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Page 2 Fullerton Observer Senior Scam Alert Jane Holt, newly elected Sr. Club President, asked me to alert you if you haven't already heard about a scam that happened to her friend this week. Scammers are targeting senior citizens by calling them saying they are their grandson and are in big trouble and don't want their parents to find out. They ask for a large sum of money to be sent to them. Jane's friend notified the Fullerton Police Department at 714-738- 6715. Because senior citizens are very vulnerable and may really believe the scammer, Jane asked that I notify you so that you could please put a warning about this scam in your next issue. We hope you can spread the word since your paper reaches so many people. We thank you for your great community service, Mo Kelly Fullerton Speed Traps Hurt the Economy Officers in Fullerton are hurting an already ailing economy with their speed traps. It is an example of being penny wise and pound foolish. As city revenues decrease due to budget crisis, Police officers are asked to increase city revenues by increasing speeding tickets and setting up additional speed traps. But if one was to actually think this through, they would realize that speed traps actually hurt the economy. When choosing where to go for dinner and a movie, why go to Fullerton if you are going to get hassled for going 5 miles over the speed limit? It is a myth that speed causes motor vehicle crashes. For the past 10 years, the number one cause of crashes is distracted drivers, specifically from cell phone usage – not speed. Prior to that, the number one cause was impaired (mostly from alcohol) drivers. I should know as I am one the leading experts on vehicle trauma in the United States. Lance M. Williams, MD, MPH Emergency Physician Pediatric Trauma Prevention Specialist Fullerton Stadium Opposition The neighborhood surrounding the new edifice is virtually unanimous in its opposition to this boondoggle. Once again, the college has attempted to slip another monstrosity of a construction project through without public input and without even a statement that such a project is necessary. This proposed new stadium will sit between two other under-used football venues, 300 yards away from the high school stadium and two miles away from Cal State Fullerton's. Even in densely populated urban areas, including our biggest cities, one can't find three football stadiums within such close proximity. The college agrees that its football games and track meets occur in daylight hours, yet is going ahead with putting up six 100-foot high intensity light towers. For what? The college claims there will be no net loss of parking, yet a simple look at the project reveals that already many, many parking places have been removed. Those of us who have supported the college, especially its bond measures, over the years now, I suspect, will refuse to support any subsequent ones. If the recently passed "Measure X" shows the construction of a new football stadium, then it must be in the very fine print. Nor is it in the EIR, submitted back in 2003. College officials must have assumed that by calling this stadium structure simply a "renovation" they could get away with this deception. Fred Lentz Fullerton COMMUNITY OPINIONS continued on page 5 EARLY-MARCH 2009 School District Cuts Devastate Arts Open Letter to the School Board During these extremely tough economic times, and as you make budgetary decisions, please keep the welfare of our children first and foremost in your mind. Please remember that your job is to keep the pain of an extraordinarily dismal budget as far away from them as humanly possible. You are the stewards of their future. The decisions you make will effect our children for the rest of their lives. It is your responsibility to provide them with an education that prepares them for life in the 21st century. It is your responsibility to prepare them for a world in which creativity is an absolutely essential and critical component of their success. The arts nurture creative thinking in a way that no other subjects can. Cutting the arts out of a child's education is akin to neglecting to teach a child how to read. For 19 years you have had the wisdom to give Fullerton's children an outstanding education through the “All the Arts for All the Kids” program. Now more than ever our children need that outstanding education and the creativity it develops. You have accepted the responsibility for the well-being of every single child in the Fullerton School District. To devastate "All the Arts for All the Kids", which is the one program in the District that reaches more than 10,000 children, is not the right thing to do. Please honor your responsibility to our children, continue in your wisdom and continue fully funding “All the Arts for All the Kids.” Becky Hall Fullerton “Everyone needs to share the pain,” said Fullerton Elementary School District Superintendent Hovey at the community meeting on February 26. I don’t believe that every program needs to feel the painful cut across the board. Core programs such as music and art should not be up on the chopping block. There are alternative cuts that could be made instead. Programs that cost a lot of money to retain and maintain but are beneficial for only a small segment of the student population-like the 1-1 laptop program, like the International Baccalaureate program would be better choices for cuts. There are already programs in place that meet the social and technology needs of all the students within all the school sites. Focus and build upon the programs that benefit all and not just a few. Teachers are hired based on the number of students there are to teach, but the coordinators, directors and district specialists have no such limit. It appears that the district has a lot of these positions. I say let them go. Buck up and do with less of these positions. Send Teachers On Special Assignment (TOSAs –a teacher who is out of the classroom but is being paid the same rate and goes around to other school sites helping out with curriculum development) back to the classroom. Cut costly trainings, conferences, and consultants selling yet another plan to train teachers how to get kids’ test scores up. Instead utilize the numerous teachers and administrators on hand, with the knowledge that they have acquired, to provide the trainings at a quarter of the cost of some consultant guru. How about increasing the classroom size by one to two students in the classes that are twenty to one? As a teacher Miss Fullerton Not from Fullerton I read the report on the Miss Fullerton and Miss Teen Fullerton pageant in the Mid-Feb Observer. While both of the winners are beautiful, talented and deserving of recognition, neither are Fullerton residents and neither go to school in Fullerton. How is that fair to the fifteen contestants who do live and/or go to school in Fullerton? How were out-oftown contestants even allowed into the contest? Shouldn’t Miss Fullerton and Miss Fullerton Teen come from Fullerton? CD Fullerton ED: We asked pageant organizer Kathi Hikawa those questions. The pageant is put on by a franchise. Winners go on to the Miss California and Miss America contests. “All our marketing is done within Fullerton, but this year we had three girls from La Mirada who wanted to participate since their city does not have a pageant. I called the Miss California field director and they had no problem with us expanding our boundries.” The Fullerton pageant has had contestants from Brea and Placentia, both cities which also do not have pageants. For more information on the Miss Fullerton contest go to www.missfullerton.com. For more information on the Miss California pageant go to www.misscalifornia.org. Coffee from Costa Mesa? Hank noticed, in the article about Bootleggers' Brewery, (Mid-Feb page 10), that it says one of the stouts is made from "coffee beans from Costa Mesa". We're not aware that Costa Mesa grows coffee. Maybe Costa Rica.........................! Judy Berg Fullerton Alternatives to Cutting Art & Music myself I would gladly increase my class size to offset the cost of keeping highly trained and skilled music and art teachers in place to conduct core programs that benefit all the students. Implement a full day kindergarten program across the whole district. This might even attract parents to enroll their children. Hold off on raises, bonuses, merit pay and benefit increases. Students at all the elementary schools participate in and experience both the music and art programs. These programs provide the opportunities necessary to all our students in all parts of the community with disregard to the socio economic status. Cutting and/or reducing them would be doing a huge disservice to students who would otherwise not be able to participate. Downsized versions of the program would result in cutting two music directors. The direct impact on the music program would carry over to the middle schools and high schools. The jazz program would be eliminated from Ladera Vista. The strings program would suffer at Parks. All the schools feed directly into the local high schools where students will enter into the competitive world of music competitions unprepared due to the lack of foundation building at the elementary level. Parents with ways and means will move their children to private schools while those without means will stay and go along with a watered down curriculum. Can the district really afford to lose additional students? Before we all “take one for the team” and place a parcel tax on the ballot, let’s encourage our school board members to exhaust all possibilities and trim off the fat first. Shawna Adam Fullerton Fullerton Observer The Fullerton Observer Community Newspaper, founded by Ralph Kennedy and a group of friends in 1978, is staffed by local citizen volunteers who create, publish, and distribute the paper throughout our community. This venture is a not-for-profit one with all ad and subscription revenues plowed back into maintaining and improving our independent, non-partisan, non-sectarian, community newspaper. Our purpose is to inform Fullerton residents about the institutions and other societal forces which most impact their lives, so that they may be empowered to participate in constructive ways to keep and make these private and public entities serve all residents in lawful, open, just, and socially-responsible ways. Through our extensive local calendar and other coverage, we seek to promote a sense of community and an appreciation for the values of diversity with which our country is so uniquely blessed. __________________________________ Published twice per month except once in July, August & January SEND SUBMISSIONS TO: FULLERTON OBSERVER PO BOX 7051 FULLERTON, CA 92834-7051 • Editor: Sharon Kennedy • Office Manager: Carolline Druiff • Database Manager: Jane Buck Advisor: Tracy Wood • Copy Editors: Caroline Druiff, Tom Dalton, • Special Assignments: Angel Lopez, April Shin, & Allison Ritto • Advertising: 714-525-6402 • Archivist: Natalie Kennedy • Distribution: Roy & Irene Kobayashi, Natalie Kennedy, Tom & Katie Dalton, Marj Kerr Photograhy: Eric Chang, Bryan Crowe • FEATURES • • American-American: Sky Scott • Biogradable Soapbox: Suzanne Hofstetter •Commentary: Jonathan Dobrer (JonDobrer@mac.com) • Calendar: Volunteer Needed • Council Report: Kevin Frink • Education: Jan Youngman & Ellen Ballard • Grand Jury Reporter: Fritz von Coelln • History/Arboretum: Warren Bowen • Movie Review: Joyce Mason • Musings: Gene Walsh • Nature, Insects, Creatures & more: Diane Nielen (dianenielen@gmail.com) • Politics & other stuff: Vince Buck & Connie Haddad & Mike Matsuda • Roving Reporters: Cherie Lutz Pizarro, T. deMoss, Colombo, Jere Greene • Daily Crime Log: Jeanne Hoffa • Sports: Bryan Crowe •Talk Around Town: Dede Ginter • Theater Review: Elliot & Joyce Rosenthal •What Are You Reading: Volunteer Needed • Webmaster: Cathy Yang • Also Tod Imperato, Mike Magoski, Bob Rineer, Egan Hernandez, Jackie Brown and other contributing Community Members _____________________________ THANKS FOR YOUR SUPPORT AND ____________________________ CONTRIBUTIONS! HOW TO SUBSCRIBE Subscriptions & renewals for home delivery run from October to October $25/Fullerton • $35/Out of Town Send Check with Name, Address & Phone Number to: Fullerton Observer, PO Box 7051, Fullerton CA 92834-7051 ________________________________ HOW TO ADVERTISE Call Sharon at 714-525-6402 and leave your FAX number on the machine and we will fax you a 1-page rate sheet. ________________________________ 10,000 issues of the Fullerton Observer are distributed throughout Fullerton and sent through the mail to subscribers every two weeks except only once in January, July & August www.fullertonobserver.com The Mid-March 2009 issue will hit the stands on March 16. Submissions & Ads are due by March 9, 2009.
EARLY-MARCH 2009 More Bad News Picking up where I left off in the Mid- February issue (See: www. fullertonobserver.com), news is in trouble and newspapers in even more trouble. And yes, I am aware of the irony that in my first sentence I named the problem, the cause of our immanent demise, and I thereby exacerbated it. I referred you to the Internet! Now I am not so old that I hate or fear the Internet. I am relatively net and computer savvy; but if I am a convert, I am a recalcitrant convert and not filled with the convert’s traditional zeal. I accept the inevitable but do not joyously surrender. Newspapers are, in fact, doomed. We will not be spilling ink onto dead trees, driving them around town and then hurling them onto driveways in the future—in the very near future. The demise of newspapers is ordained but they have participated in moving the date up. Instead of jogging, eating low fat and getting plenty of rest, newspapers have feasted on a high fat, high sugar diet of empty calories and burned both candles and bridges at both ends. Our city dailies could have prolonged their useful lives if they had remained family owned. They could have made money on their original cost basis. But once large groups started buying and consolidating, the die was cast. The Chandlers would be making money on the LA Times. However, when the Tribune had to pay the retail purchase price, the income of the Times couldn’t support the debt. Then Zell bought the Tribune, and even after leveraging their pension plan, can’t service his debt. Yes, profits would have fallen for even original owners because of the movement of advertising to the net—to Craig’s List and eBay. But the papers could have lived longer. Word is out that Hearst is looking to sell or close the San Francisco Chronicle. It is already in a semi-partnership with MediaNews, out of Denver, which is also having debt service problems that threaten the existence of a hundred newspapers in its shrinking empire. Their individual local papers might have thrived had not the empire expanded and, like our other bubbles and empires, burst. So now the large dailies and the smaller semi-local chains are cutting back. They are reducing pages, letting go their most senior writers and editors and taking more and more syndicated and news-service material. The city dailies, large and small, are losing their connection to their communities. They are losing talent, content and context. Out of My Mind AUGUST JonDobrer@mac.com 2008 by Jonathan Dobrer © 2009 In a desperate effort to stay technically alive, they are (in corporate-speak) “merging their synergies” and moving their community staff people to central locations. No one is left to cover the high school play or sports. No one is going to PTA meetings or to the city council. One paper is trying to cover Pasadena City Council meetings by web cam to a reporter in Mumbai. No, I’m not making this up. This is a doomed strategy. LA Times raised its street price by 50% while cutting back on pages and killing their separate local section (named California until March 1, but was also Metro, Orange, Valley and Westside). As you read this, it will have been merged in front with already merged Op-Ed and editorial. The biggest decision left to the suits in the executive suites at the Times is where in the world to put their obits? This is one still profitable part of print. Do you put it in the front, in the sports, the business or entertainment? There is serious executive time being devoted to where the obits will go as (and you could see this coming, right?) they should be preparing their own obit. This is sad but unavoidable. There is little point in fighting for the preservation of the buggy whip manufacturing industry, teaching Morse code, or trying to resuscitate Generalissimo Franco. Dead is dead. This is not a tragedy, just sad in its prematurity. I don’t want to sound like the last carver of cuneiform, “Those kids. What value is ink on papyrus? It is lazy. Only carving in stone has lasting value.” Well, yes, ink feels better, more permanent and real than electrons, but that is a generational feeling. The news can be as good or better electronically delivered. There is no a priori superiority of ink over electrons. The deeper issue is content. Who will pay reporters to gather information? Who will fact check and edit? Who will decide what news is important? The news needs professionals for the coverage of national and international news. As for local, well, the local and hyper-local papers do just fine. They (we Observers) cover the local theatres, school board, city council, crimes, water quality and housing issues just fine. In ten years city dailies will be gone. Maybe there will be two printed national papers (New York Times and USA Today), the weekly national magazines will be monthly but local papers with local advertisers will still be around. They will never make a fortune, but unless they are so foolish as to merge, they will be economically viable. And that, finally, is some good news. Who will pay reporters to gather information? Who will decide what news is important? WAR COSTS in Life & Money: YEAR SIX • $600 Billion • 90,777 • 4,250 • 45,298 • 660 IN IRAQ Cost of The War in Iraq -rounded down ($341.4 million a day) www.costofwar.com (02/12/2009) Civilians killed by military in Iraq www.iraqbodycount.org (02/25/2009) US Soldier Deaths in Iraq: (DoD 02/25/2009) US Soldiers wounded *(DOD 02/18/09) www.icasualties.org/oif IN AFGHANISTAN US Soldiers killed (02/26/09) www.icasualties.org/oef/ VIGNETTES by Natalie Kennedy How We Made it Through the Depression One of the earliest memories I have is that, Herbert Hoover was not only the greatest president ever, but by golly, he looked a lot like my Dad. My father claimed to be an "Independent." But, as I grew up I noticed that all my dad’s choices happened to be republicans. I tell you this because my fourth year of life was the same year Hoover became president. We thought this was great. My parents were on top of the ladder financially, as my dad was treasurer of Massachusetts Fire Insurance Co. We had it all. We had moved from Rhode Island to Massachusetts years before for my dad’s great job. The next five years were a horror story. It was the Great Depression in the US. My dad and everyone we knew lost their work and all their savings. It took us a while to sell our rather spacious home on 3 acres of land for half what we had paid for it. My folks decided we should go back to Rhode Island, where at least there would be more jobs. A dear old friend owned a nice Victorian home. His family lived on the 2nd floor and he offered us the 1st floor as guests 'til Dad got a job. The next years were job hunting years and we heard very little about the president that looked like Dad. We settled in. Roosevelt became president in 1933. Streets were still full of bread lines and sadness was here too. But for us kids it was O.K. Our parents and our good friends made the difference. In the mornings my mother would be up first, shoveling coal into the furnace. Then we all had hot oatmeal cereal (all we wanted). Our neighborhood was full of fruit trees and we all shared and enjoyed peaches, plums, apples, and cherries. We planted food. I especially remember our wonderful tomatoes, corn, and more. My silent suffering mother baked cupcakes and doughnuts to sell, which my sister Phyllis and I delivered on our bikes to neighbors who seemed to love them. Our neighbors were mostly older and not quite as hard hit as we were. Mother kept telling us the good things that the money would be used for, plus what great fun it was doing it. I remember thinking as long as we had our parent’s love, my dolls, MUSINGS by Gene Walsh American Culture? Following WWII and through the Cold War, the United States, Russia, and China have vied for world leadership. We have seen the USSR lose some of its role with the break up into separate independent states but Communism remains strong in many parts of the world including China. American culture has been expanded by US business enterprises and by (not always successfully) our use of our superior military force to convert the world to “democracy.” However, the expansion of KFC, Starbucks, and hamburger chains is not what American culture is all about. Should we not be exporting our living standards, ideas of freedom, educational systems and tolerance as the way to a bet- Fullerton Observer Page 3 and my great metal doll bed, all was well. Mother made all our clothes. It seemed like when kids at school wore long dresses we wore ours a bit shorter and when they had short short dresses ours were a bit too long. But my mom made sure we had nice dresses and we spent most of our doughnut money on good oxford laced shoes. Dad was brought up in Providence and his fisherman friends gave him fish every night----so we had a good supper right before bed. Hood Milk Company delivered a huge can of milk to us about every 3 days (it had a couple of quarts of cream settled on top). My dad promised to pay everyone back when he could and he eventually did just that. One of my dad’s first job offers was from Narragansett Brewery. He came home and at dinner told us we had to vote on whether he should take the job because he had to accept or reject the offer the next morning. Poor Dad who was silently hoping that there might be an exception, was faced with a “No” vote from the family and had to turn the job offer down. To explain that no vote, I must go back to Nova Scotia, back into MacLean history. You see my grandmother was the big wheel of the "Womans Christian Temperance Union" and had trained her family and their offspring that alcohol was the root of all evil. Now, we might starve, but we all knew that you have to put beliefs first. The next day Dad went down and signed up for W.P.A. and was immediately hired as an accountant at the Newport Naval Station in South County, R.I. It was the beginning of a hard won comeback! My dad had to go through bankruptcy but in the end he paid all the companies back and received many awards for it, thereby regaining some of his pride. Well, in our house Roosevelt became our hero and dad had at last proved he was an Independent after all (not to be confused with democrat). Thank you President Roosevelt for the “Works Progress Administration.” The WPA not only brought us new infrastructure but put people back to work on jobs they could do best. There were even jobs for music teachers and actors to train children. I took piano lessons that I could not have afforded while these artists could still share their gifts. Eventually my dad started a real estate company and we bought a home. He swore he would never leave Rhode Island again...but when I got married and moved to California, Mother and Dad decided to come also. Then our whole family followed and we all ended up here! ter more peaceful world? This morning I read two stories in the LA Times which made me question if the articles reflected American culture and what we really consider important. Number one was headed, “Schools are struggling with cuts.” It said “Districts across the state face decisions to lay off teachers, increase class size and eliminate programs.” Our society is in a recession and we refuse to sacrifice (by paying taxes) to educate the next generation. Does this mean Americans will fall behind the rest of the world in technology, research and our standard of living? Number two was in the sports section, “Carroll of USC tops salary list.” Football coach Pete Carroll “earned $4.4 million in total compensation, four times as much as USC President Steven B. Sample.” Enough said! Our culture apparently places more value on a football coach than it does on educating its next generation of citizens, and we expect to continue to be a world leader?
Page 1: PUBLIC MEETINGS Fullerton City Hall
Page 5 and 6: EARLY-MARCH 2009 800 Attend Meeting
Page 7 and 8: EARLY-MARCH 2009 OBSERVERS AROUND T
Page 9 and 10: EARLY-MARCH 2009 Fullerton High’s
Page 11 and 12: EARLY-MARCH 2009 Continued from pag
Page 13 and 14: EARLY-MARCH 2009 REVIEWED by Joyce
Page 15 and 16: EARLY-MARCH 2009 Maestro Dean Ander
Page 17 and 18: EARLY-MARCH 2009 Orange Empire Barb
Page 19 and 20: EARLY-MARCH 2009 LOCAL ONLY CLASSIF

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