The Fullerton Harpoon, Author at Friends For Fullerton's Future

July 1, 2024July 1, 2024Ahmad Zahra

Boutique Fun and Games With Johnny Lu and Larry Liu

FFFF has already reported on some of the colorful financial background of Johnny Lu of TA Partners, our City’s stand-up partner on the so-called “boutique” hotel project at the railroad tracks. This hot mess even has a name: The Tracks at Fullerton Station. The development has morphed into a monstrous minotaur by adding approval for a massively dense apartment – an amalgamation which gives us a shocking 130 units per acre, overall.

Well, anyway, we previously shared the news that Johnny was in default on massive construction loans he somehow finagled for projects in Irvine a few years ago. The lender on those has foreclosed on those properties.

And here’s some even more recent news. It seems that Johnny has waded out into more legal problems over in LA, according to The Real Deal, a real estate news source. Here’s the thrust of the complaint by bamboozled investors on a “project” at Playa Vista:

“The investors — who form an entity called RUC14 Playa LLC — sued Lu, Liu and TA Partners, alleging commingling of funds, fraud and misrepresentation, court records show. Attorneys for TA Partners, which have requested for arbitration in the case, did not respond to a request for comment.“

Johnny and his partner, Larry Liu, declared their bankruptcy on the Playa Vista project. But let’s give the misunderstood boys a break. A little contrition goes a long way, right? Said Larry:

“We would like to offer our apology for the non-compliance during project execution,” Liu wrote in the letter. “Self-reflection is needed and I would like to apologize.”

Whatever any of this means to “TA Westpark LLC.,” the corporation that was awarded the Fullerton project entitlements (without any competition) remains to be seen. But now Johnny and Larry have equity – and boy have they got equity; see, Councilmembers Zahra, Charles and Whitaker handed them a bonanza – a plot of land available for hundreds of units – for a mere pittance: $1.4 million less associated costs.

Ms. Charles happened to mention at a council item about raising funds for Fullerton’s fiscal disaster, that the boutique hotel plan was moving along. But there was no mention of the fiscal disaster facing Johnny and Larry Enterprises. Does she even know? Does she understand what is happening? Does she care? Probably no on all three.

The plan here is crystal clear. At this point nobody is going to lend Lu and Liu a bent nickle. But these fine fellows will have entitlements worth tens of millions on this project; a project that never should have happened in the first place – an unsolicited proposal by a local guy who had no chance of building a birdhouse.

This project will be reassigned to a third party, someone the City “business development” expert bureaucrats will be sweet-talked into recommending. And then Johnny and Larry will quietly disappear from Fullerton with millions belonging to us.

Fullerton being Fullerton.

June 29, 2024June 30, 2024Ahmad Zahra

Bungling Boutique Boondoggle Blunders

by The Fullerton Harpoon12 Comments

Some folks have been asking about the fate of the idiotic “boutique” hotel project that had morphed into a hideously overbuilt hotel/apartment hippogriff that is twice the allowable density permitted per the City’s own Transportation Center Specific Plan. Of course the project was never contemplated at all in the Specific Plan, so who cares, right? Fullerton being Fullerton.

In an act of utter incompetence the City actually rushed the approval to transfer of title to the land, before the deal had received final approval. Then they gave it away the land for pennies on the dollar.

Friends may recall our last October post in which we discovered that the new “developer,” one Johnny Lu of TA Westpark LLC, was way upside down on loans he had somehow leveraged on apartment blocks in Irvine and was in default.

You may also recall that Lu started shifting the property to different corporations, the first of which, a Delaware corporation, was non-existent. And just for grins, Mr. Lu changed the property description, too, when he later deeded it back to his California Corporation.

Anyhow, it looks like Johnny has finally created and recorded the appropriately named Delaware corporation in March – only two years too late, but, hey, not bad for Fullerton, right?

There has been nothing but radio silence from City Hall as to the status of Mr. Lu and whether he has met any of the stipulated deadlines in the Development and Disposition Agreement, but as we have learned in the case of the Florentine/Marovich sidewalk heist, contractual obligations mean nothing when the “I Can’t Believe It’s a Law Firm” of Jones & Mayer is your City Attorney. Recently, cluelessly verbose Shana Charles indicated that the project was still alive and well. She didn’t mention Mr. Lu’s financial embarrassment, but then nobody else has, either.

And now for some sadly interesting news. It turns out the original Founding Father of the boutique hotel concept, Craig Hostert of West Park Development – the guy who sold the idea to Jennifer Fitzgerald, Jan Flory, Jesus Quirk Silva, Ahmad Zahra, Bruce Whitaker, et. al. – died in late May.

Poor guy. He went to his Reward after getting pushed out of his own scheme, and sticking us with the appalling, metastasized mess the concept has predictably morphed into; showing that once again, no bad idea goes unappreciated in downtown Fullerton. Being Fullerton, of course.

June 11, 2024June 11, 2024Behind Closed Doors

Chapman Parking Structure Deeded to City

by The Fullerton Harpoon16 Comments

A while back FFFF noticed a item forecast on the June 4th Agenda dealing with the property bounded by Whiting, Chapman, Pomona and Lemon – a parking structure built about 30 years ago for reasons still unknown. Curiously, the staff report calls it a “parking lot,” ignoring the fact that it’s actually an elevated parking structure – an asset that cost several million to build. The accompanying Quitclaim Deed only refers to parcels of land on the original Townsite Map, but doesn’t describe improvements on said lots.

According to staff it was built by the downtown Fullerton Parking Authority – which isn’t quite true because the parking district didn’t have any money. It was built by the Fullerton Redevelopment Agency which raised lots of money to waste on stuff like this.

Anyhow, the agendized item turns out to be a paperwork issue to deed miscellaneous portions of the site to the City from the now dead “Parking Authority.” The item was dutifully approved by our City Council.

Obviously, nobody caught the omission when the parking agency expired (another Jones and Mayer success story), but now the timing may suggest that the “opportunity site” as identified in the otherwise unrelated and never-ending “Fox Block” fiasco has attracted the attention of City Hall’s Monopoly-playing, “economic development” bureaucrats.

May 17, 2024May 17, 2024Ahmad Zahra

Revenue Enhancement

by The Fullerton Harpoon18 Comments

M. Eric Levitt. Will he save us from ourselves?

It seems like every few years Fullerton City Councils are presented by the bureaucracy with a new “fiscal cliff”: It’s done slowly, tentatively, and then with an ever-increasing tone of persuasion, the argument for “revenue enhancement” unfolds.

Revenue enhancement means taxes or debt – one way or another. And so it is in 2024.

With time running out to put a tax increase on the November ballot, the urgency from “staff” is getting more direct. Time has run out for soft-sell concepts like phony push polls of unwitting citizens. At Tuesday’s council meeting our esteemed City Manager is presenting ideas for raising money.

TOT Tax. What is a TOT tax? Transient Occupancy Tax is a tax levied on visitors who stay in Fullerton hotels. The staff report tells us that several million can be raised with a slight increase and that hopefully we will remain competitive because we are so close to the Anaheim “Resort.” No on can prove this one way or another, but it seems like becoming comparatively less competitive is a poor way of raising revenue. The positive thing about a TOT increase, says the staff report, is that Fullerton taxpayers won’t be affected (unless, of course the concept turns out to be a money loser).

Sales tax. We have already seen the sales pitch on how a general sales tax only needs 50%+1 to pass. We are told that a “1%” increase (from 7.75 to 8.75) on sales tax is being pursued by cities up and down California, etc, etc. Of course they think we’re too dumb to know that this isn’t a 1% increase, but a 13% increase. As with a TOT increase, it’s hard to see how becoming comparatively less competitive is going to make money. The sales tax issue seems DOA. 4 votes are needed to put this on the ballot and Whitaker and Dunlap aren’t going for that.

POBs. And then we see the concept of Pension Obligation Bonds, in which bond revenues are deposited with CalPERS to buy down the actuarial unfunded liability. The idea is that the interest rate on the bonds is lower than the return CalPERS will give us and the difference is all gravy. This idea was floated back in 2021 by then Interim City Manager, Jeff Collier. FFFF covered the proposal, here. One upside is that this scheme is not constrained by the usual debt ceiling limits placed on local governments by the state. Great. More gambling.

Well, there she goes. Don’t worry. There’s more where that came from…

Mr. Collier was kind enough to visit our humble site to educates us on POBs. Friends immediately pointed out the risks involved with POBs, and the lack of skin in the game Collier and his pals had. And that was three years ago when market interest rates were way lower. The equities market is now going through the roof so the idea looks appealing to our bureaucrats, but not to California pension system observers who note CalPERS ever-declining return assumptions and remember the disaster of 2008. Will the City Council approve this gambit? It’s possible, and a public vote is not required.

These various options involve raising taxes or encumbering property to some extent. That’s risk with a speculated payoff. Ahmad Zahra is bound to support anything risky and foolish so as to protect his friends in City Hall. So is Shana Charles, another liberal torchbearer who will tell us this is for our own good; or for the urban forest; or for boutique hotels, or something else nonsensical. Whitaker won’t go for any of this nonsense. Dunlap? Who knows these days. And then there is Fred Jung who had the opportunity to be the third vote to shut down talk of revenue enhancement last year and didn’t.

A problem with any tax revenue increase is that the increase, such as it were, will immediately be snatched up by the so-called “public safety” employees, whose unions have the clout to grab what they want and everybody else be damned. That’s exactly what happened in Westminster a few years when the cop union pounded the pavement for a sales tax increase, got it, then gobbled it all up. And Westminster is right back where they were before.

May 2, 2024May 2, 2024Ahmad Zahra

Zahra Was Married in Arkansas. To a Woman.

by The Fullerton Harpoon73 Comments

Our friends at the Orange Juice Blog published a story yesterday about Fullerton City Councilman Ahmad Zahra having been married in Arkansas, of all places, in the late 90s. And to an American woman named Michelle Salmon.

FFFF was sent of a copy of the marriage license.

Now this would normally not be of interest to anybody, except that Mr. Zahra has branded himself as the first gay Muslim, etc., etc. – brave hero, in fact. However, his self-propagated biography, such as it is, has never discussed a sojourn in the state of Arkansas, let alone having a wife there.

How a Syrian immigrant ended up in Arkansas, married, sounds like an interesting tale in itself.

According to an interview with Zahra, the OJB reports his version of how he ended up in hillbilly country:

“I got to this country and I didn’t know anybody, but my father had a friend in Little Rock, so that’s where I went first. I met Michelle, and we liked each other and thought we could work things out, but it didn’t work out. She was even going to go to LA with me but she decided to stay with her family.”

Wow, that’s pretty damn thin. Personally, I “like” all sorts of folks without feeling the least bit inclined to get married. Not surprising “it didn’t work out.”

Zahra’s would-be explanation falls flat given his previous statements. Like these:

Zahra, 52, did not have one specific moment when he came out as gay. He always knew he was, but it would be decades until his family would know.

In fact, when Zahra did finally come out to his friend, he was not entirely surprised, saying, “That explains a lot.” Zahra had never dated girls.

So why does a gay, Muslim immigrant marry an American woman in Arkansas? That’s a good question. Was Zahra giving the hetero deal one last swing at the plate? No need for marriage to do that, especially in Arkansas.

The Orange Juice suggests another reason:

Okay, well, the suspicion arises that this was a marriage to get citizenship, which is illegal under the Immigration Marriage Fraud Amendments Act of 1986. But Ahmad tells us he didn’t become a citizen until long after their 2001 divorce, in 2008.

Um, we always know that when somebody provides irrelevant information, he’s likely avoiding something. In this case the year of Zahra’s actual citizenship (even if true) isn’t the issue. The issue is whether he tried to accelerate permanent residence status by virtue of a phony marriage. And as OJB observes, that is illegal.

The fact is that nobody cares about Zahra’s sexual orientation, or his “heroic” coming out narrative, real or otherwise. What I (and others, no doubt) care about is his pattern of untruths including his tale that he was “exonerated” by the District Attorney in a case of battery; his phony accusation of assault against Fullerton council colleague Fred Jung; his disappearance from a council meeting for a photo-op, etc. And naturally, if an immigrant’s first official act in America is to break the law, then the public deserves to her about it.

April 23, 2024April 23, 2024Ahmad Zahra

The Fiscal Cliff

by The Fullerton Harpoon33 Comments

The Fullerton City Council is holding a special meeting tonight – a 2024-25 Budget “workshop.” No work will get done but there will be shopping going on as staff begins its formal press to raise a sales tax.

There is a lot of self-serving verbiage about how well our City staff has performed its tasks up ’til now, but then the hard reality hits because budget numbers can’t pat themselves on the back.

There are some harrowing numbers in the proposed budget – including a $9,400,000 draw-down from strategic reserves. This means of course, that the budget is no where near balanced as City Hall apologists like Jennifer Fitzgerald and Jan Flory claimed when they ran the place into the red almost every year.

Let’s let our City Manager, Eric Levitt tell the tale:

“Financial Stability. The City has been able to over the last two years (for the first time in recent history of the City) to reach and maintain a 17% contingency reserve level. This budget maintains that reserve level; however due to an operating deficit, we will be utilizing one-time excess reserves this year and coming close to that 17% level in FY 2024-25 and below that in years beyond next year“

The overall picture gets even worse as the levels of reserves slowly dwindle away. After this year Fullerton continues to be upside from $7.5 to $8.8 million each year until the end of the dismal decade. We are not favored with the running reserve funds balances.

Infrastructure is supposedly a big deal. Which reminds me of a quotation attributed to Mark Twain: Everybody talks about the weather but nobody does anything about it. But this year we are told, we can push get going on our deteriorating infrastructure along by borrowing! Once again let’s heed the words of Mr. Levitt:

“I have also put together a strategy to increase that funding level to closer to $14 million over the next four years through the use of financing. However, there are both upsides and downsides to this approach which will be discussed with you in more detail at today’s presentation.“

Now this should be a red flag: borrowing to perform maintenance, a basic accounting no-no. And what form will the borrowing take? Not a municipal bond, you can be sure, It would likely be by selling certificates of participation or some other dodge to avoid municipal debt restrictions. Here’s the table that shows our Maintenance of Effort (MOE) shortfall without financing.

Now we all know that interest payments are made by somebody, somewhere, and that somebody is you and me. We get to pay the interest on debt incurred by years of municipal mismanagement by people like Joe Felz and Ken Domer and Jeff Collier who get to sail off to a glorious and massively pensioned retirement at 55 years of age.

And finally, to circle back to the story lead, here’s a distasteful nugget carefully slipped into the City Manager’s report:

“Staff recommends City Council review options over the next year to stabilize the budget and ensure the City remains financially sound.“

Jesus H. There it is. Not quite explicitly stated, but we know very well where this is going. Another general sales tax effort, just like the ill-fated Measure S of four years ago. The seeds for this have already been planted, of course, in a nasty little taxpayer-funded fishing expedition in the guise of a community survey. Last November I regaled the Friends with this slimy maneuver, here.

By the way, this is exactly the same process City Hall rolled out four years ago. And we will be told By Ahmad Zahra, Shana Charles and Vivian Jaramillo that if we don’t pony up we will be morally deficient.

Well, good luck Friends. This is going to be a long year and you can bet the farm that we will be asked to pick up the check – again.

April 7, 2024Ahmad Zahra

Jaramillo High on Retail Pot

by The Fullerton Harpoon66 Comments

You heard right, Friends. Very high.

Earlier today, one of our Friends shared a couple Vivian “Kitty” Jaramillo posts from the Next Door site sharing her views on the subject of marijuana tax revenue. Jaramillo says she’s running for the Fullerton City Council, and has big plans for solving the budget problem.

“I don’t know when the lightbulb will go on for our current council majority that our city is dying. We have been pinching penny’s for much too long and our city’s infrastructure shows it. If they would put on their thinking caps and allow legal dispensaries they could be the super heroes of Fullerton. Vote only candidates in favor of legalizing“

Responding to something called Legalize Fullerton Dispensaries, Jaramillo shared:

Thank you for your continued interest in legalizing marijuana dispensaries in Fullerton. Unfortunately we still have the same 3 councilman, Whitaker, Jung & Dunlap, who voted against this issue. So let’s be sure when any of these 3 are up for re-election to show up and vote them OUT! Our city is losing millions of dollars each year that dispensaries are not allowed. We all know how desperate we are for a stronger budget……

I can’t guarantee that these are genuine comments made by Jaramillo, but when you consider the poor grammar and punctuation, they have the ring of genuineness. And of course, Jaramillo’s world view, “pinching penny’s” (sic) is the problem, not excessive pay and pensions to thousands of employees over the years.

Her stake-out makes sense if she she believes the Long Beach Cannabis Cartel can be a source of political fundraising; and, of course her political soulmate, Ahmad Zahra, has long been known a wannabe player in the legal dope store game. Zahra supported the proposed ordinance that could have resulted in legalized dispensaries within 100 of your house. Zahra has also been associated with the “consulting” work of one Melahat Rafiei who recently pleaded guilty for conning a would-be dispensary operator in Anaheim out of hundreds of thousands that were meant as payouts to officials, and to trying to bribe Irvine City Council members.

Now, it could be that Jaramillo really believes that dispensaries are an economic salvation for Fullerton, and the more the better, and any negative impacts are worth the price of happy public employees and timely CalPERS payments This may put her at odds with the Fullerton Police Department that has a long-standing opposition to this sort of thing; she must be counting on the cop union to paver her way to office.

April 5, 2024April 9, 2024Ahmad Zahra

Kitty Throws Hello Party For Self

by The Fullerton Harpoon45 Comments

A couple weeks ago FFFF posted about Fullerton’s 4th District Council election this fall. Incumbent Bruce Whitaker will be incumbent no longer – finally termed out. One of the subjects was the candidacy of Ms. Vivian “Kitty” Jaramillo, a former City employee, former council candidate, and most recently an annoying presence at City Council meetings.

Well, it turns out the wheels of another Jaramillo candidacy were indeed in motion. Here’s an invite to her coming out party. Oops. Somebody doesn’t use spellcheck.

Josh Newman and Sharon Quirk-Silva are taking time out of their busy schedules messing up California to be there, so Ms. Kitty must have the backing of the OC Democrat operation, although this time there will be no fake candidates created to protect an incumbent.

So the first battle line is drawn: do we want another former public employee on the Fullerton City Council? Do we want one who will certainly be willing to raise our taxes to support her pension? Do we want Ahmad Zahra to have a third vote to promote stupid vanity projects that will promote his “brand?”

March 21, 2024Ahmad Zahra

The 2024 4th District Election

by The Fullerton Harpoon34 Comments

As the Friends know, Fullerton’s First, Second and Fourth City Council District representative jobs are up for election this fall. And while it’s a little early to speculate on who’s going to run and what the outcome might be, it’s fun to do a little introductory review.

Incumbents Fred Jung and Nick Dunlap are incumbents in the First and Second Districts, respectively. If they want to run again, and I haven’t heard they won’t, the power of incumbency is hard to beat.

The Fourth District, currently represented by Bruce Whitaker will be wide open. Whitaker is termed out after 12 long years on the Council and his replacement will decide the balance of the Council if Dunlap and Jung run, and are re-elected. The current 3-2 division is based on ideological difference, the difference is between looking out for the taxpayers – at least once in a while – and doing whatever idiocy the bureaucracy wants to perpetrate.

At this point the candidate pool seems weak. Last time Whitaker squeaked by past a dude named Aruni Thakur, a school board member who didn’t live in the district. Could Thakur do the (fake) carpetbagger routine? He had the full support of the unions and the County Democrat Party four years ago, but it wasn’t enough for poor Aruni, who was hammered with his carpetbaggery. With no incumbent this time around his political greed might pull him in.

Then there is a woman named Vivian “Kitty” Jaramillo, an individual who has made a nuisance of herself recently attacking the Council majority with the usual feigned outrage. Ms. Jaramillo is retired from “work” as a life-long municipal employee whose professional career started in Fullerton handing out parking tickets and graduated into being a code enforcement busybody. She would be a perfectly reliable yes vote for anything floated by city staff, and just the sort of running buddy Ahmad Zahra dreams about to support a sales tax. Word on the street is that the OC Dems are already behind her candidacy, which would preclude the aforementioned Thakur from getting involved.

Jaramillo ran for the City Council in 2012 and came in 7th in a city-wide election. Two years ago she was appointed to the redistricting committee where she championed the failed, ridiculous district map meant to keep the lamentable knucklehead Jesus Quirk-Silva in office.

Jaramillo’s other claim to fame, besides pestering the City Council these days, is suing the City in 2015 to create city council districts – very likely so she could run herself someday when Whitaker termed out.

So far no one from a more responsible philosophical perspective has raised their hand in D4, but as noted above, it’s still early in the year and filing doesn’t take place for almost another five months.

March 18, 2024March 18, 2024Ahmad Zahra

Council Ponders Parking Puzzle Pilot Program

by The Fullerton Harpoon14 Comments

Lots of people have lots of cars. And the on-site parking plans of the 50s, 60, and 70s multi-family housing just don’t work anymore. We all know that. Even single-family neighborhoods suffer from the same issue – adults’ cars, their kids’ cars, and a garage full of crap.

In 2023 the Fullerton City Council directed staff to consider the issue of early morning parking prohibition, a device to keep people from parking on the streets overnight. The current situation is that certain streets with multi-family housing or old, pre-1940 houses have been granted a waiver. An applicant’s address could also get a one-year “hardship” permit with an extensive review process and a $250 permit fee.

After an 11 month gestation period, staff labored hard and gave birth to a “pilot plan” proposal that would keep existing street and individual waivers/permits, but that would make it easier, supposedly, to get a one year permit – with four one-year options.

The issue is Item #7 on the 3/19/24 Agenda consent calendar.

The staff report provides the usual entertaining history of a Fullerton topic, like downtown nuisance noise, that never seems to get fixed.

As usual there are options presented that are really just non-starters to make the desired option look better. Option 1 is to do away with overnight parking altogether – a surefire recipe for political disaster. Option 2 is to get rid of street/block waivers and also hardship permits, and let anybody apply for an overnight permit – another sure loser.

And so Option 3 (as described above) gets the brass ring, with the proviso that it be a 2-year pilot program to see what happens. As noted, staff is proposing a streamlined process, online portal, etc., etc., with one goal being to help disadvantaged neighborhoods (of course “disadvantaged,” like “underserved” is code in City Hall for Latino, so that’s an interesting use of the word). This option begs the question: if the permit process could be streamlined why wasn’t it – a long time ago? There is no mention of the new permit fee amount.

The staff report contains a long list of possible additions that could be made, presumably to help a City Council that can’t be trusted to come up with its own.

What I think is really interesting is that there is no option for doing nothing. Not every snake or green-glowing rock needs to picked up and examined, and I get the impression that there is a political undercurrent here. Commonsense suggests that adopting a revision for the purpose of allowing more cars to park overnight will still annoy some residents who may not like others parking in front of their house all night – especially in the vicinity of under-parked, older apartments.