City Council Election 2024 Archives - Page 3 of 4 - Friends For Fullerton's Future

October 8, 2024October 9, 2024Ahmad Zahra

The Case Against Jan M. Flory

Well, she’s at it again. The old warhorse appears yet again to darken our collective doorstep with her presence. Janesse “Jan” M. Flory was on the Fullerton City Council from 1995 to 2003, then reappeared in 2012 like the Ghost of Christmas Past. And yet, she still wasn’t done, getting herself appointed to the Fullerton City Council in 2019, and continuing her history of incompetence, negligence and indifference to her constituents.

She’s running for the 2nd District council seat currently occupied by popular Mayor, Nick Dunlap. Her rationale? That’s not hard to figure out. She is running to protect Fullerton’s highly compensated and highly unresponsible public employees.

Flory must 80 years old if she’s a day, and Fullerton has changed a lot since 1994 – thirty long years ago, but Flory doesn’t seem to have changed at all. The sneer. The disdain for anyone not toeing the bureaucratic line, not accepting any bullshit emanating from City Hall.

Here’s a robotext recently received by a voter in Fullerton’s 2nd District.

Experience? We all know experiences can range from good to horrendous.

It’s nice to see Janesse let us know her campaign promises, because they remind students of Fullerton history that she was front and center of the disasters that she helped create. We can skip over the illiteracy of the writing and focus on the issues.

Fix our roads and streets? Who the Hell was running the City for 14 years while the pavement went to shit? That’s right, you, Janesse. “Saving” the ridiculous money pit called Walk on Wilshire? Really?

You want to hire more cops and firefighters? Who gave those guys the budget busting pay and pension increases? That’s right, you Janesse.

You want civility? Who treated her constituents like trash when they had the effrontery to stand up for themselves? That’s right, you Janesse.

And now for some fun history, yanked from FFFF headlines, a Flory of bill of indictment.

In 1994 Jan Flory, supported the unnecessary utility tax and actually proclaimed she wished it were doubled.

In 1995 Flory directed the City Attorney to disclose confidential legal advice in order to build a low-income housing project.

In 1998, and in years after Jan Flory cheerfully supported the illegal Water Fund diversion, a tax, to support her pals in City Hall.

In 2000 she supported the disastrous retroactive “public safety” pension giveaway, a breathtaking gift of public funds.

In 2000 she approved the $3,000,000 Poison Park, a Redevelopment acquisition of contaminated, gang-infested property on Truslow Avenue, an action she never acknowledged or demanded accountability for. The goddamn thing is still sitting there with a fence around it, 25 years later.

In 2012 she banded together with the cops to get herself elected, and then protected the Fullerton Police Department from reform. The Culture of Corruption continued unabated.

In 2016 she favored Police Chief Danny “C’mere, Big Boy” Hughes with a big, wet, goodbye kiss, three days after he tried to organize the cover-up of the drunken Wild Ride of City Manager, Joe Felz.

To get appointed to the City Council in 2019, she bribed the unemployed Ahmad Zahra with a lucrative seat on the Orange County Water District.

On her way out the door (again) in 2016, she supported the dishonest “bar owners map” for Fullerton’s first redistricting effort, allegedly created by the miscreant scofflaw, Jeremy Popoff that gerrymandered Jesus Quirk-Silva into a free run for City Council.

During the years of the Flory, Fitzgerald, Quirk-Silva, Zahra budget deficits, Flory lied to the public, insisting that the budget was balanced, when in fact, the City was raiding reserve funds to pay for increased employee contracts. Or maybe she simply doesn’t understand what deficit spending means.

No On S — Don’t Reward the City’s Stupidity

In 2019 Flory embarked with Zahra, Quirk-Silva, and Fitzgerald on an idiotic, spiteful legal vendetta against this blog, Joshua Ferguson and David Curlee, that cost Fullerton upwards of a million dollars in settlement and legal fees.

In 2020, on her way out the door for the third time, she voted in favor of Measure S, the ill-fated sales tax increase for which she was put on the Council to support.

If there were time and temperament, I could examine even more closely Flory’s “experience,” but, really why bother? Why recall all the Redevelopment boondoggles she supported in the 1990s, or the Downtown booze culture that she helped create in the early 2000s?

Mu’u mu’us and wood beads: I have always hated you, and I always will…

Flory’s bile and animus, directed at anybody who challenges City Hall – citizens and taxpayers, has been going on since 1994 and is well documented.

She once proclaimed that the City department heads were “the heart of the City,” And that tells you all you need to know about Janesse “Jan” M. Flory.

October 7, 2024October 7, 2024Ahmad Zahra

When Something is Funny…

by Mr. Peabody13 Comments

You have to enjoy it. Even when the laugh is not so much heartfelt, but the reaction to a painful example of utter head-in-the-sand stupidity; or as in this case, breathtaking lack of self-awareness.

Why write about news when you can try to make your own! (Photo by Julie Leopo/Voice of OC)

A Friend alerted me to a post on the the Yellowing Fullerton Observer website, in which the “editor” thereof, one Skasia Kennedy wrote in high dudgeon about campaign signs posted by Fred Jung and Jamie Valencia on – wait for it – public property! Railing against these criminals, Kennedy admonishes all Fullertonions to “know their rights” and report the illegal signs to the City!

It’s odd that this worthy woman and crack journalist failed to identify other lawbreakers – like Sharon Quirk, and the supporters of the massive school bonds who are in violation of the letter of the law. It’s Jung they despise over there, and of course they are all in for Vivian Jaramillo, Ms. Valencia’s opponent. It’s also amusing that they never cared about this issue before, so we can surmise a level of desperation about Jaramillo’s candidacy chances.

Anyway, it’s not Kennedy hypocrisy that this post is about, well, not exactly. It’s about a fun exchange between a reader and Ms. Editor herself, when the former accuses the latter of subjective harassment of her political adversary, Mr. Jung. Then Kennedy goes sideways-funny. Check it out:

Fullerton Troll got a good laugh out of that as well he/she might. The Fullerton Observer is and always has been about emotional responses to civic issues, especially the ones that signal some sort of virtuous liberal high ground. Well, Hell that’s easier than actually finding out real facts and reporting, right?

It’s a total waste of money, but it sure is short…

And so Kennedy and the Observer not only beat the drum for nonsense like the Trail to Nowhere and the Wake on Wilshire, they refused to print a single fact that would undermine their glandularly-charged objectives. In fact, the Kennedy women, mere et fille, have actively participated in both of those boondoggles, throwing all inconvenient objectivity aside. Emotions? Check. Preferences? Double check.

This Skasia Kennedy is so damn stupid that I really think she believes her bullshit, Running free ads in that paper for “Walk on Wilshire?” Refusing to tell the public that it’s a money loser? Refusing to even address the dozen good reasons not to waste $2,000,000 of public money on the dismal Trail to Nowhere? Do those sound like the actions of someone who is free of bias and journalistic integrity?

October 7, 2024October 7, 2024Ahmad Zahra

The Return of Raccoon Boy?

by The Fullerton Harpoon7 Comments

Apparently, political campaign sign in Fullerton’s 4th District are disappearing. But not all signs. Just those of Jamie Valencia and Linda Whitaker. Now this behvaior has been going on since the first campaign slogan was scribbled on a cave wall, somewhere, but it took on epic proportions in 2022 when District 1 candidate, Ahmad Zahra, employed the services of marginal characters to remove the signs of his opponent, Oscar Valadez.

One of these individuals was caught and tagged: Raccoon Boy.

Fullerton Boohoo wants Vivian Jaramillo on the City Council, and no one more so than Ahmad Zahra, the egomaniacal miscreant who is desperate to become Mayor. And so I wonder whether Zahra and Dem Party Central hasn’t once again found work for Raccoon Boy and his ilk. We know it’s not a matter of scruples. Zahra, Jaramillo and Dem Central went so far as to create a fake candidate, Scotty Markowitz, whose only job was to get a pro-MAGA ballot rant on the sample ballot.

If any of the Friends espy these thieving creatures in the wild, please record their activities and send them on in. They often congregate at the water hole known as 7-ELEVEN. They are an invasive species and need to be relocated ASAP.

October 3, 2024October 3, 2024City Council Election 2024

Register Endorses Jung, Dunlap, and Valencia

by The Fullerton Harpoon41 Comments

Today the OC Register Editorial Board endorsed Fred Jung and Nick Dunlap for re-election and newcomer Jamie Valencia in the 4th District against Vivian Jaramillo and Linda Whitaker.

Reproduced from the Orange County Register:

The city of Fullerton has three City Council seats up for grabs and the choices – at least in two of them – are fairly clear cut. Issues there center on the same kind of major issues that confront many older north Orange County cities: housing development, homelessness, crime and budgets.

District 1 pits incumbent Fred Jung against IT consultant Matt Truxaw. District 2 in pits current Mayor Nicholas Dunlap against Jan Flory, who previously served on the council. District 4 in the city’s less-affluent southwest corner has a crowded field for an open seat vacated by Councilman Bruce Whitaker.

His wife, former campaign manager Linda Whitaker, is running against retired community preservation officer Vivian “Kitty” Jaramillo, registered nurse Jamie Valencia and data analyst, Scott Markowitz.

We endorse Jung for the District 1 race. We endorsed him in the previous race because of his nuts-and-bolts approach. He’s been solid on key budget, development and public-service issues. Truxaw and Jung both offered reasonable answers to our survey questions, but we see no reason to change course.

We endorse Dunlap for District 2. We like his libertarian-leaning approach and have been impressed by his time on the council. Flory did not respond to our survey, but she has a long record in Democratic politics. This is an easy call.

“I will continue to fight for taxpayers and a fiscally conservative approach to governance, so I will oppose new taxes and any tax increases,” Dunlap told us. “During her 14 years on the council, my opponent voted for the 3% at 50 pension plan, to raise the city’s sales tax rate and also voted to maintain an illegal water tax. Poor decision making and failed leadership (like this) is part of the reason we have the issues we do today.”

In District 4, we quickly eliminated two candidates from consideration. Markowitz has no apparent campaign presence. His campaign statement calls on “America First patriots” to get involved, but he appears to be backed by some Democrats. We have no use for alleged ghost candidates. Jaramillo is the Democratic Party’s choice. As a self-described “advocate for city employees,” we suspect she won’t be the best person to negotiate local union contracts.

Whitaker would be a reliable and sensible conservative voice on budget issues, but in our survey she wrote that Fullerton is “almost built out” and opposed new affordable-housing projects.

Valencia also seems good on budget issues and called for expedited housing construction.

“I want to make building and plan check processes more efficient and streamline to save small business owners money and time,” Valencia told us. “Fullerton will be known as a business friendly city and encourage entrepreneurs to invest.”

Housing remains perhaps the top issue in our cities, so for that reason we endorse Valencia for District 4.

_______________________________________

There you have it, including a shout-out link to FFFF, detailing the phony candidate Scott Markowitz and the lying Democrat operatives who created him. What effect this endorsement will have remains speculative, but in North Fullerton it’s worth something; and in District 4 it may carry some weight with the minority Republican and independent voters.

My favorite part of the story is Dunlap’s pithy takedown of the dreadful Jan Flory, who just can’t seem to go away once and for all.

September 26, 2024September 26, 2024Ahmad Zahra

Truxaw Going to Break The Law?

by Mr. Peabody11 Comments

According to a knowledgeable Friend I know, it is illegal to hold a political campaign event on City property. I don’t know for sure, but this certainly has the ring of truth. If so, Fullerton council candidate Matt Truxaw is about to break the law. He’s having a campaign event a week from today on City property.

The embarrassing, money-losing “Walk on Wilshire” is indeed public property and Mr. Truxaw is having an election party for himself October 3rd on that closed portion of Wilshire Avenue. Can’t get more public than that, even if it’s on a leasehold that grants no such right.

Uh, oh. Is Mr. Truxaw one of those limousine libs who doesn’t think the law applies to him?

Oh, right. He became an overnight Republican just to run for office and make Fred Jung spend some money.

It will be interesting to see who shows up to this event and who would be dumb enough to pony up any cash for Truxaw the Straw. Man.

September 26, 2024September 26, 2024Ahmad Zahra

District Attorney Investigating Markowitz Scam

by Grover Cleveland17 Comments

The other day FFFF shared a letter from Fullerton activist Tony Bushala to District Attorney Todd Spitzer requesting that his office refer the sham candidacy of Scott Markowitz to the apolitical Orange County Grand Jury for investigation.

Bushala followed up with Spitzer a few days later. According to Bushala he received a curt response from Sptizer that the latter can’t comment as the matter is now under active investigation. Well, that’s good news.

Whether this means a preliminary route to the Grand Jury remains to be seen, but hopefully Markowitz will be receiving a call from the DAs office wanting to know a few things. Ditto the Diane Vena and the other liberal Dems who signed Markowitz’s nominating papers, and of course Ajay Mohan, the Dem operative lowlife who pulled the same shit in Fullerton at the behest of Ahmad Zahra in 2022.

Hopefully, Vivian Jaramillo, the candidate who stands to gain the most from this fraud will get a call too, to see what she knows about this scam.

September 25, 2024September 25, 2024Behind Closed Doors

No Show Marko

by Grover Cleveland14 Comments

The League of Women Voter’s held their usual candidate “forum” on Monday. Ever helpful, FFFF will harvest the video of the event for the Friends, sharing any fun or useful snippets.

What should have come as a surprise to no one, phantom 4th District candidate Scott Markowitz was a no show.

Markowitz doesn’t dare show his face in public for two reasons. The first, of course, is because his candidacy is a sham, created by Democrat operatives to siphon votes away from real candidate Linda Whitaker in order to elect Vivian Jaramillo, the Dems first and only choice. The second reason is that Markowitz’s job is done: creating a phony MAGA candidate whose name and statement are on the ballot.

I’d sell out my mother for 10 votes, and I have…

The Markowitz scam, orchestrated by Dem operative Ajay Mohan and others, involved recruiting Markowitz, changing his registration to Republican, and getting a bunch of Democrats to sign his nominating papers. One of them, Diane Vena had already endorsed Jaramillo. But then Markowitz submitted a ballot statement right out of Trump Central. Did his nominators know that was coming? Looks like fraud to me.

And, that’s not very good, is it?

The scam has been reported to the Orange County District Attorney, Todd Spitzer for investigation. An update soon on that.

September 22, 2024September 22, 2024Ahmad Zahra

District 4 Electoral Fraud Complaint Requests Grand Jury Investigation

by Grover Cleveland66 Comments

A complaint about the fraudulent candidacy of Scott Markowitz in Fullerton’s 4th District has been filed with the District Attorney, Todd Spitzer. The complaint requests the matter be referred to the Orange County Grand Jury for investigation

The complainant is Fullerton businessman and activist Tony Bushala.

In his letter to Spitzer, Bushala calls attention to a national movement by Democrats to recruit uber MAGA-type candidates whose sole purpose is to draw votes away from Republicans by running as third party candidates, thus helping Democrats. They’re calling their fake “movement” PATRIOTS RUN PROJECT.

As we know in Fullerton, Scott Markowitz was deployed by local Democrats to draw votes away from Republican Linda Whitaker in the 4th District city council election. The beneficiary? None other than Vivian Jaramillo, the endorsed candidate of the OC Democrat Party.

Friends will remember how Markowitz enlisted numerous active Democrats to sign his nomination papers, changed his registration to Republican at the last moment, submitted a phony Trumpian ballot statement, and so far has run no campaign at all. Not even the pretense of one. One of his signatories is none other than Diane Vena who had already endorsed Jaramillo. Getting stinkier?

Finally, Friends will also recall that Markowitz was accompanied to the City Clerk’s office by none other than Ajay Mohan, former Executive Director of the OC Democrat Party, and now a Democrat campaign consultant. Mohan pulled the same stunt in Fullerton in 2022 to protect Ahmad Zahra.

Prelude over, here’s Mr. Bushala’s letter.

Dear O.C. District Attorney, Mr. Todd Spitzer,

It has come to my attention that a conspiracy to commit a fake candidacy in Fullerton’s 4^th District to the detriment of the voters in that District.

Scott Markowitz is a sham candidate whose name on the ballot is simply meant to divert votes from a legitimate candidate, Linda Whitaker, for the benefit of the O.C. Democratic Party’s endorsed candidate, Vivian “Kitty” Jaramillo. There is a wave across the country whereas the Democratic Party is doing this all over the country, see here, here, here, and here.

The Markowitz candidacy was orchestrated, in part at least, by Ajay Mohan, former Executive Director of the O.C. Democrat Party. He accompanied Markowitz to the Fullerton City Clerk’s office to make sure the latter followed the necessary guidelines.

Markowitz changed his registration from Democrat to Republican, unnecessarily and voluntarily identified himself as such on his FPPC form.

Furthermore, several active North Orange County club Democrats signed his nomination papers. Inexplicably, one Markowitz nominator, Diane Vena, is actually listed on Vivian Jaramillo’s website as an endorser.

This latter fact is even more damning given the fact that Markowitz’ ballot statement reads like a Donald Trump campaign speech.

It is important to know if Ms. Jaramillo was a participant in this sordid episode. Diane Vena’s participation seems to suggest an affirmative answer.

I believe there is clearly enough suspicious activity to point to an effort to subvert an honest election in Fullerton’s 4^th District.

I also note that this is not the first documented instance of Ajay Mohan creating a fake candidate in Fullerton to protect a favored candidate. The same thing occurred in Fullerton’s 5^th District in 2022.

Since this is obviously a partisan political matter, I formally and respectfully request that you immediately refer this matter to the Orange County Grand jury for their consideration.

All of the pertinent information with supporting documentation has been published on the Friends for Fullerton’s Future blog here.

Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter.

Sincerely, Tony Bushala

Home

https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/conservative-group-asks-fec-probe-effort-promote-spoiler-113774588

https://nypost.com/2024/09/16/us-news/democrats-recruited-third-party-candidates-to-siphon-votes-from-republicans-which-could-decide-close-virginia-congressional-contest

Group tied to Democratic firms spent thousands to support Republicans and spoil races

https://nypost.com/2024/09/16/us-news/democrats-recruited-third-party-candidates-to-siphon-votes-from-republicans-which-could-decide-close-virginia-congressional-contest

The idea of sending this matter to the Grand Jury is a good one, as it buffers Spitzer from criticism of partisanship, even thought the malfeasance is obvious.

September 20, 2024September 20, 2024Ahmad Zahra

Meet the Canidate

by The Fullerton Harpoon8 Comments

Probably not the best look for a candidate…

There is always fun stuff to enjoy at election time.

Such as a candidate who doesn’t know how to spell candidate.

August 26, 2024August 28, 2024Boohooism

Ad Hoc Tuah Part Three-ah.

by The Fullerton Harpoon19 Comments

A little late reporting this, but it appears that last week the Fullerton City Council appointed three members to the newly created Let’s Have A Sales Tax Committee, the brain child of Shana Charles and Fred Jung and Ahmad Zahra.

The item started out with a fizzle but got better as the hearing progressed. It appears that only three people applied. Charles and fellow committee-creator Ahmad Zahra couldn’t even find anybody to appoint. Charles who was in a big hurry to get this going only spoke to one person, who wisely declined. Zahra likewise failed find anybody and suggested the whole thing be re-advertised. It doesn’t seem to have occurred to these two worthies that 1) nobody applied because nobody cares; or, 2) people realize what a footling exercise this is.

But wait a minute. Maybe Charles’ genie is better off out of the bottle

Nick Dunlap said he was ready to go and appointed Jack Dean, a long-time anti-tax crusader who’s been around the Fullerton scene for a long time and knows the city. Apparently, he was active in the Great Recall of 1994. This makes sense since Dunlap correctly identified the whole process as a slow roll toward an inevitable tax proposal conclusion. Bruce Whitaker nominated a guy named Bill Brown who I don’t know anything about, but who I presume is another fiscal conservative.

Then came the real fun. Fred Jung, who was in zoom mode, nominated Tony Bushala, the founder of this blog in 2008, and who is well known for his huge roll in killing the last sales tax proposal, Measure S, in 2020, as well as the school bond attempts in the same year. It’s now pretty obvious that Jung’s role in this affair is to pull the plug out of the socket.

When the vote came, Zahra petulantly voted no to the three members appointment. He didn’t bother to say why. Charles simply said she’d be appointing her member later. The approval was 4-1 and we have three members to Ad Hoc Whatever It’s Called Committee.

So now the Committee exists and has a quorum. I wonder if they can’t start holding meetings as soon as they like. They can also start talking about ways to save money that the staff won’t touch, like a levy on all downtown bars/clubs open after ten P.M. to recoup something from the horrible 1.5 million annual red ink sink hole known as downtown Fullerton. Or they could discuss the elimination of the so-called downtown police Echo Unit that has caused as much trouble as it has prevented.

They might also discuss salary freezes, something all businesses do when times get tough.

Both Charles and Zahra know that if their chosen candidate, Vivian Jaramillo, is elected they can replace Whitaker’s appointment in December and get the tax train back on its predetermined rails. But if that doesn’t happen, this committee could surprise the employees in City Hall by coming up with some really inventive ideas.