WHITTIER NOT TRANSPARENT

The impetus behind this section of our website has a story.  In 2019 a developer purchased the old Marie Calendar's lot.  We were unaware of plans for the condominiums they wanted to build until November 2021 through a newspaper article.  Concerned about the potential negative impacts this development would have on the quality of life and safety of our community; we decided to have a meeting and invited our city council.  Councilwoman Cathy Warner, Mayor Joe Vinatieri, and City Manager Brian Saeki were in attendance.

Instead of getting answers from our council,  we got silence, and what now seems to be insincere talk about what they can and can't do with respect to the problems this development will cause our community.  Mayor Vinatieri stood in the back and said nothing to the almost 50 residents.  The only thing he did say was, "Invite the developer to your meeting."  He showed no concern for our quality of life. 

Our group attended all the meetings in order to stop the development.  In the process, we found out the Friendly Hills Property Owners Association (a voluntary group that has no authority over our area) met with the developer and approved the development with no input from its membership.  They also started advertising the development in their magazine before the project was approved. We also discovered that Planning Commissioner Quirk and his husband, Paul Ramirez, both sit on the FHPOA board. We also discovered very concerning information about another planning commissioner.

We found out the Developer hired a former councilman, Greg Nordbak, to "push" the development through.  We know that our area representative, Cathy Warner, was in communication with him about the development and she failed to ethically recuse herself even though her business is less than 1000 feet away from the development.

We attended the last de novo hearing held by the city council in April 2022. We requested they deny the development or at least provide us with traffic calming measures, a crosswalk we were seeking at Janine Dr. and La Serna Dr., and reduce the number of condos by five, but they didn't.  Instead, they reduced the condos by one and said we didn't need a crosswalk or traffic calming measures. 

Fast forward half a year later; our investigation into the city's practices led us to form the opinion there is a lack of transparency within our local government.  Our journey has not ended, it begins by uncovering what the city council doesn't want you to know.  Our opinion is that some of the planning commissioners' behaviors may be unethical and have a conflict of interest, some city council members are not following FPPC campaign finance/political record act laws/conflict of interest, and extreme lobbying of our council by special interests such as Athens Services and Developers have been revealed.  Stay tuned for more unveilings of the Whittier Council's non-transparent practices!