Selling off as much state property as possible to developers because “Extraordinary Times Require Extraordinary Measures.” Characterizing the Orange County Fairgrounds as “A Very High Value, Centrally Located, In-Fill Development Opportunity.” Threatening the City of Costa Mesa’s attempts to protect the Fair with zoning ordinances: “…if the City moves forward with the Specific Plan and the Fairgrounds’ value is diminished, the State will consider whatever options may be available to preserve the Fairgrounds value.” Impolitically but instructively dropping the pretense that the forces engineering the sale have the slightest intention of keeping the Fair a Fair.
None of this would be troubling coming from some libertarian think-tank, or a single radical assemblyman like Chuck DeVore. But Fred Aguiar (which he pronounces to rhyme with “Jerry Maguire”) is Governor Schwarzenegger’s right hand man, his deputy chief-of-staff and soon to be chief-of-staff proper, and is unmistakably having a decisive and negative influence on the Governor as we attempt to convince Arnold to be a hero by stopping the sale.
So, who is this Fred Aguiar, and who elected him to lead the crusade to divest Californians of our historic Fairgrounds, and our legendary parks and beaches?
Originally an assemblyman from Chino, now living in Paso Robles, Frank “Fred” Aguiar has served Arnold in various capacities throughout his term as governor, often seemingly as a sop to extreme rightwing critics to balance off Arnold’s “liberal” appointees like Susan Kennedy (outgoing chief of staff.) To those of us trying to uncover the hidden roots of the OC Fairgrounds sale, he has been at all the right places at the right times to facilitate this swindle. He generally served on the same committees as Senator Dick Ackerman, who lobbied so effectively, secretly (and probably illegally) for the sale. At the time the sale of our Fairgrounds was inserted into July’s AB22 budget bill – we still don’t know how that happened – Aguiar was the head of California State and Consumer Services Agency, which manages the Department of General Services (DGS) which is now forcing the sale through at unprecedented top speed.
Reggie at Pacific Progressive has convincingly made the case that this issue has become bigger than simply saving our Fairgrounds. And it’s not just Reggie, I’ve heard the same thing from many Sacramento folks I’ve chatted with: the OC Fairgrounds sale is a test case, a coal-mine canary, to see how easy it will be in the future to pry the natural and public wonders out of California’s gaping mouth. If we let these Fairgrounds go, next will be parks and beaches. Reggie asks, and quite on point,
How much do you think Crystal Cove is worth if you allow homes to be built?
Does Arnold Schwarzenegger, lifelong portrayer of heroes, really want his legacy to be the selling off of California’s storied public places, her parks, beaches, forests and fairs, to the highest bidder who hopes to make the biggest profit off them? Well, if not, he needs to start listening to more than just his chief of staff Fred Aguiar.
Aguiar shouldn’t be anywhere near our government. He’d sell us out to China if the price was right. That guy defines the power of greed. I wonder if he has daughters. Maybe he thinks they should go to the highest bidder as well? Let’s send him to France and leave him there although that would be pretty mean to the French people. He’d sell out the Eiffel Tower to the highest bidder since “France shouldn’t own any property either.”
Horrified but not shocked.
The RE / Developers are looking for the next big $$ machine
now that their other boom busted.
Are the fairgrounds big enough to be a regional or international airport? If so, the City of Newport Beach may be urging the sale.
Short of bankruptcy and the repeal of previous propositions the state has very few options that do not result in lawsuits because the cuts or tax increases that are done violate some voter passed mandate or federal mandate.
These lawsuits will be successful in most cases as many of the cuts that have been made to the state budget violate these items. This means that the State Government will have additional future obligations to repay to these interests.
If the overall job picture improves this will help, but that could be quite sometime.
I do not think that selling off parks and beaches is a good idea or a solution. But that said I have not heard other options that would raise the same amount of money or leagally cut spending.
Let’s get serious – Big money could be available from selling off the freeways and putting them on a pay-as-you-go basis (toll roads) with financing for the purchase coming from CALPERS buying high yielding bonds to meet pension demands. (Of course the Feds would need to be repaid their funding.)
Toll Roads are un-American. I only travel on FREEways because I enjoy freedom. I don’t want to pay $5 to use the road to drive to the grocery store. Corporatism is no different than communism. They both suck the life out of humans and ruin freedom of choice. One huge monopoly running our lives is just as bad as one big government running our lives. If you want de-regulation, move to Mexico. It’s all about the highest bidder there. America is great because of the wonderful balance between free market enterprise and government involvement. The most corrupt governments in the world are usually the most extreme one way or the other.
What is the cost per mile for the freeways and roads?
Gas taxes, state and fed plus sales tax is about (.18 + .18 + .25) about 61 cents a gallon.
At 20 mpg that works out to 3 cents a mile, or 6 cents a mile at 10 mpg.
Not bad considering the cost of owning and operating the freeways and roads is about 50 cent per mile per car. That is a subsidy of 88 percent or more for the auto driver, even better than the subsidy the bus rider gets, maybe even more than the train rider gets.
oh yeah, toll road companies usually go belly up and the government ends up bailing them out because neo-cons love corporate welfare. they go out of business because they have people like cook running the numbers.
If we would of implemented a marijuana tax and given the OK for offshore drilling 5 years ago, we wouldn’t be in this crisis. You want to get California back on track?. Let’s start with making California a Right to work state and abolish the Unions. Sacramento has been owned by unions since the early 70’s and since that it has been nothing more than a political machine raping California and doing a hell of a good job bankrupting it. State Government has no authority to sell federal land. This sale is actually a violation.
Amen!!! A long, long time ago, the unions did some good for the working man. So did the ACLU. Today, they have turned criminal and are the people that volunteer to be the servants of the Democrats. While the union thugs are getting rich on the union member’s dime (paying another agency a monthly tax out of their paychecks), and giving large sums of money to their liberal unAmerican candidates, the Democrat politicians become filthy rich like the corrupt people they are. As soon as the unions provide money to a candidate, you know that person is corrupt before they even hold any political office. Check out the candidate forms for Irene Hernandez-Blair. She’s a mean, mean woman. I wouldn’t trust her with my children. Tell all your friends and relatives in City of Chino to NOT vote for Irene Hernandez-Blair. She gets union contributions from all over. Their main goal is to corrupt and indoctrinate your kids. If you are a Christian, Catholic, Hindu, etc. DO NOT VOTE for this woman. She’s bad news. She will destroy the work that the current School Board has done in Chino. They have been supportive of charter schools…giving Chino some of the best schools in California. Irene, being controlled and controlled by the unions, will only be there to deny more charter schools to be built. Charter schools will pressure public schools to work harder.
Im looking for my family my name is Mary vijame D ‘Aguiar. Are u one of them. My fathers name is Justin Frank D ‘Aguiar. please let me know.