City Council Rundown - 2023-01-03
City Council Rundown - 2023-01-03
A synopsis of what Council did on Tuesday
Here’s what happened at this week’s Fullerton City Council meeting.
Closed Session
1. A front for the California Realtor’s Association, “Californians for Homeownership”, is still suing us for not building enough housing.
2. Fire Heroes still want more of everything.
3. CSUF is trying to somehow re-negotiate the crap deal Fullerton got itself into 36 years ago regarding the Marriott Hotel next to CSUF.
The newest Council Member, Charles, recused herself from item #3 (as the City Attorney instructed at the previous meeting). Her employer is Cal State Fullerton so she has a direct conflict of interest on this property negotiation item. I look forward to many recusals in the future.
Nothing was reported out of Closed Session so we don't get to know what happened on any of these items. Same as it ever was.
Council Comments
Council comments are usually just self-fellating nonsense but I did find the comments from Councilmember Charles to be worth noting as this is her first real meeting.
If I had to come up with a checklist of what I would expect a middle-aged white liberal woman who works in the education bureaucracy to talk about - I’d be hard pressed to do better than her pablum.
Covid & pushing vaccines? Check.
“I can’t figure out Instagram”? Ok, Boomer. Check.
Equity and “Systemic Racism”? Check, of course.
She’s come out of the gate proving herself to be quite the NPC.
Sorry, Dr. NPC.
If you listen to any far-left news outlet I’m quite positive you’ll know every position she holds on every single topic from today forward.
This is going to be an exhaustingly tedious four years.
Appointments
1. The appointments were funny because appointments are usually pretty cut and dry as the negotiations and wheeling-and-dealing are done behind closed doors and out of the public eye. It’s not how it SHOULD be done, but it’s how it’s done.
So this time Councilmember Charles asked for a discussion so she could shill for Zahra, whom she nominated, and wanted to know why people should be appointed, specifically to the Sanitation District, and Zahra had no answer. Something something not on a regional board, something something “area of expertise”, something something “was in the medical field”.
Keep in mind that when Zahra was on the Orange County Water Board he lied to residents via the Fullerton Observer when he pretended to write articles on his then “area of expertise” that were in fact ghost-written by the PR hacks at the Water Board. This wasn’t admitted to by either Zahra OR the Fullerton Observer (and never acknowledged since as far as I know).
Whitaker and Zahra were nominated for the Sanitation District appointment and the one thing nobody usually wants to talk about is that this is a paid gig - just like OCWD - and that’s important considering as far as I can tell Whitaker is retired and Zahra is unemployed.
Do not think for a moment that people lobby and fight to be appointed to OCWD, the Sanitation Board or OC Power because they have a commitment to our community - otherwise we’d see as much drama in relation to the meagerly compensated Vector Control Board or the myriad of unpaid appointments and that never seems to happen.
While I’m inclined to agree with Zahra’s contention that the same person shouldn’t be on the Sanitation Board and OCWD (Whitaker is currently appointed to that), Charles made me want Whitaker to get the spot when she talked about wastewater and how it’d be good to have somebody with a “medical background” as the appointee.
If we’re going to have two people on Council now extolling the virtues of Zahra’s alleged “medical background” I’d like to finally see some proof, any proof at all, that Zahra was in fact IN “the medical field”. I’d like to see the details related to that topic, how he participated in said “medical field” and why he isn’t in it today.
Since Zahra and Charles want to play this game it’s time to put up or shut up. I wouldn’t care but he’s been caught in previous lies & omissions in the past (ghost-written articles, domestic violence charge) and I’m not inclined to take this nonsense on faith and you shouldn’t either.
Ultimately Whitaker was appointed to the Sanitation District by a 3-2 vote (Charles, Zahra voted for Zahra) much to Zahra’s obvious annoyance.
After that the appointments were pretty uneventful.
The appointments to the Fullerton Investment Advisory Committee were Jung (Primary) & Whitaker (Alternate) which is standard policy (Mayor and Pro-Tem).
Charles was appointed as the Alternate for the Fullerton Sports Field Users’ Committee.
Jung was appointed to the Metropolitan Water District Board of Directors. This one was interesting because Jung asked for the nominees to state why they wanted on the board, which is exactly what Charles did with the Sanitation Board, and Zahra (who was nominated alongside Jung) refused. He stated that he “didn’t want to waste [his] breath” because “we know how this is going to go”.
He was correct in that it was 3-2 in favor of Jung (Charles & Zahra voted for Zahra) but it goes to my point in that his interest and desire to fight for the appointment was directly correlated to how much the appointment paid (in this case nothing directly).
While Jung nominated Whitaker to serve on the North Orange County Cities Joint Powers Authority Board of Directors, he deferred and Charles nominated herself and was appointed. Again no comment, debate or real discussion (hey look, it’s unpaid).
Zahra then asked to be removed (again?) as the alternate appointee to the Vector Control and Orange County Power Authority Boards. For a man who 10 minutes earlier was complaining that he wasn’t on a regional board, one would think he’d at least be willing to be an alternate. Oh wait, alternates are unpaid as well. Whodathunkit.
Charles was then unanimously appointed as the alternate for both boards with nary a discussion.
2. Next were the appointees to various Committees and Commissions;
Jung appointed;
Oscar Valadez to the Transportation and Circulation Commission.
Charles appointed;
Joao Barros to the Active Transportation Committee
Gladys Patricia “Patty” Hanzo to the Community Development Citizens’ Committee
James Cho to the Infrastructure and Natural Resources Advisory Committee
Irene Strauss to the Library Board of Trustees
Adrian Meza to the Parks and Recreation Commission
Patricia Tutor to the Planning Commission
Wayne Carvalho to the Transportation and Circulation Commission.
Zahra appointed;
Anjali Tapadia to the Active Transportation Committee
Tiffany Blay to the Community Development Citizens’ Committee
Kari Thune to the Infrastructure and Natural Resources Advisory Committee
Megan Mclellan to the Library Board of Trustees
Danielle Nava-mijares to the Parks and Recreation Commission
Arif Mansuri to the Planning Commission
Mehul Desai to the Transportation and Circulation Commission.
Dunlap appointed;
Joshua Dale to the Library Board of Trustees
These are straight appointments with no discussion or debate. Passed unanimously.
Consent Calendar
1-7. The Consent Calendar was approved, because it always is every time and there were no items pulled for discussion by Councilmembers.
This included;
The previous meeting’s minutes.
AB361’s remote meeting determinations.
Approving the appeal and overturning of 120 Fullerton’s Conditional Use Permit application.
A contract for $157,362.19 for “video and access control improvements” at the Hunt Library (this is part of the $194,650 Grant that Council voted to match, matching the same amount from the State for a total of $389,300 on 20 December).
Moving $300K OUT of a fund to replace sewer lines and INTO a $434,055 project to create a plan to replace sewer lines. You can’t make this stuff up.
A $1,685,000 budget transfer to fund water main replacements along Associated Road between Yorba Linda Boulevard and Bastanchury Road.
A $740,000 budget transfer for street “rehabilitation” in the Serrano-Yermo-Via Caliente Area.
Here’s the map for item #7 for those interested;
Public Hearing
8. The Pines at Sunrise Village (Rosecrans and Euclid).
This is one of the projects that prompted Elizabeth Hansberg to quit Planning Commission when the number of residential units was decreased (amongst other changes).
The number of residential units has been decreased (down to 113), commercial space was added, etc etc etc.
These buildings look like every other development in recent years and are pretty god-awful looking but welcome to the modern era.
The developer was asking for a zone change from commercial to low/medium density residential and a General Plan revision to allow residences to be built in this location.
Hansberg showed up in public comments to support this project which is adorable considering it’s the same project which helped lead to her prior meltdown. Now it’s “a good project” on multiple fronts. Consistency? Nah.
Councilmember Charles asked if the housing would be ADA compliant, which frankly is a rather dumb question because no developer is going to say in a meeting that they plan to break Federal law. Then she said that making housing more wheelchair friendly is “more inclusive” for people even like her seeing as she’s 5’1” and she has difficulty reaching high things.
That, right there, is typical nonsense, self-interested thinking.
“If it’s inclusive for me, it’s inclusive for everybody”.
No lady, it’s not. As somebody who is just over 6’, if a shelf is lower to the ground and easier for YOU to reach it is therefore father from MY reach. Making it easier for YOU doesn’t equal inclusivity for ME. There is no one-size fits all solution and “inclusive” is a bullshit buzzword to mean “for the groups I care about”. A truly inclusive housing development would need to have higher ceilings for people who are 7’ tall or taller and this feature for this group and that feature for that group and then you’d have to make sure that people in those groups got the appropriate housing which would lead to discrimination issues and and and.
Like I said, a bullshit buzzword.
Then she went down the path of sustainability for a moment which is another useless buzzword. Solar panels, being the example given, aren’t really sustainable on their own and cause problems in power generation (see: the duck curve) around the State, especially considering how stupid CA is regarding nuclear and other actually reliable power generation options. Gavin Newsom recently had to ask the Biden administration for money to NOT close the Diablo Canyon Nuclear facility because we desperately need truly reliable energy generation facilities.
But back to The Pines.
Zahra supported the compromises made between the City and the Developers to get this development approved even though he would have preferred that it had more “affordable” (read: subsidized) housing and more units.
Dunlap asked about the PRD-I zoning standards change (small low developments) and got some clarification, as did Whitaker.
Whitaker questioned the value of the PRD-I zoning because the developer, and staff by extension, wasn’t just asking for the property to be zoned PRD-I but rather for the PRD-I zoning standard in our Municipal Code to be specifically changed by ordinance for their benefit which could then be used by other developers in other areas.
This was staff shoving an ordinance change into a development because I suppose it was somehow easier for them then having a specific plan application. It certainly feels like a dirty trick to change the code where a code change was never really needed. However, that this issue wasn’t dealt with more than a year ago is confusing. Whitaker’s argument, while interesting, came way too late in the game to be of any value.
Whitaker also referenced, sort of vaguely, the trend of the State to lean more and more towards the elimination of zoning altogether which is something that Charles alluded to in her opening comments at the start of the meeting. She had referenced the American Planning Association (which is an association of central planner bureaucrats) who jumped on the bandwagon of decrying “systemic racism” and wanted the City Manager to track such issues in future developments so Whitaker’s comment, while laughed off by staff, was certainly valid.
Zoning, by some, is seen to be “systemically racist” because it can have the effect of pricing people out of living in some areas. The easy way to describe this issue is that if you build single family homes, you’re not building low income housing for people who can’t afford those homes and something something poor people are always non-white. It’s actually a pretty racist argument in it’s own right and largely relies on conflating redlining with historical practices of keeping businesses separate from housing and blaming all of that, again, on race.
To take the argument at face value it would mean that should this development, of single family homes, be approved it would be racist because it doesn’t specifically benefit the poor.
And yet.
The four resolutions (a mitigated negative declaration, a major site plan, a tentative tract map and the general plan revision) as well two ordinances (the zoning amendment and development agreement) related to this project were approved unanimously.
I guess Zahra, Jung and Charles are all terrible racists who love zoning and hate the poors amongst us. Shocking, I know.
Regular Business
9. The Governor is rescinding the requirement which allowed for remote participation of governing bodies (Council, Commissions, etc) so people will be required to go back to following the law as laid out in the Brown Act (or specific rules as laid out in AB 2449).
Staff asked Council to continue the use of remote and teleconferencing options for public participation as well as to continue broadcasting all meetings (which only happened because of the lockdown orders) and to continue using roll call voting.
The staff recommendations passed unanimously.
10. Lastly, the Council reviewed their rules for procedure and decorum some of which are niceties but not legally required. A change was added to let people know that if you want to make a public comment on a Consent Calendar item you have to do it during general Public Comments because it is currently “at council discretion” if those items will be pulled or discussed individually.
This annoys me because the public used to be able to pull these items to bring light to some of the stuff that was buried by Staff and Council. For example, I might have pulled the Acacia Park item a few weeks ago to ask why budgetary items from separate vendors were being commingled and so forth. Stopping members from the public from being able to pull such items is a step in the wrong direction for transparency as it limits the ability to adequately speak on things.
Yes, you can use your 2 or 3 minutes of Public Comments to talk on Consent Calendar items but that can be a problem when Council shoves a dozen or more items of various importance onto the Consent Calendar - it likewise would negate any ability to address Council on non-Consent Calendar items because of the limited duration of Public Comments.
By way of example, this meeting’s Consent Calendar contained $3,016,417.19 worth of items that got no discussion whatsoever. Maybe that was $3Million+ worth of perfectly reasonable, properly budgeted and fiscally sound projects - but Council just takes Staff’s word for it because none of the items were pulled or discussed and no member of the public is allowed to pull the items themselves these days.
I get it, staff and Council grow tired of long meetings drawn out by the rabble who constantly have things to say to them but the Consent Calendar is an abused tool of local government and we should be trending towards public discussion even if it can be tedious.
Let’s be honest, it’s not unheard of for Councilmembers to zone out or just straight leave the room during Public Comments. That’s often because it’s a free-for-all and so much is discussed across so many topic (this time we heard about Rancho La Paz, Fentynal, etc) so being able to specifically address something Council is voting on during the same meeting has a real, valid impact.
An extra few minutes here and there isn’t much to ask when it was uncommon for people to even pull consent calendar items in the first place. The bulk of time consuming comments come in the way of Public Reasons and drawn-out Regular Business items, almost never the Consent Calendar.
The rules of decorum and procedure passed unanimously with only Jung making a comment in approval of the Consent Calendar change which is disappointing.
That's all that went down this week and they'll be back in two weeks, 17 January, for more of the same.