Why write about news when you can try to make your own! (Photo by Julie Leopo/Voice of OC)
In the the online edition of their rag, the Fullerton Observer sisters, Sharon and Skaski explain their behavior in intentionally defaming named individuals as purveyors of lies. These were some of the people who contributed to Fullerton Taxpayers for Reform, a group that made it its mission to educate the public about the candidate Vivian Jaramillo in the 2024 City Council election.
Skaskia doubles, triples down on her assertion of slander and defamation against poor Cannabis Kitty Jaramillo by Fullerton Taxpayers for Reform, but claims there was no intent to “harm the reputations of its contributors.” Well, of course there was intent to harm; the inclusion of individual names directly linked to accusations of distributing falsehoods was obviously intentional.
Hmm. Did we lay an egg recently?
It is comical that if you think about it, the Kennedy Sister’s underlying excuse must be that they didn’t know what they were doing. Exculpation through ineptitude! That phrase should be prominent on their Observer header.
Is this a sufficient “full retraction and public apology?”
In an article at their censored Fullerton Observer “blog,” the Kennedy Sisters, Sharon and Skaskia, have posted a story about misleading political advertising in the past election, to wit: political mailers aimed at their darling, Vivian Jaramillo by Fullerton Taxpayers for Reform. Tellingly, they didn’t use their names, but rolled out their favorite “staff” byline, when clearly there was an author. Journalism at its best. The theme is “Is there truth behind negative ads?”
Lies, lies, lies. And facts.
This effort is clearly meant to reinforce their position that Fullerton Taxpayers For Reform did indeed engage in “lies” about Jaramillo, and that they, therefore, are not subject to legal rebuke for saying so in print.
Giving honesty the middle finger…
The only problem is that the sisters didn’t address their basic problem. Their assertions that lies were told requires some sort of effort to show it. But they didn’t. Can’t, or didn’t want to. They do want their gullible, low IQ readers to believe that Jaramillo’s “team,” a team that clearly included Jaramillo endorser Diane Vena, was not a participant in creating the fraudulent candidacy of Scott Markowitz, the fake Trumpy, newly minted Republican, dredged up by one or more Jaramillo supporter to draw votes away from presumed threat, Linda Whitaker. And that/those someone(s) wanted Jaramillo to win; and wanted it so badly that they suborned patsy Markowitz’s perjury.
Yes, I was a phony from Day 1. And it was obvious…
Comically, the Kennedy Sisters claim that Vivian Jaramillo knows nothing about the Markowitz scam and it must be true because Jaramillo is honest! And that’s funny, too, because some of her supporters were in on it; Diane Vena, also a writer for the Fullerton Observer, signed Markowitz’s nomination papers, she supposedly told Sharon Kennedy, at the behest of a “friend.” A friend Kennedy later described as a “conservative friend.” And we’ve said it before: Diane Vena was either in on the fraud it or is the stupidest person in Fullerton.
There is no doubt that some member(s) in the team Jaramillo circle large or small, created the Scott Markowitz candidacy, and the assertion is therefore true.
The shoe fit…
Then the Kennedy Sisters turn the problem of Jaramillo as a running dog for the marijuana dispensary cartel that has been tryin to get its hooks into Fullerton via Ahmad Zahra for years.
Claims were made by FTFR that Jaramillo supported the short-lived ordinance pushed through at the end of 2020. She did. And she also supported its reinstatement the following year. And that ordinance would have allowed a dispensary 100 feet from a residential zone. The Sisters try to explain that away by reminding us that the ordinance was a whopping 32 pages long, presumably excusing accountability for having supporting all parts of it. Whatever. There’s a reason the dispensary cartel laundered $60,000 through the national grocery store union to pay for an “independent” committee dedicated to electing Jaramillo, a situation the Observer Sisterhood still hasn’t mentioned.
The Kennedy Sistren doesn’t seem to get it. They are still peddling the same dodges, misdirection, and disingenuous (or dumb) arguments they made during the campaign on their stupid blog. If you’re going to call somebody a liar, the burden of proof is on you to show it. Relying on the alleged moral fiber of your friends Vena and Jaramillo doesn’t cut it. You may believe gentle and kind Diane Vena; you may hold up Jaramillo as a pillar of probity. But that doesn’t entitle you to call anybody else a liar, in print. That could well be libelous.
I’m not talking…
Lots of truths can be ferreted out under oath by aggressive lawyers from people like Ajay Mohan, the Democrat operative who helped create the newly MAGA-tized Markowitz. Good Old Ajay knows where lots of bodies are buried.
I don’t know how serious FTFR really is in pursuing its demand for retractions and apologies. Is it just a little inexpensive irritation aimed at the Kennedy’s at this point? Maybe, but If I were the Kennedy sisters I’d be inclined not to say anymore.
One thing you can always count on in Fullerton elections is that concrete, real issues will never be discussed. You’ll hear mostly generalities about this or that topic. Even roads and taxes melt away in general promises and vague hand-wringing. But, when it comes to specific projects with all sorts of facts and figures involved, you can forget it. A charming characteristic of all local elections, and especially in Fullerton, is that people aren’t elected on their knowledge of anything, but, rather on their acceptability as wise people who will do the right thing given the opportunity.
This is all nonsense, of course. The electeds, knowing nothing are in no intellectual position to push back on the lamest of lame ideas that percolate through the “experts” in the bureaucracy. Not knowing and not learning and not working are the natural siblings of the councilmember’s natural tendency to acquiesce to City Hall staff anyhow. It’s easier just to attend ribbon cuttings and golden shovel ceremonies, I suppose.
Enhanced with genuine brick veneer!
And so it is that zero attention has been given by anybody (except FFFF) to various nonsense projects, the worst of which is the so-called boutique hotel project that started out as an idiotic scheme and naturally morphed into the worst kind of Redevelopment boondoggle. It even has a stupid name: It’s called The Tracks at Fullerton Station.
I’m not telling the truth and you can’t make me…
You may recall that the hare-brained idea was hatched by your former Mayor-for-Hire, Jennifer Fitzgerald who pushed a non-competitive agreement with some local dude who couldn’t build a birdhouse. Because the City had to declare the land on which the thing was supposed to sit as “surplus property” a deadline had to met to dodge a State law requiring first right of refusal to low-income housing “developers.”
Rather than shit-canning the whole thing, boobs Bruce Whitaker, Ahmad Zahra and Shana Charles approved of the project and the City actually deeded over the land before any agreements were in place. Pretty amazing, huh? Their convoluted reasoning was so dumb it doesn’t even deserve a description. That was December 2022.
They had me at boutique…
The even bigger problem was that by then the original guy (now deceased) had been pushed out and a whole new partnership had taken over. The new players were a pair of bums – Johnny Lu and Larry Liu who had a record of fraud, embezzlement, and bankruptcies in their wake, and creditors foreclosing on them. Why Fullerton’s crack economic development team and City Attorney failed to pursue even the slightest investigation of Lu/Liu’s record like FFFF did, has never been discussed. And it never will be, Fullerton being Fullerton.
I don’t know the current situation with this project. Two years have passed. Johnny Lu and Larry Liu had many milestones to accomplish certain actions per the agreement they finally signed. Did they? Who knows? Not the public, that’s for sure. Obviously, no one in City Hall wants to talk about this vast embarrassment, and an insecure council isn’t making them. And naturally, the Fullerton electoral process doesn’t discuss such things – bad form to discuss City failures, you see.
But the public has a right to know the whole story, because in the end, the entitlements granted to Lu and Liu are worth a fortune; even worse, the sales price of 1.4 million, less site clearance, is a tenth of the market value the City created with those entitlements. And the new density with hotel and with the new apartments Liu suckered the City into approving, just to keep the mess alive, is two and a half times the density the Transportation Center Specific Plan allows for housing. Go figure.
The mileage is terrible and the wheels are bald…
It’s also critical to remember that in Fullerton projects take on a life of their own through institutional inertia and the human instinct to dodge responsibility whenever possible. The Fullerton Clown Car has never had a rear-view mirror.
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.
George Bushala, a new local hero…
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.
Crazy is as crazy does…
And guess what? It was none other than one of the operators of the “independent newspaper” The Fullerton Observer, Sharon Kennedy!
New Mayor.
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?
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?
Not really that agile…
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.
Smart and willing to learn…
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.
But I checked all the right boxes!
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.
Where’s the lie”
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.
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.
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.
Whirlaway
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
But I checked all the right boxes!
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.
Jamie Valencia, an unknown variable…
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.
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.
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.
Jamie Valencia
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.
But I checked all the right boxes!
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.
Yes, I was a phony from Day 1. And it was obvious…
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.
Say goodbye to the nice people…
Dunlap’s big win over former Councilperson Jan Flory may finally signal the demise of the self-righteous, morally bankrupt, and sclerotic Fullerton Gerontocracy.
Nothing left but empty bloviation…
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.
Looking Heavenward for help…
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.
If the current situation in the District 4 election remains unchanged, Jamie Valencia will be the newest member of the Fullerton City Council.
Anyone else?
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.
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?
Still crazy after all these years…
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?
Business is booming…
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?
It’s not a cliff dwelling. We have indoor plumbing!
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?
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.
Here’s a fun snippet harvested from Vivian Jaramillo’s facebook page. It seems she is unsettled that neither she nor her acquaintances know “her opponent,” Jamie Valencia.
This is the age-old Fullerton establishment deprecation: “no one knows him/her/them.”
Gee, Kitty, it’s too bad you and your pals don’t know your opponent, especially since she’s getting more votes than you. Maybe many of your would-be constituents don’t know who you are. And, as is likely the case, maybe many of them do know you and decided to vote for someone else, maybe even Scott Markowitz, the phony candidate and confessed perjurer your supporters created to help you win. And you’re “good?” Wow. Talk about delusional.
And that’s Team Jaramillo – the ones we can see and the ones who are trying to remain hidden.
Pray all you want for the Almighty to alter ballots after the fact. But God doesn’t like liars and cheaters and thieves. Or so I’ve heard.
