Fullerton: a mecca for graffiti?

By ADAM TOWNSEND and JESSICA TERRELL
THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
(re-posted without permission)

FULLERTON — Commuters who take the train from Fullerton Transportation Center into L.A. see on the backs of industrial buildings a constantly changing display made up of colorful, stylized letters – the tags of graffiti crews engaged in constant battle with the city, businesses, police and one another.

Along the 600 block Williamson Avenue, for instance, the backs of some industrial buildings are tagged with luminescent fonts. Still other tags are spidery black or white, illegible swirls. Some walls have white blotches where maintenance workers and property owners have tried to stay ahead of graffiti.

Los Angeles County Sheriff's Deputy Mike Thibodeaux, an Orange County resident, works on a special detail that, in part, targets taggers and other vandalism along the rail lines in L.A. County He said that he worries Fullerton may become a mecca for graffiti artists. He cited the youth culture around Cal State Fullerton, the proliferation of tattoo shops to which graffiti artists often gravitate as a career move and the thriving legitimate arts scene in the town.

Fullerton Maintenance Services Manager Bob Savage said he's seen the square footage of graffiti the city paints over increase sevenfold in the last 15 years.

"When I first started 15 or 16 years ago, I was doing about 100,000 square feet (per year)," Savage said. "Now, I'm up to about 700,000."

He said the city has four employees dedicated to painting over graffiti. The city spends about $250,000 each year on removing graffiti from public property. That cost doesn't include the graffiti removal cost to private property owners.

According to records from the Orange County District Attorney's Office, instances of felony vandalism have nearly quadrupled since the beginning of the decade – 85 defendants were convicted of felony vandalism charges in Orange County in 2000, while 321 were convicted in 2009. Two hundred and fifty-seven defendants have been convicted of felony vandalism in Orange County this year, as of late October.

Those numbers include all types of felony vandalism, not only graffiti.

STEMMING THE TIDE

Thibodeaux said, in his opinion, aggressive enforcement is the only way to help stem the tide of graffiti. In fact, he cites such enforcement in Los Angeles as a reason for the rise in graffiti in Orange County; taggers are being driven south.

He said it was possible to prosecute graffiti crews with laws routinely used to target gangs – for instance, the first injunction in the country targeting taggers is working its way through the courts in L.A. County.

The injunction would prevent identified members of the tagging crew Metro Transit Assassins from associating, a tactic usually used against violent street gangs.

"Technically, these crews fall under the Street Terrorism Protection Act," Thibodeaux said.
He said that though many graffiti groups have no history of violence, rival territorial crews can sometimes engage in violence when one crew covers up the tags of another.

"It's about being famous," Thibodeaux said. "That's the whole goal behind it. They go up on a railroad bridge 100 feet up and risk their lives and prosecution to put their names up there, and someone puts their name over it – people don't like that."

Kevin Smith is a property manager for Spectrum Services, the company that manages a building on Williamson Avenue in Fullerton that is a favorite tagging target.

"I went over there one day and looked and went 'Holy Cow,'" he said. "It's definitely a cost. There will be a wall that's 16 feet by 80 feet and they will paint 80 percent of that. I don't know how you're ever going to stop it. Maybe if the graffiti was happening on Harbor and Commonwealth, they'd be out there giving tickets."

Farrah Emami, a spokeswoman for the Orange County District Attorney's office said that as a tagging crew grows more and more prolific, its involvement in violence is almost inevitable. Even if a crew starts out dedicated only to painting walls and train cars, members can run afoul of street gangs by painting in their territory, causing violent confrontations.

GRAFFITI AS ART?

Many taggers consider their work to be street art – part of a social and artistic movement.
"You know how skateboarding back in the day was almost illegal?" said Salvador Salinas, a Fullerton-based tagger who goes by the moniker "GOST."

"Now they have expos and skate parks. One of these days, it's going to be the same with grafitti," he said. "It's like a movement. They're trying to get rid of it overnight, but it's happening everywhere in the world."

Salinas said he and his fellow taggers adhere to a kind of street art code.

"If there were programs where we can go paint (legally), I'd be open to that," he said. "I even get mad when I see kids tagging on businesses and trucks and people's houses, tag bangers that carry around guns and try to involve graff with gang banging. They give us a bad name."
Salinas, 19, said he is part of the Fullerton-based ASP crew, or "Artistic Street Platoon."

Salinas is currently in jail on charges of felony and misdemeanor vandalism.

He pleaded not guilty on Nov. 18 to the charges, stemming from graffiti on railcars, sign boxes, and a restaurant, between 2009 and 2010.

Before his most recent arrest in October, Salinas said he was still paying down fines from past tagging-related arrests.

Savage said if his workers see a particular sign or moniker appearing in tags over and over again, they start taking photos and send them to Fullerton Police for investigation.

Fullerton Police Sgt. Andrew Goodrich said that Fullerton isn't known to have a big problem with graffiti, and most of the tags that maintenance services covers up are black scrawls, often connected with street gangs. The vandal's purpose is the message, not any artistry in the tag itself, he said.

He said the debate over whether any specific tagger is a criminal vandal or a cutting-edge street artist usually plays out in large cities like L.A. that have large swaths of vacant industrial land, warehouses and acres of concrete.

Savage agreed, saying 70 to 80 percent of the tagging he encounters seems to be simple, thoughtless vandalism.

"Some of it is just beautiful artistry, that's all there is to it," he said. "But most of it is just nuisance stuff."

SOME DECLINES

Fullerton's fight against graffiti differs from the experience of many other cities in Orange County, where the problem appears to be on the decline.

Although graffiti is still a significant problem in nearby Placentia, incidents have dropped over the last five years, with graffiti reports in the city shrinking by more than 40 percent between 2006 and 2010, according to police department records.

Most Orange County cities have started using the Orange County Sheriff Department's online tracking system to share and track graffiti incidents, helping law enforcement officials in OC and neighboring counties identify and prosecute tagging crews. The collaboration, which includes Fullerton, is helping to reduce graffiti in the county, said Ramin Aminloo, senior developer for the sheriff's department.

Since the Tracking Automated and Graffiti Reporting System's implementation three years ago, the amount of cash shelled out by the Orange County Transportation Authority to clean up graffiti has dropped from $283,000 in 2007 to less than $170,000 in 2009, according to the sheriff's department.

Mike "Tewsr" Duncan, 30, of Costa Mesa is a studio artist and freelance graphic designer who started his career as a tagger. He said as a high school student, he was intrigued by the style of graffiti art, and also "the adventure of getting out there and doing something you're not supposed to do."

A lot of purists, Duncan said, assert that the illegality of graffiti is intrinsic to the art form, and any practitioner who moves into the legal realm is a sell-out. But Duncan, who ultimately abandoned the practice, disagrees.

"A lot of people say it's supposed to be illegal and to be a free form thing – they figure graff needs to stay in the streets," he said. "But at some point, you spend all that time on it and you want it to benefit you. You have to get responsible at some point. It's probably better to build revenue in other ways, rather than getting caught and fined."

To report graffiti: Use Fullerton's graffiti hotline at 714-738-3108. Learn more at the city's website.

Contact the writer: 714-704-3719 or jterrell@ocregister.com

Orange Juice Blog Must Pay $17,000 to TheLiberalOC.com

by Martin Wisckol, Total Buzz - OC Register
(re-posted on The Fullerton Sentinel without permission)

Art Pedroza’s Orange Juice blog must pay $17,000 to a rival political blog as the result of Pedroza illegally using domain names similar to the rival, TheLiberalOC.com, and its principals, according to an order by U.S. District Judge David O. Carter.

The dispute was generated by “childish conduct by both parties,” according to Carter’s ruling Friday. It started when a principal of the TheLiberalOC bought a domain name with “artpedroza” in it. Pedroza retaliated by buying domain names containing “theliberaloc,” the names of several principals, and that of one of the principal’s company.

The last, madison-alexanderpublicrelations.com, was then linked to the website of the North American Man Boy Love Association, which promotes sexual relations with minors, and then to a site about hemorrhoids. The “artpedroza” site, purchased by TheLiberalOC and Madison Alexander principal Dan Chmielewski, was never used by Chmielewski. In the civil case, Carter found that Pedroza had committed trademark infringement because of his use of the domain sites he’d bought, and unfair business practices because he linked some of those sites back to his Orange Juice blog.

Carter dismissed four other claims for TheLiberalOC, including cybersquatting. Carter also dismissed TheLiberalOC’s request for another $600,000 and attorney fees.

“I guess that is good news,” Pedroza wrote me in one of two lengthy emails today responding to my inquires about the court order. “I thought the Judge was going to make it worse. … I only lost this case for lack of a lawyer.”

Pedroza said he may declare bankruptcy. “I may have to pursue that avenue to discharge this judgment,” he wrote.

Chmielewski wrote me in an email, “This was the first of two lawsuits filed by us. This judgment was against the Blog as a business entity. The second one, which has a scheduling hearing set for December 20, is against Art personally. It is our contention we’ll get statutory damages and legal fees awarded then.”

Pedroza offered a long explanation of his side of the story, which I told him I’d post so everyone could see his view of things. But I’ve decided not to since he said he would prefer I didn’t.
“(My) explanation wasn’t meant to be posted verbatim,” he wrote. “I was just trying to help you understand the case, as all you have heard is whatever your pals at the Lib OC have related to you.”

Pedroza has included me in his attacks in recent years, and continued them in his emails today. He believes that the logos on this blog page linking to TheLiberalOC and Red County – the county’s top Democratic and Republican blogs – mean I provide preferential coverage to those two entities. Total Buzz has an agreement with those two blogs – because of their stature and credibility in the political blogosphere – that we’ll prominently link to each others blogs.

Pedroza wrote me today, “Given your close relationship with them, and the fact that you still advertise their Liberal OC blog on your Total Buzz blog, I would prefer that someone else on your team handle this article. I believe you have an inherent conflict of interest. Who is your editor? I would like to discuss this conflict of interest with him or her before this gets posted on your blog. I am copying the OC Register editors I was able to identify on your website.”

TheLiberalOC and Red County do not pay for that space – it’s an exchange. But even if they did, it would not constitute a conflict of interest. If it did, neither myself nor any other mainstream online journalist would have been able to write about Meg Whitman. I gave him the name and contact information of my editor.

Here’s Pedroza’s parting shot in his last email:
“I am sure that the Liberal OC bloggers will crow about this alleged victory. And I am sure you will be happy to carry their water on your blog. I would expect no less. In fact I was just talking this morning to my colleague Sean Mill, and we both agreed that you would be the first – and only – reporter to jump on this non-story. Thanks for proving us right. How long before you end up working at the Voice of the OCEA blog? Will Chris Prevatt help you land over there? I am sure he can put in a nice word with his union boss, Nick Berardino, the guy who pays their bills.”
I spoke to Chmielewski and his lawyer about the court order, and they were fairly subdued – nothing that I could quote that would further enlighten readers of this story.

After our email exchange today, Pedroza took a poke at Total Buzz and me on his blog. Read it here. He says that I pal around with folks at TheLiberalOC and Red County.

I do occasionally socialize with sources, competitors and others in politics and journalism. I don’t so much with those from those two blogs – I may have had lunch with Chmielewski once and Red County’s Matt Cunningham once – but that’s not because journalistic integrity says that I can’t. And it’s also not because they aren’t generally decent and smart folks. I keep in touch, usually by phone, to periodically get their take on things that are going on. That’s how I do my job.

When I came to the Register in 1998, Pedroza was doing Latino outreach for the county GOP and he became an early source. We got to know each other reasonably well as far as reporter-source relationships go. His political activities have shifted over the years – both in terms of his political philosophies and how he engages in the political world. Along the way, I have found less cause to stay in touch. You make new sources, and old ones fade away.

Read the story I wrote when the lawsuit was first filed, which lays out all of the allegations.

Chris Norby: Local officials susceptible to 'Bell syndrome'

(From the OC Register)  by Chris Norby

"Stockholm syndrome" refers to the counterintuitive behavior of hostages who come to identify with their captors, based on the study of a Swedish kidnapping. Its counterpart in local government is the common acquiescence of elected officials to professional staff. In place of their own judgment they were elected to use, city councils often simply take orders from the city manager.

Call it "Bell syndrome."

Bell is an extreme example of a phenomenon common in local government: a tendency of elected municipal officials to rubber stamp staff proposals over which they have little understanding. It is part of a civic culture that marginalizes elected officials as "political" and elevates appointed managers as "experts."

The position of city manager was a product of the Progressive Era of the early 1900s. Pristine professionals were to govern cities above the political fray. The downside is that these managers are not answerable to voters and can divide and rule over compliant councils who have no independent staff to advise them. These professionals can be just as tempted with the perks of power as the politicians – without the accountability.

Having served on city and county governing boards for 25 years, I've observed and marveled at this tendency. I am fascinated how, after vigorous campaigns to attain office, elected officials often become all too eager to relinquish power and judgment to staff.

Among California's nearly 1,500 city councils and school boards, nearly all serve part time without independent staff. Recommendations, communications, information and staff are controlled through the city manager or superintendent. Newly elected members who raise questions often face a collective culture of groupthink. Important information is obscured. Those who do dig deeper are accused of "micromanaging."
In local government, "micromanaging" is an epithet hurled at those seeking proof that council and board directives are actually being carried out.

City managers and school superintendents need active board members providing strong direction – and looking over their shoulders.

Bell syndrome thrives where elected boards vote in lockstep, where groupthink is elevated, and skeptics are ostracized, and where top staff are seen as irreplaceable experts – with rubber-stamped salaries to prove it. Bell syndrome thrives when self-congratulation trumps self-examination.

A variant of the Bell syndrome led to the 1994 Orange County bankruptcy, as county supervisors routinely rubber-stamped a treasurer's financial ploys they'd neither read nor understood.

Bell syndrome thrives when city managers, superintendents, consultants and bond brokers can lull elected officials into going along with convoluted schemes they simply do not understand. It thrives when predigested proposals are routinely approved and community skeptics are derided as gadflies.

There were 67 new members of city councils and school boards just elected in Orange County. Their job is not simply to continue past practices, but to apply their independent judgment. They must demand information and know what to do with it. They must not only set policy but make sure it's being carried out. They must remember that the only dumb question is the one you're afraid to ask.

Bell syndrome will end only with a vigilant citizenry and press. It will end when elected officials see their jobs not for the prestige and perks, but for the serious policy choices for which they are responsible.

Editorial: Municipal Corporations

By the Fullerton Sentinel Editorial Board

In a recent Orange County Register article, staff columnist Teri Sforza questions the necessity of having 34 individually incorporated cities in Orange County.  "In OC, seven cities serve half the county’s population  — 1.5 million people." writes Sforza, "So…does it really require another 27 cities to serve the other 1.5 million people?"

Simply stated, no, OC does not require another 27 cities to serve the other 1.5 million residents.  In fact, you could have Los Angeles County annex all of Orange County and then we wouldn't have to worry about any of it, right?  Of course not!  Unfortunately, Teri Sforza and Fred Smoller, director of Brandman University’s public administration graduate program, believe that bigger is better and translates to more efficient.  Smoller even concludes that we need a "LAFCO on steroids" to fix the problem.  What Smoller fails to point out is that each and every municipality, special district, and joint powers authority went through a lengthy vetting process and were all approved by LAFCO as well as the State.  Smoller's idea that bigger is better, isn't.

The fact that there are so many special districts and JPAs indicates a broken or insufficient system, however.  The City of Fullerton relies heavily on other agencies and districts for water, sanitation, public transit, electricity, gas, telephone, cable TV, planning, hazmat, specialized investigation units, police helicopter services, etc.  Yet to be mentioned are the various private organizations with which Fullerton has partnered or contracted with for services rather than hiring fulltime employees to perform, such as ambulance and tow services. 

It could also be argued that this system of outsourcing, albeit for public services, may be a smarter way in which to serve taxpayers.  The only real concern should be from taxpayers who see funding these special districts and agencies as taxation without representation.  When the services provided are by a private entity under a contract, the taxpayers are somewhat shielded from the long-term overhead usually associated with public employees. 

Of the utmost importance is that municipal corporations have nearly the greatest local control, second only to the infamous home owners associations.  HOAs are just miniature municipalities that are approved of by the city and/or county and operated by the property owners.  Local agencies have the greatest day-to-day influence on our lives and it stands to reason that local control is better than out-of-touch and far-off governance by disinterested parties. 

OC Register: 20-year-old arrested on DUI in crash that hurt 2 passengers

By SEAN EMERY

THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

 

FULLERTON – A 20-year-old woman was arrested after police say she drove into light pole Sunday morning, seriously injuring her two passengers, after a night drinking in downtown Fullerton.

Police responding to reports of a traffic accident near Harbor Boulevard and Brea Boulevard about 2 a.m. found that a single vehicle had run into with a light pole, Fullerton police Sgt. Andrew Goodrich said.

A 21-year-old passenger from Anaheim was airlifted to Long Beach Memorial Hospital in critical condition, Goodrich said, while a 20-year-old passenger was taken to the hospital in an ambulance in serious condition.

The driver, Andrea Palacios of Fullerton, was taken to the hospital with minor injuries, Goodrich said. Once she was discharged from the hospital, Palacios was arrested on suspicion of felony DUI.

Authorities say the three women had been drinking in the downtown Fullerton area but declined to specify what establishments they are believed to have visited.

Police say that six people died during three DUI related accidents in 2009, including a high-speed crash that claimed the life of Angels pitcher Nick Adenhart. Andrew Gallo was convicted of three counts of second-degree murder for crashing into a vehicle containing the rookie pitcher and two of his friends after leaving a Fullerton bar.

Police say there were also 28 injury collisions and 117 non-injury collisions in which alcohol or drugs were believed to play a factor. Overall, there were 984 DUI arrests in Fullerton last year.

Police are asking anyone who witnessed the accident to call investigator Brandon Clyde at 714-738-6812.

Contact the writer: 714-796-7939 or semery@ocregister.com

Borenstein: UC changes barely touch retirement cost problem

(posted without permission of the author)

Daniel Borenstein, MediaNews columnist

 

GENEROUS retirement programs that have been irresponsibly managed for decades are pushing the University of California off a financial cliff.

President Mark Yudof will ask regents this week to change the employee pension plan for new hires and reduce UC's contribution to health care costs for current and future retirees. But rather than reform retirement programs that are sucking money away from the classroom, Yudof is timidly fiddling on the margins, ensuring UC will be strangled by tens of billions of dollars of debt for decades to come.

Yudof's proposals are based on recommendations of a 28-member task force of UC administrators and faculty, most with a vested interest in the status quo, who quickly concluded that the current system must be maintained to attract and retain top-quality faculty.

UC could not, and should not, tamper with pension benefits employees have already earned. But, unlike most California public employers, it could, like the private sector, reduce, or even end, accrual of pension benefits for future work. That was never seriously considered, even though, for example, Harvard, Stanford, Yale and the University of Michigan don't provide guaranteed pension plans. Those schools instead offer faculty 401(k)-style retirement plans that avoid the risk of billions of dollars in unfunded liabilities.

Nor did the task force question why providing top-level pensions to attract coveted faculty members should determine the benefits for the much larger number of other university employees, who are more easily replaceable.


Instead, the task force proposed preserving the system for all employees with only minor tweaks. Yudof, in turn, echoes that in his recommendations to the regents in which he promotes inadequate solutions that will push the problem onto future generations.

Retiree health care

Since 1962, UC has promised health care coverage to retired workers. But rather than set aside money to cover the costs, the university has only paid the health insurance premiums when they come due. It's like promising a pension but failing to save money to fund it. It's a financial time bomb.

To adequately cover the retiree health benefits current and former workers have earned, UC should have set aside $16.1 billion by July 1, 2011. That "unfunded liability" is equal to more than two-thirds of the university's annual budget.

Yudof proposes two changes. First, he would reduce for all retirees the university's standard contribution to health care premiums from 89 percent of the cost to 70 percent over about the next six years.

Second, he would change the eligibility rules. UC currently makes the full standard contribution for 20-year employees who are at least age 50 when they retire. Under the new rules, 20-year employees would have to be 65 when they retire in order to receive the full benefit. Younger employees and those with less experience would receive smaller amounts.

But Yudof chose not to apply the second change to about half the current employees, thereby significantly reducing the potential savings. Consequently, the university would still be left with an unfunded liability of $13.4 billion by next year. Moreover, since Yudof has no plans to set aside money for future costs, the debt would continue to grow, reaching $21.9 billion in 2020.

Pension benefits

Most UC employees can retire starting at age 60 with 2.5 percent of top salary for every year on the job. So a 30-year veteran can collect 75 percent of salary. (The university and its employees also contribute to Social Security, which adds to those retirement payments.)

But the university's pension plan is underfunded by at least $6.3 billion because neither the university nor its employees made payments into the system for two decades -- while, at the same time, sweetening benefits. Blame regents, management and employee groups who agreed to this.

The contribution "holiday" started in 1990, when the UC retirement system had surplus funds, which ended this year. If the university and its workers had made payments over the past two decades, there would still be more than enough money in the pension system today.

Instead, the retirement program is underfunded and getting worse. The $6.3 billion liability does not yet account for most of the 2008 investment losses. To climb out of the hole, two things must happen.

First, UC and employees must contribute enough to cover the liability increase created each year as employees earn more future pension benefits. Right now, that liability increase is about $1.4 billion a year, or, put another way, about 17.6 cents for every dollar of salary.

UC policies adopted earlier this year require UC and its employees to start contributing again, but not enough to cover the liability increase. Employees are now paying 2 to 4 percent of payroll, and the university is contributing 4 percent. By 2012, that will ramp up to 5 percent and 10 percent respectively, shy of the needed total 17.6 percent. That shortfall means the system underfunding will worsen.

Second, the university must start paying off the total debt, which continues to increase. The problem has gotten so bad that regents have recently decided to repay the shortfall over 30 years rather than 15 years.
Think about it: For the next 30 years, future generations will pay off a mortgage created because UC and its employees failed to act responsibly during the past 20 years. Or, put another way, future students will have fewer instructors and support staff because money will be diverted for the next three decades to help pay costs the university and its employees should have been paying during the past two.

Looking to the future, the university is expecting its total share of pension costs to increase fivefold from today, reaching about 20 percent of payroll during a 10-year peak starting in 2018. It's unclear how UC, which is struggling to pay 4 percent now, will manage 20 percent in the future. Today, that would cost the university about $1.6 billion a year. UC will also need employees to kick in more.

To keep those numbers from getting even worse, Yudof proposes pushing back the retirement age for maximum pension benefits from 60 to 65 for new hires starting in 2013, and requiring them to pay more into the system. The so-called two-tier system is a marginal step in the right direction, but the savings are small and won't be realized for decades.

So, if UC officials this week try to sell this plan as reform, know that it's really only a minuscule down payment on a huge debt.

Daniel Borenstein is a staff columnist and editorial writer. Reach him at 925-943-8248 or dborenstein@bayareanewsgroup.com.

http://www.contracostatimes.com/daniel-borenstein/ci_16598906?nclick_check=1

http://www.pensiontsunami.com/

PRINCIPLES OF THE ORANGE COUNTY REPUBLICAN PARTY

Inalienable Rights: We believe that man's "rights" flow from the Creator and the rights of life, liberty and justice cannot be legitimately granted or rescinded by men.

Self-Government: We believe that the only answer to the current moral decline that our nation now faces is a return to the beliefs and standards of morality which our founding fathers placed into the Constitution. We believe with the framers of that document when President Adams stated, "This Constitution will not work except with a religious people." We understand that the concept of self-government begins with governing one’s self first, then family, community, state, and nation.

Education: We believe in the rights of parents to a quality education for their children. We support parental choice to create competition among the schools. We must insure that no school or teachers union can compromise the education of our children or advance a particular political agenda at the expense of our future generation’s educations.

Taxes: We believe that the federal tax system is abusive to the American people while discouraging investment and growth. We believe in growth-oriented tax policies which would gradually eliminate punitive income taxes and move our tax system in the direction of use taxes and sales taxes only.

Free Enterprise: We believe in the free enterprise system as the best hope for men and women to fulfill their economic hopes and dreams. We know that the free market is the most efficient and the least costly system to deliver the highest quality goods and services at the lowest price to the consumer. We will support only those who support the free enterprise system through legislation to reduce or eliminate intrusive government intervention in the marketplace.

Family: We believe that the traditional American family, defined as any persons related by blood, marriage of a man and a woman and/or adoption, is the cornerstone of our American society, and the government is duty bound to protect the integrity of the family unit through legislation and taxation policies.

Sanctity of Life: We believe that the preborn child is a human being deserving the full protection of the law.

National Defense: We believe in a strong and consistent national defense. We believe in victory over, and not accommodation with, tyranny in any form or philosophy.

Right to Bear Arms: We believe in the unqualified right of our citizens to keep and bear arms without the intrusive hand of government.

Victims’ Rights: We believe in the concept of victims’ rights over the rights of any criminal. We support a system of restitution as a deterrent to crime and recidivism.

Term Limitation: We believe that public service is a privilege. We support term limits for public officials, not as an ideal but as a necessity to dissuade career politicians. It is the people who should rule, not an elite with little accountability.

National Sovereignty: We believe in an America first program in which Government’s first concern is the welfare and protection of the American people. We do not believe in trade protectionism but support political leaders who will adopt policies that create fair and competitive trade.

Decentralized Government: We believe in the power of the individual over the power of the state. We believe that only small government truly serves the needs of the people.

On The Agenda

by Christian

Fullerton - Once again we have a City Council Agenda loaded with waste and stupidity.

The November 16, 2010 agenda starts off with a dear friend of ours, Milton A. Gordon.  You may remember him from a recent post by Greg Sebourn or from Daily Titan where he caught grief from one of his current students and junior reporters, Ally Bordas.  Well, he’s back and this time he is slated as Item 1 of the agenda.  I’m sure he’ll be handing out some do-gooder award or similar…And we’ll be paying the staff to sit and endure the waste!  Just remember, we pay him $302,000 to live in a mansion RENT FREE and hand out awards at City Council meetings. 

Item 2 of the presentations is none other than our other old friends, Rusty Kennedy who will be giving the OC Human Relations Annual Report.  I just can’t wait to hear it…

Moving on t o the consent calendar, let’s see what mischief the council would like to sneak in:

Insurance contracts are up and it looks like Blue Cross, CaliforniaCare, Kaiser, Delta Dental, Vision Services Plan, and CIGNA all win with staff approval.  I knew I should have bought a few shares!

Item 3 is the water rate study at a cost of $67,500.  How many gallons of water will consumers need to purchase to cover the cost?

There is a NO PARKING ban for a portion of Valencia Mesa Drive just west of Harbor Boulevard .  Read more under Item 4.

An update on the building and fire codes is worth looking at.  I would be willing to bet more than a few of these changes will come back to bite taxpayers.  The changes include a green building code and energy code.

Item 6 is an appointment by the Council of the Fire Marshal and an alternate to the Orange County-City Hazardous Materials Emergency Response Authority (OCCHMERA).  The City of Fullerton is a subscriber to the Authority since we do not have our own Haz-Mat team.

More NO PARKING/NO STOPPING is slated for Casa Blanca Drive between Fern and Barris during school hours as Item 8.

Item 9 is an amendment to the agreement between the City of Fullerton and the Fullerton Museum Association.  In the end, it looks like the Museum Association gives up their “profits” from the gift store and membership from 10% to 25%. 

Item 10 is another Fullerton Redevelopment Agency boondoggle in the making.  In the back-up documents for this action item you find that the City “purchased” 34 parcels (each with multiple units for low- and very low-income residents) that are being demolished and replaced with 34 moderate-income homes.  How does this help the City of Fullerton with the alleged deficiency in low-income housing?  It doesn’t.  Unfortunately, you voted for more of the same on November 2^nd. 

Item 11 is a real gem.  It is titled “REALLOCATION OF PROCEEDS FROM 2005 TAX ALLOCATION REVENUE BONDS”.  It sounds harmless enough; much like pulling money from a savings account to cover a checking account.  Ah, but it’s so much more.  It is a huge shell game of millions of dollars to hide the fact that we borrowed against certain funds to cover certain pet projects.  Unfortunately, it just shows more mismanagement of tax dollars.  Read it carefully and keep one of those airplane bags handy when you read the fine print.

And that was just the consent calendar!  Now we get into some really good stuff. 

Item 12 proposes Council raise parking fines by as much as $3.50 to cover two issues:

1. SB857 which is a $3 per citation “fee” for the State
2. and $0.50 because many of the City’s fines are listed to the nearest HALF dollar.  Why is that a problem?  It seems that the State doesn’t want to mess with $0.50 increments. 

So, here we are raising fines because your legislators raised taxes disguised as fees. 

Item 13 is the University Heights Development Project wherein the State was suppose to pay the City certain development fees upon the sale of those really nice homes.  However, the State decided to lease instead of sell them.  Now, we are stuck not getting paid.  The State being the generous body that it is has proposed making payments.  I suggest Council reject the plan (just check the State’s credit!) and order the fees paid immediately – just like they would with any other developer!  The total amount being negotiated:  $407,202.60

Let’s look at this in a different light.  Taxpayers funded the development so that public employees could get a better deal on a house than non-university employees.  Then, when no one wanted to buy them, they come back to the taxpayers and ask us to float the debt a little longer.  What a stupid system we have created.

And finally, not last nor least, is the Fullerton Municipal Golf Course under Item 14.  Council will be considering a fresh new agreement with American Golf Corporation, the managing company for the golf course, as part of the “Recovery Zone Economic Development Bond” which spends $2,200,000 on new irrigation.  The back-up documents indicate that staff thinks “revenue” will increase 200% next year.  I’m not sure what they were smoking when the put that thought on paper but Prop 19 didn’t pass.  What bothers me about this project is that the agreement should spell out maintenance AND operations for American Golf Corporation.  They should collect enough in green fees to cover the irrigation and upkeep of the course.  If they aren’t then I suppose they are on par with our council who enjoy passing bonds under the lie of low-income housing only to replace it with moderate income housing.  But, you voted for more of the same…

As always, if I missed something important so let me know.  If you have anything constructive to add, please do so.    

Cal State Fullerton Reporter Slammed for Speaking Truth

(From Friends For Fullerton's Future)
A California State University of Fullerton student reporter has come under attack for quoting me in the Daily Titan.

Ally Bordas wrote a brief article for the Daily Titan on the financial mess at CSUF and pointed out the irresponsibility, waste, and hypocrisy within the university’s management. In her article, she quotes my blog post Cal State Fullerton President – Lifestyles of Our Rich Public Employees at the El Dorado Ranch.



CSUF Daily Titan scared by the truth



The CSU media specialist didn’t like the fact that Ms. Bordas used my post and even less that it was pulled from the 4F blog. Unfortunately, the story was pulled from the Daily Titan and Ms. Bordas has had to endure a lot of questions on her fact checking.

The fact remains that the words she quoted from me are based on the official legal agreement between the State of California and the Chapman family who donated the El Dorado Ranch. You can find the document at the Orange County Recorder’s Office by asking for Instrument No. 1989-334761 of Official Records. You can also email me at GregSebourn@yahoo.com and I will email the 28-page PDF to you.

Here are a few facts to consider about the El Dorado Ranch that the agreement spells out:

1. It was donated in 1989 by the Chapman Family.
2. CSU Fullerton President Milton Gordon takes office in August 1990, almost exactly 1 year after the donation.
3. No property taxes are paid on the compound because it is owned by the State of California. However, the Orange County Assessor still keeps track of how much the 4 acre property would be taxed if anyone else owned it. That figure puts it at $3,351,724 in 2009!
4. The property was donated and all parties agreed that the mansion would be the “official residence” of the president. This is mentioned multiple times throughout the agreement.
5. The agreement stipulates that the property shall not be converted into student housing. However, there is one MAJOR and MASSIVE exception. The “apartment adjacent to the house [which] may be used for support staff for the President of the University and/or El Dorado Ranch. In my initial post I said his assistant had a home on the sprawling estate but I was wrong. He could actually have as many assistants (a.k.a. “support staff”) as he feels he needs to have on hand and all of them are welcome to live at the El Dorado Ranch.
6. At the time of the initial donation, there were numerous antiques on loan to the State that remained in the home. Some items dating from the early 19th century.
7. The Chapman family still retains mineral rights to the El Dorado Ranch. That means they have a right to pump oil from underneath the State’s property.
8. Item 11 of Exhibit “B” of the agreement requires that any garden developed on the property shall be named the “Alice Wilber Chapman Garden”. Alice Chapman was the mother of the donors.
9. The property is owned by the taxpayers of the State of California yet the sign at the entrance reads “PRIVATE PROPERTY”. Surely it was an error on the part of some underpaid state employee who didn’t know that public property can’t also be private property.
   
10. Not in the agreement but worth noting is that we all need to do our part to conserve energy because energy conservation is clearly not high on the President’s list of priorities. Of course when someone else is paying the bill, who cares… Thanks for leaving the light on!
    

At the end of the day, Ms. Ally Bordas was correct to point up the chain of command within the CSU system and call out the hypocrisy that exists. The leadership insists on burdening the students with higher tuition and “fees” but they are not willing to look within their own ranks. The CSU system has many great minds but where they are being used remains a mystery. In my opinion, the media specialist should do a little fact checking of their own.

For Milton Gordon, its still good to be king!

The Orange County Register Goes Back to Feel-Good Stories

Fullerton - Since the exodus of Orange County Register staff reporter Adam Townsend over a week ago, stories covering Fullerton have become weak and without substance.  One might even say that the OC Register has taken a page out of the Fullerton Observer's playbook.

Townsend was the staff reporter assigned to cover events in Fullerton after staff reporter Barbara Giasone retired in 2009.  Townsend's first stories typified the lethargy in local media, covering lemonade stands and cats in trees.  It wasn't long before he was taken to task by several Fullerton residents and business owners to dig deep.  Townsend answered the call with stories on employee salaries and pensions. 

Fullerton is now covered by no one in particular.  The latest headlines for Fullerton read like a civic events bulletin:

Mon 08 Nov 10 - Red light, yellow light, and ... blue? — By MICHAEL MELLO

Mon 08 Nov 10 - Troy sweeps at league finals — SUBMITTED BY DONNA JUDD

Mon 08 Nov 10 - Fullerton library screens '1981' tonight — BY HEATHER McREA

Mon 08 Nov 10 - Group holds fundraiser for Fullerton kids — By ADAM TOWNSEND

Mon 08 Nov 10 - Represent Fullerton in your travels — BY HEATHER McREA

Sun 07 Nov 10 - Giveaway: Star Wars Clone Wars, Goosebumps & more — By AMY STEVENS

Sun 07 Nov 10 - The surprise and elation of childhood firsts — By MARK UYEMURA

Sat 06 Nov 10 - Cypress beats Fullerton in Pop Warner title game — BY RORY BARNETT

Even one of Townsend’s remnant stories still lingers.  There may be one or two others to appear in the next several days but no one is holding their breath.  The vacuum created by Townsend's departure leaves City Hall under a veil of political fog.  For the councilmembers-elect, that means no one will be looking over their shoulders but a few bloggers, including the Sentinel.  Time will tell if it's enough.

Best wishes to Adam Townsend on his new endeavor to South OC. 

Planning Commission to Approve Flashing Sign - Imperial/Bonita

The Fullerton Planning Commission is scheduled to take up a request for a "flashing sign" at Imperial and Bonita on November 10.  Staff recommends approval of the permit.

4.  PRJ10-00722 – ZON10-00136. APPLICANT: JOSH PIATT; PROPERTY OWNER: ALBERTSONS EMPLOYEES FEDERAL. A request for a Conditional Use Permit to allow a flashing sign on property located at 341 East Imperial Hwy (generally located at the northeast corner of Bonita and Imperial Highway) (C-M zone) (Categorically exempt under Section 15311 of CEQA Guidelines) (Staff Planner: Elaine Dove)
RECOMMENDED ACTION: Approval, subject to conditions

Staff Report            Plans

Although the area is primarily commercial and industrial, there are homes across Imperial Highway from the site which may be affected.  If you live or opperate a business in the area, you are encouraged to attend this meeting and voice your concerns and/or support. 

YRFC Supports Rep. Pete Sessions as Majority Whip

YRFC Supports Rep. Pete Sessions as Majority Whip

McKinley now leads over Chaffee for council seat

BY HEATHER McREA

THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

FULLERTON – Pat McKinley inched ahead of Doug Chaffee on Friday in the race for one of two open seats on the City Council.

The Orange County Registrar of Voters has been updating election results on its website at the end of each day as it counts remaining mail-in, hand-delivered, paper and provisional ballots.

Chaffee was leading McKinley by 30 votes, but Friday's update showed McKinley had regained the lead 8,808 to Chaffee's 8,772.

Incumbent Don Bankhead has held a clear lead since polls closed. At the end of Friday, he had 10,223.
McKinley had taken an early lead as results were posted several times Tuesday night, but by Wednesday morning Chaffee had pulled ahead.

Also holding a clear lead has been Bruce Whitaker, who garnered 37.8 percent of the vote for the two-year seat left open by Shawn Nelson's departure to the county Board of Supervisors.

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