The trouble with the City of Fullerton’s Public Records Act system is that responses are so dilatory, so frequently incomplete, and often so non-responsive, as Friends have seen over the years, it’s hard to know if you can draw any firm conclusions from what are charitably called public records.
Here’s an interesting request made a couple of weeks ago.
The request has elicited a “full release” response, so we may infer, I hope, that it really is full.
It’s a total waste of money, but it sure is short…
Why is this request interesting? Because the obscure State Department of Natural Resources is the grant-giving sugar daddy of the 2.1 million dollar UP Trail fiasco.
I noted back on January 27th that there were problems with the Trail to Nowhere project schedule, namely, that the design and construction milestones were seven and five months late, respectively.
It’s hard to know the exact status of this boondoggle because nobody in City Hall is saying anything about it to the public. I (confidently) assume the final design was never submitted to the State because the City Council never approved it, never released a bid or awarded a contract. Construction has obviously not started. Now there are just eight months left to do it all.
The trees won’t block the view…
This is where the PRA request comes in. The response just shares a short email string between Fullerton and Natural Resource Department people trying to set up a meeting for a briefing on some water project up north and its impact on MWD cities’ water supply. That’s it. There is nothing about the grant for the so-called UP Trail.
The project showed little promise, but they didn’t care…,
So what is the status? Were the milestones waived by the Natural Resources Department? Has some schedule modification been made? If so there’s no correspondence (at least none shared by the City Clerk) that show it. That’s pretty odd, isn’t it? Is it possible the State isn’t even keeping track of the agreement and the City isn’t bothering to remind them? That strikes a believable chord.
At this point it seems highly unlikely that the Trail to Nowhere could be completed in time, but maybe hope springs eternal. The State doesn’t seem to care.
Ahmad Zahra and his pal Shana Charles made a big deal about this dumbassery and organized such an annoying Astroturf backing for it, that the previous council majority chickened out and agreed to the mess. They haven’t been talking about it either, even though they already took a victory lap and threw themselves a party.
FFFF received a fun email the other day, pecked out by Fullerton 5th District Councilman Ahmad Zahra. It is directed to Fullerton Assistant City Attorney Baron Bettenhausen, a fellow that the Friends met yesterday. Ahmad writes on January 27th, and is obviously still in a grand funk about losing his precious Walk on Wilshire the previous week.
We’re #1.08!
The tone of the letter is pretty unfriendly since Zahra seems to believe Bettenhausen has left out something real important in the discussion of Jamie Valencia returning campaign contributions. Of course, as we have seen, none of this would have been necessary if Bettenhausen knew the law and had known about the FPPC decision in Palo Alto before January 21st.
But let’s let Ahmad speak for himself:
From: Ahmad Zahra <ahmad.zahra@cityoffullerton.com> Sent: Sunday, January 26, 2025 9:55 PM To: Baron J. Bettenhausen <bjb@jones-mayer.com>; Richard D. Jones <rdj@jones-mayer.com>; Eric Levitt <Eric.Levitt@cityoffullerton.com> Subject: Conflict of interest question
Caution: This is an external email and may be malicious. Please take care when clicking links or opening attachments.
Baron, at the last council meeting, you had opined that CM Valencia could vote on the matter of Walk on Wilshire since she had returned the campaign contributions to Tony Bushala and Cigar Shop owner, both of whom have direct economic interests in the decision. Community members have shared with me some concerns regarding your rendered opinion and I’d like clarifications from you.
Was the FPPC consulted on this matter, as has been the practice in the past on complicated issues (example: CM Charles votes on CSUF)? If so, where is their opinion letter and why was it not presented at the time of the meeting?
There’s been a claim that the funds hadn’t been actually returned even if the return check was issued. This is a claim from a resident that raised concerns but no evidence was presented. But it does bring up the question, what evidence did CM Valencia present to you and why was that not made public? This is especially relevant because that reporting period for campaign committees isn’t until Jan 31st, occurring after the meeting itself with no chance for the public to verify any of this.
In your opinion that night, while you addressed the letter of the law, did you factor in the spirit of the law? It seems to easy for anyone to take contributions, use them, then conveniently return the funds before a vote. This is especially important to know as CM Valencia was fully aware of the WoW vote since apparently it was a question asked to her during the campaign.
I would appreciate a clarification on these questions and would request that an FPPC letter confirming your opinion on this matter be made available to the public to prevent any legal issues. Any correspondence to the FPPC should also include the concerns of the public for a comprehensive review.
I am also requesting that any action to execute the reopening of Wilshire be delayed until such legal questions are resolved to avoid any legal challenges to the city.
Note: I am writing this email in the interest of the public and thus deem it and any response to it in the public domain and not under any lawyer confidentiality privilege.
Oh dear me. Where to start. Naturally, Zahra wants to make up and nurture a scandal where there is none. He’s obviously been stirring up an element of outraged Fullerton Boohoo to keep the red herring going. He even uses the same language as the Kennedy Sisters: “there’s been a claim,” and “This is a claim from a resident that raised concerns but no evidence was presented.”
FFFF first addressed the non-applicability of the law in question way back on January 21st. We know Zahra reads FFFF, but maybe he didn’t catch that post.
Anyway, Zahra wants to know if the FPPC has been consulted about this horror of horrors. We now know that the FPPC previously ruled on the identical issue in a case in Palo Alto. FFFF relayed that information, here on February 10th. The answer is clear as a bell: the law doesn’t apply. Bettenhausen should have known this before January 21, and maybe even before Valencia gave back money she didn’t have to.
Ahmad made me wear this and took a picture.
Then Zahra’s deep sea fishing expedition turns to the completely baseless “actual claim” that although a check may have been written, it wasn’t cashed, challenging Valencia’s integrity and Bettenhausen’s lack of diligence.
Zahra’s final numbered point is really funny. He wonders why the “spirit” of the law is not being upheld. Poor Ahmad should be addressing his lament to the State Legislature instead of his own attorney, but, whatever.
Here goes…
Zahra wants the FPPC findings on the issue to be made public, and he requests that WoW remain open until such time as the FPPC responds. Zahra’s worried about legal challenges? From whom? The Kennedy Sisters and Diane Vena? Man, what a failed Hail Mary. WoW was unceremoniously removed a few days after Zahra’s demand letter. Thousands more laughed than did weep at it.
Poor Ahmad wraps up his missive by letting his own lawyer know that this email and any response are free from attorney-client confidentiality – in the public interest, of course. That’s good ’cause we got it, Ahmad, being members of the public, and all. Was there ever even a response by Bettenhausen in the end? Who cares
Friends may remember the name Diane Vena in connection to the 2024 phony Fullerton District 4 council candidacy of newly minted Republican, Scott Markowitz. Poor Diane signed his nominating papers for some as yet unconfessed reason, although Sharon, the elder Kennedy Sister has claimed it was the behest of a fantastical and unnamed “conservative friend.”
But I checked all the right boxes!
Of course the problem was that Poor Diane had already endorsed a candidate in that election – Vivian Jaramillo. Her endorsement, whatever it’s worth, was on Jaramillo’s website. She was obviously an ardent member of Team Jaramillo. Uh oh. That’s not very good is it?
Bringing it all back home…
Anyhow, Poor Diane also makes a frequent nuisance of herself at council meetings, and the meeting of February 4th was no different. Her public comment was just so wonderfully inane, delusional and daft. Add in some Grade A Fullerton Boohoo boohooing and you have something that is so elevated in near-artistic sublimity that it deserves special recognition. Seriously, I couldn’t write a better satirical piece on the now defunct “Walk on Wilshire” and the dumbass boohooing that supported it.
The following AI summation is reproduced from the Fullerton Observer:
Diane Vena: She wanted to express her thoughts on the closing of Walk and Wilshire. Honestly, her heart was heavy. That morning, she drove down a street that used to be something beautiful, but it had now been reduced to just an ordinary little street. She had come to love Walk on Wilshire, especially the lake area, and appreciated seeing how many others loved it too. She was there with a friend on Friday when they were dismantling everything; it might have been Thursday, but she couldn’t remember for sure. As she watched them take it all apart, she cried because she couldn’t help it. She disagreed with one of the previous speakers: many people paid taxes, and roads should serve all of us, including those who walked, those who could not drive, and those who simply preferred not to. She believed they had lost something beautiful. That morning, all she saw was about 200 feet of road with cars driving through, and there wasn’t much traffic or activity. Normally, that space would have been filled with people enjoying breakfast, walking their dogs, or simply strolling along. She saw it as a tragedy that they had lost such a vibrant community space.
Of course the pathos of the paradise lost is funny. But so is the recognition that now cars can and do use the reopened street. Poor lachrymose Diane’s tears are wasted, of course; but in her worldview somehow the street belongs to pedestrians, too.
Faites-vous attention, Claudette et Mimi…
I’m reminded of one of those bad paintings of Parisian boulevards with witless pedestrians wandering around in the middle of street.
Poor Diane misses the morning hustle and bustle no rational person ever saw: mythical dogs and masters meandering in the street; strollers strolling back and forth across the 200 length of roadway. It had been “beautiful,” but now was “ordinary.” But at least Poor Diane noticed car drivers using the street – the very purpose of a paved road, in fact. And she unwittingly admits that she was one of them.
There really shouldn’t be any surprise that bad legal advice always comes with a price tag. Sometimes that cost is monetary. Sometimes it’s misleading and even abusing the public and its trust.
No, I wasn’t asleep. I was praying…
And so it has been over the decades for Fullerton and its egregiously awful lawyer, Dick Jones, of the I Can’t Believe It’s a Law Firm. The latest example is a real boner, even for a guy whose firm specializes in boners in dirty book stores and misbehaving topless bars.
It seems that last fall City Attorney Jones and Mayer may very well have passed advice to newly elected councilwoman Jamie Valencia that some of the donations to her campaign could be problematic, including those from Tony Bushala and the guy who owns the cigar place on Wilshire Avenue. Any official activities effecting these gentlemen might fall under the Section 84308 of the Government Code, the so-called “pay-to-play” statute.
The statute says that politicians can’t vote on licenses, contract awards, entitlements, permits or agreements with entities that give them over $250 in campaign cash. Valencia was supposedly given two options: recuse herself on such issues for at least a year; or, alternatively, give the money back. In November, she chose the latter.
We don’t know our cloaca from a hole in the ground.
Nothing more was said of this until the idiot Walk on Wilshire was up for a vote. At this point The issue of the pay-to-play statute came up again in the bone-headed precincts of Fullerton BooHooville, prompted by who knows who. The reason? Bushala and Mr. Cigar Guy both opposed the continued closure of Wilshire Avenue.
Picture this…
For some reason the City Manager Eric Levitt (according to the Kennedy Sisters of the Fullerton Observer) told them he believed the Valencia contribution return was in process, when it had been accomplished 6-8 weeks before. The fact that he even responded at all gave the boohoos confidence in their brand-new, trumped up “issue.”
And guess what? None of it even mattered!
That’s right. The vote on Walk on Wilshire had nothing to do with the pay-to-play law. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Zip. Zero. A layman could (and FFFF did) see that. No one was getting a license, a permit or a contract award; no one was getting an agreement or an entitlement. Citizens with opinions were simply giving them about a City directed action – not their own. It was so obvious. But not to Dick Jones, for some inexplicable reason. Was it ineptitude, laziness, or was there an ulterior motive? Who knows?
Why write about news when you can try to make your own! (Photo by Julie Leopo/Voice of OC)
Meantime, Fullerton BooHoo and the Fullerton Observer got into high dudgeon over the non-issue, and also whether the money had been given back to the contributors. They tried hard to craft a corruption scandal. “Questions were being asked,” the Kennedy Sisters huffed and puffed, their erectile hairs stiffened. Their nincompoop followers raised the issue at the council meeting in question. But in the end it was irrelevant gums flapping.
Now for the fun part. Guess what? The identical issue had already been raised last fall by City of Palo Alto Councilmember Patrick Burt. About what? The issue was a controversial, City-created street closure vote! What are the odds? Mr. Burt inquired of the FPPC whether such a vote fell under the purview of the pay-to-play law.
If you don’t want to read the whole letter, here’s the conclusion:
CONCLUSION No, decisions by the Palo Alto City Council to permanently close the specified downtown areas to car traffic are not entitlement for use proceedings subject to Section 84308. The City Council initiated the actions to close these areas permanently to car traffic. The facts indicate that the interests impacted by the closures will be many and diverse. Furthermore, the closures were not applied for, nor have entitlements for use been formally or informally requested by any party to date, and the decisions do not involve a contract between the City and any party.
As you can see, the reply was succinct, and the answer was no, just like FFFF had said. Why didn’t Dick Jones know this? Why, indeed. This was a very important finding for those in the political arena – like Jones himself.
Poor Ms. Valencia was caused to publicly explain herself and her return of the campaign cash when she didn’t have to. That alone would cause me to cut loose the useless dumpster fire known as Jones and Mayer for their blatant incompetence.
That’s the bureaucratic snarl that surrounds the standard American community due to mandates from Sacramento and Washington.
Half a mile of high-density housing.
We just had 13,000 potential new housing units shoved down our throat by the State of California Housing and Community Development pointy-headed paper pushers with the connivance of SCAG – the Association of Southern California Governments, that supplies the cooked up numbers. The good folks at SCAG answer to nobody, and the State Legislature just loves them some housing bureaucracy – and the more intrusive, the better, apparently.
And now what, you ask? Why another mandate – a five year “2025 Housing Consolidated Plan” required by the people at the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development. Here’s the City of Fullerton’s grand announcement of…a survey to get the ball rolling.
A cynical type person might suspect that the only real reason for any of this massive and seemingly eternal paper chase is to keep public employees employed: hiring consultants, reviewing surveys, gathering “data,” writing reports of compliance, reading reports of compliance, writing notifications of compliance and non-compliance, writing more reports, reading more reports, handing out awards for compliance, and general bureaucratic backslapping all around.
The effects of all this mumbo jumbo on the communities it impacts are neither here, nor there. The government Kabuki-hustle described as public participation is necessary, but let’s be honest. The goal of this splendidly vast empire is simply to amass more budget and hire more people at government agencies. If only American industry could match this amazing growth record over the past 60 years.
We gotta go up!
So what motivates local compliance with all this gobbledygook? Well, there’s the old carrot and stick, as you might imagine – two sides of the same metaphorical coin. If you play nice and do what you’re told you get Federal and State money, part of which you can use to hire people into your city’s “housing” department, a thing that didn’t exist until the 60s and 70s. That’s empire building, a point of pride for your garden variety city manager. Everyone wants a cookie, right?
You know you can’t resist the Big Cookie!
But if you don’t go along and try to fight back against the idiot mandates, like Huntington Beach is doing right now, you incur the full wrath of State and Federal magistrates; from houseacrats to attorneys general and judges – the latter really just loyal public employees in silly robes. The reluctant jurisdiction will be threatened with a cut of of State and Federal payments, grants, and other beneficent distributions from far away capitals. No cookie for you, naughty boy.
Hardly even pretending to be objective, Kennedy Sister Skasia just unburdened herself of a ridiculous account of how Fullerton, specifically Mayor Fred Jung, failed to declare Rosa Parks Day. Some out-of-towner named Bill Preston got up at the February 4th Council meeting and addressed himself to Mayor Fred Jung for the latter’s lack of a proclamation declaring Rosa Parks Day.
Billy Preston
Apparently poor Bill Preston’s “disappointment” left him with a “broken heart” (No I am not kidding), but he hopes to come back next year to present a “Rosa Parks Award – whatever that may be – to the City of Fullerton.
It’s not surprising how this apparent omission was not-so-subtlety elevated into some sort of deliberate offense by Jung himself.
Gloves are so Nineteenth Century…
Once we cut out all of Mr. Preston’s hyperbole about Rosa Parks’ influence on world history and his own critical role in honoring her legacy, we are led to this predictable paragraph added to the end by Saksia:
The Mayor’s decision not to honor Parks with a proclamation has sparked a significant discussion about the values of the community and how local governments recognize influential historical figures. This situation raises important questions regarding local authorities’ responsibility in honoring those who have made a significant impact on society, ensuring their contributions are remembered and that their stories continue to inspire future generations.
Very predictable.
Why write about news when you can try to make your own! (Photo by Julie Leopo/Voice of OC)
First we are presented with an unfounded accusation – that Jung himself deliberately decided not to honor Parks, an assertion with no basis in any evidence. Then we are informed that “significant discussion” about community values, etc. has been “sparked;” but evidently not significant enough for Skadia to let us know who exactly has been sparked, and what they are saying. Furthermore, “local authorities” in Skasdia’s opinion, are “responsible” to ensure, yadda, yadda, yadda.
No, honey, local authorities are responsible to pave the damn roads and make sure the street lights work among other local government responsibilities. Honoring heroes with “days” is not on that list, and there’s already way to much of that crap weighing down council meetings.
Someone please listen to me…
It’s become apparent that the Kennedy Sisters and their running dogs have made it their mission to attack Jung in any way possible – no matter how fucking stupid, which for them is pretty stupid.
Yeah. It’s about time. For decades Fullerton’s citizenry have picked up the tab for one bad idea after another. So if Mayor Jung really did say he wanted the City run with an iron fist, let’s get going with the plug pulling.
It’s a total waste of money, but it sure is short…
The Trail to Nowhere
The abysmal Trail to Nowhere, a bad idea that was germinating for 14 years before the grant was finally approved at the end of 2023. City staff has never told the truth about this fiasco, and because of incurious and stupid councilmembers, they never had to. I can simply say that it would accomplish none of things its backers promise, mostly because the wishful thinking behind it was so untruthful from the start. No users, possible contamination, no linkage to anything, no destination at either end. Just a waste of 2.1 million bucks.
Oh, and yeah – the milestones for design submittal to the State and start of construction were blown past 9 months ago and still no status update from anybody.
Enhanced with genuine brick veneer!
The Boutique Hotel
The boutique hotel next to the train station started out as just a stupid idea by then Mayor-for-Hire Jennifer Fitzgerald. Then as the likelihood of failure increased, the City kept doubling down on dumb, adding density to density until an appended apartment block raised the density to at least 2.5 times the already dense limit in the Transportation Center Specific Plan. No one seemed to care, because those plans are only occasionally adhered to.
Nobody bothered to ask why useful City property had to be deemed “surplus.” Bruce Whitaker didn’t.
And last we looked the whole thing had been turned over to a couple of con men who paid 1.4 million for a property whose new entitlements made it worth ten times that much. Fullerton, being Fullerton. Those guys haven’t met any of their milestones and must certainly be in default. Not a peep out of City Hall, of course. I’ll bet my last dollar Sunayana Thomas is desperately looking for a new “developer” to assign the mess to, without a backward glance.
Forgotten but not quite gone…
The Florentine/Marovic Sidewalk Heist
This 20 year+ scandal is still alive and kicking thanks to the stupid and cowardly attitude of staff/city council toward first, the Florentine Syndicate, and now, a new scofflaw, Mario Marovic. Somehow, the City let Marovic do remodeling construction work on our building on our sidewalk – an illegal trespass if ever there was one. Then the City let him open his newly remodeled place with promises to remove the “pop-out” as a condition of re-opening.
Zahra Congratulates Marovic for his lawsuit…against us.
Naturally, Marovic gave the City a big fuck you on that agreement, as he no doubt planned to do all along. He had six moths to start and nine months to finish. That was two fucking years ago, and Marovic is drawing income from our property the whole time. Nowadays this matter is safely hidden in closed session, where the painful subject of accountability for this quagmire can be safely discussed away from embarrassing public revelation.
Fortunately for the cast of characters involved there are so many culpable people in this story that blame can be diluted to the point where nobody feels the least bit compelled to explain what happened over two plus decades, just so long as the municipal humiliation goes away once and for all.
So, yes. Let the Fullerton Observer sisters and their ilk boohoo about iron fists and poor, intimidated staff. Fullerton has been in need of some accountability, even a tiny bit, for a long, long time.
Why write about news when you can try to make your own! (Photo by Julie Leopo/Voice of OC)
Oops. The crack Observer editor Skasia, younger member of the Kennedy Coven, has done it again.
This proud pillar of the 4th Estate decided a recap of the now dismantled Walk on Wilshire public hearing comments was in order, given that the vast majority of them yammered in favor of keeping it.
The look of vacant self-satisfaction…
Therefore it was necessary to regurgitate the usual cut and paste mishmash of what people actually said.
Anti-WoW speaker #7 was one of them. Here’s what The Observer recollects:
7) Layla, identifying herself as the landlord of the Wilshire Promenade called into the council saying ‘The street closure has negatively impacted our tenants, and 88 Cigar Bar, Slice, and ShabuShabu. We as landlords can’t make money – we need to drive through traffic. If it remains as is or is expanded we won’t make it.” (Fullerton Promenade Apartments is one of 252 apartment complexes owned by the largest operator of apartment complexes on the West Coast – the $18.5 billion Essex Property Trust, Inc.)
Notice how at the end the end Skakia appends the obligatory and Observer biased contextual facts, implying that “Layla” represents a conglomerate of massive wealth – suggesting that this vast enterprise can afford to chum a few bucks for the common good of Fullerton Boohoo, because it is so…so something.
Over here, ya dummy…
The only problem is that “Layla” has absolutely nothing to do with the Promenade Apartment Block, but rather, works for an entity, “Fullerton Promenade,” that owns some buildings on the south side of Wilshire Avenue – precisely whose small business tenants were the most affected by the idiot closure.Layla even named her tenants!
And then there’s the Promenade Apartments
This is exactly the sort of spiteful, inaccurate boobery that characterizes the Fullerton Observer and its crew of incompetent ideologues. I hope Layla isn’t waiting for a correction and apology, because she won’t get either.
Something that should have been got rid of years ago is finally going. The traffic signals need to be re-activated and the bollards put in storage. Freed from its surly, bureaucrat-woven constraints, Wilshire Avenue can again become what it was up ’til the spring of 2020 – the heart of Downtown Fullerton.
The public health advocates and restaurant experts like Shana Charles will have to find someplace else to do their aerobics and their al fresco dining.
An amused Friend sent in these images of Shawn Nelson swearing in Fred Jung back in December..
You may recall Nelson as a former Fullerton councilmember and then as a County Supervisor where he got even less accomplished than his predecessor Chris Norby. Believe it or not he is now a judge, robes and all.
The best part is Mr. Nelson had to sit through a couple hours of disenfranchised boohooing against Jung while wearing the ridiculous courtroom attire.
