The Bald Ambition of Ahmad Zahra

It must be real hard when you have to spend all your time brandishing you brand, especially when you’ve been in office three years and accomplished nothing. What to do? Run for higher office!

Zahra OC Register Battery
The smile betrayed an ulterior motive…

And so Fullerton’s own Ahmad Zahra is said to be setting his sights on our old friend, lackluster 4th District County Supervisor Doug Chaffee, whose accomplishments down on the County Farm are as threadbare as Zahra’s on our City Council.

Word has trickled up to our Political Snooping Unit that Zahra has been actively seeking support and endorsements for such a quixotic effort. How this will work out will remain to be seen, but it is rumored that the Democratic Party of OC isn’t real happy with Chaffee, who gives every appearance of being the abject and senile OC Board of Supervisor Chair, Andrew Do.

I can see all sorts of amusement value in this sort of thing and maybe it will come to pass. It seems like an effort designed to promote his name for the Fall 2020 Fullerton council election. Chaffee has money and can always get lot’s more from County lobbyists and other assorted bagmen. And he, like the other Supervisors abuse the law about using public money for political outreach.

Zahra, on the other hand, has no money, no job in which to earn any, and except for his few hundred social media dupes, no following. Not much hope there, but hope proverbially springs eternal.

Chaffee has accomplished as little at the County as he did on the Fullerton City Council, which is to say, nothing. But at least his record with law enforcement is more or less unimpeachable – if you don’t count helping his wife stash stolen campaign signs. Zahra has a bigger problem.

Arrested and charged with battery and vandalism in September, 2020, Zahra says the case was dropped. But a leak out of the DAs office presents the story of a guilty plea, community service and a record wiped clean and/or sealed. That last part can be disputed, but the first part is undeniable even thought the Fullerton cops and City Attorney Dick Jones have suppressed evidence of the arrest and booking – just like they did with the case of former drunk driving City Manager, Joe Felz.

Well, on the positive side one or more Democrat challengers to Chaffee’s shaky throne might induce a decent conservative (if such a creature hasn’t disappeared with the unicorns and the hippogriffs) into the mix and keep Chaffee from getting 50% of the primary vote, causing a General Election runoff.

New County Districts Approved

In case you weren’t paying attention (and care), our beloved County Board of Supervisors approved a new district map this week.

All sorts of fun and games took place to get this little self-serving project done, and all sorts of political angles were contemplated, no doubt. Central county actually got a new district number altogether, while other districts morphed to suit the tastes of our political lords and masters. Here’s the map:

The 4th District – represented by the seemingly senile and genuinely corrupt rodent, Doug Chaffee, lost a chunk of Anaheim between Harbor and the 57 Freeway and gained the southern half of Buena Park and the garden spot known as Stanton. Here’s their City Motto:

Community Pride and Forward Vision identifies Stanton as a place where innovation and pride in the community are an important aspect of life. Residents enjoy major retail opportunities, active civic volunteers and business-friendly City organizations.

I wonder if there are going to be any legal challenges to this map. It has flaws. The idea of putting Mission Viejo in the same district as Yorba Linda seems absurd. Costa Mesa is now in District 5, but it’s a damn long haul from South Coast Plaza to the real south coast at San Clemente. Irvine is divided between districts and so are Garden Grove and Orange; Anaheim is split into 3 separate district pieces. Buena Park and Fountain Valley are reunited.

But any real legal challenge would have to come from injured “communities of interest,” which means aggrieved minority groups, mainly. District 2 looks suspiciously like a “packed” Latino enclave, but this would probably be to the liking of residents there who will finally get a non-Vietnamese-American Supervisor.

The head and the hat were a perfect fit…

In our 4th District we can be sure his minions were weighing the likelihood of potential challengers to Chaffee. There are none in either Stanton or Buena Park. Losing southeast Anaheim was no political loss.

So it remains to be seen if anybody in north Orange County is willing to take on an incumbent Democrat – no matter how vulnerable (and useless) he is.

Joe Kerr Follow-Up

Lives in a District, but which one?

Friends, as part of our ongoing fight against carpetbaggers, and even worse, perjuring faux-carpetbaggers, we here at FFFF like to follow up on the activities of failed carpetbaggers of all sorts – the legit ‘baggers, and the liar ‘baggers.

Here are some of the villains:

2009 Linda Ackerwoman – State Assembly (Irvine) 1 fake address

2010 Harry Sidhu, 4th District Supervisor (Anaheim Hills) 2 fake addresses

2010 Lorraine Galloway, 4th District Supervisor (Anaheim Hills) 3 fake addresses

2016 Sukhee Kang, State Senate (Irvine) Moved back to Irvine after election, if he ever lived here at all

2018 Joe Kerr, County Supervisor (Coto de Caza) 2 fake addresses

2018 Pilferin’ Paulette Marshall Chaffee. Fullerton CC 5th District (Fullerton 2nd District) 1 fake address

2020 Arunii Thakur, Fullerton 4th District (Fullerton 1st District) 1 fake address

I’d be smiling, too!

Guess what? Our former pal Joe Kerr, the union boss and well-public pensioned resident of 5th District Coto de Caza is running for County Supervisor. Again. In 2018 this miscreant cooked up fake addresses in Brea, and then in Placentia to run in the 4th District. We documented Coto Joe’s misbehaving and put his name at the bottom of our list!

An alert 4th District Friend has dialed in and notified us that Joe has not given up on elective politics and is giving it another go. The why is probably easier to answer now than the where.

Going to his Joe Kerr for County Supervisor website doesn’t inform us about his current declared office – or residence – leading cynical observers to suppose his ultimate dwelling locale is still a matter of convenient political flux. That’s not much of a confidence builder for somebody who is intent on emphasizing his hero-ness.

For once again Joe is touting his courage and leadership skills, honed, no doubt by leading the Orange County Fire Fighters union as it gouged its way deep into our solvency.

Even I beat this loser…

Last time Kerr was beaten by the hapless Bud Chaffee, so whichever district he decides to call home when the time comes, I really have wonder about his chances.

Say Goodnight Paulette

Like chickens with their heads left on

Yesterday a lot of chickens fluttered home to roost for sign thief and fake carpetbagger Paulette Marshall Chaffee. After spending hundreds of thousands of bucks for a part time job on the county’s Board of Education, she was defeated, and defeated badly. The job goes to La Habra’s Tim Shaw, another candidate who unloaded a boat load of dough.

Dr. Vicky waiting for Paulette at the finish line…

But the most humiliating part of all for Paulette was getting beaten soundly by Vicky Calhoun, a woman who spent almost nothing.

And that’s where I put the sign in the back of the car…

Have we seen the last of Ms. Marshall? Hard to say. The woman is oddly unaware of her own unpopularity and the stigma with which crime decorates the perpetrator.

It looked good from far, but it was far from good…

One thing is certain, however. The tale of the little web of phony “community news” websites that were concocted by the Chaffees without any Fair Political Practices Committee requirements isn’t over by a long shot. Ms. Paulette can look forward to yet another day in court.

Paulette Chaffee Gets Slap On Wrist for Stealing

Ah, privilege.

Raise your hand if you thought that Paulette Marshall Chaffee getting caught on video, TWICE, stealing campaign signs was going to result in justice.

*Raises Own Hand*

Yup. I really did. I thought that getting irrefutable evidence that the Mayor of Fullerton’s Orange County Supervisor’s wife, a candidate running for office, blatantly broke the law to stifle the right of others to freely express themselves during an election was going to result in some sort of real justice.

I am that stupid.

Paulette Marshall Chaffee pled guilty to two charges of petty theft.

Her sentence? A small fine and a few hours of community service and restitution to the victim of $20.

If this wasn’t bad enough, after completing the terms of her plea, the District Attorney will completely wipe the event from history.  Paulette will legally be allowed to claim the incidents never happened.

This isn’t justice. This is a Chaffee getting away with cheating, because that’s what rich well connected politicians do.

Best of all? No one is doing to do a damn thing about this. Because in Fullerton what you do isn’t what really matters. It’s who you know and who you call a friend.

That’s the shallow self absorbed city we really live in. Because if Paulette was a crazy homeless person in a parking lot, she wouldn’t be spending Christmas dinner at her big home in District 2 feasting on roast beef and a side of steaming hot victory.

She’d be dead in a gutter while her husband told the media how fabulous the Fullerton Police are for dealing with the criminal element undermining our beautiful town.

A New-ish Council This Way Comes

Backroom-Deal

Tonight Doug Chaffee and Greg Sebourn leave the Fullerton City Council and Ahmad Zahra gets sworn in to be the first to represent District 5 on the dais. This wouldn’t be Fullerton if that’s all that was happening tonight – a simple transition of (some) power – but true to form our current Mayor (for a few more hours), Doug Chaffee, opted to ram a pet project down the council’s throat one last time. An unsolicited bid to turn the parking lot used for Train Days into a “boutique” hotel without the pesky bother of worrying about competition or opening a bid process. He wants this to happen now, NOW, NOW! because… reasons. It’s such a great idea that Chaffee doesn’t trust the council to pick it up without him which means he either thinks they’re too stupid to know a good thing when they see it or it’s not… wait for it… a good thing.

Ah the smell of cronyism.

While we’ll eventually get to say goodbye to a few members and add Ahmad which should be the only focus tonight, first we have to see if Jesus has been bought off and has changed his tune on competition. A tune that he sung only 2 weeks ago, mind you.

After that first crony, I mean agenda, item has been dealt with the council will move on to the actual (partial) transition of power.

For those not keeping track here’s what will happen tonight:

Jesus Silva moves from at-large to the District 3 representative. This will leave his at-large seat open until council decides to fill it or holds a special election.

Bruce Whitaker and Jennifer Fitzgerald will stay status quo.

After tonight we’ll also have a new Mayor (likely Silva) and a new Mayor Pro-Tem (likely Fitzgerald). As for the empty seat – don’t forget to comment on who you think will be the appointed council member in our Wheel of Replacement Candidates thread.

We doubt there will be any surprises tonight but we’ll keep you posted as always friends.

Paulette Chaffee’s Silence Could Cost Taxpayers

If Paulette Marshall Chaffee receives the most votes in the District 5 Election on 06 November – will she resign the office or allow herself to be sworn in?

It’s not a tough question but Mrs. Chaffee has refused to talk to anybody or answer any questions. I emailed both campaigns asking for comment before posting the original sign theft post. No comments or responses came. Likewise Voice of OC, KTLA, Fox11 and the OCRegister have all tried to get various answers from her to no avail. She has ignored them all. She has also, by way of her silence, manipulated the voters in District 5 by sending mixed signals.

With her signs still hanging all over the district, her mail still hitting voter mailboxes and her husband’s campaign overlapping her own race (which throws a few percentage points at her by sheer name association)  she is, by all visible metrics, still running despite her Facebook and website deactivations.

With consideration of how power signs can be in an election, which I know from personal experience, I opted to do some research.

I started by looking at her 460 disclosure forms and found that she used Cogs South and Impact Signs to print and place her campaign signs. The signs cost her $470.oo to place ($3/sign plus distance charge).

Paulette460-Signs

Cogs South are the local go-to for signs and are great people to work with so I also took the liberty of giving them a call. When I asked if a candidate could pay Impact Signs to remove signs I was assured the answer was yes with the only qualifier of it maybe taking a few days. When I asked how much it would cost to have the signs removed, being that that $3/sign cost included post-election takedowns, I was told no more than that cost again. Most likely less.

Even if we assume the same cost per sign again, it would cost Paulette Marshall Chaffee one phone call and $470.00 to have her signs removed from around District 5.

$470.00.

That’s what Chaffee is unwilling to spend to show that she really is suspending her campaign. (more…)

Chaffee Has Impeccable Timing

We here at FFF have been following the news of Paulette Chaffee’s sign stealing shenanigans. We’ve also been wondering where Mayor Doug Chaffee has been this whole time considering he’s yet to issue a single word to the public.

Then today this hit a friend’s mailbox.

Chaffee Mailer 2018 Front

I wonder how many of these people still stand behind Doug based on the recent news.

Chaffee Mailer 2018 Back

The timing on this is hilarious if nothing else. What say you, fellow friends?

Is Doug Chaffee Under Investigation?

Fullerton can be a funny town with funny stories.

Earlier this week, we asked you to consider a version of Fullerton where Doug (Chaffee), (Acting Chief) Dunn & (City Manager) Domer had come to an agreement. That agreement included a plan to protect Pilfering Paulette Marshall Chaffee and to minimize damage to Mayor Doug Chaffee’s campaign for Orange County Supervisor.

Shortly after publishing our leak hypothetical, the City issued a press release stating that the case had been handed over to the District Attorney.  A couple things are curiously absent from the City’s Press Release.

There’s no indication of who is being investigated, what is being investigated, how it is being investigated, or when the investigation will be completed. No mention of Paulette, Doug, any citation to the penal code, the investigator or department assigned, all missing.

Why is that?

Is Doug Chaffee under investigation for receiving stolen property?

(more…)