Fullerton BooHoo Archives - Page 3 of 20 - 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.

September 30, 2024September 30, 2024Ahmad Zahra

Funny Truxaw

by Mr. Peabody7 Comments

Spencer Custudio of the Voice of OC has a dutiful write up of last week’s League of Women Voters’ Fullerton candidate forum. One of the statements caught my eye, attributed to the strange individual Matt Truxaw, who is being offered up as a sacrificial offering by Ahmad Zahra and Fullerton Boohoo.

Here’s what Truxaw had to say on the topic of municipal finance:

When asked how to reverse the city’s finances and generate more tax revenue, Truxaw said city officials should consider expanding things like Walk on Wilshire – a closed section of Wilshire Avenue in downtown where people can dine and shop in the street that started during the pandemic.

Well, Matt, you can’t “shop” in the street, so there’s that. But seriously, no one seems to have informed this poor, uninformed boob, that the Wake on Wilshire doesn’t generate revenue for the City of Fullerton. It never has. The taxpayer’s “investment” on this boondoggle is so far in the red that it will never make a positive contribution to the City’s bank account. But let’s not let cooler heads consider this idiocy with any sort of objectivity.

No on bothered to tell Truxaw that you can’t lose your way back to fiscal heath.

No, the Wake on Wilshire is no longer an object that a few Fullertonions can consider dispassionately. The idea of closing a public road to cars has so bewitched the credulous that they will make up any sort of nonsensical lie to defend it. And lie #1 is that the thing is, or magically can become, a money maker – instead of what it is, another Fullerton financial sinkhole.

Like the Trail to Nowhere, the Wake on Wilshire has now assumed talismanic value to its adherents; and once again, it is symbolic of two City Councilmembers “not listening to the people.” In this case “the people” is a new set of half a dozen goobers dredged up by public health doctor, Shana Charles and few other Fullerton Observer nitwits.

City councilmember are supposed to be leaders. And you don’t lead by indulging the stupid make-work projects of your bureaucrats. You’re supposed to be able to ask honest questions and demand honest answers. But this is Fullerton, where no bad idea ever dies…so long as the public employees and their enablers want it.

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.

September 17, 2024September 17, 2024Behind Closed Doors

Another Sign of Things to Come

by Mr. Peabody10 Comments

FFFF has related how our Elementary and High School Districts are both putting new bond measures on the November ballot. The insatiable maw must be fed. The districts employ battalions of overpaid educrats with ridiculous doctorate degrees in education, pretending to be experts in this or that. But we are not permitted to delve into mystery of school budgets for waste and stupidity. The districts tried this last in March, 2020 with Measures J and K – and were soundly defeated.

School bonds are increases on your property tax bill, pure and simple. The debt and the interest incurred are paid off over decades, with everybody’s property as a form of collateral. We are still paying off previous bonds, of course.

It’s not just property owners who feel the bite. Landlords pass on the tax increases in the form of higher rents; retailers pass on the the cost of higher rents in the form of higher prices, a contributor to inflation.

Once again an organization called Fullerton Taxpayers for Reform has donned the mantle of opposition to these latest efforts to get into our pockets, and should be roundly applauded.

As usual, the advocates for these bonds – many out-of-towners – will plead that it’s all for the kids who need “state-of-the-art” this, or “world class” that.

They will follow up that with the myth of the “citizen’s oversight committee,” hand-picked gaggle of liberals who don’t know a shovel from a shitake mushroom, and have never held anybody accountable for anything.

Then they will argue that the cost is dinky – a Big Mac or a Starbuck’s latte a week. But in reality the cost of both bonds combined, will be many hundreds of dollars per year, or even more, depending on the assessed value of your property.

We may also be sure that the school districts will use our resources in their political campaign just like they did last time. That’s illegal, right? But hey won’t someone please think of the children?

September 10, 2024September 10, 2024Ahmad Zahra

Defender of the Faith

by The Fullerton Harpoon18 Comments

While checking out election disclosure Form 497s yesterday, I noticed that some rich dude named John Phelps had made two significant contributions – maxing out at $5500 apiece for Jan Flory and Vivian Jaramillo.

Obviously that made me wonder who John Phelps is. So I reached out to occasional commenter “Fullerton Old Timer” for a helping hand. Here’s what FOT wrote:

John Phelps is one of the last of the old guard defenders of anything emanating from City Hall bureaucrats. While his clan has been around for a long time he really made his fortune courtesy of the Fullerton Redevelopment Agency that helped develop the massive shopping center on the southwest corner of Harbor and Orangethorpe. He is the epitome of the government-aided developer.

He’s been supporting liberal causes for a long time but has been mostly interested on defending the status quo, Democrat or Republican. It’s no wonder he’s digging deep for Flory and Jaramillo, since they represent Fullerton statism, instead of accountability. His name appears on Jaramillo’s list of endorsers where he is erroneously listed as a former mayor. That will never be fixed.

It’s interesting to note that Phelps also gave the max to the pro sales tax, Measure S a few years ago; in 2022 he gave the maximum amount to the prevaricating Ahmad Zahra’s re-election. He will be likely be supporting the sales tax 2.0 as well.

Well there you have it. The Fullerton Circle of Life.