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The furious forward march of Anaheim mishegas and desmadre waits on no man’s rehab, so let’s assemble and disseminate a little of what we’ve been learning lately:
1. Daron Wyatt, Fire Hero?
“WHO,” exclaimed everybody in TV Land (including prospective jury pools) “is that dashing fireman keeping us all safe from those scary leaping flames in the hills behind him?” They asked that question last week, as they watched Anaheim Police Spokesman Daron Wyatt, somehow on loan to our Fire Department, update and reassure the public on the progress against Monday’s devastating “Canyon Fire II.”
What nearly nobody knew was that Daron is also a Killer Cop – and I don’t use that term lightly, but only when the policeman’s killing REALLY looks unjustified and unnecessary, as in Daron’s 2009 slaying of young Adolfo Sanchez, in a nearly-forgotten case that just happens to be coming up again soon for a civil rights re-trial.
Yes, seven years before the Anaheim Police killings of Gustavo Najera, Vincent Valenzuela, Adalid Flores and Danny Rendon; Six years before Monique Deckard and Paul Anthony Anderson; Five years before Robert Moreno; Three years before Manuel Diaz, Joel Acevedo, Martin Hernandez, Bernie Villegas, and Roscoe Cambridge; Two years before David Raya and Marcel Cejas; a few months before Caesar Cruz (and shortly after Julian Alexander and Joe Whitehouse) there was Adolfo Sanchez.
One fine September afternoon as young Adolfo drove home, Daron and his partner pulled him over for “weaving,” and jumped into his van for reasons unknown. Daron got into the passenger seat and set into pummeling Adolfo in the head as his partner held him in a chokehold. They admit he was unarmed and not fighting back, but allegedly they thought they’d seen him “SWALLOW” something. As Adolfo sat in the driver’s seat being beaten and choked, his van began to move forward (at 3-4 MPH; the police falsely claimed 30 to 40.) So naturally Daron, “FEARING FOR HIS LIFE®,” just HAD to shoot him point-blank in the head. For his own safety, you understand.
(It has not been made clear whether or not the blowing out of Adolfo’s brains resulted in a cessation of the van’s terrifying crawl forward.)
And isn’t it just like APD and the Anaheim power structure to give Daron the most positive possible photo ops, before the largest possible viewing public, as this trial nears?
2. File Under Canyon Fire II Chismes…
The Orange Juice blog has traditionally, since the Pedroza days, printed unverified “chismes,” which we hear from anonymous “pájaritos” – generally anonymous for good reason – and later if those chismes turn out to be true, well, you read it here first! Here’s a couple of those chismes relating to Canyon Fire II:
- We hear from a 911 operator (an anonymous pájarita for fear of losing her job) that a small grass fire was reported Sunday night, in the Hills area near where Monday’s blaze is thought to have started. The call received no response. Will the investigators look into this, or will it be covered up?
- Did somebody say “Phos-Chek-Gate?” Phos-Chek is a fire retardant that planes spread on flammable territory in the wind-path of wildfires. It is very expensive. Another anonymous pájarito alerts us that one – just one – mansion up in the Hills got special treatment on Monday – surrounded by probably $30,000 worth of the chemical, a luxury no other home was afforded. We at the OJ can’t wait to figure out whose mansion that was, and if and how this relates to the upcoming 2018 elections.
Whether or not either of these chismes turns out true (but especially if they are) we continue to wonder why we never look at this possibility: Why can’t we save $10 million a year (as Santa Ana now does) by dissolving our Fire Department and contracting instead with the OC Fire Authority?
Oh yeah, I know one reason that doesn’t come up: the AFD’s emperor-like spending on Council elections, tirelessly lobbying for their chosen candidates (who somehow always happen to be the same ones backed by Disney and the police union) while attacking their opponents mercilessly. You can’t have forgotten those noisy firetruck rides the AFD put on last fall for Jordan, Lucille, and the Steves? (left, Jordan going thru the Colony with sirens and horns wailing)
But hey – that reminds me – two of the Firemen-backed candidates did NOT win last November, so we just happen to have a council majority that was ATTACKED by fire, police, and Disney. And SOME of these councilmembers – particularly Mayor Tait – have frequently expressed grave concern over the pension crisis – a crisis that grew by an order of magnitude with the passionate public safety love affair the nation indulged after September 11, 2001. Cue Bushala’s viral 2010 video:
Something to think about. Ten million a year.
3. The Extended Death Throes of the “Lincoln Widening”
I sometimes think that this blog fits William Buckley’s famous definition of “conservative,” as “standing athwart history, yelling Stop.”
Of course, that’s only if the forward march of history is defined NOT as the advancement of women’s and minority rights that gave the old Limey crypto-fascist cold sweats, but as the endless development and construction of Orange County, at the expense of taxpayers and the environment, and the enrichment of well-connected developers and already wealthy investors.
BIG things we’ve stood athwart of and stopped or tried to would include toll lanes, toll roads, Poseidon, Cadiz, the Disney Streetcar, unnecessary subsidized 4-star hotels, high density development in HB, the privatization of the Fairgrounds, and development on Fullerton’s Coyote Hills, Newport’s Banning Ranch, and Orange Park Acres. A SMALLER thing (unless you love Anaheim) is the constantly-threatened widening of Lincoln Avenue near Harbor.
We’re pretty sure that won’t be happening any time soon, as the proposed slashing of Anaheim High School’s front lawn and St Boniface’s front porch, along with other dislocations, is so unpopular and the Council knows it. But zombie-like, the idea refuses to die a quiet death. Our friends in Anaheim Public Works stand to lose $5 million $10 million to play with, plus they believe so strongly in the beauty and grandeur of their plan, that they’re SURE the public would feel the same way if we just heard about it ONE MORE TIME.
So me and Donna attended the LATEST public forum on this, at St Boniface recently. Our city engineers – notably 
Rudy Emami (left) and Carlos Castellanos who seem like really nice honest guys – are so infatuated with this project that they can’t understand anyone else not sharing their enthusiasm. I tell myself it’s like I’d written a symphony, but everybody else just wanted to hear a three-minute pop hit. This time around they tried to convince us that they could widen the street, only just so much that businesses would hardly notice it, at the same time adding another lane going each way, at the same time add a center divider and turning lanes, at the same time improving the plumbing and drainage there (which they should do anyway), at the same time improving the sidewalks and making them safer (which they should anyway), at the same time adding more trees, at the same time making traffic go more smoothly BUT safer and slower because the lanes would be a little bit narrower, and yet there would be LESS accidents. I fully expect the next iteration to promise us ponies that can mate with unicorns.
And they complain about how the whole area LOOKS. Well, the rest of us LIKE how it looks, we grew up with it. I can only imagine the signage and nicknames planners would come up with. If the three problems this huge “solution” is supposed to address are really problems, then the Orange Juice Blog has three solutions:
- Too many accidents. Well, all the accidents we ever see – or the vast majority anyway – are from westbound drivers turning into Varsity Burgers (one of our favorite places by the way.) Solution: Put a center divider there, long enough to prevent any westbound driver to even try to turn left into Varsity, and forcing them to go up to where it’s safe to make a U-Turn.
- Neighbors complain about cut-through traffic on the side-streets on which they live. Put “speed lumps” on those side-streets, or block them where it’s feasible and unobjectionable. “We’ve already done that, duh, and cut-through traffic just moves on to the next street. We can’t just keep doing this forever.” Who said anything about “forever,” duh? There is a FINITE number of streets where this could be a problem, and we can put “speed lumps” on all of them for a tiny fraction of the cost of the Lincoln Widening. We have yet to hear of a shortage of speed-lump material, or a labor strike by speed-lump miners.
- The traffic is bad, and do you have any idea how bad it might be by 2035? First of all it’s not that bad. Second of all if trends continue to 2035, there’s plenty of time to do something about it like say in 2031. And that may be when you want to try the cheap and simple “Orange Juice Solution” of making a mile or so of Lincoln one-way westbound and a mile or so of Broadway one-way eastbound (or vice versa) as so many great cities have. Rudy and Carlos just HATE that idea, which they’ve heard a million times since we suggested it last year. They say it won’t work. They don’t convince us of that. They sound like they hate that idea because it makes their grand and beautiful vision, the one that would be the apex so far of their professional careers, that they could look back at with proud hearts for the rest of their lives, unnecessary. Um, sorry, guys? We love you.
Also, Anaheimers, don’t get complacent. Make sure your Councilmember knows you OPPOSE THE LINCOLN WIDENING!
4. Who Needs Parking Anyway? Shaheen’s Water Street Plans
Meanwhile, in the ongoing juggernaut of Anaheim Boulevard gentrification, the Packing House developer Shaheen Sadeghi (below right) is rushing to Planning Commission approval of his grand plans for the northwest corner of Water Street and Anaheim. There’s nothing good there now. Shaheen wants to put in a vegetarian restaurant. And another full-service restaurant that he’s calling a “coffee-roasting house.” And a swimming pool, right on the corner. And YET ANOTHER BREWERY. (Really? Another brewery? We know you love “craft beer,” but what will finally constitute enough breweries for one town, Mayor Tait?)
So, what problems could the “conservatives” at the Orange Juice Blog possibly have with a vegetarian restaurant, a coffee-roasting house, a swimming pool, and YET ANOTHER BREWERY at Water and Anaheim? Mainly one: PARKING. City code dictates a project of this magnitude would need, and should provide, 92 parking places. Shaheen only wants to provide 31, and he’s used to getting his way. We went through all this just up the street at his Packing House. Supposedly he was gonna have all the Packing House patrons park in a nearby city garage he’d got permission for, but nobody ever heard about that, and all these (mostly Irvine-Asian) patrons have been making a parking nightmare for the (mostly Hispanic) residents of the Packing District.
NOW Shaheen says he’ll provide a “trolley” to get his customers to and from their cars in the city garage, to his new Water Street establishments as well as the Packing House. We say no. There’s a huge area near Water Street he wants to use for a patio – that could accommodate 60 parking spots. Hey – Steve White may be the only holdout at Planning Commission, but we’ll see you at City Council – the days of greenlighting new developments that don’t provide their own parking, are like so over. Hey Shaheen, every year before 2017 just called, and they want their gridlock back.
5. Is There ANYBODY we can Support For Mayor???
We watch with trepidation the waning year of the Tait Mayorship, seeing nobody yet on the horizon that we – we being us progressive types who also favor open-as-possible government, hate waste of public money, and see our slavery to Disney and the resort district and the unaccountability of our police department as our two biggest problems – could enthusiastically support.
I mean, along comes Ashleigh Aitken, down from the Hills, looking like she has the Democratic support all wrapped up, and we’ve never seen her down here in the flatlands till LATE THIS YEAR. (I did see her ONCE, at a pro-districting rally in 2013 or so.) Nobody can think of anything she has done for Anaheim – you can’t just waltz in like that and be Mayor. She comes to the Democratic Club and recites carefully planned talking points, calculated to offend nobody on any side. She’s been my Facebook friend for years, but I haven’t gotten any response to my interview requests for nearly a year now. Suddenly she is a little (but carefully) critical of Disney, after last month’s GREAT LA Times story (which by the way sounds like something Cynthia Ward could have [and DID] write here five years ago.) So she is learning about Anaheim now. How nice. It’s a little damn late. Start off as a 6th-district council candidate, ma’am, we need someone good there. And learn. And do something. And talk to me. And come to Anna Drive.
Sensing some of Ashleigh’s weaknesses, out comes our old friend Lorri “LoGal” Galloway, one more time. I get very sad when I write about Lorri, who was one of my first friends in this town (when she first talked to me she scolded me “The Orange Juice is not a good OC blog because you hardly write anything about Anaheim; let me tell you about all that’s happening here” – can you imagine that? – and the rest is history.) She also did a lot of good things for my wife Donna when she needed help, and I won’t let people forget that she was a very good Councilwoman for eight years. But in 2014-15 she set a world record for burning bridges. And reading about her campaign announcement rally on the Klepto-blog, she sounds like she’s trying to position herself to the RIGHT of Ashleigh. Ashleigh Lite, a LITTLE bit less scary to the resort district and police than Ashleigh is, as though that was scary.
I’m sure we’ll vote for anybody but Harry Sidhu, the infamous perennial-candidate assclown (left) who has always openly been a slave to the moneyed interests, through his entire council career. The OJ will be sure to remind readers of how, in his interview to be County Clerk, he thought “satellite offices” were offices in outer space, and eagerly agreed to what a great and bold idea they were, thinking that was the answer Supervisor Moorlach wanted to hear.
So in short, the Orange Juice Blog is still looking for a Mayoral candidate that we could support. Enthusiastically. And realistically.
Hey, chisme me this: Does anybody have any idea why Jordan Brandman was finally fired by Assemblyman Ian Calderon? At least Jordan’s wikipedia page still looks accurate. (Who did that anyway?)
Well, for now, that’s all the Anaheim Mishegas and Desmadre that’s fit to print.
EXCEPT for Yesenia Rojas being OFF PROBATION!
THAT deserves its own story.
When did jordan get fired? Lorry G and Ashley have to battle it out? Thats gonna be a cat fight.
Whew! Thanks, Commandante Vern!
Items 1 and 2: Who has primary record docs on these? How do I get them for review, please?
Item 4: The Center Street Promenade parking structure is increasingly obstructed by “permit parking” spaces, so where at those BMW driving south county kids parking? It is not appropriate to make life difficult for surrounding residents who have parking impacted, and as much as I adore Shaheen for the improvements that follow his development (and our access to Georgia’s BBQ) I am also tired of “green birding” the trash around his place that he has no crew dealing with. When your patrons don’t care about the locals and dump their parked cars and trash in our streets it makes us all rethink support of your business plan. Get a better plan so we can keep supporting you, Shaheen.
3. The Extended Death Throes of the “Lincoln Widening”
How is this still “a thing?”
I met with Rudy Emami when this train wreck first surfaced, and I knew the fix was in when Kristine Ridge joined us. Every time I pointed out alternatives to the more damaging elements, I was met by objections that failed to address the real issues, and essentially parroted, “this is just the way we do it.” Yes, we know how Public Works loves the landscaped medians of Irvine-esque patterns, but when you look at vintage commercial corridors this is NOT what is seen. I have had it up to my eyeballs with erasing the last vestiges of our commercial heritage thanks to planners who just don’t get it, and impose their vision upon residents who detest their plans. At some point, we need our elected leaders to tell staff ENOUGH, because those department heads work for the citizens, collect paychecks funded by citizens, and need to show some respect and courtesy to the citizens they are supposed to be providing services for. That is a failure at the top, to make the message clear, and we need to use neon highlighter pen and flashing lights to remind department heads the PUBLIC is at the TOP of the chart, not the bottom. The arrogance at times is so thick we can cut it with a knife.
Interestingly, at that meeting, I waited through the objections of Emami until we got to the section of map showing Visser’s, and I pointed out how they were showing the entire property as a “take” even though it consisted of several parcels, some which were not subject to the project. Now if I were the suspicious type, I would think perhaps the property owners would like to redevelop the property and drop the current tenant, who I assume has a long-term lease and can’t be removed easily. But hey-if the City uses eminent domain to take the property for a public works deal, then the owners are not the bad guys, and can then use the remaining portion for some high-density use like more apartments, right? Not that I would ever suspect City Hall to be in cahoots with developers and their back-room deals. Nope, not me.
But when I proposed an alternative to the taking of Vissers, THAT is when Kristine Ridge jumped in, reminding Rudy Emami of why they couldn’t do that…which tells us exactly WHY Ridge was sitting in on the meeting. Bingo.
I pointed out that takings on the north side of Lincoln removed the few charming elements that remained of a once-proud main drag, and if we stuck to the south side which NEEDS redevelopment in a deep and meaningful way, we could use the project for a greater good. The answer: too many property owners and tenants on the south side, and the north side being mostly larger owners and of course the school district owns many parcels, as of RECENTLY, so there is only one “owner” on the north side of an entire block, BUT when the City first BEGAN the discussion of this project, YEARS AGO as this is one segment of a multi-phase project in the works for YEARS, there were MANY owners, who were all bought out one by one by one well-connected developer (Bill T) and then the parcels sold to the school district when they had funding. Jordan Brandman was smack in the middle of that arrangement which was couched as Bill being the good guy and “holding” the properties for the district until funding became available. So how did Jordan miss that his pals/employees at City Hall were planning a take of the parcels he was helping to coordinate, and in fact making EASIER for the City to take by consolidating them under ownership of the school district? Did anyone disclose to the school district about that this condition impacting their use of property they were buying, which appears to have been known to SOME but not made known to the school district? Just asking…
FLIP SIDE of the Lincoln Widening…purpose and need;
While you and I try to set aside money in anticipation of future repairs or replacements we know are coming, whether it is new tires or a new roof, the City does no such thing. We seem to wear out the infrastructure we have without planning for its life-span and replacement. After all, that would cut into CLAIMS of healthy General Fund revenues available to dole out to special interests. So instead of planning for the shelf-life of basic infrastructure, while using a development pattern that fails to keep up with the costs of repair, maintenance, and replacement, See an explanation of this development ponzi scheme here: https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2017/1/9/the-real-reason-your-city-has-no-money
…we instead count on GRANT MONEY from outside agencies. And of course grant money comes with its own strings attached, so the only way to score the OCTA funds for improvements to the sewer/water/sidewalks etc. is to widen the road to OCTA’s insane level of move-cars-through-as-quickly-as-possible-and-to-Hell-with-quality-of-life-along-the-corridor. Don’t forget wider roads make for faster cars, which is exactly what we DON’T need at a high school with one of the city’s highest number of students who walk, thanks to concentrations of low-income students.
Also if I hear Rudy Emami tell the Varsity burger story one more time I will lose it. We all get it, we all hit Varsity, (some of us more often than our hips would benefit from, guilty as charged) and those of us with a clue have started taking BROADWAY to Citron and back to Lincoln. You know, because BROADWAY was already widened in the past for the traffic they predicted was coming…how is that looking now? We should NOT destroy the few charming last vestiges of our commercial heritage like Visser’s and the front plaza of Home Savings, potentially altering the Millard Sheets design. And cutting into the front lawn of Anaheim High School where students already have access to too little green open gathering spaces, is NOT adequate trade for the drop-off point the City has offered in an alleyway being abandoned, which the City should be doing ANYWAY.
Sorry, where was I? Oh yeah, good to hear from you, Vern, keep writing. Keep getting yourself pulled together, it is hard work and we are all proud of you for doing it.
The brewery/coffee house/pool/restaurant is one business, Modern Times. They’re based out of San Diego: the lack of parking is definitely troublesome (why not purchase/use one of the empty lots on Anaheim?), but they’d be a great addition to the neighborhood; I live blocks away, and permit parking has been a godsend.
A side note: Dear old William F Buckley was not a “limey”…born in NYC.
Wow, he sure talked like he was … an affectation??
I think his whole persona was a bit of an affectation…interesting to watch and listen to as long as you disregarded most of what he actually said!
At least one Chisme here pans out – if you watch KTLA you know now that there WAS a reported brush fire the night before the huge wildfire, that went unresponded to. I hear that the Fire Chief, who I learn now is Anaheim’s MOST HIGHLY PAID EMPLOYEE, was on the air in tears apologizing. And I hear that Supervisor Spitzer, who sits on OCFA, is milking it for all it’s worth, as is his wont.
And you read about it where first? THE ORANGE JUICE BLOG!