Going once, going twice, she is almost gone ladies and gentlemen and when she is gone, she is gone for good
You know one of the oldest professions in the world goes on behind closed doors all over Fullerton. It involves city leaders, city officials, corporate executives, appointed representatives and even residents. It involves alot of money changing hands, a lot of late night secret rendezvous, a lot of phony promises, and worst of all, without the happy endings, it is all perfectly legal.
Folks I am talking about the real estate business, and specifically, the long drawn out and highly contested Coyote Hills/Chevron deal.
Last night, the city council following in the footsteps of the rubber stamp hack corrupt planning commission, the same idiots that served up and passed the corrupt DCCSP which is 3 council votes away from ruining Fullerton, voted to green light the biggest real estate ripoff in Fullerton’s history.
Coyote Hills is a 500 acre expanse of coastal sage and cactus that has been empty for as long as anyone can remember. Standard Oil picked it up years ago, sucked it dry, laid it waste, and locked it up for decades. At one point it was a very active oil field and still contains plumes of crude as well as methane pockets. The reason there is oil in them there hills is because the entire property sits on a blind thrust fault and oil and gas love to force their way into the pockets created by the movement of these plates over time.
The topography of this property is remarkable involving sharp peaks, sandstone walls, a variety of soil types and native plant and wildlife that is only rivaled by some of Baja California’s most scenic areas. The views are even more spectacular. With that being said, that is about all that is really nice about the property because it really isn’t safe to do much else with it besides walk it and take it all in.
The land is unstable, contaminated, and almost impossible to effectively and safely grade for development. The experts on the take, however, will tell you all otherwise.
There is a reason no one has built on it all these years and it is not because it was held up in limbo. No one in their right mind would dare put houses on top of a fault line, on top of capped and uncapped, buried oil and gas wells surrounded by contaminated soils infested with mice, rats, rattlesnakes, ticks, fire ants and just about anything else you would expect to find in a virtual no mans land that has been let go to pot for decades.
Well no one has ever wanted to build on up until now. Why? The price is higher than a kite, rigged to the hilt, the officials are on the take, and the public has been duped, dumbed down to the Pavlovian point of being rendered ineffective and totally disengaged from the real process. The dog and pony shows have conned everyone into being blinded and betrayed by electing phony representatives that appoint complete dolts to the commissions that play right into the dirty hands of the smoky backroom dealings by the big boys. You heard me. Chevron is no one’s friend in this deal. I don’t care how many fundraisers they sponsor and slap their logo of arrows pointed down all over the non profit cocktail parties in town. We are being had on this one folks. This deal is worse than the one we started with which wasn’t even good to begin with.
I just love signing a contract to purchase a property with the purchase not subject to the appraisal.
I just love signing a contract to purchase a property and waiving all contingencies.
I just love signing a contract to purchase a property and signing all the disclosures without reading them.
I just loves signing the contract to purchase a property without buying title insurance.
I just love signing the loan docs in the purchase that don’t have any terms spelled out.
I just love signing a contract to purchase a property with the price left blank and my life savings dumped into the escrow account.
I just love sneaking through the evisceration of the last hook that the taxpayers have in the 500 acres, -ABANDONING THE CITY EASEMENTS.
I just love getting my pals huge commissions and smokin’ deals behind everyone’s backs because it is not my money,it is all with yours and your children’s and grandchildren’s money.
The property is really worth about $50,000,000 but at the overpriced amount they will roll out next year they will tell us the entire property can be purchased for about $120,000,000. If this gargantuan ripoff is EVER sold to the unsuspecting public with a bond scam, it will cost us $500,000,000. In addition, the city will then be on the hook for the cleanup of the toxic plumes Chevron has buried all over the place under all the jackrabbit dens and fire ant hills.
Sure just add that to the $300,000,000 unfunded pension debt, $35,000,000 unfunded future medical debt obligations, $300,000,000 in road, sewer and water main repairs and the other couple hundred million needed every year just to meet payroll and keep city hall open. Don’t worry, we will have have parcel tax parties from here to kingdom come to cover the tab while the roads look like Iraq and the neighborhoods begin to resemble well uhm…
Of course that is going to be based on the fraudulent premise that the land is clean, seismically stable, buildable and Coyote Hills we be priced with the best case scenario as if it were a vast expanse of lima bean fields in 1950’s Garden Grove, flat as a board, and with the water table at 30 feet below.
BEFORE ANYTHING IS DONE, Chevron must take full responsibility for this super fund site in the making, needs to clean up the property and be honest in its dealings with the city. These environmental reports were cooked to order just like a fish dish on a Friday night at the Summit House. Don’t be fooled by Chevron and don’t be fooled by Felz. Fullerton is and has been for sale for a long time folks. These dealings are way over the heads of these commissioners and should never be in their laps to begin with. We didn’t get here overnight but we can get out of this overnight on election day if the real candidates would step forward, if the phonies would get out of the way and the voters would finally come to grips with the fact that they have been had for decades and last night was just another day at the rigged roulette wheel.
You guessed it, we are dealing with the same rubber stamp hacks that purposely missed the vote or voted for the disastrous illegal power grab plan called the Downtown Core and Corridor plan https://thefullertoninformer.com/rotten-to-the-core-fullertons-core-corridor-proposed-fast-track-back-door-road-to-an-urban-nightmare/. This corrupt high density development will line Fullerton from east to west with massive high rise development, job killing zoning, choking traffic and water restrictions from the pit of hell was passed by the same rubber stamp hacks that ignored every bit of logic, fact, wisdom and reason that was presented last night. They need to be removed from their positions and the respective council members that appointed them need to be thrown out of office.
If the city was playing fair, if the officials were dealing honestly with all involved and those bestowed with the public trust were living up to their responsibilities, then we would have a properly priced acquisition plan in front of us with a workable timeline. Instead we have a corrupt council majority and a city government that, with this plan, has MADE IT IMPOSSIBLE TO BUY THE LAND at this ridiculous price. This is Chevron’s dream, to get out from under all future clean up, cash in on the unstable, unbuildable land while the city risks the lives of those who can afford to eventually live on it and all at the expense of what could have become an immense Fullerton treasure. Instead, at best we will have more development, less water, more crowded schools, more traffic and the assumed liability of another Bluebird Canyon disaster, Love Canal, Northridge or worse on the backs of the taxpayers. The corrupt city government and phonies on the council have, for decades, virtually bankrupted this town to where we can’t even afford to buy the swath of land behind the tank farm. This deal is worse than the very first one. This is criminal.
Yes they will ram this through the council. The current council majority will pass it. The only hope we have is to delay this thing until we can throw out the council members that are sure to pass this and elect those who wont ruin Fullerton. The land must be repriced and acquired at a fair price for a park and developed only if safe and reasonable to do so. No one has any business building on that toxic seismic rift that WILL CLAIM LIVES SOMEDAY unless it is clearly shown to be safe and I believe that cannot be done.
Folks when Coyote Hills is gone, she is gone for good. It is time for a massive sea change in Fullerton politics. I plan to be a part of this and hope you will too. We owe it to our children and their children. Thank you.
Joe Imbriano 4 Fullerton City Council
#1 by Alice Kim on November 8, 2018 - 10:50 am
Is it too late? Can anything be done to keep Coyote Hills as a park?