- Orange Land-Grab enablers:
Bought-off councilman Denis Bilodeau,
and Matt Cunningham, tireless tool of the very wealthy if they pay him enough.
As Mayor Quimby outlined last night, things are really heating up in the city of Orange, over the land-grab being attempted in the town by developer John Martin and his Ridgeline Partners.
In short, Orange, which already has less parkland per resident than New York City, is in danger of losing its opportunity to enhance park land by squandering land zoned as recreational open space – ending up with 0ne-third less – 100 rather than 150 acres – if Ridgeline has their way. (See the graphic below.)
And like the most loyal handmaidens, four out of five Orange Councilmen – that’s the four Republicans on council – ignoring the overwhelming desires of the town’s citizens, gave Ridgeline the green light for this, changing the zoning of two big areas so that Ridgeline could build their residential and commercial projects there in the very spots where Orange folks have frolicked for decades.
And here’s where it gets decidedly hinky: It’s illegal for a developer to donate any amount of money to appointed officials like planning commissioners who may be voting on a matter affecting their interests over the next 12 months. Martin’s Ridgeline got around this by dumping $40 grand into the OC GOP this year, which was IMMEDIATELY funneled from there to help elect Republican Orange City Council candidates Denis Bilodeau and Fred Whitaker, who then went on to dutifully vote as Martin ordered. Tina Richards of the Foothill Sentry provided chapter and verse of this scandal back in December.
Now, check out how Orange’s open spaces would be WORSE THAN DECIMATED if this plan goes through:
The good news is that the town’s population has completely activated itself to resist this encroachment. For the populace to override this corrupt Council decision would have required a little over 7000 signatures to demand a referendum – the folks easily and quickly acquired 12,000 signatures. With that, there are two options – the Council can either SAVE the city a lot of money by rescinding their decision (hah, fat chance with these vendidos) or there will have to be a special election to decide this issue. The issue of whether Orange residents want to give up 1/3 of their park space, for … well, for John Martin’s profit, and the Republican councilmembers’ careers.
But here’s what really brings joy to my heart and inspired the title of this post: The local Republicans of Orange are rising up against the Council and their Party over their disgust with these shenanigans, and even threatening mutiny (leaving the Party after lifelong loyalty.) We’ve been seeing this lovely spectacle a lot in the recent couple of years – rank-and-file registered Republicans joining with Democrats and independents in their revulsion against the extremism and/or corruption of Republican politicians and insiders.
Examples?
- The successful struggle against the OC Fairgrounds Swindle since 2009.
- The glorious uprising against the so-called “Reform Board” in the Capistrano Unified School District last year.
- The many, many Huntington Beach Republicans who voted last November for good-government environmentalists Joe Shaw and Connie Boardman in revolt against the similarly developer-enslaved council there, and their constant chipping away of the Bolsa Chica Wetlands.
- We’re seeing it now all over Wisconsin, and to a smaller degree in Costa Mesa, in reaction to those Republican governments’ evisceration of the public workforce, many of whom had always been Republican.
Anyways, here’s what I’m talking about. The following letter to the Orange County GOP, penned by brand-new activist and lifelong Republican donor Bob Kirkeby, was signed by forty of his similarly heretofore GOP loyalist neighbors in the space of a day and is still making its way around the neighborhood. These signers have been loyal Republicans for an average of FORTY YEARS, and had long been generous and wealthy donors to the Grand Old Party. The letter somehow also made its way into my inbox yesterday (I got no transom), it speaks for itself beautifully, and I just had to share it with you.
********************
Contact: Bob Kirkeby
bobkirkeby@aol.com
(714) 403-6655
July 8, 2011
To: The Republican Party [of Orange County]
This letter is from a group of citizens in East Orange. We are all Republicans or at least have been until now. We have given generously to the Republican Party and specific candidates because we believed in the overall message.
We like the idea of small government and individual responsibility and have always felt we were a good fit for the Republican Party. We also love the outdoors.
I am sure you have heard about the Ridgeline development. A developer purchased our local golf course, tennis facility and Olympic sized swimming pool. It has been zoned Recreational Open Space and has been used by people in the region for the last 40 years. The project is overwhelmingly opposed by local residents who have enjoyed this open space for generations.
The developer wants to put residential housing on this land. The City Council voted 4 – 1 to support this plan without ever addressing or responding to legitimate community concerns. The 4 votes were the Republicans. The only no vote was the sole Democrat.
We have discovered that the Republican Party of Orange County and the Republican Central Committee PAC have acted as a conduit for laundering $40,000 in contributions from developer John Martin and Ridgeline Partners to council candidates Fred Whitaker and Denis Bilodeau, who would have been barred from any contributions because of multiple development approvals pending.
Whitaker and Bilodeau are also Central Committee Members, and now on the City Council of Orange.
While this may all be “LEGAL”, it stretches the spirit of the law, and there is certainly a perception of impropriety which has tainted the entire public process. I will go out on a limb here to say the folks of East Orange will put a lot of effort into supporting candidates who support us and to making sure that these two Republicans are not re-elected. A large political PAC is currently being formed by Republicans, to make sure that Bilodeau and Whitaker are defeated if they run again. In addition, a referendum drive has been started to overturn their recent action.
We have already found $40,000 that was funneled to the Republican Party and on to the city council. We can only imagine that more money is promised once the deal is done.
This is a painful decision for all of us but if we cannot count on the Republican Party to protect the environment and quality of life in our area we must come to grips with the fact that we have aligned with the wrong political party. If this vote is not reversed, many influential community members – myself included – will withdraw from the Republican party.
This letter was passed around for 1 day and gathered these signers. We will continue to pass the letter around.
Many thanks for your time
Signed…..etc.
2.10.120 – Solicitation of Contributions from Persons who have City Business Dealings.
No appointed City Official or City employee shall solicit, direct or receive a contribution from any person, or his or her agent, who has a proceeding involving legislative or administrative action pending before such appointed City Official or City employee or has had such a matter pending during the preceding twelve (12) months. This section does not apply to an appointed City Official or City employee who is a City Candidate acting in furtherance of his or her own controlled committee.
*********************
Oh yeah, right. Loyal Orange Juice readers, you’re wanting to hear about Matt “Jerbal” Cunningham, our blog’s long-time Republi-hack bete-noir, and denizen-wordsmith of the hacky Red County Blog. To all appearances, this blog and our sister blog the Fullerton Fringers drove him out of the blog world recently, mostly by highlighting his hypocrisy in spending his blog-days fulminating against big government while making hundreds of thousands of dollars scouting Facebook and handing out toothbrushes for Rob Reiner’s big-government Children’s and Families’ Commission. [see comment below]
It’s not entirely surprising that he would poke his head into this particular contretemps – he is after all an Orange resident, a member of the Orange Planning Commission that approved the Ridgeline project, and, quite humorously, a OC Parks Commissioner. And, not long ago, before slumping off from the blogosphere, he did pout, “Blogging doesn’t pay the bills, anyway.” But is that really a good excuse to lean down and cut the balls off his own charge as Commissioner, Orange parklands, for thirty pieces of silver?
That’s what it looks like anyway. None of us have seen his paycheck stubs. But at several recent Council meetings he was observed SCURRYING about – with his wife Laura, the Bane of Gays – making sure their little Astroturf contingent was all in line and organized to give the impression that lots of Orange residents REALLY WANTED their recreational open spaces rezoned to enrich a developer! (By Astroturf – I’m sure you know, but just in case – we mean a totally manufactured phony grass-roots group waving signs made by the monied interests.)
Will this fellow ever not choose to kowtow to the interests of the wealthy and well-connected over the needs of the rest of us? And will we ever not feel like kicking him hard in the butt? Time will tell, but it’s not looking good…
Comrade Vern, lets keep Sully Miller Gravel Pit intact and concentrate on your dreams.
BUMPER
I thought it was the
fake degreethat did him in. But, your eplaination makes more sense, especially since we know he doesn’t embarass easy (ie. Friends of Mssr. Urell).Sounds like another great park in the making: we’ll call it a park but then will buid 10,000 houses.
Tell us more about this
fake degree, kenlaysnotdead – you’re getting out of my depth.I read that
he had been bullshitting about his GWU degree.There was something too where LOC retracted something.
Likely more buillshit internet rumors, but in Matt’s case you never know what’s believable.
[Ed. note. Apparently – say what you will about Jubal – but his GWU degree is not fake.]
Personally, I think someone told him to decide what he wanted to do: Continue to fleece the government as a consultant, (paying the bills) and shut the fuck up OR Continue to blog. But with the later you have to explain about Chip Hanlon getting sued for fraud, which claimed to have heard about from the OC Register?, Continue to get berated for the whole ugly church thing and face the music about being a hypocrite.
Thats just my guess. it’s what i would have done. it must be killing the guy to keep his trap shut, but………..”Blogging doesn’t pay the bills”.
Trust me. You haven’t heard the last of this guy, like during any good rain the sewage rises to the street.
you read it because you wrote it. Ain’t true. As far as sewage rises to the street, you are living proof of it KLND
So does the guy have a diploma from GWU?
me thinks NO.
and I repeated the rumor, didn’t start it.
Or transparently? depending on who you ask!
Last thing I’ll say on this.
The bigger question is do YOU have a diploma from GW? How was divorce court? Must suck to have to hide in an office when your lovers husband comes looking for you. Screwing any co-workers at St. Joe”s?
Edwin. Perhaps you need to be told of our rules for commenting on this blog. Let me start with no personal attacks. I’m sure you are capable of adding some valid inputs. Thank you!
Larry Gilbert: “No personal attacks” are allowed on Orange Juice? How can you type that with a straight face? For starters, try reading this post and the comments t see what a ridiculous thing that was to say.
Been around.
The “no personal attacks” policy dates back to our founder Art Pedroza. Those were his rules which I fully agree with. If you do your homework, and read the post, you will see that this story was not written by me nor do I trump the work of our other bloggers.
While I have deleted profanity that I catch in spot reading comments, I am not the Juice policeman.
So back to your point. I do have a straight face with my writing on this blog.
I agree these areas shouldn’t be re-zoned or developed. I also agree the OC GOP sucks in that it uses greed for a moral compass. Plus I’m against corporate welfare at the expense of local citizens. However, I hope everyone that wants more park space is also for a sustainable population. Otherwise these homes will end up contributing to urban sprawl somewhere else.
Somebody contacted me with gripes about this story, but made me promise not to tell anyone that he or she contacted me.
For one thing, this person wants me to pass along that Matt Cunningham never made “hundreds of thousands” at the Children and Families Commission, but that he was in charge of a “team” that did that work, and doled out most of that money to others. Whether that makes much of a difference is up to y’all.
Most of the other quibbles this person had with my story were minor – I made a couple of corrections, and didn’t bother with others as they seemed petty.
It was notable (and typical) that this person didn’t have anything noteworthy to say about the main points – the corruption of the OC GOP, the grassroots revolt, and how the revolt includes many previously loyal Republicans.
There was one issue of substance that this person was adamant about: PRIVATE PROPERTY IS PRIVATE PROPERTY, and the zoning of that property is NOT the public’s business!
It would be fun to argue over THAT premise, if this person would bite the bullet, and come on this thread like a man (or woman) – even if anonymously – and try to make that case.
Aha Lawsuit!
Please promises me comrade Vern that when you will get served summons you will give me a first right to refuse to buy the OJ for $1 so I can become new owner and fire Mr. Gilbert.
That person sounds like an idiot when it comes to zoning. That’s the one thing that is most definitely public business. Seems to me like all psycho “private property” people do a 180 when someone wants to build a nuclear power plant or plastic factory or strip bar a few streets downwind from where they live.
Both private property law and zoning law are equally important. However, we wouldn’t even be talking about any of this if the OC GOP wasn’t so greedy or bent on providing welfare to corporations at the expense of us taxpaying citizens. Greed wasn’t always a GOP value.
Incorrect. Cunningham did make hundreds of thousands. His contract lasted from 2006 through 2010 @ $200,000 a year. He split that with non-profit PR operation, but did make six-figures a year passing out toothbrushes, listening to the radio, and writing op-eds for repuglican fools like Bill Campbell as well as liberal Democrats like Delaine Easton.
Check out his billings at Friends For Fullerton’s Future.
Tony, I looked at the billing statements on your blog and Matt didn’t come close to making more than six-figures a year. You have the documents in front of you. Add it up yourself.
We all get that you have this personal hatred of Matt Cunningham. It’s a free country. But it’s hard to take you seriously when you deliberately lie about him.
When are you ever going tell your readers about those redevelopment dollars you sucked down from Fullerton taxpayers in the 1990s on the train station boondoggle? Or when will you blog about your $13 million “eminent domain” payout from OCTA last year? Why sell to OCTA when you can get the taxpayers for a better price and tax advantages by forcing an eminent domain action?
We never hear a word from you about Chris Thompson taking full-time cadillac benefits for putting in a few hours a month as a part-time school board member. If Matt, Brett Barbre or Roland Chi or any of your other targets did that, you’d be blasting them as hypocrites, but Chris is your buddy so he gets a pass.
Oh Brother what a load. That must be you, Jerb.
I PAY the City of Fullerton rent for a master lease on their building. Boondoggle? The City got a first class historic renovation of a National Register Building and didn’t have to put in a nickle.
The OCTA took my brother’s property through eminent domain. Was he supposed to give something away? If the taxpayers have a problem with that then they can go cry to your buddy Campbell who is on OCTA.
Your share of the Rob Reiner dough did pass into the six figures a year. It’s in the contract. Are you proud that you got $200 an hour taking Steve Greenhut out to lunch and listening to the radio and writing op-ed pieces for Democrats?
Go back into your hole.
Haha. Anyone who criticizes you must be Matt Cunningham, huh? Newsflash: he’s not the only person around who knows you’re a pathetic hypocrite, Tony. here are a lot of us.
This is from an April 1989 LA Times article:
“Earlier this month, the City Council unanimously approved a proposal from Bushala Brothers Inc. to spruce up the station and add a gift shop, newsstand and cafe. In the agreement, the Bushala firm would purchase a 105-year lease for $150,000 and restore the station for a minimum of $400,000.”
Here’s the article: http://articles.latimes.com/1989-04-29/local/me-1815_1_fullerton-train-tony-bushala-amtrak-trains
105-year lease for just $150K! That’s a pretty sweet deal, Tony.
The City of Fullerton acquires the train station (courtesy of Fullerton taxpayers), then turns around and leases it to you for less than $1,500 a year. You put a few hundred thousand into renovations, and you and your heirs are making money off it for the next century.
That’s a taxpayer subsidy by any other name.
And tell us again why Chris Thompson gets a pass from you for taking full-time, taxpayer funded benefits for a pat-time school board position? If that was Roland Chi or Brett Barbre or some other Bushala punching bag, you’d be blasting all over your little blog. Why is it OK for Chris Thompson?
Why didn’t you just buy the train station yourself, instead of having the taxpayers do it fr you?
Vern you have researched and reported concisely and accurately the recent reprehensible acts of the republican establishment. The republican party and their developer beneficiaries have profited to the public’s detriment.
The residents have organized and collected signatures to veto the four corrupt republican council members decision to give away the public’s open space to a developer which is also a major city council campaign contributor. The residents have spoken, preserve their open space or suffer a recall.
Denis Bilodeau is also the orange county water board member for district 2 which includes the city of Orange. He is also known for creating faulty traffic reports for his developer friends as was done in the Main Street parking lot swindle here in Garden Grove. He is a shill for whomever will pay him handsomely just like his comrade Matthew Cunningham the worst hypocritical deviant in the county.
I’d love to see all of those turkeys recalled. People like that can’t be trusted.
Hey GG Voter,
Don’t forget about the corrupt democrat Santa Ana Council majority – the GREAT SA Council majority, as SM calls the b**tards – those creeps also profit from crooked developers.
True that, junior, true that.
Vern and/or junior aka Mike Tardif,
Please provide some sort of documented fact showing that “the GREAT SA Council majority” is working with “crooked developers”. Who are these “crooked developers”? What “crooked” acts have they committed?
Also please provide some evidence that documents how they are profitting from any developers. Other than perhaps a campaign contribution I doubt they have received a thing.
Name calling is easy fellas, lets see some evidence to back up the allegations.
sounds like a recall of these 4 is in order.
to Bob Kirkeby, as you collect signatures, I would suggest a ballot question to the residents of Orange asking them for a reversal of the Council’s action.
remember: the power to control this situation is in your hands: this is a replay of the situation in ontario involving Postmus and members of the Board of Supervisors:the names have changed-The recall of the 4 added to the ballot question on open space should be joined.
Remember: these clowns did this in Orange because they thought the residents would not fight the action.-that the residents would just roll.
Get the Feds involved in this immediately. They were actively involved in the indictments that the San Bernardino County DA got earlier this year. Its called corruption…..
GO FORIT…..If you dont this will be lost and the likes of Bilodeau, Whitaker, Cunningham, and Martin win……Get the Tustin recall folks involved
The residents have already proven they can gather enough signatures for a recall. A successful recall would prohibit any of these crooks from any elected office. Let’s see Bilodeau would be unable to serve on the water board.
I concur an investigation by the feds would set a precedent for any future corruption in this county.
*In the words of Wolfman Jack after a response from a caller in Del Rio, Texas:
“A Corrupt Boogaloo? I don’t exactly know what that is!”
– Jack responds: “Look down!”:
I can’t dispute that the zoning of private property is a legitmate matter of public interest, but I reject the premise of your article that this property represents one third of the City’s open space. Simply stated, it isn’t the City’s property at all, it is private property. This private property owner is not responsible for the absence of open space in the City, so the decision of whether to re-zone the property should not be based on that premise. If the City needs more open space, it should buy it out of the City’s funds, not disproportionately burden one property owner with that burden. I am not sure how I would vote on the rezoning if it were my decision, but one factor I certainly would not consider is the City’s need for open space unless I was prepared to acquire the property for public use.
Vern et al.
To this point I have stayed away from this property rights debate. What the angry residents/taxpayers of the city of Orange are experiencing is very similar to our concerns in Mission Viejo when we lost on Measure D.
As property rights activists who fights to protect private property we had concerns on major zone changes by our city council majority. OC GOP Chair Scott Baugh called our Initiative ballot box zoning.
If you travel south on Interstate 5 to Ortega Highway and head towards Lake Elsinore there is a pending major project called Rancho Mission Viejo in our unincorporated area that was approved by the county. A compromise was reached in which 7,694 acres will be developed and the balance of 15,121 acres are set aside as open space. This project will have up to 14,000 dwelling units and two to three million square feet of commercial development.
Not attending any of the Orange city meetings I do not know what compromise, if any, was discussed or put into place to satisfy both the property owner and the impacted residents.
I understand the developers have refused to negotiate or compromise, feeling so far that it was unnecessary as they had the Council in the bag. From yesterday’s Register story (http://www.ocregister.com/news/referendum-308028-orange-signatures.html )
Tom Davidson, the president of the Orange Park Association, said that referendum was its only recourse after he said developer John Martin would not negotiate. Relationships between the two groups soured during the development’s 5-year planning process, and Davidson wants to renew negotiations.
“It’s up to (the developer) now,” said Davidson, who is an Orange Park Acres resident and the chairman of the city’s Park Planning and Development Commission. “This is our way of saying, you’d better talk to us.”
Ken Ryan, the project planner of Ridgeline Equestrian Estates, called the referendum effort an attempt to manipulate the political system to serve the needs of a small group of individuals. [small? 12,000 so far? – ed]
“My general attitude is to not negotiate with terrorists,” Ryan said. “Our team will have to ask some hard questions about whether this community is the place to be doing business.“
Haha, I like that take-our-ball-and-go-homism from the developers. Sure, you do that. Go find some community where none of the citizens are paying any attention. Those places deserve whatever happens to them.
We learned one other useful thing from this Register article – If the council refuses to rescind their vote, Orange is still not necessarily stuck with an expensive special election, as long as the council agrees to put the question onto November’s ballot. That would be for the best (if these are really fiscal conservatives.)
(As posted elsewhere…)
I was in Jerbalville with our Petition to save the recreational open space at Ridgeline in Orange when I was besieged by gnat-like developer paid hit-piece delivery kids led by their pedal to the metal, bat turning in neighborhoods screaming Mercedes momma queen bee….B A Blondie…well that is the color this week.
Apparently I slapped a hornets’ nest when I knocked or put a flyer on the Jerbal door. The swarm followed me until I ducked for cover. The intensity of the attacks is ramping up. There must be more fear from the Martin, Ryan, Gaynor team than we realized. It is good that they have a strong alliance with the Jerbal who sat on the Orange Planning Committee when their project was approved. Friends helping Friends…Developers and their Pet Jerbals…NICE.
ANYwhere there is vacant land a developer or more waits to BUILD. This is the
inevitable-forget the fight.
Bobcat vs Jerbal in the Pit: Bobcat wins.
Jerbel, if all else fails use your marshmellow as a flotation device.
River, Creek and Ocean polluted regularly with non-lethal and lethal toxins. City Council run by barristers not pleas. You pay for your own clean water everywhere and anywhere you go.
Google Slacktivist: read all the links