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Eleven hours ago someone on the site Reddit posted a disturbing video of what appears to be a Fullerton bar bouncer beating and stomping on someone in an area identified as somewhere outside of the Slidebar. The video title refers to the person being beaten as a defenseless bar patron. No other details are provided about the circumstances surrounding what appears to be a mini melee in the public parking lots bordering the pedestrian pathway between Commonwealth Ave. and E. Santa Fe Ave. Businesses directly north of this lot include Stubrik’s, The Slidebar, Hopskotch, and Bourbon Street. Commenters on a separate thread about the video wrote that the bouncers were from The Slidebar, but there is no conformation yet available of these assertions.
Several years ago the Fullerton City Council finally acknowledged that the bar scene downtown was out of control, and instituted a series of reforms that included requiring bars to provide security personnel, but the actions of this person, who certainly appears to be dressed as a security guard, are outrageous, and represent a danger to the people of Fullerton.
Red Oak Investments: Residences above Retail, or the Love Boat over Public Storage?
Matthew Leslie
The 295 unit, four story, double structure apartment complex proposed for 600 W. Commonwealth Ave. may only be the latest of its type in Fullerton, but it would be the first in a series for the area west of downtown if it’s allowed to be built. Commonwealth Ave. was one of the “corridors” in the wrong-headed Downtown Core and Corridors Specific Plan (DCCSP) the city tried to push off on the residents a couple of years ago until it was stopped by popular opposition.* Attempts were made later to revive the DCCSP piecemeal from the ashes, but no new wholesale zoning changes were passed for the area, which was arguably the most dangerous part of the plan. For now, developers still have to seek changes in zoning for their specific projects, one at a time, like Red Oak.
Planners have a name for the current state of West Commonwealth Ave., and it is “underperforming,” because that is how they see an unplanned series of one story apartments and modest businesses, you know, places where people live and make a living. Another term for existing small apartments is “affordable housing” that already exists, and it is just the sort of housing that will be forced out as apartment owners see that they can redevelop their properties into four story blocks with much higher rental prices The units at the proposed Red Oak project are slated to cost $ 2,500.00 per month.
West Commonwealth: The “horrors” of small businesses and existing affordable housing…
Allowing the first one on West Commonwealth will lead to a corridor of monolithic buildings along the avenue, casting shadows over the houses behind them. We’ve already seen it happen on East Commonwealth in the form of the Ventana building. And just because Red Oak’s project tries to avoid looking blocky by “stacking” boxcar-inspired masses atop one another and juggling setbacks from the sidewalk, it will still be a huge double complex in an area surrounded by older, affordable housing.
The Rag will take a little credit, but it was probably stopped because residents were calling council members to object to it (keep those calls coming!).
A remarkable thing happened during the August 2 Fullerton City Council meeting. During the long period of comments offered by members of the public, one in the parade of stooges supporting Map 8A, the bar owner map, admitted that it was indeed about development. Referencing his own half term as Mayor Jennifer Fitzgerald’s appointee to the Fullerton Planning Commission, Sam Han cited the need for all five council members to have a voice in planning developments downtown.
Of course, every city council member is responsible for planning decisions all over the city now, and would be under a district elections system too. What Mr. Han and his fellow Stooges for Fitzgerald find alarming is the idea that a member might be elected by the downtown area residents to make the case for responsible planning decisions in the area, instead of packing it with cheap high-rise apartments. Map 8A idiotically divides the downtown into five pieces, robbing the area residents of a community voice.
Calling Downtown Fullerton the “face of our community, moving forward,” Sam Han stated that “when you have planning decisions, every city council (member) has to be responsible for those planning decisions, and I fear that if we go with Map 2B, yes, I agree there are merits to both maps, but I think in Map 8A the long term strategic planning of our city from what downtown could become, it would be more wise for the council to adopt those decisions.”
One could hope that Mr. Han’s sermons are better composed and delivered than his wandering comments at public meetings, but we take his point to be that it’s all about development.
Note that Sam Han clearly stated, this time, that he spoke only on behalf of himself and his family. The last time I wrote about Sam Han it was to question his claim that his words of support for Map 8 (now 8A) were on behalf of the “five thousand members of our church” referring to Grace Ministries, an almost exclusively Korean-American Church located on Brookhurst and Commonwealth, where he serves as a pastor.* (See Jesus Loves the Nightlife?…).
Earlier in his comments Mr. Han acknowledged that many other members of the Korean community were there that night to support a different map, and oppose Map 8A, but that he disagreed with them. Their support for a different map was a wise choice on their part, since each of the three other maps drew an Asian voting majority in the northwest area of Fullerton. Only the makers of Map 8A, supported by Mr. Han and his patron, Mayor Fitzgerald, somehow managed to formulate a northwest district without a majority Asian voting population, quite the high wire act. Jennifer Fitzgerald happens to live in what would be the northwest district in Map 8A. Coincidence that it doesn’t have an Asian voting majority? What do you think…?
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