Fullerton Election Eve Thoughts
Thoughts? My first thought is that Fullerton will never change, will never elect responsible and accountable City Councils who will appoint anything but ridiculous members to Commissions and never demand accountability from their staff. And that city staff will always get what it wants, and will keep pushing their agenda until a weary council concedes, or a compliant council agrees.
My second thought is a cliché. Hope springs eternal. We have never seen a strong City Council develop policy and direct staff to implement it. But it remains possible, if vey unlikely.
In District 1 the election is a foregone conclusion, incumbent Fred Jung will tattoo the weird, clownish Matt Truxaw, whom somebody pulled from obscurity, elevated to slightly above obscurity, and who will return to it Wednesday morning.
In District 2 we have the affable and earnest Mayor Nick Dunlap opposed by the octogenarian Jan Flory, the three-time political re-tread who has left her claw marks all over Fullerton’s worst disaster in the past 30 years. If you want mean, sanctimonious, vindictive, and inveterately pro-bureaucracy liberal, she’s your choice. She claims to be the “most experienced” candidate, which suggest an utter lack of self-awareness. Why she wants a fourth lap around the track is anybody’s guess. It seems highly unlikely that there are enough of Flory’s ilk to beat the eager-not-to-offend Dunlap, and I’m pretty sure that won’t happen.
That leaves the 4th District, the place where Democrat operatives created a fake MAGA candidate, Scott Markowitz, to draw votes GOP votes away from incumbent Bruce Whitaker’s wife, Linda, who is running to replace him. Markowitz has copped to a perjury rap, leniently reduced to some community service. Did he rat on anybody? Let’s hope so.
The would-be beneficiary of the Markowitz crimes is Vivian “Kitty” Jaramillo, among whose Democrat supporters must have been participants in the Markowitz election fraud. She is yet another superannuated liberal; she wants high density housing, no overnight parking restrictions, and oh, yeah, a new Golden Age for Fullerton’s underpaid and under-pensioned employees.
A former public employee and million dollar pension recipient herself, Jaramillo actually told the OC Register that she intends to represent the public employees. Jaramillo sought the endorsements of the local Democrat small-fry politicians, including the egregious Zionist Lou Correa. It’s an old-timey strategy but does anybody really care about that kind of thing in 2024? Jaramillo raised a lot of cash from unions. Has she used it wisely? We’ll know tomorrow night, possibly.
Linda Whitaker has been mostly low-profile from what I can tell. Like Jaramillo, she is another 70-something who seems, well, not too fired up. Not much has been heard of Linda except for except a couple forums and a lot of campaign signs.
4D voters saw some door hangers that included an odd photo of old bikers with Whitaker signs. I don’t know if Ms. Whitaker did any direct mail or is mostly counting on her husband’s name ID with voters.
Word on the street is that the Whitakers took off for a week during the campaign to go to Fullerton’s Italian Sister City, which isn’t a good look for any candidate who wants to win, and wants people to think she can. Could this be right? It has the ring of truth.
Finally, there is newcomer Jamie Valencia who has conducted a disciplined, well-organized, well-funded campaign, the campaign of somebody who looks an awful lot like a winner, and who may prove to be the biggest surprise in north Orange County politics in a long, long time. Will Valencia be the big beneficiary of the anti-Jaramillo campaign waged by Fullerton Taxpayers for Reform, and not Linda Whitaker? This would be a fun twist.
She got the OC Register editorial team’s endorsement and that, ironically, might hurt Whitaker more than Scott Markowitz ever would have.
Valencia is an attractive, comparatively young woman with kids, a registered ER nurse, and has got the endorsement of the police and fire unions, a helluva coup whatever one’s feelings about those unions might be.
Finally we have the school bond measures L & N, another deep reach into our pockets by grossly overpaid and overstaffed educrats. The fact that we are still paying off previous bonds doesn’t seem to have resonated with these folk, to whom we are nothing but a payday loan opportunity, wherein we pay the principle and interest. In these campaigns, the school districts use our resources to educate us while they shake down out-of-town architects, consultants, construction contractors and subcontractors to pay for the election. They often use district employees, facilities and even students as part of their campaign – it happened last time.
A guerilla opposition campaign has been waged by Fullerton Taxpayers for Reform with simple but effective signs and robotexts: bond costs are paid for by everybody one way or another.
Will the bonds gather the necessary 55% majority to succeed? The districts’ last bond effort failed in the March 2020 primary. That was right before the pandemic and it’s hard to see a path to success this time, either.
Linda Whitaker is toast. She raised quite a bit of money and had no idea how to use it.
The race is between Jaramillo and Jamie Valencia. Old vs. new. Tired and entitled vs. a hard worker.
I agree: can’t see the bonds winning.
I don’t think Fullerton is much different than any other town where extremely average people run for office and get elected.
Somewhat true, I suppose, but there has to be an explanation for Bankhead, Jones, McClanahan, Sa, Godfrey, Clesceri, Wilson, Quirk-Silva, et al. I mean these people have been really worse than useless – some comically dumb. In the 90s especially it became de rigeur for a candidate to stand for nothing except defending the status quo.
The water?
You mean the water that leaked out of Laguna Lake that we all had to pay MWD to replace? That water?
Hey Leroy, Vote Trump. He promises to remove fluoride from toofpaste.
The thing is, city council is a lot of heartache and little reward unless you are using it to start a career in politics or to protect some business interests that are financing you.
We have lots of problems here in Fullerton and California. The commies in Sacto control most of it. Who would want to jump into those shark-infested waters?
There are and have been plenty of good politicos. Government is necessary. What isn’t is unnecessary government and useless bureaucrats who sit at a desk collecting a check and not doing their job. Same thing happens in the private sector too where there is an abundance of ineptness in the corporate and small business world.
I agree. I’m just saying it’s a tough thankless job.
If you can’t plan a campaign, you can’t plan a council agenda. If you can’t afford a bad blog post or take a hit in the comments section, you can’t deal with the people yelling at you to wake up or look at them. If you can’t solve problems, you’ll become our problem. That’s how we got Ahmad. Let’s learn from our mistakes.
Bruce never knew how to campaign. He would have lost in 2020 except for Tony Bushala who propped him up while running Thakur back up to the hill.
True
Except that Aaruni Maaruni never left the hill.
That’s because Aaruni Thakur isn’t from that neighborhood and doesn’t live on the southside. He lives in Amerige Heights and pretends to be a man of the people, when he’s just a greasy ambulance chaser. If Linda comes in second to Nurse Jamie, she should challenge that fraud for school board.
Sounds like the Whitakers are out of favor here and Nurse Valencia is in.
Sounds like Linda bungled the whole thing – even after Jaramillo’s team was tied to the election fraud.
Hey, Nurse Valencia worked hard, something foreign to the Whitakers.
On Wednesday morning, if Linda Whitaker comes up short and doesn’t win, all you need to do is look at her signs along Gilbert and blame the amateur hour campaign she ran. If FFFF is right and she took a vacation to Europe in the middle of a campaign, she has no business being on council. Bruce was spoiled by Bushala and never had to run a campaign of his own.
At least Linda threw her hat in. If Valencia didn’t run, Linda would have won. Linda would be a good councilwoman. Jabamillo is a vile vindictive government pensioned employee who dreams of squishing regular people for minor municipal zoning code violations.
At least? Scott markowitz threw his hat in too. Maybe she thought she had something owed to her.
Threw her hat in? This isn’t a potato sack race! It’s a vote to craft a city budget, control its police force and its fire department, make city hall customer friendly or a costly and inefficient mess, and whether your street gets any love this century. Not to mention zoning, permitting, and the thousand other things we vote them into office to do on our behalf. If Linda can’t be bothered to even try to campaign and dignify her supporters, she should have suspended the campaign and returned to being a spectator.
If this is the best Fullerton can do then you’re really fucked.
Ahmad Zahra is not the best Fullerton can do. He’s the best liberals suffering from white guilt who ID as gay friendly and retired teachers from CSUF or the JC or the high school district or the elementary school district can do. Shana Charles is not the best Fullerton can do. She’s the best district who has the largest university with no on campus student population can do. You can call Dunlap eager-to-not-offend, and he is, but he is the best that district has to offer. So you win some, you lose some.
Union pockets full
Potholes fill streets, path to nowhere
Leadership failure
Nurse Valencia
Youngish attractive woman
Bought by hero thugs
The poet sings his song
The greener grass is yonder
And his chord is blue
Curious how you would view cops and fire if you were badly injured in a car accident, or your house were on fire, or your child was overdosing, or your house was being robbed. Bet you wouldn’t call them thugs then huh. They do a job. Hopefully, just like you. A few are really good at it. A few are really bad at it. But thugs they are not. So careful with your word choices so the bad actors like the Ahmads of the world don’t get the backing of cops and fire.
Thug: a violent or brutish criminal or bully.
Fullerton PD = Thugs
First responders should not be involved in politics, period! Their involvement has been severely detrimental to taxpayers.
Public safety unions have more in common with organized crime syndicates than community service and charitable organizations.
Poor logic. Since we don’t have any choice on whom to call they have a monopoly on the service; and since they’re unionized the can influence politics and, as in the case of Kelly Thomas, get away with murder.
What’s to love?
Good points Joe. I do Paul Revere to warn you that the devil you know (cops) is better than the devil you don’t (Ahmad). Don’t marry the two.
Well, it ain’t looking good for us poor basterds down here in dist 4.
Less than 100 votes between Jamarillo and Valencia. Seems like the in-person ballots made it back to the ROV and its down to the mail-ins and provisionals..
Did Valencia actually win?
Someone please tell me.
She’s ahead by 130 votes.
And the shill Markowitz got 12%!!!