Category: Liar

Posted onAhmad Zahra

A Reminder…The People of the State of California vs. Ahmad Zahra (B9447693)

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Fullerton 5th District Councilman Ahmad Zahra seems to have adopted the strategy of rewriting his previous interaction with the wheels of justice, to wit: he was not arrested because nobody cuffed him and tossed him in the FPD slammer. And oh, by the way, “there was no case.”

Well there sure was a case, Friends.

Here’s what it looks like:

Looks guilty to me…

Zahra has previously claimed he was somehow exonerated, too, although he seems to think that statement is satisfactory. And yet other than his say so, he has shown no evidence to show the DA dropped the case – for any reason. Meantime, a source in the DAs office has indicated that Zahra pled guilty, did community service of some sort, and had his criminal record safely sealed.

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Posted onAhmad Zahra

The Second Try

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Nothing says 1962 like Fullerton City Hall

Back in 2020 our Lords and Masters at City Hall cooked up a plan to impose a sales tax increase upon people buying stuff in Fullerton. It was staff-driven natch, and lazy liberals Zahra, Quirk-Silva, Flory and Fitzgerald were on board. It was called Measure S. See, they figured the path of least resistance was deploying a new tax rather than finally exercising fiscal restraint.

Measure S Covid Lie
The Big Lie

Measure S soon found itself in the crosshairs of Fullerton anti-tax advocates and some well-placed signs describing the true nature of the beast doomed it to failure come election time.

Well guess what? They’re at it again. This time the idea is something called a Pension Obligation Bond, a mechanism for paying off part of Fullerton’s massive unfunded pension actuarial liability at CalPERS, the State’s giant pension administrator.

An introductory briefing was on the Council’s agenda last Tuesday to start the cheerleading process – a process that will entail the employment of an “expert” who will certainly benefit from a positive result; and of course “bond counsel” the legal camp-followers who push bonds on lazy elected officials after a hot meal and a few glasses of wine.

As everybody knows, the interest on the bonds are ultimately backed up by the collateral of new property taxes. This revenue would go to pay down the pension debt and free up money owed to CalPERS for staff salaries and benefits that will ultimately, and ironically, increase pension debt.

Here’s the second kicker: because a pension obligation bond is not deemed new debt, per se, but a sort of pea-under-the-walnut shell maneuver, no vote of the people is required – as it is in the case of general obligation bonds. It just gets “validated” by a judge and goes through on the nod unless challenged. Ouch. Of course the Council, if it wanted to could put the issue on a ballot anyhow, if they chose to move ahead with this scheme.

Of course the strategy for this type of thing is to reprimand opponents by citing the fact that the daily cost is little more than a Big Mac, or some other trifle and in return we get…what do we get again? Our loyal and devoted “public safety” club will almost certainly gobble up the lion’s share of this taxpayer largesse, just like they already do, and we’ll be even worse off than we already are, and no desperately needed cultural changes will have been made.

I looked over the agenda material on line and found nary a clue as to how this was even agendized. Another smoke screen protecting somebody.

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Posted onAhmad Zahra

The Deal

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When he’s not lecturing us on ethics, Fullerton City Councilman Ahmad Zahra climbs down from his high horse to participate in all sorts of activities that don’t seem very ethical at all.

Zahra-Busted
It’s the though that counts…

We have seen how he became embroiled in a battery and vandalism case in which he had the record permanently sealed. He claims exoneration but word has escaped the DAs office that Zahra pleaded guilty, did community service had had his record expunged.

We have also seen how Zahra claimed authorship of Water District-related articles actually ghost-written by a district bureaucrat; and how he tried to leverage this pseudo-expertise to keep his well-compensated seat on that board.

Grab it and consume it as fast as you can…

Then there’s the about-face Zahra played on the suckers of Fullerton when he announced that the open seat on the Council should be decided by a vote, and then promptly voted to appoint Jan Flory to the vacancy at the behest of Jennifer Fitzgerald.

The closer you look, the worse it gets.

And that last bit is what this story is about. The deal that Zahra cut with Fitzgerald to appoint Flory and get himself appointed to the lucrative Orange County Water District Board, a board that pays stipends for all sorts of meetings and sub-committee meetings.

Check this out:

Just before Zahra was replaced on the Water Board in 2021 by Bruce Whitaker, the District paid $10,000 to “CL7” for something called a “OC Water Special Water Insert.” I don’t know what that means, but I do know that CL7 is the name of Jennifer Fitzgerald’s side biz – when she wasn’t using the City to make bank for lobbyist Curt Pringle. So what’s going on here? A little gravy slopping out of the boat, or a legitimate job for a real public service? Knowing Fitzgerald’s complete lack of ethical compass and her influence peddling, I would bet on the former. Easy enough to find out: a PRA on the work order and a sample of the work product, and maybe any correspondence regarding this contract ought to do it.

And did Zahra have a role in this little handout? Was this a little payback for getting appointed in the first place? These sorts of little deals happen in OC political/government circles all the time. It’s all just easy government cheese. Maybe Zahra will be forthcoming about what this was all about. Maybe, but don’t count on it.

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The Hypocrite

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Zahra-Busted
The smoke signals were ominous…

So I’m watching the council meeting on Tuesday and at one point listened in disbelief as Ahmad Zahra lectured his colleagues about their unethical activity. I don’t know what he thought he could get people to believe was unethical, but that’s not the point.

The point is that this petulant, preening, prissy popinjay would have the nerve to refer to somebody else as unethical, is quite remarkable.

We have been following the career of Mr. Zahra on this blog and the only thing he seems to be any good at is self-promotion to the gullible – in the same sort of way Pam Keller used to before being exposed by FFFF in 2010

Well, okay, being a prima donna and a camera hound isn’t exactly unethical – just annoying. But then there was the instance we caught him publishing under his own name water articles in the incurious Fullerton Observer that were actually written by some Water District staffer. He even got former Councilwoman Jan Flory to promote his bona fides as a water expert (or something) under the cover of that lie. Zahra may think this plagiarism and prevarication are just the prerogative of an elected, but boy is he wrong.

Let’s not forget his convenient claim that he was a “fan” of settling the City’s vindictive, expensive and humiliating lawsuit against FFFF & Co. No, that’s a lie, too. Along with Quirk-Silva he dug in his heels because he wanted to avoid personal humiliation by Joshua Ferguson and FFFF. What the Hell. It wasn’t his money that was wasted in the huge settlement.

And then there’s the case of the Disappearing Battery and Vandalism Case, in which Zahra was tuned up by his own cops and charged by the District Attorney. The case vanished and Zahra made a public declamation of his alleged “exoneration.” But word soon leaked out that he wasn’t exonerated at all; but, rather that he pled guilty, did some sort of community service, and had his record expunged. What’s the truth? I’m not sure, but I know one thing: if the case against Zahra were truly dropped he would have shared some evidence of that.

No, Ahmad Zahra is not one to cast stones of aspersion about unethical behavior at anybody. His glass house won’t stand it. Spouting liberal clichés and pretending to care about anything except yourself will only work for so long. 2022 is an election year for Zahra. And if he thinks pouting and pontificating and drumming up Astroturf support at council meetings by women pretending they can’t speak English will keep him on the city council, he has another think coming.

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Heroes Deserve

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So what’s really going on with our Fire Heroes? FFFF published a story recently about an agenda item on tonight’s (9/21/21) agenda. David Curlee brought our attention to a mysterious item about the City revoking it’s automatic aid provision aid agreement with next door Placentia and negotiating a new one.

How come? We really don’t know, except that our Chief, a guy named Adam Loeser says it needs to be done. He hints at some deficiency in Placentia’s program.

Now the Fire Union has made it abundantly clear that Placentia’s cost savings move to privatize the paramedic service was bad. Real bad. And fearful that the contagion of cost effective and efficient service might spread to Fullerton, the union has been putting pressure on our city council to nip this potential epidemic in the bud. To me it looks like the Chief is just passing along his employees lust for our largess.

But what really is the problem with Placentia?

According to a Placentia city report, their new arrangement has been an unalloyed success. Here’s the report. Be sure to peruse the response statistics.

wp-1632236472391

As usual, there is more to the story. Quite a bit more – that City Hall isn’t Fullerton isn’t telling us. How do I know? Because a source in Placentia told us, and the information has the ring of truth.

According to this source the staff report prepared by Chief Loeser is very misleading in terms of why Fullerton wants to terminate the auto aid provision.  Shortly after Fullerton approved the agreement last year, the Fullerton Fire Union filed a complaint with the Public Employees Relations Board stating that entering into an automatic aid agreement with another City requires a meet and confer with the union.  Incredibly, PERB agreed with the union and Fullerton decided rather than fighting the ruling that the agreement would be retooled into a mutual aid agreement instead.

Unfortunately, our source continues, Loeser lied to the public on an official City Council agenda report by stating Placentia did not meet the requirements outlined in the original agreement.  The real reason behind this change is because of this PERB ruling in favor of the union to the detriment of the public’s safety.

And so, Friends, there you have it. The union, with the apparent approbation of the Fire Chief, is using a feeble labor relations technicality to try to keep applying pressure to the City Council and the bureaucracy to reconsider it’s arrangement with the diseased and contagious Placentia Fire Department. This is the kind of government we get in Fullerton: opaque, self-serving, and duplicitous. Of course our council has been briefed about this, but the public hasn’t. And our city government likes it that way.

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Posted onChronic Failure

Helping A Brother Out

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An observant Friend just shared a link with FFFF about an item that caught his eye. Apparently Joe Florentine, the subject of many posts on FFFF is seeking a new gig. Here’s his entry on LinkedIn:

Now, FFFF is not a jobs center and neither are we job recruiters. But damn! I know talent when I see it, and this guy has it in spades.

Now, I’m not going to show this upstanding citizen’s whole resume, because, humble and self-effacing as Joe is, he omitted to share some real ability. I’ll help out.

Joe’s Unique Skillset & References

  1. Enterprising. Built restaurant addition on a public sidewalk and got away with it.
  2. Creative. Operated an illegal night club in contravention to City of Fullerton regulations for many years.
  3. Recreational Opportunities Deployment. Exercised the greatest latitude in permitting patrons to enjoy interpersonal contact on dance club floor (i.e. see “Drunken Others”).
  4. Plumbing and Wastewater Systems Expertise. Avoided adding additional sewage to the wastewater system by utilizing the same toilets for multiple businesses. Urination and defecation were performed by patrons without overloading existing wastewater systems.
  5. Mixological Ingenuity and Marketing Acumen. Brought the Fish Bowl concept to downtown Fullerton to acclaim and adulation, specifically, in which a patron could buy a 128 fluid ounce cocktail.
  6. Daring. Refused requirement to install fire sprinklers as mandated by City permit approval.
  7. Creative Writing and Teamwork. Forged an official City planning application with the consent and foreknowledge of the City Manager and Planning Director and City Attorney.

References

Former Fullerton City Planning Director F. Paul Dudley

Former Fullerton City Manager Joe Felz (customer #1!)

Former Fullerton City Manager Ken Domer

Former Fullerton Police Chief Pat “Patdown Pat” McKinley

Former Fullerton Police Chief Danny “Galahad” Hughes

Former Fullerton City Councilmembers Don Bankhead, Dick Jones, Jennifer Fitzgerald and Jan Flory

Fullerton City Attorney Dick “The Other Dick” Jones

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So What Happened At Foxborough Place?

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Zahra-Busted
Why is this man smiling?

While scanning the City of Fullerton public records requests the other day, I came across this interesting tidbit, requester, not yet known:

We already know that was the day our Councilman Ahmad Zahra was arrested, somewhere, somehow, for something. All the records for that case are locked up tighter than… well, real tight.

And the fact that this particular request is related to our bad boy’s bad day is reflected in the City’s perfunctory response:

2671 Foxborough Place. Why is this address of significance to the events of that day? Is this house the home of any of the principals in the Zahra battery and vandalism case? I don’t know for sure, but somebody thinks it’s relevant, and of course it’s all a big secret as far as our city government is concerned.

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Posted onAhmad Zahra

C’mon Zahra. Time to Come Clean

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Zahra-Busted
Why is this man smiling?

The Strange Case of Ahmad Zahra’s Disappearing Case is starting to come into focus. Zahra, the arrogant and pontificating council representative from District 5 says he has been exonerated by the justice system for charges of battery and vandalism levelled by DA Todd Spizter. But another, well-placed source claims there was no exoneration; that Zahra pled guilty, did some sort of community service and that the Court was petitioned to seal the case and wipe the slate clean.

If you listened to Zahra’s victimized account of events at the City Council meeting a couple weeks ago you would have heard his side of the original event. He claimed that the people involved – his ex-husband and a female – showed up where he was living with mom; that they were behaving in such as way as to frightened his dear mother; that she then called him: that when he arrived the cops (called by who knows who) were already there; that he knew nothing of the woman at the scene, etc.

Well this tale could be true. And it could also be a web of lies meant to make the Zahras, mere et fils, look like the victims. Since the case is sealed up like a pharaoh’s tomb, we are forced to consider the alternative scenarios with their likely stark difference in facts.

Fortunately there is one person who can clear this matter up in a heartbeat. And that’s Zahra himself. Whatever happened, he can produce correspondence from justice officialdom informing him that the case is being dropped because…whatever. Personally I think that is highly unlikely to happen since it must have been Zahra himself who petitioned the court to wrap up the case like a mummy, indicating that he was more interested in hiding the facts than in advertising his innocence.

If Mr. Zahra thinks he can ride this out, he is mistaken. His demeanor on the council has not made him any friends and pretty soon this issue is bound to get traction despite local media indifference to such things.

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