First Night in Fullerton Forsaken for 2nd Year

Council Can't be Bothered to Fund the Things That Bring Us Together

For the second year in a row the City of Fullerton won’t be celebrating ringing in the New Year with our annual “First Night in Fullerton” event.

I have mixed feelings on First Night in Fullerton because, well, it largely sucked most years. I’d been going to it off and on with my wife since the ‘90s and back then we fake ice skated, took a mini-bus to CSUF to look at art (where I saw my favorite painting I’ve ever seen and want to see again to this day) and just tooled around the booths and vendors. We went off and on for years and largely stopped when we had kids because the idea of trying to drag a few munchkins around past midnight seemed exhausting for everybody involved. The booths were lackluster and it had all of the hallmarks of a poorly managed government run event. It was no Orange International Street Fair to be sure.

I loved the IDEA of First Night and some years, of course, were better than others, but I hated that it was taxpayer subsidized. Certainly there are worse things that the City wastes money upon and a sense of community is important so my vitriol was usually kept at a minimum, as was my usual enjoyment.

But nevertheless it was a 28 year tradition when it was shuttered due to the 2020 lockdowns and then killed for budget reasons by the City Council in December 2021.

The timing of the cancellation was odd when it happened because Council voted on 07 December 2021, just three weeks shy of the First Night event, to cancel it. The only way that’s really possible is if staff was already not working on it, not renting booth spaces, not contracting with vendors, etc etc. Otherwise they shafted a bunch of people and wasted lord knows how many hours planning something that wasn’t meant to be at the last minute.

The budgetary concerns were somewhat laughable as Council allegedly “saved” about $91k by ending First Night but no evidence of this was ever provided by staff.

We’re just supposed to take their word that it cost $91k, much as Public Works wanted us to believe that a door cost $5k.

Even if we grant that it really did cost $91k (a dubious claim at best), the importance of saving THAT $91k is itself an issue.

This is because the cancellation was 6 months after members of this same City Council were in favor of spending (at least) $10k on offices for themselves (which thankfully didn’t happen) and after spending $68k to pay OCFA for a useless report that told us what we already knew - that we can’t afford to contract with OCFA (hence the recent rejection to join them).

It seems we have plenty of money for things that Council wants to talk about, explore and fund but when it comes to the people of Fullerton - well, we’re always on the chopping block.

But this just Government uber alles.

We see this nonsense when the Feds “shut down the government” when they don’t get the newest blank check they want - and by “shut down the government” they mean the parks, the basic services, and all of the things that don’t really impact the budget in any meaningful way.

2013 was probably the best example of this nonsense when the Obama Administration sent Feds out to shut down parks, campgrounds and even the Ford Theater despite the Feds not even funding those parks and venues. Those actions were about sending a message and inflicting as much pain as possible upon the people through brute force, nothing more or less.

This is what’s happening in Fullerton, just on a smaller scale.

We lost First Night. We lost the Fishing Derby. We almost lost the Tree Lighting Ceremony. All because Council claims we have no money for anything.

That’s odd. They just approved a $377k park on the Consent Calendar without so much as asking a question despite evidence that we’re being overcharged and manipulated on the billing as I pointed out in a recent rundown.

We’re so broke that Fullerton can’t have events to come together as a community but simultaneously so flush with cash that Council can’t be bothered to ask even a single pointed question about line-items that could more than cover the events we’ve lost.

I’m sure, without question, that if I was given a real look at our budgets & purchasing processes I could more than find the $91k that cutting First Night “saved” us which is why I believe funding the event was never the issue.

Pain was the issue. Hurting the community was the issue. Sending us a message was the issue and it’s all likely going to be used to push another sales tax in 2024.

If it’s not the intentional weaponization of our budget, it’s insulting because cancelling First Night in Fullerton speaks volumes to the lack of faith that Staff and Council have in the people of Fullerton.

I may be a cynic and a curmudgeon but I’m not blind. Just because I don’t participate in the local events doesn’t mean they don’t exist and the good points can’t be admired.

You can’t look at the Day of Music or what was the Art Walk (which I participated in a few times) and not see people willing to come together as a community. Hell, the Christmas Sparkleballs on the Yale loop are more inspiring than anything City Hall has ever put together.

I may not have much faith in government, I do have it in people in general.

While it’s always debatable how much a community is willing to come together and how competing interests cause problems (like the Karens who constantly try to take our fireworks away), the idea that a community as big and as rich as Fullerton was never given a chance to save a damn near 30 year event is tragic.

Like most things government related, the assumption seemed to be that just because the bureaucrats HAD been in charge of an event that meant that only they COULD be in charge of such an event and so cancelling it on their say-so, for questionable budgetary reasons, was all it took to give it the heave-ho.

I expect more from my City Council and Council should have expected more from Staff.

We should have been shown a line-item budget for what things cost in relation to First Night and given options, or even a chance, to find alternative solutions for the once a year event.

When Day of Music asked for fee waivers in May of this year the Parks Department estimated that it would cost them about $4k to accommodate the event with half the cost being a rental fee, part being pass-through costs & finally fees that exist for the sake of fees;

If 28 hours of full-time staff was budgeted at $700 and police weren’t even included in the Day of Music costs - how did that event manage to come in at less than $5k but First Night is supposedly $91k?

I’m not saying it’s NOT that expensive but the math seems suspicious to say the least and City Hall doesn’t have a track record deserving of our faith and trust.

Obviously the biggest budgetary concern I can see being a problem is overtime for Police but seeing as how they’re out in force on NYE regardless, and in large part to subsidize the out of control free-for-all that is our Downtown bar scene, I don’t think shifting an officer or two up the Street (or hiring private security) would actually impact much spending.

I thought perhaps the costs might be associated with a fireworks display but we stopped doing those even for the 4th of July in 2019 owing to recent Solar Panel installations at the local schools;

But even if we DID find a spot for fireworks, say perhaps the 10,000 seat Stadium at CSUF that we paid to build, the last time we paid Pyro-Spectaculars Inc. for fireworks in January of 2020, it cost us $6,250.

As for the costs of cleanup and other staffing that might exist I wonder how much could be volunteered, outsourced or funded by groups like the Downtown Bar Association if asked.

I guess we’ll never know because solving the problem of how we fund a community event was never really a concern - the concern was simply cutting the event for effect.

As for NYE? Personally I’ll probably be walking down the street to clink glasses with some neighbors before starting a marathon of The Twilight Zone. Maybe next year we can come together as a community and show City Hall how things are supposed to be done with or without their stamp of approval.

I hope you all have a Happy New Year and I’ll see you again in 2023.