Joshua, Author at Friends For Fullerton's Future

February 23, 2021February 23, 2021Bad Cop

Fullerton Police Officer Gets Wrist Slapped for Felony

Dearly Departed Sappy McTree

The Joe Felz Cover-up is nearly complete. Yesterday the officer, Jeff Corbett, who falsified his report, was slapped on the wrist for his felonious actions.

While we don’t know what happened in his Jury Trial, the bench trial ended yesterday with the judge giving him less time for lying in his official capacity as a police officer than you can get for contempt of court.

His attorney said this case, where an officer lied on a report, was more of a “political football than a felony”. Let that sink in. Lying under the color of authority isn’t that big of a deal in this system.

His attorney also claimed that Corbett was being prosecuted for his “opinion” that Joe Felz wasn’t intoxicated. What this defense attorney and judge ignored is that it took Corbett over an hour to conduct his “limited investigation” because, according to Corbett himself, the “back and forth phone calls” took too long. Those are the phone calls between Corbett, Danny Hughes, Jennifer Fitzgerald and lord knows who else.

So the powers that be were pulling strings for Felz to not get treated like any other DUI in Fullerton (hi MADD!) and Corbett went along with it by stating that an obviously intoxicated Felz (who plead guilty to that fact) didn’t seem intoxicated. The other officers reported that Felz “smelled of alcohol” but something something Corbett is hero and deserve.

The judge admitted she had no idea there was an independent investigation by RCS and she clearly didn’t know the facts of the case or she wouldn’t call this just a “sloppy investigation”.

The judge claimed there are a lot of politics involved and then claimed she was going to avoid the politics to “follow the law” but you cannot untangle the two in this case. Let us not forget that the Mayor and Chief of Police directed the actions of a police officer in relation to the drinking and driving by the City Manager. That the officer was on the up-and-up when he claimed to not think the City Manager was drunk under the law (after not doing a breathalyzer and waiting over an hour to conduct any sobriety tests) is laughable at best.

Corbett Sentence

It only took 51 months, 14 days (or 1,567 days) for the illusion of justice to be handed down in the Joe Felz Sappy McTree Caper.

All in all he got 80 hours of community service, is required to pay restitution (that may not even exist), is required to pay $500 to the “victim witness” and Corbett can’t work in law enforcement anymore. Once this “diversion” is completed in a year the record will be sealed.

All that remains is for the body worn camera footage to be “lost” by FPD now that there is no reason to legally withhold it from the public.

February 22, 2021Joe Felz's Wild Ride

Former FPD Officer Corbertt is Back in Court

by Joshua1 Comment

Former FPD Officer Jeff Corbett, made famous for giving former City Manager Joe Felz a pass on his drunken driving, is back in court over his falsifying a report in that very incident.

He had a previous jury trial where… something happened? Now he’s back with a bench trial.

Watch live here:

Never say the wheels of justice move slowly in America – we’re only 4 years and 3.5 months away from the incident in question.

February 20, 2021February 20, 2021Chronic Failure

Fullerton Could Sue You For Looking at Public Records

by Joshua14 Comments

Akbar It's a Trap

Fullerton has a new(ish) online Public Records portal to view records requests made by the public. If you put in a Public Records Request, and I urge you to submit them often for fun and profit, you’ll get a response sometime within 10 days telling you to wait longer. When you finally get an actual response to your request the Assistant City Clerk will likely email you and in the email will include the following line;

“The City of Fullerton has reviewed its files and has located responsive records to your request. You can inspect these documents online in the Fullerton Public Records Center.”

Maybe you’ll get a link, maybe you won’t. But the “Public Records Center” looks like this:

PRR Portal — Admiral Ackbar is NOT amused

BE WARNED. This could be a trap.

If you, acting like a normal person on the internet, click on “Public Records Home” and navigate to the “Public Records Request Log” you will be able to see all current public record requests and their responses. This is where the trap comes into play. You see, the City of Fullerton has NOT given you “Expressed Authorized Permission” to view these publicly available public records and as such could be trying to entrap you into a legal case.

After all, that is EXACTLY what they’re claiming we did over on their former PRR portal (Dropbox) and we’ve been in court for over a year with City Hall calling us “hackers” and “thieves” for clicking links on a website (Dropbox) they told us about and sent us links to click.

Now they’re telling people about this new portal and sending people links to this GovQa powered portal as though everything is fine and on the up and up. It is not.

If, or more likely WHEN, the City screws up again and puts something on this new PRR Portal that they later claim shouldn’t be online, they’re likely to sue you under the Federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act as well as the CA counterpart the CDAFA.

To drive the point home that this is serious and not just me trolling you, the hosting software is run by “GovQA” which is a private equity owned company that even tells you in their terms of service (TOS) that you are responsible if you are granted access to things by mistake;

“You must not retrieve information, or in any other way disclose information, for someone who does not have authority to access that information.”

This is precisely what the City of Fullerton claims happened with us on Dropbox.

But how will you know when you’ve been granted access to something you shouldn’t have access to? You won’t. That’s the point.

In our case Fullerton’s City Attorneys have been incapable of figuring out which records on Dropbox were public and which were allegedly not. In their court documents they’ve claimed AT LEAST 4 different lists of offending files.

That’s right. First the City claimed everything on Dropbox wasn’t public. Then some of it was public, then a different some of it was public and then a different some of it still. If City Hall and their small army of attorneys don’t know what’s public – how are you supposed to know what you’re allowed to look at?

This is how you risk getting blamed for City Hall’s screw-ups the way we’re getting blamed.

But wait, there's more! — But wait, there’s more!

It gets better. GovQa even EXPLICITLY references the CFAA in their TOS (emphasis added);

“You understand that any person or business entity who obtains information from a computer connected to the Internet in violation of computer-use restrictions is in violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.“

Fullerton, in court, is arguing that clicking on a link we weren’t explicitly told it was okay to click is a violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. That is their actual legal argument.

Consider yourself warned. Do not trust this new system in Fullerton as our case is ongoing with no end in sight. Fullerton City Hall & City Council have never taken responsibility for their own screw-ups so it is incumbent upon you to protect yourself from their litigious and corrupt nature.

Use TOR or a VPN if you need to access these systems. Set up a dummy email account. Do whatever you need to do to protect yourself because even though you have every right to view every document published on that public facing website – that they’ll tell you about – it doesn’t mean that the city won’t entrap you, slander you and play the victim with your own money.

February 19, 2021February 19, 2021Ahmad Zahra

Zahra Cares As Long As Somebody Else Does the Work for Him

by Joshua17 Comments

I get quite a lot of pushback from people around town for picking on District 5 Council member Ahmad Zahra. Leaving out the partisan hacks, the biggest pushback I get is from people who, naively, genuinely believe that he puts in the work and cares about their interests. The single biggest issue of contention from these fine well meaning folk is Fullerton’s water. Constantly we hear about how much Zahra cares about the quality of our water. After all, his caring was the key reason people bemoaned his not being re-appointed to the Orange County Water District (OCWD).

The evidence of his caring most commonly referenced are usually the articles he wrote for the Fullerton Observer on water. Such as HERE and HERE and HERE.

But what if I told you that he only cares so long as somebody else is doing the heavy lifting and/or thinking for him?

The truth is that Ahmad Zahra, like many politicians, wants you to believe that he does the homework because he cares about you, while in reality he’s nothing more than a puppet.

Here are those three Fullerton Observer articles “by” Ahmad Zahra side-by-side with the original counterparts as written by a spokeshole for the OCWD:

Recently said spokeshole retired from OCWD which means you can expect the quality of Zahra’s “writing” to change as well.

Why do I care about this ghostwriting?

First of all it’s because he’s pretending that this is his work as evidenced by the “By Ahmad Zahra” byline over at Press Release Central, the Fullerton Observer.

Second, it’s because it shows who Zahra was really working for while over at OCWD. His job as Fullerton’s Representative at OCWD was to represent Fullerton’s interests – the interests of we residents – but somehow he decided that instead he would represent the interests of OCWD going so far as to pass off their PR as his own ideas and work.

Like most dishonest puppets in government he forgot the very role he promised the people he would do while chasing the gravy that was his $40k+/year stipend from OCWD.

I didn’t expect anything else from this peacocking faux-pontificator but many people around town took him seriously that he was serious and that’s why this matters.

The best defense for Zahra here is that he had somebody rewrite OCWD’s work just enough to not be straight up ghost-writing. Even he knew that he had to make the PR look a little less PR-ey to get passed the “eagle eyes” over at the Observer who only publish City Hall’s propaganda without question.

Perhaps one of the saddest things is people actually believe that Zahra isn’t your typical politician because he checked all the right boxes and said all the right things. He claims he is so different and he really cares, but at the end of the day, he’s just as much the same bought and paid for crony who needs a PR rep to write his own words for him.

February 13, 2021About Us

The LA Times Only Cares About Women When it Helps Their Team

by Joshua13 Comments

The hacks over at the Los Angeles Times are super concerned that Adan Ortega was removed from his non-paying gig as Fullerton’s representative to the Metropolitan Water District (MWD) because he’s a champion of the working classes or some shit. I don’t know, I lost interest in their most recent #MeToo story when I remembered that Fullerton City Council member Ahmad Zahra has been charged with battery against a woman of color and the LA Times has said precisely ZERO about the story.

Their interest in such topics tend to have a very partisan flavor and it’s both predictable and boring.

Because of course they did, the LAT omitted that Ortega is a racist because he’s the fashionable type of racist that the LAT employs and endorses. They also omitted that he’s a grifter who quite literally is a lobbyist in the municipal water industry and therefore is logically conflicted out of putting the residents of Fullerton first in his now former position on the MWD.

Gee, it’s almost like there were good reasons to replace Mr. Ortega outside of the claims being made by the local union hacks. I could point to his $5000/mo consulting gig over in 29 Palms (Page 70) or perhaps that MWD was even a client of his but that would be journalism.

Adan Ortega Conflicts — The list of conflicts goes on and on and on…

Sadly the press was too busy reprinting the talking points of Ortega’s allies to get into the details of a basic google search.

Because of their tedious brand of hackery, the press, largely, should not be taken seriously or at face value until they either admit their biases or start acting like honest reporters. A good place to start would be to report about the news as it relates to ALL elected officials as opposed to just those accused of wrongthink.

By way of example they could avoid talking, relentlessly, about Tito Ortiz not wearing a mask because of the dangers of Covid-19 while simultaneously ignoring that Ahmad Zahra violated social distancing guidelines in order to, allegedly, batter a women of color. Unless of course he allegedly battered her from 6 feet away.

But of course this won’t happen because journalism is thinly veiled activism and almost nobody wants to agitate against their own allies. They don’t want to lose out on an invite to the socially distanced soirees.

This isn’t an issue isolated to the wasteland of Los Angeles either.

ALL of the other major outlets, both in print and on Tv, who couldn’t get enough of Tito are guilty of the same partisan hackery. The OC Register, to their credit, ran a puff piece talking about how stunning and brave and bravely stunning Zahra is in reference to his being charged with battery but the rest of the gang have been nowhere to be seen. I expected better from the Voice of OC but alas they too have fallen victim to this consensus of reporting conformity.

While City Hall continues to attack us in the courts and pretend we’re not journalists, I’d like you to remember that we’re the ONLY local source willing to upset the status quo to tell you the truth whether you want to hear it or not.

February 12, 2021February 12, 2021Bad Cops

The Fullerton Observer in a Nutshell

by Joshua16 Comments

Pravda — Fullerton Observer in their Native Russian

I don’t read the Fullerton Observer because I find little value in their brand of blasé government cheerleading masquerading as serious “local” journalism. However, that doesn’t mean that I can always escape their content, after all they were the rag-tag group of City Hall Sycophants who hired a consultant to help the city smear me and this very blog with ludicrous claims of “hacking”.

More recently however it was brought to my attention that they ran a story titled “Weighing the Costs of Police Officers on Campus” and it’s a good example of where the Observer fails at local journalism.

The piece is a pretty run of the mill “school to prison pipeline” story with Fullerton data dropped into what feels like a form letter. It’s got local numbers and some local meeting information but it does what the Observer often does and it just… misses. And it misses where it counts – locally.

To summarize, it’s about School Resource Officers – or Fullerton cops on campus – and what role they have and possibly shouldn’t have in student discipline. Seems like a good idea for a story, I’m probably even in agreement with the writer on quite a few things.

But how in the ever loving hell are you going to write a story about SROs in Fullerton schools and completely omit the story of former Fullerton Police Officer AND SRO Jose Paez?

Paez

That’s the dude who used his department issued Body Worn Camera (BWC) to film up a 17 year old’s skirt. He also, based on the audit of his own BWC, had sexually explicit material of students on his (maybe department issued?) cellphone. We’ve never been given an explanation of this issue or a reason to believe anything has changed at FPD to stop another Paez from perving on our children.

It’s literally the single biggest example of why SROs, locally, need oversight and to be questioned.

In case somebody at the Observer finds this story, Paez’s case is #19NM12214 over at OC Courts.

Paez Case Detail

See the issue?

An entire piece on School Resource Officers that omits the best LOCAL example of the complete lack of transparency and oversight in the very program being discussed.

It’s not a shock though. The Observer has long been unwilling to point real criticisms or questions in the direction of City Hall. For such a shocking story, that we broke mind you, they’ve only ever mentioned Paez precisely twice on their site; once to regurgitate the FPD press release and once to mention in passing that the Fullerton school board avoided the topic.

Hell, the Daily Titan has covered this story more than the Observer which speaks volumes.

People ask me quite often why I’m so critical of government and while there are a few answers to that question, one answer would certainly be because somebody has to be critical when the fourth estate is more interested in acting like the fifth column.

February 3, 2021February 3, 2021Fullerton BooHoo

Why Are Idiots Commenting to ME at City Council Meetings?

by Joshua34 Comments

Joshua by Spencer — Trying to look passed all of the bullshit the city has thrown at me

If you check the agenda for a City Council meeting you’ll often see options on how to leave a comment and the purpose of those comments. Here’s an example from last night’s Fullerton City Council meeting regarding eComments (emphasis added);

“Alternatively, the public may submit written public comments electronically for City Council consideration by clicking on the eComment link accompanying the agenda posted online at https://fullerton.legistar.com until the close of the public comment period for the item. Staff will read or summarize public comments during the meeting. All eComments received become part of the official record of the meeting and posted online with the supplemental materials for that meeting.”

You’re reading that correctly. The point of public comments is to talk to the City Council and bring concerns to your elected officials.

Somehow word got out to the commie BooHoos in the area that this is an appropriate forum to comment to ME as though 1) I give a damn and 2) I’m on council. I was told that last night no less than 3 idiots opted to aim their public comments at me for some unknown reasons. Idiots gonna idiot I suppose.

Quite obviously I’m not on council. While I ran in 2016 on a lark, I came in 9th out of 12 candidates. Even if I HAD won that race the term expired and I clearly wasn’t on the ballot in 2020.

I’ve made it clear I have no interest in running again so council will NEVER be an appropriate forum to address me with penny-ante nonsense.

Secondarily I didn’t even hear the comments addressed to me because, as stated above, I don’t really give a shit what you say there because you’re speaking to council, not me. If I happen to be at a meeting I may respond to comments I think are wrongheaded but largely I don’t spend my days listening to public comments in the hopes that you say something profound – let alone that you say something TO ME. I’ll tune in for people I respect but otherwise, hard pass.

As I didn’t hear the comments (It was taco Tuesday and I have priorities) and only know they exist secondhand (they haven’t been posted to the city’s website yet), I cannot respond and frankly I don’t think I will even after they’re made public because, again, I don’t give a shit what you say about or to me through an eComment in a forum not directly meant for my consumption.

February 1, 2021Fred Jung

FFFF Ally Appointed to Planning Commission

by Joshua16 Comments

Socialists of a Feather

It looks like Councilman Fred Jung has appointed a FFFF ally to the Fullerton Planning Commission by way of appointing Jose Trinidad Castaneda III. While it’s true one of our authors poked fun at his failed 2018 candidacy in D5, we’re known to poke fun at anybody and aren’t a hivemind here on FFFF.

What’s important to me personally and gives me hope is that Castaneda endorsed my campaign for City Council back in 2016.

Castaneda endorsed me not once but at least twice (that I saw), which is more than I can say for a certain Orange Juice Blogger who endorsed me and then rescinded said endorsement because politics and “prior commitments” before learning I existed and was more awesome.

JCTIII Endorses Me 2

Here’s hoping that some of the more egregious things I’ve heard about Castaneda are not true and that he is looking to represent all of Fullerton in his new duties.

That Castaneda endorsed me in 2016 shows, if nothing else, that he made some good choices 4 years ago. Let’s hope he keeps doing the same.

February 1, 2021February 2, 2021Fullerton City Council

Fullerton Looking to Re-Appoint Racist to Regional Board

by Joshua38 Comments

Fullerton is currently represented by Adan Ortega on the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California’s Board of Directors. Tomorrow the City Council will vote to keep him on as our representative or replace him with somebody else.

Normally I don’t care about commissions or regional seats but this guy bugs me for two reasons. First, his company “Ortega Strategies Group” looks to be a lobbying firm in the municipal water industry and that just stinks of regulatory capture / cronyism.

Second, he’s a racist peddling racism to get his way.

To quote Adan Ortega from last week’s Upper San Gabriel Valley Municipal Water District meeting (approximately 20:10 into the audio link, emphasis added)

“Finally, as a Latino and Latina majority board, you outta ask yourselves if it is right to let white people representing Pasadena, Sierra Madre, Foothill and La Canada to choose the winner when people of color on the MWD board disagreed. If you choose this path, then nothing has changed in the empowerment of Latinos, Latinas, African-Americans and women and we are inviting more injustice.”

More “injustice” because somebody disagreed with you. GTFO.

This is naked racism on the part of Adan Ortega and it has no place in Fullerton or elsewhere. If “white people” can’t represent “people of color” it would be logical that “people of color” cannot represent white people. There goes 2 council votes for Adan right out of the window. Also, it is laughable on it’s face to think that a hispanic person can represent Asian, Middle-Eastern, African-American or any other non-Hispanic group or person simply by virtue of not being white when different peoples have such different backgrounds, cultures and histories. This would mean that, per Adan’s own argument, the only person Adan would be representing on council would be Jesus Silva and he would only be representing approximately 35% of our population.

Now, it doesn’t matter that Adan is hispanic here as I don’t believe the horseshit that he’s peddling. Anybody who puts the interests of the Fullerton ratepayers first is who should be on this and every board representing our city. But the important part is that Adan believes the racist horseshit he’s peddling (otherwise he’s a disingenuous liar). Therefore taking him at his own word, Adan believes that race dictates who you can and cannot represent. Adan believes that you are defined by your skin color and sexual orientation and other characteristics of birth. Adan is channeling the Klan like talking points of naked discrimination in his rhetoric and it’s time we moved away from the ugly racial divineness of the past.

Racism is racism even when you try to hide it behind “equity” and other fashionable vulgarities. It’s time to tell this racist to kick rocks and appoint somebody who wants to represent all of Fullerton.

January 18, 2021Ahmad Zahra

Ahmad Zahra Recall Clears First Hurdle

by Joshua24 Comments

The recall against Fullerton City Council member Ahmad Zahra has cleared the first hurdle and the required number of signatures on the “Notice of Intention” have been verified by the Fullerton City Clerk.

Zahra Recall Verification 3

The reasons for recalling Zahra, for those new to the story, are that he lied to his constituents and that he’s charged with vandalism and battery against a woman. From the copy of the Notice of Intention I was sent:

Zahra Recall NOI as Approved — sounds serious…

Soon the question of removing Zahra from office will head to the voters of Fullerton’s District 5. Ultimately they will decide if a man accused of battery against a women should be allowed to continue to serve on Fullerton’s City Council.

Until then our council needs to decide if he should be allowed to represent Fullerton on boards and commissions going forward. Do we want him as our public face right now in light of his pending criminal charges? Or should we look to public servants to have honesty, integrity and to stand up for what’s right?

I’ll leave that for Zahra to answer:

Zahra IBelieveHer — follow the bouncing ethics…

It’s only fair to expect Fullerton City Council man Jesus Silva, his wife and our Assembly representative Sharon Quirk-Silva as well as the rest of the OC Democrats to #BelieveHer in the case of Zahra’s battery charge against a woman of color. It’s what they told us they stand for after all…

There are a few more procedural hurdles before the fine folks of District 5 can sign the official recall petition to force an election to remove Zahra from office.

We’ll keep you posted as to the ongoing progress of this recall effort to save District 5 from the machinations of their current self-serving wannabe politician.