director Susan B. A. Hunt, cost several million dollars to be acquired and built in the early 2000s but was almost immediately shut down due to soils contamination. The City failed to perform its due diligence in purchasing polluted property and building a park on it. Adding insult to injury, the park became a magnet for anti-social behavior. So the fence stayed up.

And up. For almost 20 years.

A sign with its own tile roof? And why are they all broken?

And yet somehow this long-running civic embarrassment became the all-important anchor for the foolish trail project that City staff kept promoting. While the trail screamers were lamenting south Fullerton’s park poorness (more on that later) they never bothered to reflect on the City’s shameful history of incompetence delivering open space at the UP Park.

Mayor Fred Jung decided enough was enough and at the last City Council meeting suggested that the the fence around the park be removed and the park opened for a neighborhood whose patronizing patrons say is “desperately needed.” Well, good. More open space for the community to desperately enjoy while the UP Park ad hoc Committee, the same committee that was ignored during the trail propaganda saga, can figure out what its future is. Councilmen Nick Dunlap and Bruce Whitaker agreed and the motion was approved 3-2.

It will be interesting to see if Ahmad Zahra will give up on keeping this park fenced off. Remember, he was the one who desperately wanted to illegally rent it out as a private, fenced and gated events center. And remember too, that to him, even to question park maintenance costs in his district is “offensive.”

August 9, 2023August 9, 2023Ahmad Zahra

It’s Ba-a-a-a-a-a-ck. The Trail to Nowhere Resurfaces

by Mr. Peabody11 Comments

It’s a truism that cherished ideas of bureaucrats never die, despite the best efforts of people with common sense to kill them.

Just keep reapplying. You may get the job someday…

And so the previously proposed recreation trail from the poisoned UP Park to Independence Park is back in the news. How do I know? Because of a typical propaganda piece in The Fullerton Observer. This “article” is so lame, so badly written and so full of bias for this idiot idea that I am reproducing it in its entirety.

Revitalization of Union Pacific Park Gets Approved

BY STAFF ON AUGUST 7, 2023 • ( 5 COMMENTS )

In a remarkable display of community engagement, the City of Fullerton organized a public meeting on June 29th to gather input from residents about the revitalization of Union Pacific Park and the construction of the Union Pacific Trail. The conference aimed to hear the public’s desires and ideas for these projects, with the park set to be refurbished and the trail transformed into a fully realized pathway connecting Union Pacific Park and Independence Park.

During the meeting, various discussions ensued, with attendees grappling with visualizing certain areas based on maps and images. To gain a better understanding, the proactive community decided to schedule an on-site visit to the park and walk the trail together.

Egleth Nuncci took the initiative to collect participants’ contact information, and on July 8th, an enthusiastic crowd, including new faces, gathered for the expedition. With the valuable assistance of the Parks and Police departments, the walkers could explore the proposed trail route safely. Among the participants were notable figures such as Parks and Recreation Commissioner Adrian Meza, Active Transportation committeemember Anjali Tapadia, and Fullerton School District Board Members Ruthi Hanchett and Aaruni Thakur.

As they traversed the trail, they encountered rough terrain filled with rocks, weeds, and litter. However, despite these challenges, everyone recognized the trail’s immense potential as a seamless pathway connecting the parks. After the enlightening walk, the project options were brought before the commission.

Option 1 was to create a simple trail with a bike lane, fully funded by grant money from the city.
Option 2 involved building an additional road alongside the path, but this would require city funding as the grant wasn’t sufficient to cover road construction.

Passionate voices emerged during the commission meeting, with many walkers advocating for the trail-only option, urging against sacrificing greenery for a road. Commissioner Meza thanked everyone who participated in the community walk, including city staff members, for their invaluable insights.

Ultimately, the commission voted in favor of the trail-only option, a testament to the power of community involvement and the collective vision for a connected, green, and vibrant future. The decision now heads to the council for final approval, further exemplifying the democratic process at work in shaping the future of Union Pacific Park and Trail based on the voices of the people it will serve.

The title suggests something has been approved, which isn’t even true – par for the Observer course, of course. We are told that the City of Fullerton organized some sort of field trip along the UP right-of-way and that a remarkable display of community engagement occurred. We learn that “notable” figures showed up; notable to whom? We are left to wonder. In a hilarious and ironic comment we learn that there was some police presence to escort the limousine liberal entourage along the rocks, weeds and litter. Clearly somebody thought this jaunt could be unsafe, and somebody was right. However the proposed trail will somehow alleviate all this unsafeness.

The Observer tells us about the boundless potential of “seamless” pathway between parks (if you don’t count Highland and Richman Avenues). At least these people have given up peddling the lie of connectivity between this route and anything else at either end.

What’s really strange is that in this article the “community walk” somehow morphed into a “commission” meeting with a vote taken to eliminate a multi-modal option (a direct contradiction to the position already laid out by the Fullerton City Council). And the Observer sums up fulsomely by claiming preposterously, that some sort of democratic process took place and the voices of the people, rather than the stupid idea of a couple stubborn and insubordinate bureaucrats, won the day.

What really happened is that on June 29th a select gaggle of hangers on was invited to walk the length of Alice Loya’s pipe dream. The Parks Commission met on July 10th to get the one-sided report of what happened and to make a recommendation (not an approval) to the City Council. The staff report for this meeting makes no mention of the council’s previous position on these topics: namely that the area should be treated as a whole – not a piecemeal collection of bad ideas, and that furthermore, a multi-modal approach to the right-of way be considered. This last option was never considered at all. The report also ignores the fact that the UP Park ad hoc committee has committed itself to nothing as yet.

In other words, Parks staff wiped the slate clean and regurgitated that same garbage they tried last time. Same old strategy that has worked so well for them in the past.