Author: Joe Sipowicz

At least so they say. Small businesses and local entrepreneurs, “play a significant role in driving community engagement, creating jobs, and fostering a sense of belonging among residents,” intones Saksia Kennedy. They need fairness from the City when it comes to outdoor dining permit fees.

Her model example is Les Amis that rents space from the City on left over property when the old Redevelopment Agency blew an opening from Wilshire Avenue to the parking lot off Malden. Apparently Les Amis is getting hit with back rent that was suspended due to Covid and the rent cost is real big.

Well, okay, we really know this is a backhanded swipe at the Santa Fe Depot Cafe that pays no rent on patio space outside. But we will never be told by the Observer that this is because the space is open to and used by the public, gratis.

Nevertheless, the point is interesting about public space being used for private purposes; in theory, rents should be uniform for similar purposes; but some locations may not be able to support the rents that others do because of location and other factors, a simple truth that supports individual assessments.

But hey, wait a minute. Since when did the Observer Sisters ever give a rat’s ass about businesses? Neither one has ever run a business, let alone an entrepreneurship – what ever the word “entrepreneur” might even mean to them.

For the past year the Fullerton Observer was actively engaged supporting the idiot decision to close West Wilshire Avenue at Harbor Boulevard to traffic and to keep the busy street closed. The resulting “Walk on Wilshire” was a dismal failure to anyone paying a modicum of attention: it was an inconvenience to motorists, hardly anybody used it, it lost money, and worst of all, it hurt the small businesses and property owners in the 100 block of West Wilshire who noticed a decline in business after the street was closed. A “pilot program” became a virtual bureaucratic make-work program with no end in sight.

The Kennedy Sisters made it their mission to save “WoW,” and in doing so even ran ads in their own publication, trying to put public pressure on local businesses to support the scheme. Hardly the behavior of those wanting to advocate for small businesses, is it? They never mentioned to their readers the activities of City Hall employees who deliberately kept Wilshire businesses and property owners in the dark about what they were doing.

“Okay, Joe” I can hear you saying, “so what.” We all know that the Fullerton Observer is locked into ossified ideological boneheadedness, uber alles. I know that’s true. But it’s a little breathtaking to observe people who are so steadfastly free from self-awareness; who have a world-view where practicality is so completely absent; and where it’s always the thought that counts, not the cost – even if the thought is patronizing, nonsensical, or unable to stand the scrutiny of normal people.

Yep. You read that right. As reported in the Voice of OC last month, DA Todd Spitzer and his former bad cop Shawn Nelson were popped for retaliating against Tracy Miller, one of the Deputy DAs. It seems that Spitzer hired his best bud Gary LoGalbo at the DAs shop who proceeded to sexually harass a bunch of women; Miller said she was targeted by Spitzer and Nelson for whistleblowing. This is the frat boy kind of garbage so common in the workplace.

A jury believed Ms. Miller and awarded her three million bucks. That’s a lot of scratch. And many other suits are till outstanding.

Shawn Nelson, Todd Spitzer, and Joe Sipowicz have one thing in common. None of us will have to pay a dime of that award. Nelson and Spitzer are protected by the typical indemnification that goes with public employment. And I live in Lincoln County, Nevada.

But OC residents will pay plenty. About a dollar for every person in the county; about $150,000 for very man woman and child in Fullerton. So Sorry.

For Spitzer the case is just another in a long line of employee related legal suits dating back his days as a County Supervisor. He’s been busted for racial profiling and recently lost a $2,000,000 case for retaliating against a DA investigator. Ouch. He’s costing OC a helluva lot more than he’s worth.

The equally morally egregious Nelson once a Fullerton Councilman, used to be a hardcore Spitzer enemy until he saw him as a was to become a judge – a long standing wet dream job. But he was never going to get it without help – an official job with the DAs office. So Nelson endorsed Spitzer over Rackauckas in 2018 and in return got the job as Spitzer’s in-house enforcer. He also got an undeserved job title (he was formerly a defense lawyer) and a free pass to a judgeship via an election against a nobody. The Bar Association described him as “unqualified.”

Spitzer’s response was a non-apology of the “I’m sorry my well-intentioned actions were misinterpreted” type. Nelson, as a judge didn’t have to say anything, hiding behind the “He can’t comment” as parroted by some court flunky to the media.

Ever ask yourself how America got stuck with not one but two Trump presidencies? There are lots of reasons, including the fact that a great many Americans are generally stupid, incurious, nativist, fearful of this or that, and of course, did I mention really stupid?

But there’s something else going on here too, and that’s the phenomenon of ordinary folk who are just sick and tired of liberal academic preachers preaching to them about how to live, what to believe. This is precisely why there is so little outcry among the masses about Trump’s war on academic elites.

They had it coming.

For decades the problem of an impractical and ideological driven agenda telling everybody how to talk and how to behave and what to think has gotten worse and worse. There was bound to be a reaction.

What does this have to do with Fullerton? Well, I’ll tell you. Fullerton is an academic backwater – with a third-tier university and a junior college; and that means that these institutions and their camp followers are going to try extra hard to polish the produce of their politically correct world-view. In some circles this passes for enlightenment – just like accepting at face value any idiot who checks the right boxes.

Let’s take Fullerton’s leading liberal politicians, two individuals who revel in the tile of “Doctor” and who, like the conscientious patent medicine peddler, love to dispense their dubious wares.

First exhibit for the prosecution. Shana Charles, a CSUF teacher whose specialty is “public health” a silly academic field of activity ginned up to fill the ranks of graduate schools. Ms. Charles is naturally a barely contained wind bag whose supercilious and lengthy lectures are truly annoying. But despite the smiles there is no doubt that Charles considers herself a superior intellect, perfectly suited to the role of moral preacher.

My second exhibit is none other than the good Doctor from Damascus, the self-righteous Ahmad Zahra, whose pontifications on moral probity and the defects thereof practiced by his colleagues are common fare at council meetings. Like his ally Charles, Zahra’s lectures run on for a long time and are characterized by hand-wringing and finger pointing. Yeah, Zahra looks down on you and me, and why not? He’s a member of the cosmopolitan intelligentsia, see?

Naturally Zahra and Charles have no experience that would actually help them understand their constituents. Who needs experience when ideology is so potent? Their playground is the unaccountable arena of feeling good about their liberal thoughts, and of course in telling everybody else what to do. This is exactly the high-handed moral bossiness that pisses off so many people.

In Fullerton we also know that our liberal moral and truthy exemplars have proverbial feet of clay.

The idea of the adipose Shana Charles lecturing anybody on any sort of health, is preposterous; wasting millions just to pay heed to the all-important concept, efficacy be damned – bike trails that nobody will use – is especially painful.

And then there’s “Dr.” Zahra, an unemployed parasite with no income (read his Form 700 for fun) whose speechifying on morality, the spirit of the law, and so forth is remarkably hypocritical even for a low-grade politician. We’ve seen his record: a phony marriage to a woman in Arkansas to stay in the country; claiming exoneration for an assault and battery case where there wasn’t any; plagiarizing articles to appear like an expert on water issue; and filing a false police report against one of his colleagues. What a guy.

These people need fuel to keep their fire going and that sustenance is provided by the various academic flotsam who think that Zahra and Charles represent everybody – instead of just themselves. In fact these folk are the ones who are always nattering about “the people” who want this or that (expensive) nonsense; and largely because “they” are “underserved” the classic liberal/bureaucratic label that patronizing boohoos stick on Latinos, and blacks and anybody else who needs a financial or bureaucratic middleman to give them something “nice.”

And I would be remiss if I didn’t mention those other purveyors of liberal tripe, the Fullerton Observer Sisters, Sharon and Skaskia, whose censored blog and twice monthly screed is dedicated to supporting whatever nonsense is ladled out by their heroes, too dumb to understand the extent of how they are being manipulated.

Early yesterday morning Fullerton police had some sort of run in with what is characterized as an unhinged guy in Lemon Park. After some sort of scuffle the guy croaked. Hmm.

Here’s the notification by the Fullerton Police Department, replete with the usual self-serving lingo.

Now why am I reminded of the Kelly Thomas incident?

Erratic behavior, additional officers (to assist in investigation?!), uncooperative male, more officers needed to restrain, oops cop “violently bit” on the arm by suspect causing injuries (note the use of the plural), paramedics arrive, guy pronounced dead at “local hospital.”

Something about this whole episode seems surreal. A guy holding a “smoldering” cardboard box? More superhuman strength, of course suggesting the ol’ PCP, meth, whatever. We are informed that the suspect began to “show signs of a medical emergency” which makes me wonder about what sorts of “restraint” were used.

Of course at the end of this literary masterpiece we are reminded that the ever-vigilant District Attorney Todd Spitzer will conduct an “independent investigation” that will be nothing more than a condemnation of crazy homeless dudes and a clean bill of health for the FPD.

That’s the way it looks. FFFF’s attorney Kelly Aviles sent word to the City that Friends for Fullerton’s Future was planning a periodical publication and wanted to dispense it on City property – City Hall, the Fullerton Library, the Community Center. You may recall our post.

Our lawyer has not heard anything in the past four and a half weeks. There is an obvious stall tactic, of course. This means one of two things. Could it be because the City doesn’t know how to respond? Or, maybe the City wants to ignore the request just hoping somehow it will go away.

We do know that there is no love lost between FFFF and Fullerton’s astonishingly still employed City Attorney, the I Can’t Believe It’s A Law Firm of Jones and Mayer. These cut rate pettifoggers, hand job lawyers, and low percentile law school grads don’t like us because of our myriad posts outlining their incompetence, corruption, and self-dealing. They even tried to sue FFFF and a couple of its writers a few years back. Their loss must still hurt their misplaced professional pride.

We also know that the upper echelons of the City also look askance at our disrespectful but honest chronicling of their misdeeds over the past 17 years. There’s a long list of corrupt cops, boobs, drunk driving city managers, incompetents and ne’er do wells whom we have raked over the coals, including several of the current generation.

Obviously, the immigration and marriage fraud Ahmad Zahra doesn’t like us because we are anti-Muslim homophobes, which hilariously corresponds exactly with his exercise in self branding. Whether his pal in the “progressive” ideology charade, Shana Charles is opposed to an FFFF presence in City Hall is unknown.

What about Nick Dunlap and Fred Jung? We have been sort of nice to them when they do good things; also not so nice when they cave in to Fullerton’s boohoo phalanx. Are they trying to blackball us? I don’t know and I don’t know if Jamie Valencia has even heard of our humble blog.

Whatever the dynamics, we’re not giving up. If a squalid rag like the Fullerton Observer, with its innuendo, errant information, sanctimonious and blatant politicking can be disseminated on public property, so can our proposed chronicle.