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Full Video of the League of Women Voters Fullerton City Council Candidates Forum, September 29, 2016

October 1, 2016 //
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Insurance salesmen like blue shirts…

On September 29, 2016 the League of Women Voters of North Orange County hosted a forum for candidates running for Fullerton City Council in November. Ten of the twelve candidates running for the three open seats on the council participated, including two incumbents. Candidates all responded to the same questions submitted by audience members, but asked by a LWV moderator. Candidates were given two minutes each for an opening statement and one minute for a closing statement. The video is just over two hours in length, and is posted to the Fullerton Rag’s YouTube channel.

The LWV requests that the video not be edited for political purposes. For this reason, any commentary I make on the forum will be made by referencing time stamps in the complete video. There were some problems with the microphones at times during the proceedings, leading to intermittent dropped amplification and candidates passing microphones down the long table.

Participating candidates were, in order of randomly drawn speaking order: Joshua Ferguson, Jennifer Fitzgerald (incumbent), Larry Bennett, Joe Imbriano, Jesus Silva, Jane Rands, Charles Sargeant, Jonathan Mansoori, Bruce Whitaker (incumbent), and Susan Gapinski. The forum was quite well attended, with most of the seats in the Fullerton Public Library’s Community Room filled by interested voters.

Questions asked of the candidates included…

How would they make more affordable housing available?

What was their position on the proposed development of Coyote Hills?

Did they think that the District Elections map proposed by the city council diluted the votes of downtown residents?

Would they allow marijuana dispensaries in Fullerton?

What would they do about unsustainable public pension obligations?

What would be their two top priorities if elected?

What is your position on the proposed closure of Nutwood Ave. for the College Town specific plan?

What is your position on the closure of the Hunt Branch Library?

Do you support the plan for renovating Hillcrest Park?

This video was recorded by City of Fullerton staff, and was downloaded from the City of Fullerton’s website. It can also be viewed there at this link:

http://fullerton.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=2&clip_id=801

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Categories Bruce Whitaker, CollegeTown, Core and Corridors Plan, Coyote Hills, District Elections, Downtown Fullerton, Elections, Fullerton City Council, Fullerton Development, Fullerton Planning, Fullerton Public Library, General Plan, Hunt Branch Library, Jane Rands, Jennifer Fitzgerald, Larry Bennett, Medical Marijuana, Uncategorized

Live From the Fullerton City Council, Because You Can’t Watch Anywhere Else

August 5, 2014 //
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9:55 pm

The Fullerton City Council is currently meeting at the Fullerton Public Library’s Public Conference Center instead of City Hall next door. There is no live broadcast of the meeting, although it will be available as a video recording on the city’s website in a few days. The recording will not be broadcast later on television.

The City Council had not yet taken up the Downtown Core and Corridors Specific Plan. During the public comments period of the meeting, City Council candidate Jane Rands suggested that some council members may need to recuse themselves from participating in the proceedings. Mayor Chaffee did not address her concerns at that time.

10:40 pm

The City Council is taking a short break before taking up the Core and Corridors Specific Plan. Stay tuned…

10:55 pm

To make a long story short, the City Council has decided to continue the entire item to a date uncertain. The Rag calls that a victory for now.

11:10

City Manager Joe Felz explained that the deadlines associated with approval have gone away. The grant that funded the DCCSP can be certified without any timeline dependent on the council approving the plan, or not.

City Attorney Dick Jones suggested that Mayor Chaffee and Council Member Fitzgerald may not have to recuse themselves from the discussion and vote because the general community interest would allow for a variation (more on that idea later). He suggested consulting the FPPC about the issue. One wonders why no one had thought to do so already.

7,000 notices will go out in the mail to alert property owners in the plan areas about the next meeting, whenever it is scheduled, as they ought to have been for tonight’s meeting.

October was mentioned as a possible month for the meeting.

Good night, and thanks for reading. More on the DCCSP and issues of recusal in the coming days.

 

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Categories Architecture, Bruce Whitaker, Core and Corridors Plan, Doug Chaffee, Downtown Fullerton, Environment, Fullerton City Council, Fullerton Planning, General Plan, Greg Sebourn, Historic Preservation, Jan Flory, Jennifer Fitzgerald, Uncategorized

And What About “College Town”

May 11, 2014 //
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CollegeTown-Plan

Will Westwood work in Fullerton? Does it work in Westwood?

The City of Fullerton and Califronia State Univeristy of Fullerton are teaming up to promote a plan called College Town, and it has some residents of the city up in arms. The general idea is to transform an area at the southern border of the university into “a place where campus life and city life converge,” according to the “Vision” section of the College Town document available on the city’s website. CSUF has been a nearly exclusively commuter campus since it was founded, but in recent years the university has added dorms to provide on-campus housing for more and more of its students. The idea of a quasi-school space that spills out into the city around it, providing the feel of an actual college town, is certainly attracive for many reasons, but there are also some good reasons it doesn’t exist there now.

The most inconvenient impediment to this plan is Nutwood Avenue’s automobile traffic. The planners behind College Town would like to eliminate that traffic to create a cluster of mixed use buildings and plazas north of Chapman and east of Hope University. Residents in the area are fuming over the prospect of vehicular traffic moving over to their streets to reach other freeway onramps when a portion of Nutwood is closed.*

There is a steady press by the city and the university to promote College Town. Last month CSUF President Mildred Garcia welcomed community leaders, senior city staff and department heads, and university staff to a reception at the El Dorado Ranch.

At least some attendees perceived the event to have been scheduled, at least in part, to gently lobby community leaders to support the College Town plan.

Monday night, May 12, it’s City Manager Joe Felz’s turn to pitch the plan to local residents. Without a current Community Development Director, it falls to the City Manager to respond to the concerns of many local residents who say that their neighborhoods are already overburdened with traffic.

Neighbors United for Fullerton (NUFF), a local political action committee (PAC), invite you to hear Mr. Felz speak about College Town and “other projects that are in the process or slated in the future for development in the City of Fullerton”.

“What About College Town” begins at 6:45 p.m. and ends at 8:30 p.m. at the only remaining branch of the Fullerton Public Library, in the Osbourne Auditorium (the windowless one downstairs). There is no charge to attend.

*An earlier version of this story erroneously stated that access to the 57 freeway from Nutwood would be closed entirely.

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Categories Architecture, Cal State Fullerton, Fullerton City Council, Fullerton Planning, Fullerton Public Library, General Plan, NUFF
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