Search Results for: trail to nowhere

Posted onBoohooism

Stupid Observer

by 15 Comments on Stupid Observer

A guy named Mike Ritto writes a periodic column for our Friends at the Fullerton Observer called The DOWNTOWN Report that ostensibly deals with happenings in our economic sinkhole known as Downtown Fullerton, or DTF, for short.

The story no one wanted to talk about.

In his latest piece Mr. Ritto promises A Brief History of Union Pacific Park. Hmm. This might be interesting, I thought. And so it is, but not for what it says, but for what it intentionally leaves out. It begins talking about the Union Pacific RR, the Santa Fe and even the Pacific Electric. Ritto eventually gets around to the park itself:

“…remnants of that UP line are the fenced-off, such as Union Pacific Park just to the West of the former station, where the tracks used to run.

That neighborhood needs a park, and as the residents look through the chain links and see, finally, grading and other preliminary work that is taking place right now, they know it is on the way. Approval of the park revitalization was covered in our August 7 issue. In addition, we are following developments in the proposed Union Pacific Trail, which would be an open space trail between this new park and Independence Park to the West.”

Somehow the UP Park history has become no history at all, just a mysterious space with a fence around it.

Children at play…

Of course Ritto omits mention that the UP Park was a park on which the City spent several million dollars in land acquisition and construction, and that the City closed down first because of toxic contamination, and then because of abundant crime. This latter fact gets no mention because Ritto is insistent that “the neighborhood needs a park” and remembering that the last effort failed would be extremely awkward – so let’s just forget it. Like his Observer pals he repeats the nonsense that the Trail to Nowhere is still a real thing.

To perpetuate the propensity for misinformation of which the Observer is (in)famous, Ritto remarks that approval of park revitalization has occurred, as reported in the Observer on August 7th. What really happened was the Parks Commission voted to recommend the the Trail to Nowhere to the City Council. The article itself, despite the erroneous headline, is really just a propaganda piece for the now dead Trail to Nowhere and has nothing to do with the UP Park site.

Fullerton Observer readers are often told that the effort is an all-volunteer affair, as a sort of apology for bad reporting, opinion masquerading as news, factual misrepresentation and basic spelling mistakes. The Kennedy clan has been doing this for forty years or more and there’s no likelihood that this will change.

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Posted onAhmad Zahra

The Scam

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Disillusioned Ex-Hippy has just written a nice piece about how the Voice of OC got conned into publishing a completely one-sided story on the defeated Trail to Nowhere, replete with the same falsehoods being printed by Saskia Kennedy and her mother, Sharon, who are responsible for the editorials of the Fullerton Observer.

The narrative is simple: poor, underserved Latinos are fighting City Hall to get “nice things.” Of course it was lapped up by Voice reporter Hosam Elattar who took the bait and the hook along with it. The whole thing is a genuine and popular uprising of hard working folk taking time away from their jobs, etc., etc.

But there’s a problem with this story, one that we already know about. And that is that the ongoing “protest,” such as it is, was ginned up by D5 councilman Ahmad Zahra to embarrass his political opponents on the Fullerton City Council. And this little scheme has been aided and abetted by the Kennedy clan every step of the way.

So get this.

On October 4th the Fullerton Observer is inviting people to show up at Independence Park that afternoon to talk about ways to improve Fullerton. No mention is made of protest signs and walks along the railroad tracks with narration provided by one Egleth Nunnci, Zahra’s loyal, go-to Latina foot soldier. Anyone seeing this message might believe they were going to discuss improving Independence Park and would hardly expect to hear the propaganda that has nothing to do with Independence Park. Neither would they expect a photojournalist (and maybe even a reporter) to be in attendance to report on a political protest, with signs handed out for fun.

What a sad, albeit sort of funny little scam, but just the sort of small-scale chisel Zahra watchers have come to expect. Now, it’s likely that nobody seeing that message even showed up, and that the trail hikers were all Zahra brand crisis actors. Nevertheless, the willingness to deliberately mislead citizens like this is pretty reprehensible even for the self-important and self-righteous Kennedy family.

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Posted onAhmad Zahra

Fullerton Observer Up To Old Tricks

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On a clear day you can see forever…

Those Fullertonions who know about the Fullerton Observer are well aware of the bad habit of this operation of passing along editorial content as news.

Here’s an example.

An “article” running under the heading: Union Pacific Trail advocates hold peaceful demonstration asking to use the $1.78 million grant for its intended purpose.

Reading this headline you might suppose that somebody had been shot by the cops, and that violent protest could have broken out at any moment, and kudos to the protestors. But no. This drama was about not wasting a couple million bucks for a useless Trail to Nowhere that runs through one of the most dangerous parts of Fullerton. Were those octogenarians and 13th graders likely to break out in a rage-induced riot?

The editorial under the headline, written by one S. Kennedy, followed suit. Readers were not informed why the trail might have been considered a poor idea, for that would have been real journalism. Instead we learn the identities of a few of the those who spoke against giving the dough back to the state. We are told that nobody spoke against the Trail to Nowhere, a stupendous mislead since there was no agenda item to discuss it and the only people there had been orchestrated to yak about they knew not what during open mike public comments.

Readers were helpfully informed that there going to be another protest at today’s council meeting just in case some of the eager didn’t get Ahmad Zahra’s memo.

Trails are necessary for the health of our kids…

What the author of this piece didn’t tell you was that she was one of the cheerleaders of this event; that speaker Egleth Nunccio is a part of a conspiracy to ignore the City Council majority’s previous direction; that speaker Diane Vera is an Observer scribbler.

Intrepid reporter/newsmaker, S. Kennedy, top left.

Of course the authoress, Saskia Kennedy, got up and spoke her ignorant piece. (She did so again today, above -10/3/23 – and then plopped down in the audience to smugly encourage the “outraged” protesters she helped stir up). In other words the Observer, which calls itself a newspaper, is actually helping create the crap it is “reporting” on – and not telling anybody.

Comments were varied, some calling out the obvious Astroturf protest. One happy soul named Angela offered: “Civics in action. Love to see it!” Except, Angela, this was a lot less about civics and a lot more about a petty political game by Zahra to embarrass his opponents. The Trail to Nowhere isn’t coming back, the public at large doesn’t care, and Zahra knows this.

As I started this essay (see I know the difference between opinion and news) I pointed out that none of this should really come as a surprise to those who have been around a while. And as the Observer passes from one generation of ignorant, self-righteous Kennedy to the next, it would be foolish to expect otherwise.

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Posted onAbout Us

This Has Been a Zahra Production

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Ahmad is a film producer, we’ve been led to believe – by Zahra himself – although the body of work is a bit thin. So thin, in fact, as to be transparent. But last Tuesday he gave every indication that a Zahra production need not be a moving picture.

The casting call went out to gullible kids and even those of advanced age who should know better: a protest is needed. The underserved, bikes, trees, arbols, clean air, chubby kids finding health and happiness, all in jeopardy; in other words the ludicrous Trail to Nowhere, a $2,000,000 boondoggle vanity project whose only function was to make an appearance on a future Ahmad Zahra campaign mailer. Streetside they presented a pretty thin line whose handmade signs revealed the lack of imagine one associates with Fullerton Observers.

The protesters spoke, too, wasting lots of the council’s time, repeating the same nonsense previously scripted by Zahra

The Chief said I could have this neat shirt if I joined his team…

Zahra’s acolyte named Egleth Nunccio actually tried to get 18 minutes of talking time by taking the time allotted to five women standing behind her. Some of those responding to the casting call gave indication that they were nothing other than paid crisis actors employed to bulk up the chorus. Some make a sad presentation and sure didn’t look like rec trail advocates.

Will protest for a sandwich and a smoke…

So the production came and the production went off. The protesters had been told by their handlers that there was a chance the rejected State grant could somehow be clawed back from the brink of termination by a council suddenly enlightened or frightened by the Zahra music-less comedy. It can’t. Surely, Zahra knew this even as his little band wasted everybody’s time. His real goal was once again to look like he was accomplishing something. And more importantly, the petulant Zahra wanted to embarrass his colleagues.

And there are people in Fullerton who still wonder why Zahra can’t get himself chosen Mayor by his fellow councilmembers.

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Posted onBoohooism

Park Poor South Fullerton. Fact or Fiction?

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We’ve heard a lot lately from the advocates for the failed $2,000,000 Trail to Nowhere concept that it is desperately needed in south Fullerton because south Fullerton is in desperate need of parks. Let’s set aside for just a moment the uselessness of the TtN, so we can think about the bald assertion used as a pretext to build it.

First let’s consider the talismanic mantra. Is it based on realty or is it based on the bland assumption that areas whose inhabitants are mostly those considered minorities? In governmental (and liberal) circles another term for minorities is “underserved communities,” because, it is reasoned, minorities have always got the short end of the stick, and because they need more, they must be underserved. Whether or not anybody feels like they are truly underserved is neither here nor there.

Once the notion of an underserved class of people exists, it is very simple to project the obvious conclusion that parks, being public facilities, are not being provided fairly to the underserved, and therefore those communities are “park poor.”

Oops.

This train of logic is so superficial that it hardly needs to be analyzed any farther. The key here is to realize that the self-interest of government employees and the heart-felt shibboleths of liberals ignore facts. The former simply want to build new facilities they can “program” while the latter get to patronize the lower orders who need their help to enjoy the pleasures of life.

Here’s the reality in Fullerton. If we draw a line along Chapman/Malvern Avenue dividing Fullerton into north and south – as our council districts do – we see that south Fullerton has the same number of city parks as north Fullerton – 16.

“Wait, Joe,” I can hear some one saying. How can this be? South Fullerton is park poor. I read it in The Fullerton Observer. Well, here they are:

Gilbert Park

Community/Recreation Center Grounds/Gardens

Pacific Drive Park

Olive Park

Orangethorpe School Park

Nicholas Park

Independence Park

Richman Park

Woodcrest Park

Lemon Park

Adlena Park

Chapman Park

Amerige Park

Ford Park

And of course we must count UP Park and the UP Trail Phase I that the green spacers are so proud of.

There is also a park on Lawrence and Truslow.

The fact is that south Fullerton has lots of parks. And although it’s true that north Fullerton has trails along abandoned railroad right of ways those facilities are available for anybody to use, and in fact most north Fullertonions don’t have immediate access to these, either. And while the City sports parks are north of Chapman/Malvern the folks in south Fullerton seem to have no problem finding them for youth and adult leagues, just as north Fullertonions find the City’s only pool at Independence park – in south Fullerton.

Similarly, the County’s regional parks – Clark and Craig that are in the north – are open to everybody and almost all of Fullerton’s residents need to get in a car to use them.

So next time somebody proclaims authoritatively that south Fullerton in park poor and needs more open space, likely as a matter of social justice ask them if they know how many parks there are in south Fullerton and if they can name them.

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Posted onBoohooism

If You Build It…

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The other night I watched an old movie from the 80s called Field of Dreams. Somehow I managed to get through an hour and a half of the worst Hollywood schmaltz imaginable. Some guy hears voices and builds a baseball field in the middle of an Iowa cornfield. And guess what? Magic happens! Long dead baseball players show up to knock the old horsehide around.

Today I realized that 90 minutes of my life hadn’t been wasted after all.

“If you build it, he will come…” He did, and he did. I noticed the same blind faith in principalities of the air in those who kept, and keep yammering about the Trail to Nowhere.

These folk believe that simply building something will cause users to show up on their field of dreams. Somehow. Sometime. Even though they never bother to identify who those users are going to be. And I suspect that this one practical effort is dutifully avoided because at some visceral level they don’t even care if the trail is used by anybody.

Field of Dreams is all about the suspension of reality if you really, really, really just wish it hard enough.

As has been pointed out by several FFFF commenters, there is a mindset that cherishes gesture, not effectiveness, good intention over good outcome. And when this is compounded with the old liberal attitude of happily patronizing minorities (ahem, underserved populations) by granting them government largesse, the recipe is complete.

It might work…if you build it…

Anybody who has been along this strip of real estate knows a few things. They can’t figure out who on earth would want to use this as a trail and that the so-called Phase I has been at utter failure in use and design as a recreation facility – even when its terminus, Union Pacific Park, was open. The proposed Phase II runs through desolate industrial buildings, used tire stores, plating and asphalt business; it traverses junk yards parking lots with junk cars. Somehow this bleak, linear experience offers a golden shower of dreams to government employees with too much money and their do-gooding camp followers who seem to think that spending money is more important than spending it well. See, it’s the thought that counts. Just build it. You’ll feel good about yourself.

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Posted onBike Nation

Fullerton’s Observers Still Up In Arms

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The trail didn’t go anywhere, but it sure was short…

The intelligent decision by Fullerton City Councilmembers Whitaker, Dunlap and Jung not to waste public money on the abysmal “Trail to Nowhere” has resulted in high dudgeon and angst among Fullerton’s unthinking Observers. They have stirred up uniformed kids (interns they call ’em) to include it in a video about Fullerton’s crumbling infrastructure – missing the rich irony of a city unable to take care of the infrastructure it already has. They have instigated other kids to create a group calling itself “People Above Things” who will bring protest to the City Council meeting because somehow a useless trail is people and not a useless thing.

Here’s a fun anonymous essay that appeared in the latest paper version of the Fullerton Observer full of sturm und drang, confusion and all het up emotion:

What a silly mish-mash of unintelligible nonsense. I notice the reference to “Jane” by which I believe the author refers to a Jane Rands, who stood up and gave a very commonsensical address to the Council, but commonsense is not a highly respected commodity among Observers. What is “Hart?” Who is “Tony?” What on earth is the connection with Associated Road on the other side of town?

I can’t blame the author of this illiterate screed for wanting to remain anonymous, but she didn’t remain anonymous for long. On the Observer blog the author revealed herself: Sharon Kennedy, the long-time proprietess for the Observer whose “news” efforts never failed to read as confused editorial gobbledygook.

It’s clear that the Observers, Yellowing and Pink, will cling to this issue and try to nurture it despite the fact that it’s over and done with and the public at large, if properly informed of all the facts, would overwhelmingly applaud the wise decision of the Council. Facts are the perpetual bogeyman of the Fullerton Observers who peddle emotion, not reason, and promote waste, just so long as the goal satisfies their drive to support patronizing the lower classes, whom they believe depend upon their philanthropic gestures with everybody else’s money.

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Posted onAhmad Zahra

The Curse of Other People’s Money

by 39 Comments on The Curse of Other People’s Money

It’s a sad fact that local politicians usually have no qualms about spending money from off-budget sources – like State and Federal grants to do this or that uber-important thing. And these things don’t really undergo much scrutiny at all because the money the locality gets, if it finds itself awarded such a grant, isn’t competing with other municipal needs. And, better still, the awarding agency very often has no interest in seeing how successful the grant actually was. See, this requires a rear-view mirror, which the government go-carts just don’t have.

It might work…

This topic came to light during discussion of the ill-fated “Trail to Nowhere” that was going to built with almost $2,000,000 bucks raised from some State of California bond rip-off or other. We heard from the drummed up “community” that the money had been awarded, so better take it; these people being not at all concerned that just maybe the money could be better spent on a project elsewhere. And let’s not worry about the fact that nobody will be responsible for the failure of the scheme.

Phase 1 was a complete failure so Phase 2 is bound to work!

Which brings me to Fullerton’s history of grant money, utterly wasted, and with absolutely no accountability. Specifically I am referring to the long-lost Core and Corridors Specific Plan. I wrote about it seven years ago, here.

I’ll drink to that!

Back in 2013 or so, the City of Fullerton received a million dollars from Jerry Brown’s half-baked Strategic Growth Council to develop a specific plan that would sprawl over a lot of Fullerton, offering by-right development for high-density housing along Fullerton’s main streets – a social engineering plan that would have drastically changed the character of the city. The reasons for the entire project’s eventual disappearance off the face of the Earth are not really important anymore. What is important is that the grant money – coming from Proposition 84 (a water-related referendum!) was completely and utterly wasted.

A page on the City’s website dedicated to the Core and Corridors Specific Plan had quietly vanished by 2017, never to be heard of again.

It doesn’t matter how it turns out. It’s the gesture that counts.

The lesson, of course is that Other People’s Money causes public officials – the elected and the bureaucratic – to take a whole other attitude toward spending on stuff than it does if the proposed projects were competing with General Fund-related costs – like the all-important salaries and benefits; or competing for Capital Improvement Fund projects that people actually expect a city to pursue. And it’s very rare indeed for a city council, like ours, to realize that grant money can be misused and actually wasted.

And so I salute Messrs. Dunlap, Whitaker and Jung for voting to return the Trail to Nowhere grant money – an act of true fiscal and moral responsibility.

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Posted onAhmad Zahra

Weeds, Weeds and More Weeds

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A Friend sent in a copy of a letter from Daniel S. Franco of the City of Fullerton, requesting/demanding weed abatement per the Municipal Code. Supposedly the letter was instigated by a complaint. That may be a true story; or not. Here’s the letter:

Now, this isn’t all that unusual except that the irony of the City making a private citizen do what it will not is pretty rich. What am I referring to? Why, the Trail to Nowhere, of course, the City-owned former UP right-of-way where lately a handful of people, offensively masquerading as “the community” demanded a recreation trial. A quick look at the current situation along the abandoned strip reveals the City in severe breach of the rules it feels compelled to apply to the populace.

Oops.

Oops, again.

It’s pretty apparent that the City of Fullerton can’t take care of its own property. Or maybe by neglecting this property the City is offering up a big FU to the “community” it pretends to care so much about.

In any case the question of our town’s ability to maintain its property brings into focus the question of maintenance costs for new facilities – like the sad proposal of the Trail to Nowhere.

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