Fullerton’s corrupt city government tried to pass COLLEGE TOWN last year-an ill conceived corrupt East Fullerton plan to pack Cal State Fullerton with ten thousand more students on financial aid and out of state tuition rates in new apartments that no one will be able to afford unless the government is paying for them. They need the high priced enrollees to pay for the massive deficit that Cal State Fullerton is facing in terms of its payroll and benefit obligations. The solution is simple. Build upwards of 4000 ten story apartment units and fill them with students who will fetch three times the tuition rate. Yes fill the classrooms and apartments to the brim and sell the seats to the highest bidders. Guess who will be picking up the tab? Yes import 10,o00 more students that the government will pay three times the tuition as residents, that will edge out your children’s ability to attend and build them free housing that the government will pay for. Nice example of how your taxes are being used to screw you over and ruin your neighborhood. Folks that is what corrupt government does. Fullerton is run by corrupt people. Look no further than our roads.
The College Town plan calls for the closure of a freeway off ramp, the closure of Nutwood east of State College all the while to put in ten story buildings adding 4000 apartments. They will bulldoze Big Lots, Smart and Final, the 99 cent store, all the fast food restaurants east of State College and leave East Fullerton with no grocery stores and they expect us to take this laying down? The planning commission tried to pass the DCCSP a few years ago that would have lined hundreds of acres with 10 story high rise housing adding upwards of 100,000 more people to Fullerton. We stopped that too. Look folks, you cant make this stuff up. You have no idea how close this town came to looking like gridlocked Glendale a few years back while most of you were asleep.
Councilmember Greg Sebourn’s wife’s brother- Planning commissioner Mr. Gambino giving me the evil eye in February-This guy voted to pass the DCCSP that almost ruined Fullerton for good.
The DCCSP, College Town, and other schemes are alive and well ladies and gentlemen. They are just on ice for now and in some cases, one vote away from adding 100,000 people to this town. Fullerton is an Agenda 21 city with a Curt Pringle lobbyist named Jennifer Fitzgerald developer operative running around masquerading as our Mayor ladies and gentlemen. Wake the heck up people. Fitzgerald needs to go along with all the establishment hacks like Royce, Nelson, Bennett, Seaborn and Whitaker that put her there and give her pass after pass because they all have their hands in on all of this Kabuki theater on the council that is destroying Fullerton. College Town is coming back folks and they are going to ram this down your throats if you don’t get mad as hell and wake up. The City is ONCE AGAIN SEEKING INPUT ON THIS MONSTROSITY SO THIS MEANS IT IS TIME TO GET BUSY.
Well I warned you folks that this plan was going to be on ice and be resurrected at some point in the future. That old Planning Commission may have put it down temporarily but it is now going to be brought back. I fought hard against this nightmare last year and we were granted a reprieve but only for a short time.
The new council has stacked the deck on the planning commission with pro-development rubber stamps.
Establishment operative Ryan Cantor and pro-development big government rubber stamp plant Christopher Gaarder
We have a new planning commission and the ones installed to rubber stamp these line items will do just that. I warned them last month not to bring these items back. Well, they are going to push the envelope once again. I told them to not even think about it back in February. They don’t care. They were handpicked for a reason folks and that reason is to get projects through.
This massively destructive development for our beloved East Fullerton neighborhoods is headed back to the table. Well it is time to wake up folks. The city council will pass this nightmare when it is brought before them.
Curt Pringle is Jennifer Fitzgerald’s boss. Fitzgerald, Chafee, Seaborn, Silva and Whitaker all installed big development hacks to the planning commission back in January and Fitzgerald and Whitaker both took developer money during the last election.
This is not Ryans first adventure. As a Wireless radiation danger denier, he likes to make fun of my cosmology and the wireless sterilization agenda that is underway in our schools. He worked closely with Joe Felz and Chris Meyer to bamboozle the library board into handing over the Hunt Library for a firesale to Grace Ministries (pending council approval) We will see how he fares on planning.
The Upcoming College Town Proposal for Fullerton and Why It Deserves to be Voted Down
Quite frankly I was hoping to hear some positives for the citizens of Fullerton as it relates to the College Town proposal. Charles Kovacs provided the presentation of the project at a Park and Recreation Committee meeting. It was a Receive and File item, i.e. no recommendation of the project was sought from the committee by the city.
You see I had heard a number of negative issues relating to project such as additional traffic and a loss of a major thru street, Nutwood, and the associated on ramp from that street to the 57 Freeway.
Anyone who has lived in Fullerton for the last few decades knows that traffic has gotten progressively worse. As the city’s population and multi-story buildings have increased, the city has failed to keep up with its road system and its road maintenance as well. The results are that it now takes twice as long to drive across town as it did a mere decade ago.
Therefore, when another major building project gets announced, which includes reducing street access rather than improving our streets, one has to look at this with a jaundiced eye.
However, to be fair I hoped Mr. Kovacs would provide additional information about the project that would highlight some real positives for the city and also some major street improvement plans to handle the additional cars that would be added to our existing roads.
Well the positives that Mr. Kovacs provided our committee frankly were less than impressive. In fact in my opinion, they were almost nonexistent. Namely, a few new restaurants, (which based on past restaurants in the area I expect would be dominated by more fast food joints and a relatively small new grassy space where part of Nutwood Avenue used to be.
What Is The City Manager Thinking?
So if there are real negatives about the project such as greatly increased traffic and very few if any real positives for the people of Fullerton, why is the city pushing for this project so heavily? The one word answer is this…MONEY! All the city has to do is to keep approving high-rise buildings and the money desperately needed to bail out the city for past and current overspending and mismanagement comes rolling in.
You see that for every dwelling unit, no matter how small, each developer must pay an upfront Park dwelling unit fee of…$11,700. The College Town Plan calls for 3,400 residential units plus commercial and retail space as well. The 3,400 units alone, represents $39,780,000 (3,400 residential units x $11,700/per unit) in additional fees/taxes to the city. When our existing road system is already overburdened, you do not have to be a traffic engineer to know that adding thousands of additional cars will only make our traffic problems much worse. In addition to the increased number of cars, the closing of an important access to the 57 Freeway will only add to the traffic and congestion problem.
What out of control spending you may ask?
A $200 million unfunded pension liability/deficit (conservative estimate) and additional millions in retiree health care deficits. On top of all this, the city council with the votes of Fitzgerald, Flory and Chaffee last June 16, 2015approved a $2.8 million 2-year city budget deficit. They then later that year approved to spend additional millions in the form of a 6% raise to begin at the start of the new contracts for our safety workers. This does not include the hundreds of millions of dollars needed over the next decade to deal with our dilapidated roads, sewers and water pipes.
But not to worry because Council member Fitzgerald stated at the June 16, 2015 meeting the following: “And if it were not for the state increasing our PERS Rate we would have a balanced budget today.” How incredibly misleading of our current Mayor to make that statement? I say that because she strongly infers that the PERS rate increase was not at all caused by the city council but by the state. In fact, the exact opposite is true. The large PERS rate increase for the city, i.e. the taxpayers, was primarily caused by a previous vote in 2002 by a past Fullerton city council (including Ms. Flory), to retroactively greatly increase the Safety pension benefits to the current 3% a year at 50 years of age with a minimum of 30 years of service or a whopping 90% pension benefit for life. Ms. Fitzgerald is either greatly misinformed as to the cause of the PERS Rate increase or is not being honest with the people of Fullerton.
Council member Fitzgerald at the same June 16, 2016 meeting thought that the Park dwelling fee increase from $10,600 to $11,700 per dwelling unit was reasonable because the rate had been the same since 2008. This was the same thing we, the Parks and Recreation Committee were told by Director Curiel. Had I known the whole story, I would have been against this $1,100 dollar increase. What Ms. Fitzgerald and Director Curiel failed to mention to the Council and P and R Committee, respectively was that in 2008 that same fee was raised from $3,827 dollars to the aforementioned $10,600 dollars for an incredible 206% rate increase year over year.
It would seem that the goal of the majority of our city leaders is to collect vast sums of additional revenue in the form of additional fees and taxes so that the city does not have to reform the pensions as promised us and make other tough decisions going forward.
The Fullerton special interests win big and the citizens of Fullerton loose big. But you thought the city council and the city manager worked for the citizens. Well unfortunately, apparently not this city council and not this city manager.
#1 by Anonymous on March 30, 2017 - 1:21 pm
John R. Hogerhuis from Raymond Hills · 20h ago
CSUF, my alma mater is one of the best things about Fullerton. I’m happy to have it continue to grow. And I think the linked article is pure alarmist nonsense.
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Jenn Burns from Sunnyhills · 20h ago
I got a “page not found” on the link.
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CJ Eastman from Raymond Hills · 20h ago
As a proud Fullerton resident that lives very near to CSUF, as well as an alumna myself and the mother of a CSUF student, I am offended by this type of reporting. It is one-sided and as irritating to me as the writer’s campaign signs which littered our city with the drawing of someone throwing up. The signs were tasteless and tend to not make me not feel very secure in the opinion of someone that that thought these signs were a mature way to run a campaign.
While I believe that CSUF needs to work with their neighbors to assure that concerns are taken into consideration, I take pride in the reputation of CSUF and would be very supportive of their continued success.
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Larry Brunelli from Presidents Homes · 19h ago
I am in favor of the college town project. What a great addition to the University and for the city. There will be some slight traffic changes as Nutwood would closed but there are very quick and reasonable alternatives. There are a few vocal opponents but they are not the majority. Overall a positive addition to our community.
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Barbara Harvey from Camden Parkside · 19h ago
Traffic on the 57 has already been greatly impacted by CSUF’s changes to their entrance on Nutwood (traffic between Yorba Linda and Nutwood going south is extremely slow since this change was made). If this is plan is approved, traffic on the 57, Yorba Linda, Commonwealth and all the other streets will have much more congestion–especially with all the additional residents who will live in that area.
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CJ Eastman from Raymond Hills · 19h ago
One thing to keep in mind is that many of the CSUF students that live on or very near campus do not have the need for a car. That is the purpose of having nearby housing available. More and more the generation that is entering their college years find little need to drive themselves around and are perfectly happy to share a Lyft.
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Gerri McNenny from Presidents Homes · 19h ago
Do you really support ten-story apartment buildings? Think about it. Moreover, the capacity of these buildings to provide parking for residents is always inadequate to their needs. Moderation in these developments is absolutely necessary. I for one thank those who call for more moderate approaches to development.
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John R. Hogerhuis from Raymond Hills · 18h ago
This article is such biased garbage I don’t believe one word of it Gerri. That’s where I start at, and on this post, that’s where it ends.
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Barbara Harvey from Camden Parkside · 17h ago
We couldn’t bring the article up so am basing this on the artist’s rendering and plans CSUF has discussed for years. We live a mile away from CSUF and support the University. Having said that, I can attest to how congested this area is now. Before CSUF moved their front entrance, it only took 5-10 minutes to drive from Bastanchury and Associated to Nutwood. Now it can take 30 minutes in the mornings and people drive recklessly through there–with so many people commuting.
Even if the University adds more housing, the residence halls are very expensive and most students won’t be able to afford it. Currently, only 1800 students live on a campus that has 40,000 students. This project will only increase traffic congestion on the 57, Yorba Linda, Placentia, Commonwealth and State College.
If there was more infrastructure in Fullerton so that closing Nutwood could easily be diverted to other streets, it may not impact the neighborhoods as much. But having lived and worked at CSUF for 15+ years, I think you’re going to be unpleasantly surprised if this build-up is allowed.
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CJ Eastman from Raymond Hills · 17h ago
I’ve looked at the drawing and I must be missing something because I don’t see any building that is 10 stories.
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Desiree St from Raymond Hills · 16h ago
I’d love to see a careful, nuanced article about this issue written by a credible and informed journalist.
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Joe Imbriano from Raymond Hills · 15h ago
Desiree there is no good way to deliver bad news. Do your homeowork on this issue. That stadium is going in by your house to so get busy on that one. If you want to be lied to in that soft NPR voice, perhaps you can call the law and order Register. Maybe Whitehead or Ponsi can do a nice nuanced piece telling everyone how wonderful the roads are, the traffic is and how lovely it will be to add another 10,000 people and 10000 cars to the 75 acres as they tear down the only stores East Fullerton has left.
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Joe Imbriano from Raymond Hills · 15h ago
CJ-here is a nuanced piece from Ponsi at the Ragister-10 story buildings. You dont think that city planners would ever purposely omit that from their pictures would they? http://www.ocregister.com/articles/area-…
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CJ Eastman from Raymond Hills · 14h ago
Joe- an article from over a year ago is not valid to this conversation. Due to concerns, that plan was placed on hold. In my experience, that means that a revised plan is likely. Jumping to conclusions and trying to stir people into a frenzy is irresponsible at best. I also take issue with your assumption that because an elected official’s opinion is different from yours that they must be corrupt. Oh and let’s not forget that the planners are also trying to deceive everyone. I just think that accusing everyone involved of deception is drama that is best kept to fictional novels and is not responsible journalism.
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Joe Imbriano from Raymond Hills · 14h ago
CJ the way they operate is to bring projects back when no one is looking. If anyone is looking, then they shave off a few units and add a few parking spaces to pacify the detractors. They then postpone againg and try to bring it back again when no one is looking. Have you ever attended any of these meetings? They lie all the time. The city is run by corrupt people. That statement has nothing to do with my beliefs or political views It is a well-researched fact that is widely known among people who are and have been paying attention. If you don’t believe that then the roads are the way they are because the city is run by responsible honest forthright people who want to make sure you get your alignments every 6 months. We have the worst roads in Orange County. How do you do that with our tax base if the city is run by honest people? Do you see these big apartment buildings going in all over neighboring cities flanked by busted up roads? Heck you would think Fullerton has Artesian wells just below the surface considering how many pop up around town. They are actually water main breaks from the honest forth right leaders that have so carefully maintained our precious infrastructure.
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CJ Eastman from Raymond Hills · 14h ago
Joe – I am very familiar with these types of meetings and the inner workings of city government. I am not a doe eyed innocent unaware of the process. But it sounds as though you think that if you had been elected to city council that you would be the only trustworthy person in city government. There are many good people in both elected and non-elected positions and the fact that they must put up with having their reputations maligned by conspiracy theorists is unfortunate. I certainly don’t think that all of them are perfect but making blanket statements insinuating malice is unnecessary.
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Joe Imbriano from Raymond Hills · 13h ago
CJ the fact is the plan is alive and coming back. Forget labeling me because it won’t work. I do my homework and I have the facts to back up what I say. Forget the conspiracy theory because that is just a misnomer for an inconvenient truth. You either want 10,000 people added over there or you don’t. They tried the same crap with the Pollys center and we blew the lid on that. People called me a conspiracy theorist there when I broke that story too. It didn’t matter. We stopped that too. Fullerton is a mess and I am glad you know the ropes. Glad you have taken the time to look into this. The more you dig, the more irate you will become with how our city is run. Maybe you should run for council in 2018. Oh I forgot. Bruce Whitaker doubled down at the last meeting and took district area 2 (where you and I live) off the table until 2020 to protect Greg Sebourn so our area will be without representation for 2 more years. How ironic.
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CJ Eastman from Raymond Hills · 13h ago
I hope you see the irony in saying I should forget labeling you. Labeling whole groups of people makes much more sense. As for running for City Council, I’m not into taking on thankless jobs.
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Joe Imbriano from Raymond Hills · 1h ago
CJ, care to comment on Curt Pringle and our former mayor Fitzgerald?
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CJ Eastman from Raymond Hills · 1h ago
I believe that Jennifer Fitzgerald is a strong leader with vision for where she would like to see the city go and that there are a lot of constituents that support her. But I spent way too much time bantering with you last night and I’m not going to waste my time again today. I consider myself very open-minded but the type of one-sided, accusation throwing “reporting” that you do is not going to ever be what changes my mind about an issue.
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Diane Hickey from Raymond Hills · 59m ago
College Town? They are really picking the last bits of meat off the Fullerton carcass.
Logic, reason, and ethics would stop this project from even being considered but neither of those is present. Closing down a street will increase an already very bad traffic problem, that is the reality. As a result, neighborhoods especially close to Nutwood would be dramatically transformed. How will housing prices be affected? Will homes in that area be sold off and made rentals for students? If so, how will that change the neighborhood?
From what I have seen, neighborhoods that are given over to student rentals become dumps.
Responsible growth is not a problem, irresponsible growth which is in full bloom in Fullerton, is.
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John R. Hogerhuis from Raymond Hills · 20m ago
“We have the worst roads in Orange County. How do you do that with our tax base if the city is run by honest people”
If you want to do real journalism, maybe you can tell us? You’re jumping to a conclusion “corruption.” They best way to convince people there is corruption is by showing corruption, not by pointing to the streets. The streets could be in disrepair for a lot of reasons that aren’t corruption. The money is going somewhere. Maybe it’s to other priorities. If it’s into someone’s pocket (corruption), SHOW US. If not, you’re just a corrupt journalist.
And of course, this is all off topic for this article, but congratulations on making yourself the story instead of “college town.”
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