Boohooism Archives - Friends For Fullerton's Future

March 24, 2025March 25, 2025Ahmad Zahra

Accessory to Commit Perjury

Last August supporters of Fullerton 4th District Council candidate, Democrat Vivian Jaramillo, created a fake “conservative” candidate to draw votes away from the person presumed to be Jaramillo’s principal opponent – Linda Whitaker. The candidate, Scott Markowitz, committed, and plead guilty to perjury.

It’s abundantly clear that at least one person helped phony candidate Scott Markowitz commit the perjury when he falsely swore that he collected his nominating signatures. How is it clear? Because at least one of his nominators told the District Attorney Todd Spitzer that it wasn’t Markowitz who got them to sign, it was someone else; either that or Markowitz himself volunteered the information, which isn’t likely since he was arrested and booked into the Santa Ana Jail.

Speculation is increasing and questions are still being asked, such as: what’s the name of the person or persons who suborned Marko’s perjury, and why hasn’t Spitzer prosecuted him/her/them? In fact, a Public Records Act request was recently made to Spitzer’s office to reveal the name of the person or persons involved in the Markowitz case.

Back in the fall, suspicion fell immediately on a guy named Ajay Mohan, a former Democrat operative who held Markowitz’s hand at the City Clerk’s office while picking up nominating materials. But could Mohan have known any of the nominators well enough to get them to sign the papers of a MAGA-sounding candidate?

The Usual Suspects are smiling. For now.

Some folks behind the scenes put early money on creepy and desperate Councilman Ahmad Zahra, the immigrant marriage fraudster and serial prevaricator. Then attention turned to the equally seedy Aruni Thakur, the guy who tried to get elected to the Fullerton City Council in 2020 in a district he didn’t live in. Both are well-known local Democrat office holders who would have been familiar to the Democrat nominators like our old friend Diane Vena. Hey, what about Jesus Quirk-Silva, the dim-witted ex-councilman and husband of wannabe king/queenmaker, Assemblycreature Sharon Quirk?

Recently a new front runner has emerged, a chap named Andre Charles. Charles revels in the lofty title of President of the North Orange County Democrats club. His wife, the self-important, wordy, and ingratiating gasbag, Shana Charles, is on the City Council. Charles had both the motive and the means to sucker local Dems to nominate Markowitz in absentia. Indeed, several nominators of the faux Trumpy Markowitz are members of Charles’ Democrat club. Hmm.

So what was the result of the PRA request? Predictably, the DA’s office isn’t answering, saying they don’t have to – the records are confidential even in closed cases. But if no other crimes were committed, then who cares, right? Yet the response from some guy named Wayne Philips in the DA’s office does include this tidbit:

Is this merely a boiler plate brush-off, or is some investigation really still underway? Personally, I doubt any investigation is going on, but if I were one of the perps involved I’d still be a little nervous. There are probably lots of weak links in the chain of this scandal, and even Spitzer may be induced to do his job if evidence he is now suppressing is published.

March 24, 2025March 24, 2025About Us

Boutique Bungling Bears Bounty

by Mr. Peabody18 Comments

And by “bears bounty,” I mean the boutique hotel scam pulls Fullerton into ever deeper shitwater.

By now we all know how stupid, inept, and problematic the so-called “Tracks at Fullerton” has been.

Starting out as a boutique hotel, a dumb idea took on a bloated, lumbering life of its own and has been kept alive through bureaucratic inertia and predictable metastasis.

Now there’s a new twist. Word on the street is that the family of the guy with the original brainstorm, Craig Hostert of Westpark Development, is suing the current “developers” TA Partners. You may recall that Hostert is dead. His relatives seem to think that his money men, Johnny Lu and Larry Liu of TA Partners, pushed Craig out of his interest in the project. Johnny and Larry are said to be counter suing.

Parenthetically, I might add that Johnny and Larry are no strangers to the legal system, having left a trail of bankruptcies, foreclosures, and fraud in their wake. Fullerton being Fullerton.

I don’t know what the lawsuits might entail, legally, but due to the incompetent actions of Councilmembers Bruce Whitaker, Shana Charles, and Ahmad Zahra in upzoning the property, there could be a lot at stake. Remember, the City sold Westpark/TA almost two acres of land for $1.4 million (less demolition costs) while making it worth ten times that amount by abusing the allowable density in the Transportation Center Specific Plan.

Right now the City Hall silence remains deafening. We do know the council met in closed session about this awhile back, and still the public remains in the dark. Why hasn’t the City kicked Johnny Lu and Larry Liu to the curb long ago? They were supposed to have performed all sorts of stuff by now. Here are Johnny and Larry’s milestone obligations per the Development and Disposition Agreement, approved at the end of December, 2022.

Westpark/TA Partners are clearly in default. Plans submission was supposed to take place in December 2023 – fifteen months ago. Permits were required to be obtained fourteen months ago. Grading was supposed to start eleven months ago. Above ground construction was supposed to start by the end of last October – five months ago. See a pattern?

For some reason TA Partners was given some wiggle room in the actual verbiage of the contract for plans submittal – 240 days which would have been February of 2024, still thirteen months ago, and still a massive default.

Was there an “Unavoidable Delay?” Who gets to know? Why would the City fail to exercise its right retake the property? If you see a councilperson, please be sure to ask. Of course you won’t get an answer as the whole thing is shrouded in Closed Session secrecy. Without any action on the part of Fullerton, the two fly-by-nighters are still in possession of entitlements worth a pile ‘o cash – enough to excite the pecuniary envy of Mr. Hostert’s heirs and assigns.

I get the strange feeling that this latest legal entanglement might have repercussions for any case Fullerton might have in getting rid of Johnny and Larry. It shouldn’t, but it might be cause for staff to continue to string this thing out since it has been such a lucrative toy for Fullerton’s crack “economic development” employees.

March 20, 2025March 20, 2025Ahmad Zahra

Being Vivian Kitty Jaramillo. Again.

by The Fullerton Harpoon29 Comments

It means you aren’t very smart. You aren’t attractive. You aren’t talented. You aren’t educated. You do have a chip on your shoulder and you do seem to think people owe you something. Mostly because you grossly overestimate yourself, and the Kennedy Sisters think you check all the right boxes.

On Tuesday evening Ms. Jaramillo appeared at the Fullerton City Council to take the council majority to task for rejecting her nomination to the Planning Commission. It was a graceless, rude performance.

She didn’t seem to grasp the irony in her insulting the people who voted against her, just like she did last December in what we wished had been her final goodbye statement. Alas, no. Here is “Cannabis Kitty” showing up again like a bad penny. Some of her comments about the council majority:

Afraid of her, or;

Childish in their rejection of anything Zahra

Disgusting

Idiotic

She whined that voting “no” on an appointment was just never done! And recent appointments by Jamie Valencia are “the usual suspects,” unqualified “bozos” only wanting “personal glory, and who are not “interested in the betterment of the City.” Not like her, of course. Why, one of these appointees, a former Mayor, was even referred to by Fullerton employees as “Mayor Bozo,” Jaramillo recalled.

She failed to mention that object of her denigration, Chris Norby, is also a former County Supervisor and State Assemblyman now willing to serve on a low-grade committee almost nobody knows about because he is simply a good citizen.

Of course Jaramillo got her facts wrong, or more likely, pretended to, omitting that only a few weeks earlier her sponsor, Ahmad Zahra voted no on Valencia’s appointment of Arif Mansuri, a professional engineer, to the Transportation Commission.

Jaramillo essentially identified Valencia a puppet of Jung, who she wrote off completely as a “little dictator.” She was “bummed,” she said because the absent Nick Dunlap wasn’t there to hear her lament of his action. She had hoped better of him. She didn’t remind anybody that in her December letter to her friends at the Fullerton Observer she referred to Dunlap as a knucklehead. Short or selective memory?

The happiness vanished in a political haze…

Now I don’t know about you, but it looks to me like Jaramillo is just prone to insulting people who refuse to acknowledge her superior qualities. Of course she is bitter about losing to some unknown who’s only lived in Fullerton “a hot minute.” I don’t care about that, but I find it surprising that her own sense of entitlement is so immense that it would cause her to expect the targets of her abuse to appoint her to anything.

March 19, 2025March 19, 2025Boohooism

Observer Sisters Sink to New Low

by Mr. Peabody48 Comments

Just when you think they couldn’t be more biased, vindictive and stupid, the Kennedy Sisters, Skaska and Sharon prove you were wrong. They not only lace their “stories” with prejudicial editorializing, now they have now taken to publish letters to their “newspaper” that give every appearance to be cooked up to cause mischief.

In the mid-March version of the Observer there is a very strange “letter” by someone calling themselves “M. Chapman.” It’s a weird missive alright, so odd and so badly written that you get the idea it was written by one of the sisters herself. I’ve seen walls at FJC covered in globs of pre-class gum that made more sense.

Our correspondent informs us of a house on Wilshire Avenue that nobody wants to talk about. It’s a Big Mystery to M. Chapman because no one wants to “save” it either. A conspiracy is afoot, make no mistake!

The house is an abandoned, dinky 400 square foot box that somebody tacked siding and a porch onto in the 1960s. It’s decrepit and looks like a fire hazard; but not to Chapman who sees a treasure.

For some reason Chapman thinks the “unsafe” City notices are “poorly written,” a claim I’ve never heard before, but obviously inserted here to suggest something untoward is going on.

Then the letter gets interesting. You see, the property next door is a “land grab” by “Bushala” and the insinuation is that he wants this derelict property for some reason.

The first statement is just defamatory. Bushala Brothers, Inc. bought the vacant lot next door from the North Orange County Community College District with the condition that they relocate a NOCCD bungalow from Chapman Ave., which has been accomplished – a fine upgrade to the neighborhood. (picture above). BBI was the highest bidder, responding to an open and fair public bid. The house is now owned and occupied by a family member who bought it at market rate from BBI. Naturally, Chapman provides zero evidence to support his insinuation that maybe “Bushala” (by now we have to ask “which one?”) wants to own the dilapidated property next door. That’s classic Observer Sister stuff, right there.

At this point, it seems pretty obvious that somebody is cooking up information and “M. Chapman” is regurgitating it. Now who could that be?

Chapman is real interested in his/her architectural discovery, it seems, so he/she turned to Fullerton Heritage for help, but they wouldn’t “touch it with a ten foot pole.” More sinister evidence of something, Chapman concludes. Chapman says he/she was referred to the Observer(!) for some inexplicable reason – the Kennedy Sisters know very little about anything.

Then Chapman reveals the stupidity of his/her own narrative by sharing that Fullerton Heritage did indeed touch the issue with a ten foot pole. In fact, somebody at FH went way out of their way to do Chapman’s homework for him and provide a bunch of information, alas, none of it evidentiary to suggest the derelict shack was historical.

In parentheses at the end of the quote, someone thinks the run down mess would make a great “juice and java shack” which, of course the lot is not zoned for. Was it Cheri? Was it Chapman? Was is Skania Kennedy? Whoever said it, they got the shack part right.

(I now have it on excellent authority that the last paragraph in quotation marks did NOT come from anybody at the City or Fullerton Heritage. In other words, the “editor” – Skasia Kennedy made a glaring editorial error that wouldn’t have been made in a high school news paper.)

This “letter,” doesn’t quite seem right. It’s a sort of patched together amalgamation of supposed innocence (just asking questions here!) while sharing both outright libel and concocted “guesses” that lead the reader to suspect that information was shared with M. Chapman (if there even is one) from a source that wants to publicly disparage “Bushala” over something nobody gives a damn about.

And that means that the Kennedy SIsters, Skasia and Sharon, who published this tripe are complicit in this cut-rate farce.

March 13, 2025March 13, 2025A Step in the Right Direction

Fullerton Boohoo Sings the Blues

by The Fullerton Harpoon43 Comments

No, it’s not a musical recording. Not exactly. There’s no music, but there’s a lot of singing sad songs and lamentations.

It seems that what’s left of Fullerton’s Old Guard liberals and a scattering of younger adherents to no-fault government are having a real hard time grasping the reality of the Fullerton City Council’s new commonsense majority. These lefties don’t ask a lot of intelligent questions. They believe in empty abstractions and are happy to regurgitate whatever nonsense is spoon fed to them by the likes of Ahmad Zahra. They are appalled by councilpersons Jung, Valencia and Dunlap who have the audacity to question the go along, get along status quo of unaccountable government.

The meeting on Tuesday, March 4th was a total disaster for the so-called “progressives”

FFFF has chronicled some of the defeats the boohoos have suffered at that meeting. We noted that the nomination of the angry, pro-dope Vivian Jaramillo to the Planning Commission went down in flames.

We noted that the idea of exploring charter city status for Fullerton was moved along, despite the all the silly fears of those gathered together by Zahra to oppose the concept.

What we didn’t cover was the introduction of measures to keep people from camping in public places and the protection of public facilities. It’s about time the City decided to end its attraction to vagrants who pose a public safety risk. Those votes were 3-2, of course, with Zahra and Charles siding with the immigrant homeless instead of their homed constituents.

Other issues were agendized, too. There was the topic of a letter opposing an AQMDs ban on gas appliances. Seeing the practical problems of the policy, the majority decided to oppose the measure. The vote was the same 3-2. Since there’s nothing a liberal likes more than following the mandates of completely opaque government agencies, Zahra and Charles were compelled to vote no, citing “public health.”

The following entertaining interchange took place (according to the Fullerton Observer Kennedy Sisters with their usual additions):

Mayor Jung without asking for council comments, said “I will move the item” – but Councilmember Zahra said he had some questions.

Councilmember Zahra made some clarifications, “For those who mentioned this was overreach from the state – this is not from the state. The governing body [SCAQMD] is multiple cities in Southern California, a regional body of members from LA, Orange and San Bernardino counties.” He said the letter merely states that we are supporting this – or not supporting this. So nothing is being imposed here locally whether it [the letter] goes out in the negative or positive. The actual SCQAMD meeting where this will be decided happens on May 2 – so anyone passionate about it can attend that meeting,” he said.

Mayor Jung “Is there a question somewhere in there?”

Councilmember Zahra passing over Jung’s unnecessary interruption went on to say – “The clean air rules are for manufacturer’s not residents and the rules transition gradually. So no one is going to come and take your gas stove. If we are looking at this from a public health view – he said we do have high air pollution in Orange County – those are facts. I think we should stay out of this discussion for now, or – in my opinion – we should support public health. So I am not in favor of sending this letter out.”

Jesus H., speaking of gas emitting appliances…

First, Mayor Jung was actually following Robert’s Rules of Order, in which motions drive discussion, not the other way around. But Zahra had questions, right? Questions? No, that was a lie. he wanted to make yet another campaign speech, and he did. Jung, quite reasonably, lost his patience with the usual Zahra pontification, and asked where the questions were. The “interruption” was not unnecessary since Zahra had already interrupted a legitimate motion; Jung’s was appropriate response to Zahra’s out-of-order speechifying, which Jung did allow to continue.

Naturally, Zahra lied once again, trying to make the SCAQMD look like a sovereign local agency, when in fact it gets its diktats from Sacramento, via the California Air Resources Board (CARB), the Governor, and the Legislature.

Finally, there was a traffic issue, the topic being the signalization of the Euclid/Valley View intersection. Staff supported this, but only by using some sort of grant money, meaning it’s not a priority; the guesstimate for the cost would swallow up the City’s total traffic signalization budget for a year. As a side note, there’s already a signal at the Hiltscher Trail crossing – just a few hundred feet to the north.

Zahra and Charles really wanted to throw half a mil at the problem and move on.

However, in the end the council chose to turn the item back to the Traffic and Circulation Commission for more review and more public outreach. For some reason Zahra pushed for “closure” on this issue, probably just out of spite, and to make the council majority look bad in front of the audience. But since they had no dopey, liberal ideal that could be used to manipulate anybody Zahra and Charles went along with sending the thing back to the TCC.

March 9, 2025March 9, 2025Ahmad Zahra

Charting a New Course?

by The Fullerton Harpoon37 Comments

Fullerton is a General Law city. The question of studying the costs and the benefits of adopting a municipal charter was on the agenda for the last city council meeting.

To charter or not to charter. That became the debate. But it shouldn’t have been.

Rather than accepting the benign idea of beginning to study the pros and cons of Fullerton being a charter city, numerous public speakers, a claque obviously organized by Ahmad Zahra, and Zahra himself, began reciting a litany of reasons to not even study the idea. Of course they didn’t know what they were talking about, and kept spewing nonsense, like ginned up election costs, scary rejection of State paternalism, mandates, and planning control, and all sorts of drummed up stuff leading to the inevitable conclusion that California state government is benevolent, well-run, desirable, and comforting.

The speaker list was comprised of the usual suspects: our old, nattering friend (and Scott Markowitz nominator) Diane Vena; the ever-angry Karen Lloreda; the bitter, avian Anjali Tapadia and others.

Good grief, even the superannuated Molly McClanahan appeared, cluck-clucking her disapproval of the proceedings. And there in the audience sitting next to McClanahan, was none other than Jan Flory, looking pretty worn out. Flory didn’t say anything, mercifully, but perfunctorily clapped when speakers questioned the motives and integrity of the council majority. On McClanahan’s other side sat Ms. Lloreda, which was appropriate: two former city councilwomen recalled by their constituents.

Several school district boardmembers showed up, too, trying, and failing to explain the nexus between the municipal charter topic and the welfare of their districts. That was just pathetic lackeyism for Zahra. Boy, have they backed the wrong horse.

As noted before, Zahra’s indignant, theatrical and lengthy diatribe was even more ridiculous that the dumb speeches of his little entourage. He began a recitation of how a 15 member elected charter-writing committee would become a political springboard for bad people (i.e. those not chosen by him) funded by bad interests – like Fullerton Taxpayers for Reform, presumably. This was amazing since nobody in their right mind would pursue this approach. I don’t know if any city ever has. But Zahra must have thought it was good obfuscation to help confuse the already dimly lit brains of his followers, I guess.

There was a plot afoot said Zahra, with devious manipulators pulling the council’s strings to buy and sell Fullerton, somehow, sometime, somewhere. Don’t believe what they say, said the master of prevarication.

Ferguson speaks. Fullerton Boohoo is not happy…

One speaker, Joshua Ferguson supported the study, pointing out that the process of voting on a charter was actually highly democratic because it gave people a chance to participate in how their city is governed. The Three Old Ladies shook their heads in disapprobation.

The three councilmembers who voted to simply consider the idea – Jung, Dunlap and Valencia – didn’t try to justify some positive end result, reasonably supporting a study, the sort of thing people like Zahra and his friend Shana Charles normally adore.

The idea here is that actually learning things about something relating to city governance is a good thing.

I don’t know anything about the benefits or drawbacks of having a municipal charter; neither do the people of Fullerton;. neither does our City Council, two of whom, Zahra and Charles voted to remain ignorant.

March 6, 2025March 6, 2025About Us

And the Award for Worst Over Acting Goes to…

by The Fullerton Harpoon34 Comments

The other night City Councilperson Ahmad Zahra put on quite a display of self-righteous indignation. The topic was whether or not to look into the advantages of Fullerton becoming a charter city. That move might give the city some flexibilities our current status as a General Law city might not afford. The issue was about as dangerous as self-rising flour, but to hear Zahra go on about it you’d think a vast conspiracy was afoot to separate Fullerton citizens from their freedom.

His outraged and disjointed diatribe must have lasted five minutes. He went for the cheap seats. Anger. Sardonic smiles. Dramatic hand gestures. Putting on, taking off glasses. Goodness gracious. How he longs to be a Third World dictator.

Zahra’s indignance was theatrical, of course. He had to play out his part in front of the dozen people he could muster to attend the meeting and cry about impending doom. But his description of the charter city idea was phrased in language that denigrated the current Council majority whom “nobody trusts,” nobody being, presumably a few dozen Zahra puppets and the Observer Sisters.

Their goal, according to Zahra, was to create new “land use” rules that would benefit the person who put the majority in their Council chairs and who spends his time buying up properties left and right. The unnamed bogeyman of Fullerton Boohoo – Tony Bushala. Goodness gracious, Zahra went on, the City of Fullerton itself was at stake.

Zahra’s other claims were so stupid and impossible that they hardly need to repeated except to show how desperate he has become. A charter city he falsely exclaimed, could get rid of competitive bidding on projects leading to shoddy construction! A charter city he falsely claimed could evade California’s prevailing wage laws leading to shoddy construction!

And then: the roads fix the roads. The roads are as bad as ever. The priceless wrap up? Zahra said the Council majority would tell people what they want to hear. And it won’t be the truth. Wow. Coming from leaky, weepy, dedicated to his con of the boohoos, Zahra.

When Zahra had finished his histrionics he was immediately challenged by Councilman Nick Dunlap for his previous no votes on infrastructure spending. Zahra interrupted noisily, as he has been doing lately, but was shut down by Dunlap and Mayor Jung. Councilwoman Jamie Valencia told Zahra not to worry – his Academy Award will come someday. She was greeted with boohoo boos from Zahra’s pals in the audience.

One telling part of this episode was when Councilperson Shana Charles, who had just cheerfully stated her interest in the charter possibility, voted no on the motion simply to study the idea – right after Zahra’s melt down.

The motion carried 3-2 so we have not heard the last of this issue.

March 5, 2025March 5, 2025A Step in the Right Direction

Bitter Jaramillo Bites Dust. Again.

by The Fullerton Harpoon20 Comments

At last night’s Fullerton City Council meeting, Ahmad Zahra revealed his second nomination for the city’s Planning Commission. You may recall that his first nomination, Adrian Meza, doesn’t live in Fullerton and couldn’t take the job. Zahra’s new nominee? Vivian “Kitty” Jaramillo. Friends may well remember Jaramillo from the fall city council campaign, where she finished behind Jamie Valencia.

Jaramillo’s nomination went down like the Hindenburg. Zahra and Charles voted yes, of course; Valencia, Dunlap, and Jung voted no. Unequivocally. How come? These appointments are usually rubber stamped by the Council.

Well, Friends may also recall Jaramillo’s political valediction, presented in the Fullerton Observer: a bitter lamentation how dirty tricks sank her little boat:

Rule number one in politics must be that if you want somebody to vote for you, try to refrain from calling them knuckleheads and puppets. During the campaign Jaramillo questioned Valencia’s credentials and commitment; not a big deal in an election, but not helpful later on when you want something from your former rival.

Then there’s the marijuana dispensary problem. Jaramillo has been a big supporter of the now reversed ordinance that would have permitted the greatest latitude for future permits. Dunlap and Jung had already votes to repeal that law. The thought that the dope lobby contributed $60,000 to get Jaramillo elected certainly must have caused pause for the council majority.

And then there’s the problem of Zahra’s own recent vote against nominations made by Jung and Valencia, most noticeably the choice of Arif Mansuri to the Traffic and Circulation Commission. If you’re going to start voting no on qualified nominees you should expect reciprocation for your unqualified ones.

My guess is that Zahra was on the phone after the meeting to boohoo like a little girl to one of the Kennedy Sisters, and they’ll be crying in print real soon about the usual outrage.

February 28, 2025February 28, 2025About Us

Fuck-ups For Fullerton’s Future

by The Fullerton Harpoon8 Comments

The City Council meeting agenda for March 4th has some interesting “Closed Session” items on it. For those who don’t know, Closed Session is a private meeting of the Council when legal, personnel or real estate issues are involved. The City Attorney attends the session, too, in our case the hapless buffoons of The I Can’t Believe It’s a Law Firm of Jones and Mayer.

Here’s the line up of issues.

Number 1 is about something up at the City Owned golf course – one of the too little scrutinized assets of the City of Fullerton. This has been a source of embarrassment for City staff and FFFF instruction in the past.

Our Friend David Curlee ran afoul of City Staff when he uncovered the rank incompetence of Alice Loya and Hugo Curiel as well as the misappropriation of Brea Dam Enterprise funds. And that’s likely the reason they dragged him into the FFFF/Joshua Ferguson lawsuit.

Number 2 is about the idiotic “boutique” hotel fiasco in which the City up-zoned the Hell out our property and then virtually gave it away to “Westpark/TA” an operation run by a couple crooks whose prior record was never disclosed to the City Council or the public. Well we found out all about it, even if our highly paid “professionals” in City Hall didn’t bother.

Any reasonable representatives of the people would have shit-canned this deal on Day 1. Not Fullerton, of course. What in the world could they be negotiating? TA hasn’t met any of its deadlines, got caught recording a phony deed, etc. TA should have been dumped a long, long time ago and their purchase amount forfeited. Interestingly the City seems to have brought in Best, Best and Krieger to do represent the City. At least it isn’t Jones and Mayer. Still, I wonder why.

Zahra Congratulates Marovic for his lawsuit…against us.

Number 3 is about our old friend Mario “Bump Out” Marovic, the scofflaw who took over from the Florentine Family in ripping off the public. He’s still illegally occupying the space he was supposed to have demolished two goddamn years ago.

He is obviously in default of that agreement – a deal that moronically permitted him to open up his businesses and profit off our building on our sidewalk. Our indifferent City staff and Council doesn’t seem to have the stomach to give this weasel notice that he has been trespassing and that they were going to demolish the building add-on and restore the sidewalk themselves.

Number 4 is one of those “anticipated litigation/significant exposure to litigation” items in which secrets can be withheld from potential litigants – like Friends for Fullerton Future – based on the squishy definition of the word “significant,” and self-serving public servant who happens to be defining it. Could this item be related to FFFF’s request for presence on City property? I don’t know, but I wouldn’t be surprised.

February 27, 2025February 27, 2025Ahmad Zahra

Zahra Votes No on Arif Mansuri

by The Fullerton Harpoon17 Comments

Yesterday FFFF related the story of how Fullerton Councilmember Ahmad Zahra got rid of his Planning Commissioner Arif Mansuri for some young guy named Adrian Meza. In effect, the Planning Commission lost a professional engineer and would have gained a political wannabe whose day job is “marketing” for a fertility clinic that gets gay male couples children.

It turns out that Mr. Mansuri still wants to serve his fellow Fullerton citizens and Councilmember Jamie Valencia thought that was a good idea. So at the January 21, 2025 Council meeting she expressed her intention to nominate Mansuri for the Traffic and Circulation Commission. That item came up on the February 4th, 2025 council agenda – Item 3.

What’s of interest here is that Zahra voted no on Item 3, that included Mansuri’s ratification to the T&C Commission.

I will get what I want, one way or another…

What’s the big deal you ask?

Well, for starters it’s highly unusual for one councilmember to vote against a nomination made by one of his colleagues, particularly one who is more qualified than most Fullerton commission appointees. In Fullerton such things have always been considered bad form; in this case especially, since the man is qualified. We may conclude that Zahra doesn’t like Mansuri anymore and voted against him out of malice; or maybe it was spite against Valencia for favoring his own castoff commissioner.

Mansuri was appointed 4-1 so there’s no effect on almost anything by Zahra’s petulant vote. Almost. Because this vote creates a recent precedent of sorts that means nobody gets an auto pass when it comes to future appointments. And that includes Zahra himself who will be shopping for a new Planning Commissioner one of these days.