Buck Catlin Archives - Page 2 of 2 - 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, 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.

January 14, 2009December 28, 2009Don Bankhead

15th ANNIVERSARY OF THE GREAT FULLERTON RECALL

by The Fullerton Harpoon19 Comments

This year marks the 15^th anniversary of the event that has shaped Fullerton’s political landscape ever since: the Fullerton Recall of 1994. Three stubborn, entrenched councilpersons chose to side with the bureaucrats over the citizenry and imposed an unnecessary utility tax on the populace. Well, the citizenry struck back. Common folks, many of who had never taken any part in municipal politics banded together and began a yearlong recall effort that eventually ousted A.B. “Buck” Catlin, Molly McClanahan, and Don Bankhead.

The event was seminal and pitted the old, statist interests that had run Fullerton since the beginning of time and the barbarians who had very recently arrived at the gate. The statists of both political parties looked on in horror as the Outsiders assaulted their citadel. For them it was indeed a contest of good (them) versus the evil of untutored and unwashed common folk.

The resulting recall, the determined effort of those recalled not to leave office, and the ultimate repeal of the utility tax were formative events that created a permanent citizen political presence and a resolute effort by the statists to regain control of the city. The middle of the road Chamber of Commerce Republicans were thrown together with the Fullerton do-good Democrats who had newly discovered their dedication to the City Hall bureaucratic apparatus.

The fact that the old guard managed to secure its position by the re-election of Bankhead and the election of “conservative” empty suit like Godfrey, Jones, Clesceri and Wilson, and outright liberals like Quirk and Keller has shown just how stubborn political interests resist real change. Fullerton has failed to elect a representative who wasn’t beholden to vested interests, and who was willing to challenge the authority, or even the competency of the city manager and staff.

There is hardly any way to gauge the level of animus that some of the old guard, especially the leftists, have nurtured toward those they deem rabble. Will that change with the emergence of a new generation of politicians?

We hope that new leaders will be able to start seeing issues through their responsibility to their constituents more than their affiliation with the apparatchiks in City Hall and the vested interests that have been so cozy with incumbents over the years.

The Recall was memorable less for what it ultimately accomplished than that it demonstrated, for a brief, shining moment, at least, that in a democracy the people can exercise their sovereignty.