Joe Felz's Wild Ride Archives - 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.

September 12, 2024September 12, 2024"Dick" Ackerman

Defender of the Faith, Part 2

by The Fullerton Harpoon7 Comments

The other day our Friend, Fullerton Old Timer introduced us to man named John Phelps, a big donor to Vivian Jaramillo, Jan Flory, and in 2022 to Ahmad Zahra. He also was a big contributor to the failed City Hall sales tax proposal in 2020.

Fullerton Old Timer checked in with me:

You shouldn’t think Mr. Phelps is only a recent player in propping up Fullerton’s unaccountable Democrat councilcreatures, Be sure to check out his financial political activity to keep three useless Republicans in office in 2012; namely Bankhead, Jones, and McKinley. The Form 460s will tell you a lot about his dedication to protecting the people in City Hall.

Well, okay. I guess I can do that. FOT is referring to the Fullerton Recall in 2012 in the aftermath of the Kelly Thomas Murder by the FPD, an event that went global after FFFF published a photo of the “after FPD Intervention” picture.

The recall began in the summer of 2011 and finally occurred in June, 2012. The anti-recall campaign created by the loathsome Dick Ackerman, now a Fullerton lobbyist, was called “Protect Fullerton – Recall No”. Let’s see what Phelps was up to.

Hardly out of the gate, Protect Fullerton got a 1000 bucks from Phelps. And he was far from done.

In October, 2011 he kicked in a measly hundred dollars. Then he really got going.

In April 2012 he gave another $1000 to help protect the Three Tree Fungi and their Praetorian Guard.

Finally, he gave the anti-recall committee a whopping $5,000 in mid May, 2012. Overall, that’s $7100 to fight the recall that succeeded in June, despite Phelpses largesse.

But, wait. Phelps didn’t only cast his bread upon anti-recall waters – at least not directly.

He also contributed to the individual campaign accounts of the recalled. While the recall campaign was in full swing he gave Don Bankhead’s 2012 campaign committee, not Protect Fullerton, another $1000.

A few days earlier he gave $1000 to Pat McKinley’s campaign committee. Of course both Bankhead and McKinley kicked in those exact amounts to Protect Fullerton. I don’t know what he may given Dr. Dick Jones, because those records don’t seem to be available in the City Clerk’s webpages.

When the recall was won, Mr. Phelps directed his well-funded attention to the upcoming November 2012 election. Guess what?

In September, in a move full of pathos, he gave poor Bankhead another $1000 as the latter was trying, and failing, to get re-elected again. Another candidate, Jan Flory, who going for another lap around the race track hit the Phelpsian jackpot.

You read that right. 10 Big Ones to Jan Flory, who once proclaimed that “in her lights” the department heads were “the heart of the City.”

Flory, was almost through. In the summer of 2013 she started hitting up contributors again. Why? To pay off the $8,000 she loaned to herself in 2012. And Phelps was there to help relieve Ms. Flory of her burden.

Now, if you’re not counting, the total anti-recall and pro statist candidate contributions by Phelps in 2011-2013 is a staggering $18,350. Whether he was really investing in his warped concept of good government, or rather because he still had, or hoped to have business before the council, we shall never know.

What we do know is that the election of Jan Flory, after the promising months after the recall, has been a disaster for Fullerton. What happened in the subsequent years of mismanagement are with us still: no reform of an incompetent and corrupt police department and more cop killings; increased employee pension liability, more neglect of infrastructure, continuation of the Water in Lieu Fee theft, cover-up of City Manager drunken wild ride, more nonsense like Trails to Nowhere, Fish Farm Wedding Venues, Walks on Wilshire, more cop killings. And of course a massive deficit cliff threatening our solvency.

Mr. Phelps is a friend of the establishment, the bureaucracy, and whatever liberal causes he adores. He’s probably a member of the right clubs and contributes handsomely to charity.

But he’s no friend to the taxpayers of Fullerton.

July 18, 2024July 20, 2024Ahmad Zahra

Thank You God!

by The Fullerton Harpoon26 Comments

What appeared to be a pretty tame fall City Council election may have just become a lot more fun.

Word on the street is that Jan Flory pulled nomination papers yesterday to run against Mayor Nick Dunlap in the 2nd District election in November.

Who is Jan Flory? If you don’t know, take a spin through our files, here. You’ll find all sorts of entertaining stories about Ms. Flory and even about her creepy/pervy son Mike, who used to be a Deputy District Attorney and even tried to be a judge once.

Mike Flory Photo — How far did the apple fall from the tree?

Flory Call Log 01 — Maybe not breast fed long enough…

Jan Flory was elected to the City Council in 1994 and voted off in 2002. In those eight years she happily allowed an illegal water tax, voted for the disastrous retroactive public safety pension spike and supported the culture of unaccountability that has helped us get where we are today.

In 2012 she hauled herself out of the stable to try another lap around the track.

Her mission was to restore municipal authority to the Old Guard she represented, and to protect the Culture of Corruption at the Fullerton Police Department from any sort of reform. She informed us that the City Department heads were the “heart of the City.”

She put in her four years, patting her Chief of Police Danny Hughes on the fanny as they both walked out the door in 2016, a few days after the drunken City Manager, Joe Felz drove over a tree and tried to drive away. The ensuing cover up turned out to be expensive. Oops.

But Jan wasn’t done with us. Not by a long shot.

When an opening on the City Council occurred in 2019 guess who was there to snap up the job? After her appointment she rewarded the unemployed Ahmad Zahra for his vote with a paying gig at the Orange County Water District.

In this last stint Flory was happy to continue her love affair with unbalanced budgets and was one of the members of the Council, along with Jesus Quirk Silva, Ahmad Zahra, and Jennifer Fitzgerald who waged a legal vendetta against this blog and specifically against Joshua Ferguson and David Curlee. Of course that harpy-like mission cost the taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars, but didn’t cost the perpetrators anything.

Well, I sure hope Ms. Flory really does want to run. The entertainment value alone is worth it. Who her constituency might be is unclear. There aren’t that many elderly liberals left in Fullerton. She might get the support of the yellowing, and thinning Fullerton Observer crowd, but a humorless, stick-up-the-backside septuagenarian is not likely to appeal to anyone under seventy.

April 23, 2024April 23, 2024Ahmad Zahra

The Fiscal Cliff

by The Fullerton Harpoon33 Comments

The Fullerton City Council is holding a special meeting tonight – a 2024-25 Budget “workshop.” No work will get done but there will be shopping going on as staff begins its formal press to raise a sales tax.

There is a lot of self-serving verbiage about how well our City staff has performed its tasks up ’til now, but then the hard reality hits because budget numbers can’t pat themselves on the back.

There are some harrowing numbers in the proposed budget – including a $9,400,000 draw-down from strategic reserves. This means of course, that the budget is no where near balanced as City Hall apologists like Jennifer Fitzgerald and Jan Flory claimed when they ran the place into the red almost every year.

M. Eric Levitt. Will he save us from ourselves?

Let’s let our City Manager, Eric Levitt tell the tale:

“Financial Stability. The City has been able to over the last two years (for the first time in recent history of the City) to reach and maintain a 17% contingency reserve level. This budget maintains that reserve level; however due to an operating deficit, we will be utilizing one-time excess reserves this year and coming close to that 17% level in FY 2024-25 and below that in years beyond next year“

The overall picture gets even worse as the levels of reserves slowly dwindle away. After this year Fullerton continues to be upside from $7.5 to $8.8 million each year until the end of the dismal decade. We are not favored with the running reserve funds balances.

Infrastructure is supposedly a big deal. Which reminds me of a quotation attributed to Mark Twain: Everybody talks about the weather but nobody does anything about it. But this year we are told, we can push get going on our deteriorating infrastructure along by borrowing! Once again let’s heed the words of Mr. Levitt:

“I have also put together a strategy to increase that funding level to closer to $14 million over the next four years through the use of financing. However, there are both upsides and downsides to this approach which will be discussed with you in more detail at today’s presentation.“

Now this should be a red flag: borrowing to perform maintenance, a basic accounting no-no. And what form will the borrowing take? Not a municipal bond, you can be sure, It would likely be by selling certificates of participation or some other dodge to avoid municipal debt restrictions. Here’s the table that shows our Maintenance of Effort (MOE) shortfall without financing.

Now we all know that interest payments are made by somebody, somewhere, and that somebody is you and me. We get to pay the interest on debt incurred by years of municipal mismanagement by people like Joe Felz and Ken Domer and Jeff Collier who get to sail off to a glorious and massively pensioned retirement at 55 years of age.

And finally, to circle back to the story lead, here’s a distasteful nugget carefully slipped into the City Manager’s report:

“Staff recommends City Council review options over the next year to stabilize the budget and ensure the City remains financially sound.“

Jesus H. There it is. Not quite explicitly stated, but we know very well where this is going. Another general sales tax effort, just like the ill-fated Measure S of four years ago. The seeds for this have already been planted, of course, in a nasty little taxpayer-funded fishing expedition in the guise of a community survey. Last November I regaled the Friends with this slimy maneuver, here.

By the way, this is exactly the same process City Hall rolled out four years ago. And we will be told By Ahmad Zahra, Shana Charles and Vivian Jaramillo that if we don’t pony up we will be morally deficient.

Well, good luck Friends. This is going to be a long year and you can bet the farm that we will be asked to pick up the check – again.

September 1, 2023Ahmad Zahra

The Curse of Other People’s Money

by Disillusioned Ex-Hippy39 Comments

It’s a sad fact that local politicians usually have no qualms about spending money from off-budget sources – like State and Federal grants to do this or that uber-important thing. And these things don’t really undergo much scrutiny at all because the money the locality gets, if it finds itself awarded such a grant, isn’t competing with other municipal needs. And, better still, the awarding agency very often has no interest in seeing how successful the grant actually was. See, this requires a rear-view mirror, which the government go-carts just don’t have.

This topic came to light during discussion of the ill-fated “Trail to Nowhere” that was going to built with almost $2,000,000 bucks raised from some State of California bond rip-off or other. We heard from the drummed up “community” that the money had been awarded, so better take it; these people being not at all concerned that just maybe the money could be better spent on a project elsewhere. And let’s not worry about the fact that nobody will be responsible for the failure of the scheme.

Phase 1 was a complete failure so Phase 2 is bound to work!

Which brings me to Fullerton’s history of grant money, utterly wasted, and with absolutely no accountability. Specifically I am referring to the long-lost Core and Corridors Specific Plan. I wrote about it seven years ago, here.

Back in 2013 or so, the City of Fullerton received a million dollars from Jerry Brown’s half-baked Strategic Growth Council to develop a specific plan that would sprawl over a lot of Fullerton, offering by-right development for high-density housing along Fullerton’s main streets – a social engineering plan that would have drastically changed the character of the city. The reasons for the entire project’s eventual disappearance off the face of the Earth are not really important anymore. What is important is that the grant money – coming from Proposition 84 (a water-related referendum!) was completely and utterly wasted.

A page on the City’s website dedicated to the Core and Corridors Specific Plan had quietly vanished by 2017, never to be heard of again.

It doesn’t matter how it turns out. It’s the gesture that counts.

The lesson, of course is that Other People’s Money causes public officials – the elected and the bureaucratic – to take a whole other attitude toward spending on stuff than it does if the proposed projects were competing with General Fund-related costs – like the all-important salaries and benefits; or competing for Capital Improvement Fund projects that people actually expect a city to pursue. And it’s very rare indeed for a city council, like ours, to realize that grant money can be misused and actually wasted.

And so I salute Messrs. Dunlap, Whitaker and Jung for voting to return the Trail to Nowhere grant money – an act of true fiscal and moral responsibility.

May 15, 2023May 17, 2023Ahmad Zahra

A Massive Gift of Public Money

by Mr. Peabody12 Comments

In December, as the Friends will remember, the City of Fullerton sold a public parking lot to a so-called developer for $1,400,000. The “developer” had the task of building a boutique hotel and an apartment block. FFFF has already documented the ridiculous density the City has bestowed upon the project. So let’s revisit the topic of land value, a calculation based on the number of residential units a developer can cram onto a parcel of land.

Look, it even has the café the bureaucrats demanded!

In this case we know precisely how many units are proposed because the development agreement tells us. There are going to be 141 apartment units and 118 hotel rooms – rooms that will undoubtedly be converted to low income housing when the hotel concept fails. Dividing 259 units by $1.4 million gives us $5400 per “door” as they say in the biz.

Does that number seem low? I didn’t really know, so I contacted some pros at Land Advisors who informed me that a more typical number is in the range of $60,000 to $65,000 per unit in these parts, which produces a land value of about $15.5 million and above.

So the “economic development” geniuses in City Hall got the City Council to agree to a massive reduction in value for the sale of the land, a reduction that could be in the neighborhood of $14,000,000.

Now we all know that government and its agents shield themselves (or try very hard to) from accountability for this type of incredible giveaway. It’s not a crime to be stupid, and so there the issue of legal malfeasance can be fuzzy without proof of corruption. But here there is the issue of misfeasance that in this case justifies the initiation of a recall of the elected representatives who voted for this evident gift of public funds.

And those three representatives are Ahmad Zahra, Shana Charles and Bruce Whitaker.

Now, undoubtedly, these three politicos would argue that they had great reasons for “subsidizing” this boondoggle, and that those excellent reasons are well-worth the $14,000,000 they happily pitched at the developer, an individual, we must remember, who brought this unsolicited proposal to the City. But the City, remember, never did its due diligence by opening up this concept (or any other) for a submission of qualifications by those who might have been interested. No. Not even after several years had gone by and the proposer had been granted several extensions of a Exclusive Negotiating Agreement and the proposal kept metastasizing.

Are a “boutique” hotel at the train tracks and yet another overbearing apartment block so important that they justify the $14,000,000 giveaway? Well, I would challenge Charles, Whitaker and Zahra to prove it to voters in their districts.

October 30, 2021October 30, 2021About Us

His Finest Hour?

by The Fullerton Harpoon8 Comments

After a night of election celebrating, former Fullerton City Manager, Joe Felz, drove home drunk as the proverbial skunk, ran off the road and over a tree, then tried to drive off before being apprehended by his own cops.

The ensuing cover up cost a cop his job, gave the FPD yet another black eye, and eventually entangled the City in a losing a retaliatory lawsuit against FFFF and bloggers Joshua Ferguson, David Curlee.

Partial videos have finally been released, although the dash cam videos have not. Of course this is not a surprising omission given that the cop in charge at the scene -Sergeant Corbett – did his level best to obscure images the still-inebriated Felz; the dash cams would undoubtedly show the the not-too flattering images of Felz hit-and-run and his comical attempt to escape the long arm of the law.

July 24, 2021Ahmad Zahra

A Tale Told By An Idiot

by Joe Sipowicz53 Comments

Last week the Voice of OC published an opinion piece by a gentleman named Ed Bargas. Mr. Bargas is head of the civilian employee union in Fullerton, and if he wrote this drivel, then I’m the Pope.

You can read about how Bargas believes Fullerton is at a crossroads – meaning that the City leaders must choose between the welfare of his union members and the citizenry at large. Of course he doesn’t put it like that. He complains that the City Council is embracing the conservatism of the ’80s in which government is viewed with suspicion, even hostility. To this all I can suggest to Mr. Bargas is to read the pages of this blog, and after reviewing the litany of incompetence, corruption and cover-ups, reconsider whether or not suspicion, even hostility is justified.

Bargas makes the mistake of starting of his long list of threatened city functions with public safety, forgetting to remind his readers that it is the very public safety pensions laid out by supine politicians like Ahmad Zahra and Jesus Silva & Co. that have brought financial crisis to Fullerton.

Of course the Big Problem is lack of revenue, and Mr. Bargas was no doubt a cheerleader for the ill-fated Measure S on last November’s ballot that went down in flames, falling victim to honesty and common sense. Maybe he thinks that somehow the new majority of responsible councilmembers can be persuaded to try that scam again. Well good luck with that.

May 10, 2021May 10, 2021Behind Closed Doors

Fitzy Fire Sale. Everything Must Go!

by Jan Florys Dog12 Comments

It’s easy, just lift your leg and piss…on ’em

My human Friends have learned that your former Mayor-for-hire, and the best bestie of my former mistress, Jennifer Fitzgerald, is jumping ship from the Fullerton boat of which she spent years drilling holes in the bottom. But before she skips town she has planned at least one last scam to separate the gullible bipeds from their dough. This borders on some sort of abuse, and believe you me, I know a lot about abuse!

Can you please repeat that? Hard to believe any of you humans would pay a hydrant pee to listen to Fitzgerald opine on any subject, but this topic is so funny that it’s even funny up here in doggie heaven.

What qualities make a good city manager? Well, let’s ask.

How about refusing to reform a criminal enterprise known as the FPD?

How about letting millions of gallons of expensive MWD water leak out of Laguna Lake with zero accountability?

How about years of unbalanced budgets leading to the brink of fiscal disaster?

How about serial neglect of the city fragile infrastructure?

How about getting drunk and running over a tree, and then trying to drive off?

How about covering up a Parks N’ Rec vehicle crash?

How about turning a blind eye to serial code violations?

How about continuing to foster the myth that downtown Fullerton is some sort of financial asset?

How about turning a blind eye to forgery of official city documents?

How about stonewalling on required release of public documents?

How about wasting hundreds of thousands of dollars on crony “consultants”?

How about mismanaging construction projects as simple as wooden stairs and elevator additions?

How about enabling vanity projects like unused ceremonial bridges and dry duck ponds?

How about wasting a million dollars in state money on an idiotic and unpopular Specific Plan?

How about acceding to the demands of regional agencies for housing demands?

How about developing an entire Specific Plan behind everybody’s back – except the housing bureaucrats and do-gooders?

Arf! That’s only some of the stuff I can remember happening under the watch of Fitzgerald’s two city managers – the drunken stumblebum, Joe Felz, and the equally incompetent, likely sober, Ken Domer, neither of whom could run a dog kennel, as well I know.

For Jennifer Fitzgerald the only skill that mattered from a city manager was to accommodate her desires, desires that often as not ended up costing the citizens and taxpayers of Fullerton one way or another. She was a “master” all right. A master of manipulating a feeble system of political hacks and corruptible bureaucrats.

Hopefully some female human attending this gathering will be smart enough to ask some of the specifics of Fullerton’s city management disasters, but I doubt it.

March 24, 2021March 25, 2021Ahmad Zahra

Fitzgerald Quitting Fullerton?

by Mr. Peabody11 Comments

Grab it and consume it as fast as you can…

Hmm. Former Fullerton Councilcreature for Hire, Jennifer Fitzgerald, may be getting out of Dodge. Word out and about is that Jennifer Fitzgerald wants to move. Out of Fullerton? I don’t know.

I’m sure not complaining about it, I’m hardly even wondering why.

During Jen’s 8-year career driving Fullerton to the precipice of insolvency and immanent infrastructure collapse, she made it pretty clear that she was in it for whatever she could get out of it for herself, her campaign supporters and her boss, lobbyist Curt Pringle. Her last, desperate flail at influence peddling occurred in last fall’s election when her puppet candidate, Andrew Cho, dredged from the obscure depths of anonymity, was defeated by Fred Jung,

Now there are only two candidates willing to be “influenced” Fitzgerald: Jesus Quirk Silva and Ahmad Zahra. And the latter may soon have his legal troubles advertised for his constituents to peruse.

So maybe Fitzy figures it’s time to abandon the smoking wreckage she masterminded courtesy of two utterly incompetent but willing co-conspirators – Joe Felz and Ken Domer.

Maybe she figures her work here is done.