Joshua, Author at Friends For Fullerton's Future

July 7, 2021July 7, 2021A Step in the Right Direction

So Long and Thanks for All the Fish

This site, FFFF, has been my digital home off and on since I broke the news that Joe Felz committed his “wet and reckless” and ran over Poor Sappy McTree on 09 November 2016. In the 4+ years since that fateful post I have written over 180 posts under my own name and allegedly may have collaborated on some work with Lonnie Machin which led to this blog, David Curlee and myself getting sued.

I’ve made local friends, enemies and a lot in-between in that time and I regret very little of it. I’m not a hero in the story of FFFF as I’ve simply been another voice in a collection of malcontents who have worked to expose some of the corruption at City Hall and in/around Fullerton since this blog was founded circa 2008.

Contrary to some local speculation this isn’t my blog. I do not own it. I do not host or administer it. I do not write the content other than what I previously mentioned. I also try very hard to follow Wreck it Ralph’s first rule of the internet.

That said, my limited activity on here is coming to a close. The lawsuit used by the kleptocrats at City Hall to shield themselves from responsibility took a lot out of me. It was draining for me and my family and it cost me some friendships I’ll miss. Now that it’s all said and done I’ve decided to step away from FFFF as I’ve never really felt like I was a good fit for this place.

I’m too uncompromising. Too much of an ideologue. I’m just not very good at Team Sports and politicking. Because I don’t know who the anonymous bloggers are here at FFFF, it makes it impossible for me to work with them which likewise makes it impossible to share a vision or goals. I know we all want a better city with more responsible government but that’s largely where it ends. I need to stress this next point – and I can’t stress it enough – that’s a ME problem. FFFF was FFFF before I came along. I knew, largely, what I was getting myself into and that I wouldn’t know who I was “working” with on this site. That was and is a feature of FFFF and not a bug. I am/was able to post whatever I wanted with no oversight or editing or controls. It’s a free for all here at FFFF and that freedom can lead to breaking stories, shitposting or lawsuits. It’s a mixed bag.

But I’m looking to get out of the blogging world. I started doing news/politics related videos some time back and found that I enjoy that more than sitting here typing. I like deep diving into a topic at my leisure instead of feeling bad that I don’t post enough or that I haven’t found more people to write for a site that isn’t mine. I feel a big weight on my shoulders writing for FFFF and that weight isn’t mine any more than FFFF is mine.

The videos I was making for YouTube were never on local politics so they didn’t belong here on FFFF – on a site branded and run for local Fullerton politics – but as I shifted from typing to talking more and more I found that as I tried to figure out what content to put where – I wasn’t putting content anywhere. This, again, was and is a ME issue.

I fully realize that the reach this site has (I know how many people get the email list) made me somewhat notorious locally and not the other way around. I appreciate everything the Friends have done for me and my family over the years, especially during that hellscape of a lawsuit when it cost me my job. I made some friends thanks to this site I could not replace if I tried and I’ll always be grateful for that and many other things. But my usefulness here has ended. I’m more of a liability than an asset. More of a distraction than a feature. My interests fall outside of the narrative arcs that the anonymous bloggers publish and that’s not a bad thing.

I’ll always read FFFF and will always be grateful that they asked me to join them after the City Council race of 2016. As I stated earlier I have few, if any, regrets from my time here. I’m also grateful to the many readers who appreciated what I was trying to do in exposing the truth in Fullerton. You’d be shocked how many people stopped me on the street, at the local bars, in the grocery store even – to comment on my posts or to thank me for my writing. It was a pleasure knowing that I had even a limited impact and I hope to continue that with my videos to a different extent.

Thank you all for the years of friendship, malcontentedness and support.

In the words of the Dolphins who left Earth in the Hitchhiker’s trilogy, “So long and thanks for all the fish”. Cheers.

June 24, 2021Carpetbaggery

How Long Was Jose Castaneda Cheating on Fullerton?

by Joshua21 Comments

Socialists of a Feather

Carpetbagging has always been a problem in local politics, especially in and around Fullerton, and it looks like Fred Jung’s appointee to the Fullerton Planning Commission in District 1 might be the latest example.

Jung’s appointee to the Fullerton Planning Commission, one Jose Trinidad Castaneda III, recently told the Fullerton Observer that he “decided to move out of Fullerton” which would explain his boasting about being on a commission in the City of Buena Park and yesterday being his last PC meeting.

Castaneda - BP - Commission — Are you even qualified for this post?

But, in typical political hack fashion, it looks like Castaneda stopped being qualified to be on Fullerton’s Planning Commission at least as far back as 03 June according to Castaneda himself.

Here’s the application Castaneda submitted to Buena Park in order to qualify for his new commission that he himself signed digitally where he claims to have moved to Buena Park at least BEFORE the 3rd of June.

PRR Castaneda - BP

It’s interesting that on this form he claimed that he “served on the Fullerton Parks Commission and Planning Commission” in the past tense. Sure, he used to serve on the Parks & Rec Commission but at the time he filled out this document he was CURRENTLY serving on the Planning Commission – not formerly. Why lie?

Probably because owing to City Ordinance, it’s a requirement that somebody on Planning Commission be a resident of Fullerton. He was likely very aware of the problematic issue with voting on items that impact the city in which he no longer lives OR admitting to Buena Park that he didn’t live or do business with the city.

BP - Beautification

To be on the Beautification Commission in Buena Park you have to live in the Buena Park (which he claims on this form, while claiming otherwise on Facebook), work in Buena Park (his employer is in San Diego) or do business in Buena Park which he makes no mention of here. His only self-claimed qualification to be on this BP Commission, as written by him, is his residency..

Thus if he moved to Buena Park, as he claims on this form as his qualifying requirement to be on this commission, then ethically he should have recused himself from all votes and meetings on Fullerton’s Planning Commission. His recusal should have happened immediately after the date of his move, which was obviously at least before last night’s PC meeting if not before the 27 May meeting or sooner. Did he feel entitled to vote despite this obvious conflict? Did Jung or Fullerton’s City Attorney Jones & Mayer tell him the conflict didn’t matter? Did he bother to tell Fullerton, or Jung, that he had moved? Did he even move? Being that he obviously lied about having “served” in the past tense on Fullerton’s Planning Commission, the entire document is suspect which raises even more questions.

I guess for now we simply must say adieu to JTCIII as he, allegedly, leaves Fullerton behind in his endeavors to climb the political ladder in Buena Park. As for the facts of this matter? We probably won’t ever know the truth in this ethical quandary because Fullerton does ethics about as well as it paves streets.

June 14, 2021June 14, 2021Boohooism

NIMBY Winning Out Over Autistic Children

by Joshua4 Comments

TempleBethTikvah

Tomorrow the City Council is going to vote on wether or not a business can help kids with developmental issues here in Fullerton after the Planning Commission voted to deny it.

The story is basically this;

Temple Beth Tikvah here in Fullerton has been up on Acacia for generations – since at least 1971. For quite some time they sub-leased to a Unitarian Church and nobody cared at all about it. There was plenty of traffic and a lot of religious activity and the neighbors never said a thing.

Skip ahead to last year or so and that Unitarian Church outgrew the Temple’s property and moved locations and the Temple then leased part of the property to a company called Sage Behavior Services. In the brief window where the Church was moving out and Sage was moving in – allegedly there was an increase in traffic and a neighbor got big mad about it and started to complain.

She complained and complained and complained. Code Enforcement came to the property about 10 times and was never able to verify her complaints but not one to be denied, she kept on complaining and is complaining to this day.

The issue finally made to the Planning Department and because zoning is stupid the City told TVT that they needed to have an amendment to their Conditional Use Permit to allow Sage to operate in their residentially zoned space despite the work they do being allowed by the code. The Planning Department analyzed the business Sage was running and following the municipal code they determined that Sage was *most like* a school that helps developmentally challenged kids.

This is when the Planning Commission got involved and got stupid. (more…)

June 14, 2021June 14, 2021Bruce Whitaker

Fullerton City Council Gives the Finger to Taxpayers

by Joshua46 Comments

Fullerton has a long and sordid history of City Council making stupid moves and putting personal animus and self-interest above what’s best for the City and it’s residents but this week they’re just insulting us taxpayers.

You see, at the last council meeting a majority of the Council voted to approve a budget with a glaring $10 Million hole in it. That’s right – the budget is in the red and terribly so. We’re broke largely because we’ve been systematically defunded by the Police and Fire Unions over the years abetted by an indebted City Council Majority who can never make hard decisions, do real math or plan ahead for the future.

The current Council has no idea how they’re going to make up this budget deficit or where the money is going to come from to pay the ever increasing union pay and benefits packages they can never deny.

So this week what’s on the agenda? What are the brass tacks they’re going to get down to? What are the hard choices they’re prepared to make in light of our financial woes? Where oh where must the cutting begin?

Somewhere else at some later date. Instead of cutting, the council is instead going to vote on spending – specifically spending for themselves.

That’s right. Self-interest is the item of the day. They’re going to vote on wether or not they should spend $75,000 to give themselves offices on the third floor of City Hall.

Agenda - Council Office Spave

You heard that correctly. Just one meeting after admitting they have no idea how to balance our budget they want to reward themselves with new offices for all of their hard work.

This is a level of self-entitlement and tone-deafness that should be unimaginable from true “public servants”. This is nothing less than arrogance of the highest order.

Over the next few years you’re going to be asked to give up more in services, to pay more in fees and taxes and to take it on the chin because of our financial dire straights. Dire straights we were put in BY our bought and paid for City Councils.

Over those next few years Council and their allies will likely be trying to sell you on all of the financial hardships we face as a city – of course right after taking meetings with developers and lobbyists from their swanky new offices they prioritized over balancing the budget because, well, screw you.

I hope they at least have the decency to play the fiddle from up there on the third floor while they watch Fullerton burn but I doubt they’d even give us that much respect.

NeroFiddled

May 20, 2021Ahmad Zahra

Fullerton Settles Lawsuit with us “Hackers”

by Joshua17 Comments

All of the hyperbole and blustering bullshit aside, here’s the real story on how this case started and why it took as long as it did to make it to settlement.

Despite Jesus Silva, Ahmad Zahra & Kim Barlow’s rhetoric the truth is laid bare in video form.

April 8, 2021Chronic Failure

City Hall Proposes Screwing Residents, Yet Again – Stimulus Edition

by Joshua20 Comments

Fullerton recently was “awarded” more Federal Debt ($25Trillion and counting) by way of a $34,000,000 stimulus with the requisite strings attached. While it’s true that this $34M could pave a lot of roads, fix a lot of infrastructure and solve a lot of problems – City Hall wants this money to be used solely for salary & pension needs.

At Tuesday’s City Council meeting the pitch was made to “make whole” the staff who so bravely took a 5% pay cut when budgets were put into peril by the State mandated lockdowns in response to covid-19. This item was continued until the money is actually in hand.

Despite the item being continued, let us do away with this nonsense right here and now. Government is not supposed to be a job’s program. The entire purpose of government is to accomplish things the government won’t let us accomplish alone such as policing powers, infrastructure and the so forth.

When the government CEASES those activities, they don’t “deserve” your tax money. They haven’t earned it. The entire lie of the “social contract” is predicated on you paying taxes and getting things in return and we have a clear cut case of you getting nothing from much of staff and them still demanding their tribute.

The best example of this is the Parks Department. As far as I can tell, all of the parks were closed back in March of 2020 due to State mandated lockdown orders. The play equipment was roped off, all events were cancelled, youth sports went on hiatus, etc etc. There seemed to be zero actual parks activity going on in Fullerton for the better part of a year. Sure, the City laid off the part timers but what was the rest of staff doing?

Fuckall apparently because at Tuesday’s Council Meeting, City Manager Ken Domer ALSO wanted to get approval on a $236,000 “Parks Master Plan”. He manipulated the staff reports to bury the important point that the Parks and Rec Commission unanimously voted 5-0 against this “Master Plan” with a member of the Planning Commission voicing opposition as well.

Alas, we need a “Master Plan” because staff doesn’t know how to contact people online, hold surveys, get feedback and figure out how to do their jobs.

The audacity here is rather stunning even to a cynical individual such as myself.

Despite having a year sabbatical from actual work where staff spent their days attending pointless Zoom meetings to pad their hours, they couldn’t be bothered to spend any of that year figuring out what was wrong with our parks department.

They took a 5% pay cut from the City and took a near 100% work cut for themselves. Now they want their 5% back because they are hero and deserve, meanwhile we’re still not fully back up and running as a City AND they want us to continue to outsource their jobs because, well, screw you, that’s why.

To add insult to financial injury, City Hall didn’t bother to help most of you out. Did they pro-rate your business licenses since it was the threat of their police keeping your business closed? No. Did they cut you a break on your property taxes? Of course not. Hell, the schools refused to educate your kids and still demanded you pay up but that’s a different post for a different corrupt bureaucracy.

The point here is that government is a trade of taxes for services. That’s the deal. It’s City Council’s job to make sure that we residents get our end of the bargain at the best rates possible and while too many on council refuse to understand this basic principle of government – their ignorance (or willing corruption) doesn’t change the dynamic of how this is supposed to work.

If City Hall is closed, salaries need to reflect the lack of services and hours being delivered to the residents of Fullerton. If parks and events are closed, likewise the same reductions. If the City is enforcing State mandates that shutter businesses and lower capacities, the City needs to return a percentage of the taxes and fees extorted out of these businesses who are being handcuffed and given nothing in return.

It’s long overdue that City Hall realized that their job is to do their jobs and not simply collect a paycheck while dicking over the residents who fund those very checks.

Let us not forget to mention that some economic illiterates here in Fullerton are actually proposing back pay for the jobs that weren’t being done. You may have lost your business, may be facing eviction once evictions are allowed to resume, may have lost customers and clients – but hey – it’s City Hall who had to do nothing for a year that’s really suffering.

As for that $34Millions in BidenBucks – money is fungible. If Fullerton can screw us on in lieu water fees to prop up the heroes for a generation and then shaft us on the return of stolen money – council can cut & shift funding so that this money goes to where the Feds demand without the citizens of Fullerton getting shafted once again in favor of, as Ken Domer would have us believe, apparently useless staff.

March 21, 2021Chronic Failure

What the Hell Does Staff Even Do?

by Joshua16 Comments

Office Space Roads Meme — I have people skills goddammit!

At the last Parks and Recreation Commission meeting, City Staff asked the commission to approve a “Parks and Recreation Master Plan” on which they wanted to spend “$236,295 + $51,750 for an optional arts component”.

Parks and Rec Master Plan — A Quarter of a Million Bucks so Staff can outside their thinking…

What that amounts to is over 1/4 of a Million smackers so a consulting firm can put together a plan for how to do the jobs that we pay staff to do year in and year out. Here’s staff’s actual justification for why we need to pay for this “master plan”:

“Without a current masterplan, making decisions on what communities need in parks and amenities becomes very difficult. A large component of the master plan process is to ask the community what is important.”

Imagine sucking at your job so hard that you need to hire a consult to tell you how to prioritize your decision making process. They claim they need to hire somebody to talk to us plebs because, well, I assume that the denizens of the Crystal Palace that is City Hall might fear being dirtied and despoiled by the stain of the common folk.

The 2020 numbers aren’t up on Transparent California but as of 2019 (before they shitcanned the P&R Director Hugo Curiel), we were spending approximately $1,167,647.43 a year on staff. That’s in one year and doesn’t count the part timers who were mostly laid off in 2020.

That’s over a million dollars a year on payroll for people who don’t know how to prioritize or manage your parks. And no, I’m not being mean – they themselves asked to spend over $236k so SOMEBODY ELSE could “ask the community what is important”.

Parks Payroll 2019 — All this money to not know what the hell to do around town…

What, the ever loving hell, do these people actually do? They don’t write grants because we hire consultants & vendors for that. They don’t design parks because we hire consultants and vendors for that. They don’t build parks because… yup – vendors and consultants. Hell, the funding for the parks largely comes from the Park Dwelling Fees which is a byproduct of what the Planning Department does so you can’t even credit P&R for THAT.

Every time we look around, City Hall is trying to throw more and more money at people to do the work of the very people inside City Hall because gosh darn it, it’s just so hard to put up a survey or ask a question on Facebook. So instead we need a connected vendor to wine and dine staff (to get the contract) so they can post on Nextdoor and hold useless “community meetings” where they spend their days trying to sell people on things they never wanted, asked for or need. This is how the Fox Block study session included the ridiculous “street car” and how we got a paid parking pilot in downtown.

Thankfully sound minds prevailed and this nonsense was voted down by the P&R commission but expect staff to take it straight to City Council and for the complicit council to approve this payout because if there’s one thing staff IS good at it – it’s convincing the idiots on the dais that staff is too inept to do their jobs but somehow too necessary to just outsource entirely.

Maybe some day enough residents will figure out how they’re getting screwed by these incompetent asshats at City Hall and demand accountability of our “elected leaders” but don’t count on it.

March 1, 2021Ahmad Zahra

Fullerton Dems to Light $68k on Fire

by Joshua14 Comments

This Tuesday, at the request of the Fire Heroes Union, the Fullerton City Council will vote (likely 3-2) to light $68,000 dollars on fire to get a bid from the Orange County Fire Authority (OCFA).

This is a scam and just a waste of your tax dollars.

Don’t believe the fiscal lies being told here, none of the disingenuous liars who will vote for this care about your tax dollars and they’re certainly not going to get rid of Fullerton’s Fire Department to jump to OCFA.

The entire point of this bullshit bid is leverage to justify a raise for the Fire Department. Nothing more, nothing less.

I’ll prove it by using Council’s own agenda from the exact same meeting this coming Tuesday:

When you join OCFA you typically lease all of your equipment to them at no cost and all of your fire facilities for $1/year (as Garden Grove did a few years ago).

To take this bid seriously, you would have to believe that council is SERIOUSLY considering a bid to change to OCFA and is simultaneously spending $1,546,683.30 to buy Fullerton Fire a new ladder truck that they’ll just gift to OCFA to use as they see fit.

If we went to OCFA, it is them and not us who would decide where trucks (apparatus) would be stationed in order to best serve the cities under their jurisdiction. Thus it makes zero sense for Fullerton to buy a new truck when it might not even stay in Fullerton.

These conflicting agenda items would make no logical sense if this bullshit OCFA bid was serious. But it’s not serious.

This is just the council Dems lighting your tax dollars on fire, well, because screw you, they need to help a union argue for more of your money later during negotiations. Silva, Jung and Zahra refuse to take their role as representatives of the residents seriously any time a union rears it’s ugly head and this is just another gross example.

If the Fire Heroes Union wants this bid so bad they can pay for it their damn selves considering they have no issues spending their own money to try and raise your taxes (Measure S campaigning) or to pick your City Council (campaign contributions).

Your roads suck, your services are getting more expensive and you’re constantly being asked to do more with less by City Hall and City Council. Hell, the City asked you to donate Christmas decorations this last season because they’re so broke.

Domer-Decorations — Hitching to Needles…

But not broke enough to avoid spending $65k of your money to help a union at the negotiating table.

If this bid was serious then the council would be getting bids from LA Fire and Placentia as well as OCFA. That’s how you find out the best services with the most benefits fort he residents at the best price – by shopping around. So of course they don’t want to do any of that.

Later this year when the City is selling everything not nailed down, and a few things that are, remember this moment when these disingenuous liars spent your money on political theater to help out the unions who will always put their interests above your safety.

February 27, 2021February 27, 2021Chronic Failure

Fullerton Planning Commission Out-Stupids Itself

by Joshua13 Comments

The two default positions of government are corruption and stupidity but this coming week the Fullerton Planning Commission is about to engage in the latter to try and hide the former.

This week’s Planning Commission meeting, as chaired by Elizabeth Hansburg, will be spent pretending to not know what “is” is in order to try and obfuscate the fact that City Hall is acting like corrupt jackasses picking winners and losers.

Ok, so in this case the “is” in question is the phrase “property owner” but the sentiment of obfuscation by semantically playing games is the same.

Here’s the verbatim “background and analysis” from next week’s meeting:

“The City’s land use applications require completion by or authorization from the corresponding property owner”. The Fullerton Municipal Code (FMC) defines “fee owner”. Throughout the FMC, various forms of “owner” are identified as the party to file a land use application. While these terms are commonly understood to all identify the legal owner of a real property, these amendments will clarify what constitutes a property owner.”

This is just blustering bullshit because PC and City Hall got caught with their pants down while trying to violate the law in favor of a preferred business.

Never once in the history of Fullerton has the phrase “property owner” been in contention until City Hall tried to pass off a fabricated Conditional Use Permit in violation of the City’s municipal code. You can read about that particular scam [HERE] & [HERE]. Pretending to not know what words mean after the fact is what liars do to avoid accountability.

If the Planning Commission really didn’t know what “Property Owner” meant it would call into question years of decisions spanning PC and City Council. It would call into question tons of zoning, permitting and a lot of the work being done in the planning department.

None of that is being brought up in this agenda item because Planning Commission isn’t worried about any of that – precisely because they know they’re full of shit and this is a distraction.

But how do I know this isn’t honest stupidity as opposed to corrupt pretend stupidity to cover-up an attempted fraud? Because CA law supersedes the Municipal Code and CA law already clarifies who a “property owner” is and that’s the person who holds the title and pays the property taxes.

I’ll point your attention to the California Department of Real Estate’s website which gives you a nice little history [HERE] of why property has an owner in CA. But let’s just jump to page 55 to get to the meat (bold emphasis added):

OWNERSHIP OF REAL PROPERTY All property has an owner, the government – federal, state, or local— or some private party or entity (typically referred to as persons). Very broadly, an estate in real property may be owned in the following ways: 1. Sole or several ownership; 2. Joint, common, or community ownership; a. Tenancy in common; b. Joint tenancy; c. Community property; or, d. Partnership interests. 3. Ownership by other lawfully created entities. SOLE OR SEVERAL OWNERSHIP Sole or several ownership is defined to mean ownership by one person. Being the sole owner, one person enjoys the benefits of the property and is subject to the accompanying burdens, such as the payment of taxes. Subject to applicable federal and state law, a sole owner is free to dispose of property at will. Typically, only the sole owner’s signature is required on the instrument of transfer/deed of conveyance. See Civil Code Section 681.

When The Other Dick Jones™️ sided with Florentine’s asinine “legal opinion” that Florentine was entitled to bypass the law, all he did was perpetuate a fraud on behalf of City Hall.

It was never in question that Joe Florentine wasn’t the required owner needed for his Conditional Use Permit and the City knew it from day one. Why they chose to pick sides is anybody’s guess but that’s government here in Fullerton.

However – if that isn’t clear enough for the nitwits on Planning Commission let’s look at the requirements for noticing zoning and land use decisions in the Fullerton Municipal Code:

Ah. So we have to refer back to State law again. Here’s the highlighted CA Gov Code:

So the Fullerton Municipal Code says that before a public hearing, of which Chair Hansburg has participated in who knows how many in her years on Planning Commission, the city must notify people based on a State Law that defines a property owner by looking at the “equalized assessment roll” or in laymen’s terms – tax rolls.

It’s never been a question of who owns what property in Fullerton or what the Conditional Use Permit meant by “Property Owner”.

This is bullshitery and bluster to bury bureaucratic bungling. If you don’t believe me – just look at the City of Fullerton’s own Development Portal:

You can’t make up this level of disingenuous asshattery.

This is Fullerton efficiency for you. Staff’s time and several meetings will be wasted to get to the bottom of the meaning of a phrase in common usage – meanwhile nobody is being held to account for how we got to this level of stupid in the first place. If this is what we can expect from the current planning commission we’re in for a long, rough ride on the Idiot Express.

February 26, 2021Corruption

Adan Ortega Takes Racism & Grifting to San Fernando

by Joshua10 Comments

It didn’t take racist grifter Adan Ortega long to find a new city to help him keep him aboard his little crony gravy train.

You’ll recall that Mr. Ortega was removed from the Metropolitan Water Board of Directors by Fullerton back on 02 February. Now, according to their agenda for 01 March, Ortega is going to be appointed back to that very board by San Fernando.

Adan Ortega - San Fernando — He took his little grift to a town known for getting pounded…

Not even a month went by before he managed to get back on the board that allows him to so easily peddle his municipal lobbying firm “Ortega Solutions” to unsuspecting entities. And just like that the grift keeps on grifting.

That he also peddles in racism & the San Fernando City Council is a-ok with that is further evidence that porn is still the moral and ethical bright spot in the San Fernando Valley.

This just goes to show that Fullerton was right to remove him because representing Fullerton’s interests was never his agenda – the same as representing San Fernando won’t be going forward. I guess the taxpayers of San Fernando better hope those evil “white people” in Pasadena look out for their best interests because Ortega will be too busy looking out for his own.