Fullerton City Council Archives - Friends For Fullerton's Future

December 18, 2024December 18, 2024A Step in the Right Direction

“Dr.” Ahmad Zahra is Still Not Mayor of Fullerton

Last night the City Council appointed a new Mayor for 2025. And guess what? It isn’t Ahmad Zahra, the evasive and prevaricating Middle Eastern medic. He’s been on the City Council for 6 years and has never been able to get two other votes to make himself Mayor.

Why not?

It’s because the majority of his colleagues don’t like him. Not at all. From his self-serving behavior, his sanctimony, his manic publicity seeking, his peddling salacious gossip about his colleagues to local blogs, and his filing a false police report against the new Mayor, he has demonstrated time and again his toxic personality, clearly unfit to be the figurehead of the city.

It’s never even been necessary for the other councilmembers to consider Zahra’s illegal immigration into the country through a phony marriage to a woman in Arkansas; or his assault and battery case against a woman; or his serial plagiarism of water articles written by an Orange County Water District bureaucrat to appear to be some sort of expert.

Last night meeting did have some fun moments, too, that FFFF will share from the video stream when it’s up.

Of course there were the usual gaggle of boohooing Zahra disciples, people dumb enough to fall for his routine. But one man, George Bushala stood up and completely dismantled Zahra – by actually citing the facts about the man’s background narrative – not the bullshit his followers like so much to lap up. It was a damning bill of indictment and it was beautiful to behold.

Bushala’s statement wasn’t stoically accepted by Zahra, who cried out that he was the victim of a personal attack – pretty rich coming from the creep who has been orchestrating public demonstrations against Jung, Dunlap and Whitaker for several years; demonstrations full of insult, character assassination and innuendo. Personal enough? The non-plussed Zahra had to be admonished not to interrupt public speakers.

From the back of the audience one crazy-bonkers woman started screaming about lies against Zahra. She kept interrupting Mr. Bushala, who calmly waited each time before requesting to able to continue. After being castigated by Dunlap to shut up, the belligerant shrew finally left the chambers in a fit of purple pique, before the cops could hustle her out.

And guess what? It was none other than one of the operators of the “independent newspaper” The Fullerton Observer, Sharon Kennedy!

Anyway, as far as the vote went, Nick Dunlap decided to nominate Shana Charles for Mayor, a gambit no doubt mean to get some love from Fullerton Democrats. Of course it won’t; and in any case Shana Charles nominated Zahra. Jung nominated himself. And the result was Charles 1, Zahra 2 and Jung 2. On the second try it was 3-2 Jung, with newcomer Jamie Valencia supporting her political mentor. So we’ll be favored with Jung’s rich baritone act for 2025. We’ll also hear about the horrible unfairness of it all for a while, but if you think about it, Zahra could have made Charles Mayor but he obviously didn’t want to. Misogyny?

December 16, 2024December 16, 2024Boohooism

Kitty Cries Bitter Tears, Shares Final Word

by The Fullerton Harpoon29 Comments

The on-line version of the Fullerton Observer is now available to those inclined to be misinformed, or as in my case, to be entertained.

In the lastest version I discovered a lachrymose rewind of the November District 4 campaign by the loser, one Vivian “Kitty” Jaramillo.

Poor Kitty thought she had a lock on it, so no wonder her outrage that the plans went askew. She sued the City to make a district for her. She sat on the committee that endorsed her district. She had all the endorsements, a pile of money, the county party, and even a fake, perjuring candidate to help take votes away from her obvious competition: Linda Whitaker. She also had an $85,000 Independent Expenditure Committee mostly funded by out-of-town marijuana lobbyists, laundered through the grocery store workers union.

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

Jaramillo had the undying love of her pals, the Kennedy Sisters at the Fullerton Observer, who could be counted on to whisk away her problems and drop innuendo on Linda Whitaker, when called upon to do so.

How could she lose?

What Poor Kitty and her Team Jaramillo failed to take into account was the arrival of a new face on the scene who raised lots of money and got the police and fire union support. And she didn’t figure on Fullerton Taxpayers For Reform, a political action committee with the means and issues to beat her.

Yes, I was a phony from Day 1. And it was obvious…

And she didn’t count on the Scott Markowitz scam to backfire badly on her as it became apparent that her own supporters were involved in the fraud.

Jaramillo takes the time to swipe at her old pals in the police and fire unions, and of course her unnamed opponent, a smart professional, who, alas, doesn’t seem to know anything about Fullerton, unlike herself who has spent her whole life, yadda, yadda. Pathetic.

It would never occur to a self-entitled person like Jaramillo that her entire, adipose campaign was something right out of the year 2000 playbook: lots of endorsements, clunky mailers, paid precinct walkers, tons of money wasted on political “consultants,” etc. She had the agility of a canal barge. And the product itself was flawed: elderly, otiose, statist, whiny, self-righteous, “good guys” to the end. And for Miss Kitty, the end has finally come to her political aspirations.

Kitty was undone, she says, by the wave of “lies” about her, but she never says what they are and why they are not true. Neither have her sisterhood at the Fullerton Observer who certainly would have had the journalists’ ethic to enquire, had they been journalists, so of course never did.

In the end, Kitty says she is grateful. And so are a lot of other people in Fullerton. And the Observer “editor” has thoughtfully provided the names of contributors to Fullerton Taxpayers for Reform so we know who to thank.

December 12, 2024December 12, 2024Ahmad Zahra

“Dr.” Zahra Throws Tantrum Leaves Meeting

by The Fullerton Harpoon27 Comments

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

In a typical display of childish petulance, Fullerton City Councilman Ahmad Zahra displayed why he is unfit to be our Mayor last Tuesday.

At the December 10th Special Meeting, Zahra just couldn’t help himself at one point from interrupting Mayor Nick Dunlap who was trying to talk – before letting Zahra speak his piece.

Zahra demanded to be heard on some footling “point of order” or something and refused to shut up, so the Mayor did it for him.

What to do? Zahra got up yammering and sulked into the room behind the dais. Here’s the video:

From everything we’ve heard about Zahra this sort of behavior is typical when the cameras aren’t rolling. In one instance he went so far as to file an hysterical and fraudulent police report on one of his fellow councilmembers. Comically, his devoted claque continually fails to understand why his colleagues refuse to make him Mayor.

December 11, 2024December 11, 2024Ahmad Zahra

The Hypocrisy of California’s Government

by Mr. Peabody9 Comments

For 50 years California has enjoyed/suffered the benefits of CEQA – the California Environmental Quality Act. The intent of the law was to assess the environmental impacts of various projects proposed by private developers and even the government itself – be it dams, roads, civic projects, etc. Some projects, mostly the big ones, required EIRs – Environmental Impact Reports, that cited impacts and measures of mitigation.

Now, I don’t pretend to be an expert on CEQA, but I’ve been told that all too often it is just a bungling paper chase that enriches “consultants,” and instead of addressing impacts, coughs up lots of gobbledygook and ginned up “studies” to talk around the problem. And this is just as true for governments’ reports as for those of developers.

Last night I listened to Fullerton’s beloved City Council vote for a new zoning law – the Housing Incentive Overlay Zone (HIOZ), including an explanation of why it was exempt from CEQA even though over 13,000 new units were being incentivized. The excuse was that no specific building was being proposed. You might think that is reasonable enough given that specific location has a lot to do with environmental impacts on thing like roads and street lights and traffic, etc.

And yet the new mandates from Sacramento dictate that because there is some sort of housing “crisis” new developments may be built “by-right” that is to say, without local controls over specific aspects of projects that would normally be comprehensively addressed in Conditions of Approval. Which means that those 13,000 units may not be attached to amelioration of the impacts they create.

And of course 20% of the new units must be reserved for low income tenants, another philanthropic mandate with unknown repercussions on the community.

Here’s the summation: the single-party legislature has serially made such a mess of California over the past 30 years that the fixes for the problems require that they jettison other mandates previously deemed critical, such as CEQA.

Locally, cities have been threatened with legal action by the State’s Governor and Attorney General if they don’t comply; and they are threatened by deprivation of State funding and grants by the Housing and Community Development Department, run by faceless bureaucrats. If cities try to fight back, like Huntington Beach has, the legal results are costly and a foregone conclusion.

And so Fullerton’s City Council went along with the inevitable, acquiescing to the demands of Sacramento in a sad 4-1 vote. Only Bruce Whitaker voted no in what is his last official vote.

I’ve heard it said that government spends half its time trying to fix problems it created during the other half. Sounds about right.

December 10, 2024December 10, 2024Ahmad Zahra

HIOZ It Going, Fullerton?

by Mr. Peabody16 Comments

A special meeting of Fullerton’s City Council is taking place tonight. Why? To address the so-called 6th Cycle of the Housing Element of the General Plan and the concomitant Housing Incentive Overlay Zone, or HIOZ, for those who prefer government acronyms.

The City Council has already postponed rubber stamping this twice which is odd, because they usually clean their plates like good little boys and girl.

Friends may recall that City staff proposed the opportunity overlay to construct as many as 30,000 new units with almost zero City control. This, even though the Sacramento houseacrats only demanded 13,000. I say “only” even though this lower number would still add twenty to thirty thousand new residents to Fullerton with new, massive apartment blocks on re-zoned commercial and industrial property.

I previously opined that the 30,000 number was just a dodge, to give the City Council the appearance of having fought a tough fight to “save” Fullerton, while quietly acquiescing on the destructive 13,000 mandate. This would be of particular benefit to the 2026 re-election chances of Shana Charles and Ahmad Zahra, both of whom are ardent lefties and both of whom would love to see those 13,000 units without regard for the damage dome to the City’s schools, roads, infrastructure and neighborhood cohesion.

I wouldn’t be surprised to see a roll-out of the usual suspects singing hosannas to the Council for acceding to the 13,000 units.

And that hypothesis seems right on. The Council has already directed staff to remove the Chapman and Commonwealth “corridors” from the HIOZ plan where the application would have been the most damaging and controversial. And paring back the scale of the disingenuous plan gives a victory to the Save Fullerton crowd who may have actually believed the 30,000 units was an authentic proposal. That group includes some our friends at the Fullerton Observer who will happily embrace the 13,000 as a wonderful compromise.

Why all these meetings? Maybe it’s a necessary part of this Kabuki to give the façade of public review to something that was always a foregone conclusion – satisfying the knuckle headed legislators and the faceless bureaucrats in Sacramento; and their running buddies in the Southern California Association of Governments, and the California League of Cities.

And why a Special Meeting, other than to instill a sense of Heap Big Emergency about bowing to the diktats of an out-of-control legislature?

December 7, 2024December 7, 2024A Step in the Right Direction

Water, Water Everywhere Nor Any Drop to Drink

by Joe Sipowicz16 Comments

Friends may remember the tussle on the City Council in the weeks following City Councilmember Ahmad Zahra’s election in 2018. At first he opined that a replacement election to fill Jesus Quirk-Silva’s vacate at-large council seat was right and proper. There was applause.

But then something weird happened. A month later Zahra went back on his word and voted to appoint Council retread Jan Flory for another lap around the track. After Flory was safely installed on the council, she, Jennifer Fitzgerald, and Zahra voted to replace Bruce Whitaker on the OC Water District Board with…Zahra.

“Well, Joe, who cares” I can hear some of you saying. But apart from the role the OCWD plays in the OC water wars, and the huge pile of cash the agency sits on, the appointment pays. And pays damn well. For an unemployed “film producer” what could be better? Suddenly the Flory appointment didn’t look weird at all.

So check this out, Transparent California’s report for our hero, Zahra.

During his two years on the water board Zahra made some damn good money – tens of thousands of dollars in pay and benefits. And while on the board he pimped the awful Poseidon desal scam and got district PR people to write articles he published in the Fullerton Observer under his own name.

In 2021 Fitzgerald and Flory were mercifully gone; Zahra was removed from the OCWD, replaced with Bruce Whitaker. Zahra’s Mother’s Milk was turned off at the spigot and he has only collected his council stipend since

Fullerton Folk are now speculating about whether the 2024-elected council will appoint Zahra as Mayor, an honorific job he desperately wants. A Vivian Jaramillo victory in District 4 would have got him that. But it also would have gotten the ability to vote himself back onto the OCWD board, and back on that gravy train.

Alas ’twas not to be for Zahra. Jaramillo was beaten by newcomer Jamie Valencia who was denigrated by Jaramillo’s precinct walkers and by Jaramillo herself. She owes the Democrat nothing and may not have any inclination to do favors for the man who promoted her opponent, big time.

December 5, 2024December 5, 2024Fullerton BooHoo

Dumb, Dishonest, or Just Delusional?

by Mr. Peabody23 Comments

Sometimes you just have to ask yourself whether somebody is just plain stupid, a liar, or truly untethered to reality. No where is this better seen than in the case of failed City Council candidate Vivian Jaramillo and her followers. We have already seen Jaramillo’s pitiful valediction, full of spite, and of course bemoaning “dirty tricks” of an undisclosed nature as cause of her (heroic) downfall. It was a twilight struggle of good versus evil, see, in a Manichean battle for the soul of Fullerton. Light versus darkness.

One might find this whole thing ludicrous in a way, and write it off as sound and fury, signifying nothing.

But there seems to be more going on here than a self-entitled Karen of a candidate crying about how the kids got into the HOA swimming pool. The holier-than-thou delusion of self-righteousness still seems to run deep in Fullerton. And it matters when the waste of public money, and a lot of it is wasted on stupid, empty gestures, is defended by people like Jaramillo and her supporters.

FFFF has observed how the Observer Kennedy Sisters did their level best to ignore the Scott Markowitz candidacy, a perjurious fraud perpetrated on the voters of the 4th District by Jaramillo’s Team. Sharon Kennedy, the elder sister and self-styled journalist even went so far as to contact key persons in the scandal, Diane Vena, ostensibly to aid in disseminating a plausible backstory – one that made no sense. And no printed story about the true Markowitz tale was ever forthcoming. The story was dirty tricks against Jaramillo.

Apparently, Jaramillo’s friends on Facebook are now lamenting her loss, and many are blindly following the dirty tricks narrative even though none of them seem to be able to articulate just what those may have been.

We all know that social media provides no barrier for people who don’t know what they’re talking about to opine freely, but this is pretty ridiculous. Jaramillo’s friends either don’t know or don’t care about:

the self-sabotage the Jaramillo Team inflicted on itself
the fraudulent Markowitz scam, created by Jaramillo’s supporters to harm the candidacy of Linda Whitaker
that Jaramillo publicly supported the establishment and the later re-enactment of the MJ ordinance that could have allowed a dispensary 100ft from a house
the fact that out-of-town dope dispensary lobby pumped $60,000 to support Jaramillo
that the dope money was laundered through the national HQ of the grocery store workers union
that the marijuana loot was used pay people to hector and harass voters multiple times
that precinct walkers for Jaramillo slandered her opponents, Whitaker and Valencia
that Jaramillo used City personnel to have her opponents signs removed
that Jaramillo’s signs were illegally placed on public and private property

Et cetera, et cetera.

The election is over, but I get the sense that for the near future, at least, the boohooing and hand-wringing of Fullerton’s self-righteous left-leaners will continue – the self-pity, the blissful ignorance, and the high-horseyness competing for dominance.

December 3, 2024December 3, 2024Ahmad Zahra

2024 Election is Over

by The Fullerton Harpoon12 Comments

Today the OC Registrar of Voters finally certified the November 2024 election results. In Fullerton’s 4th District race Jamie Valencia has defeated Vivian Jaramillo by 53 votes.

With hard work, the support of the “public safety” unions, and relentless public service announcements by Fullerton Taxpayers For Reform about Jaramillo, Valencia prevailed in her electoral debut.

Jaramillo, the handpicked candidate of the OC Democrat Party was backed by a small fortune invested by the marijuana dispensary lobby and the government paper-pushers union. Unfortunately for Jaramillo, her supporters (with or without her knowledge) created a phony candidate, Scott Markowitz to draw male and Republican voters away from Linda Whitaker. The plan backfired spectacularly as Markowitz was busted for perjury and falsifying public documents – charges to which he pleaded guilty.

I’d screw over my own mother for 10 votes. And I’ll do it again.

The scandal was used by FTFF to hammer the Jaramillo campaign.

Meanwhile, Linda Whitaker, wife of outgoing D4 Councilman Bruce Whitaker ran a lackluster campaign effort even though she raised a lot of money. She seems to have been hoping for enough name recognition to win. A mid-campaign excursion to Italy was symbolic of her campaign’s entropic trajectory.

And then there’s Markowitz, the completely fraudulent candidate and perjurer who may or may not have ratted on his accomplices in a remarkably quick plea bargain deal with the District Attorney. Despite publicly disavowing his scampaign, Marko still got 1020 votes, an electoral testament of some kind, probably better left unexamined.

Matt Truxaw. Probably not the best look for a candidate…

Mayor Nick Dunlap and Councilman Fred Jung both won re-election easily. Jung’s 40 point win over a hitherto unknown comedian/science fiction writer named Matt Truxaw was a forgone conclusion.

Dunlap’s big win over former Councilperson Jan Flory may finally signal the demise of the self-righteous, morally bankrupt, and sclerotic Fullerton Gerontocracy.

The consequences of the Valencia victory may soon start to become apparent. The election winners will be sworn in on December 17th. The council will then choose the Mayor and Mayor Pro Tem for 2025. The liberals in Fullerton will be in high dudgeon indeed if their darling, serial liar and immigration fraud Ahmad Zahra is not chosen Mayor. If that does not occur, we can expect a similar disappointment for America’s first openly gay, Muslim elected in America, again in 2025.

Finally, in other local election news, we are rid of soon to be ex-State Senator, Gas Tax Josh Newman, whose new district appended him to a vast area of central Orange County where he was an unknown, and this after being a loyal water bearer for the Sacto Smash N’ Grab Club. Oopsy. Newman lost to a former Assemblyman and buffoonish librarian from Irvine, Steven Choi. Newman rose from political obscurity eight years ago. Will he return to it? Some are saying he should run for County Supervisor in 2026. If so, he’s not going to get any help from those who hopes for him in 2016 as an outsider were badly misplaced.

December 1, 2024December 1, 2024Bruce Whitaker

What is Fullerton’s Future?

by The Fullerton Harpoon20 Comments

If the current situation in the District 4 election remains unchanged, Jamie Valencia will be the newest member of the Fullerton City Council.

Will she, like her soon to be predecessor Bruce Whitaker, form a reliable majority with Nick Dunlap and Fred Jung? I don’t know. But supposing she will, it’s fun to speculate on what issues, if any, could be in the offing for Fullerton’s future.

Domer-Decorations — Hitching to Desert Center

Remember, Friends, that Dunlap, Jung and Whitaker have never really bucked City Hall bureaucratic authority, with the singular exception of getting rid of hapless City Manager, Ken Domer, and that happened after four or five months of dithering.

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

Would a new council majority be willing to take on any sort of real policy direction? Would it be willing to reverse awful decisions made previously? We may consider such City Hall monstrosities as the Walk on Wilshire and the equally stupid Trail to Nowhere as projects crying out for their plugs to be pulled. What about the “boutique” hotel that morphed into a monster, high density boondoggle, whose “developer” has a series of bankruptcies and judicial losses to his credit?

What about Mario Marovich’s “bump out” building addition, a theft of public property over 20 years ago that still squats there on the Commonwealth Avenue sidewalk, despite an agreement with Marovich that should have gotten rid of it 16 months ago?

Hey! What are we going to do about the public money drain known as Downtown Fullerton? Anybody willing to discuss a bar tax on the people who have been making tens of millions off of us over the past 20 years?

And then there’s the deplorable “6th Cycle Housing Element” to the Fullerton General Plan, a program of mass housing mandates that, if effected, would destroy the City. SO far the Council has shown no sales resistance to the idea of 13,000 new residential units, even as their staff has cooked up a plan for 30,000.

Are there personnel changes that might happen, that ought to happen? Will there be new policies demanding accountability by our well-paid and benefitted staff? Would a new council majority put a halt to the staff penchant for drumming up Astroturf support for its boondoggles?

dick-jones — Staying awake long enough to break the law…

And let’s not forget the good folks who make bank on us dispensing the worst legal advice imaginable over the past 30 years without any accountability for losses, bungling, conflicts of interest; yes, the I can’t Believe It’s a Law Firm of Jones and Myers who oversaw and vigorously pursued the lawsuit against Joshua Ferguson, David Curlee and the FFFF blog itself.

Is change coming? Anything is possible, I suppose, but this is Fullerton, and Fullerton, being Fullerton, no idea is too stupid to die.

And of course Cannabis Kitty Jaramillo could be the beneficiary of her followers’ petitions to the Almighty for the “good guys” to win. In which case, other sorts of changes will be coming, none of them good, which would be the subject of another post.

In the meantime, let’s go ahead, Friends. Let’s indulge ourselves in speculation, and even more importantly, sharing what we think are good ideas.

November 15, 2024November 15, 2024Boohooism

Friday Night Election Update. Valencia Back in Front

by Grover Cleveland21 Comments

After votes were counted today the Fullerton City Council District 4 leader is Jamie Valencia. Again. She gained 15 votes in today’s count and has a skinny six vote lead. Here’s the updated data.

This is good news for those opposing Vivian “Kitty” Jaramillo, darling of the OC Democrat Party officialdom, and the bride-candidate of the Long beach Marijuana cartel who pumped $60,000 into an Independent Expenditure Committee dedicated to getting her elected; and to get themselves an MJ ordinance in Fullerton.

Miss Kitty. The “good guys” were stoned and happy…

Jaramillo had chipped away at Valencia’s Election Night lead over the week succeeding the election until she had a 13 vote lead on Wednesday night. But yesterday, Valencia gained a little ground back – 4 votes, and today 15 votes.

People way smarter than I am might be able to explain the ebb and flow of these things. I suspect last minute ballot bundling on the part of the OCDems/Marijuana League may have accounted for the 150 swing last week. If so is that over? Let’s hope so.

Fake candidate Scott Markowitz may get a 1000 votes. After Pleading guilty to to perjury and falsifying election documents. This is not a ringing endorsement for the intelligence of the 4th District voter. His mission was to help dupe or be the dupe of Democrat nominators, to create a fake election committee with an R next to his name; to get his name on the ballot; and, to submit a Trumpy ballot statement. After that Markowitz disappeared. He attended no election events and raised not a penny.

Markowitz’s role was simple: take votes away from the conservative in the election, Linda Whitaker for the benefit of Vivian Jaramillo.

It’s just a few cents a gallon. Suck it up poor people!

Meanwhile, in our State Senate District, Fullerton’s Gas Tax Josh Newman keeps gaining ground on the dopey Steven Choi from Irvine, but still trails by well over 7,000 votes. He’s come from behind before, but this one is starting to look like game over. If it is, Josh can go back to moderating Neighbors United For Fullerton meetings where I’m told he got his start in OC politics.