Item 1 on the Closed Session agenda looks a lot like this:
A Manfro All Seasons…
Since right now we have an “Acting” City Manager, Eddie Manfro, I think we can surmise that this is either an item to select a replacement or to appoint a permanent City Manager, who might be Manfro himself.
Manfro has held a bunch of jobs in Fullerton since his retirement as City Manager in Westminster, a situation that has caused a complaint from CalPERS, the State public employees retirement system, that is currently the subject of possible litigation.
That didn’t last long…
Since I am not privy to the closed door doings of the City Council, it is possible that interviews with other candidates have taken place since the last City Manager, Eric Levitt ditched Fullerton for San Bernardino last summer. If the CM job was posted, it isn’t anymore.
Wild Ride Joe Felz: I’ll drink to that!
On the face of it, the Fullerton City Manager job can’t be an enviable one what with the looming financial crisis and the roads being the worst in Orange County. Still, the job remuneration will be exceedingly high, and the accountability, as we have seen over the past four City Managers, exceedingly low.
If a decision is made next Tuesday we will be informed at the start of the public meeting.
Well, I missed the “1st Annual Fullerton Jazz Fest” completely.
A couple weeks ago Pilgrim’s Coffeehouse put on an evening of jazz acts in the legendary Maverick Theater space. It looks to have been a trial run for future jazz events of which a follow-up summer event is in the works.
A limited 80 tickets were sold (the main theater maximum occupancy) showing that there is certainly interest in this sort of thing.
Calling anything “1st Annual” always seems optimistic to me, but in this case the successful event does suggest there will be more. So good for Pilgrim’s Coffeehouse and the Maverick Theater.
The train of thought was weak but it sure was short…
We have all seen how Ahmad Zahra has endorsed the the idea of a cannabis dispensary on almost any commercial corner in Fullerton; how the sad mental train wreck of Jesus Quirk-Silva was eager to spread the pain to all of Fullerton’s representative districts. That’s old news, from 2020.
Cannabis Kitty Jaramillo
News of more recent vintage is that in 2024 the dope lobby, fronted by the grocery store workers union pitched in to elect Cannabis Kitty Jaramillo with an astounding $60,000, dumped into a pro Jaramillo political action committee.
How come? Because this union also represents the cannabis dispensary works in Orange County. I note that the origin and intent of this contribution was never discussed in the pages of the Fullerton Observer.
Andre finds a pearl in an oyster…
Of that $60,000, $4000 was shuffled to Andre Charles, who styles himself a political consultant. What he does between elections remains a mystery, as does the service he provided Team Jaramillo for that $4000. But Andre’s sketchy employment history is of little concern, except that the source of his conjugal bliss is none other than Mrs. Shana Charles, a Fullerton City Council member and a vociferous advocate for public health.
Ms. Shana, as FFFF has noted, is running for re-election in Fullerton’s District 3 this fall. She has kicked off a re-election campaign and has begun the task of fundraising. Her second biggest contribution was $1500, and came from came from the very same dope workers union that fronted the Cannabis Kitty PAC. A coincidence? I doubt it.
Mrs. Flory’s education was complete. The designated driver was on the way.
The marijuana dispensary lobby needs three votes to revive the ill-formed dope ordinance of 2020 approved just before the election of that year by Ahmad Zahra, Jesus Quirk-Silva, and the possibly sober Jan Flory (pictured above). That ordinance was revoked a few months later and the lobby determined that it was worth a huge monetary investment in Fullerton politics.
Here’s an interesting bit from the “print edition” of the Fullerton Observer, proving that once again the Fullerton Klown Kar has no rearview mirror.
The story no one wanted to talk about.
The subject is the reopening of the abandoned UP Park, and all you have to do is look at the photo op result to guess that a history re-write is in the works.
While we were basking in the Spring-like day, most of the USA was under an unrelenting, repressive assault by ice, snow, and freezing rain. All of the speakers took notice of who was in the audience, mainly the Fullerton residents who did not give up on the idea of a local park, rallying support for an incredible 20-plus years. Assemblywoman Sharon Quirk Silva recalled how she was on the City Council in 2004 when the idea of revitalizing Union Pacific Park was discussed. Persistence from Fullerton residents kept the idea alive, so keep that in mind.
There’s a who’s who of Fullerton libs who can’t seem to have their pictures taken often enough, especially over there on the far left – the tarnished antique Pilferin’ Paulette Chaffee, who did less than nothing to have the park reopened. But then again, neither did Vanessa Estrella, or Sharon Quirk, or Jesus Quirk-Silva.
And on the subject of Quirk and Quirk Silva, the reimagining of history is appalling. Quirk got on the City Council at the end of 2004 all right. But at that point the first Union Pacific Park was just completed – brand effing new. Her statement is obviously meant to ignore the long history of bureaucratic failure that led to toxic soil removal and closure of a third of the park, to finally fencing off the whole damn thing because of the hypes, borrachos and homeless campers.
But just as important as hiding ugly truth is promoting your own accomplishment – finally doing what was thought impossible – after a 20-year fight! And let’s not forget the other myth – the popular struggle from la communidad, all of it ginned up, when it existed at all, by patronizing gringos at the Center for Healthy Neighborhoods, etc.
The Big Q probably doesn’t want you to remember that she was on the Council for another 8 years after her mythical park revitalization “discussions” allegedly took place, and so if the park wasn’t “revitalized” under her careful stewardship, why not?
The Fullerton Observer sisters and these political types want us to forget the real history of the UP Park – a poisoned public nuisance created by and for City bureaucrats as a Redevelopment money plaything who’s history would be a civic shame, if anybody in City Hall had any shame.
Now maybe you think that this is all trivial, this whitewash of the past. Not so. The conditions which caused UP Park #1’s failure are still there, even as more millions are thrown at UP Park #2. No one is paying attention because nobody cares.
It seems that a post was published on the Fullerton Observer site in early January – a letter to the Observer Sisters from Miaad Bushala, niece of Tony Bushala. Her letter was all about how a Fullerton cop stopped her father, Albert, for rolling through a stop sign. Albert rolled down his window with the light of Christmas kindness in his eyes. The policeman, Officer Levin warned him about the dangers of such incautious motoring.
Patrolman Levin
Officer Levin, under the influence of Yuletide kindness, and captivated by the kind quality in Mr. Bushala’s demeanor, did not cite the careless driver. Instead of a ticket, he kindly handed the wayward motorist a $10 gift certificate to a coffee place.
Cookies and dough…
Subsequently, all of Mr. Bushala’s family appeared at police HQ on Christmas Eve with a plate of cookies, and a check for $10,000!
But then Ms. Miaad’s post quickly vanished from the Fullerton Observer blog, only to reappear virtually unchanged a few days later as an attempted news story in the Orange County Register, courtesy of Claire Wang. Most peculiar, no?
And finally, a few days ago, the very same story made its way back into the Observer, this time offered up under the byline of someone named David Spargur, who now cites the Register as a source!
How odd.
Satkia Kennedy on the job…
Vern Nelson noticed the switcheroo and contacted the Kennedy Sisterhood to find out why the original “letter” from the daughter about her papa’s kind generosity to the Fullerton Police Department was deleted. Nelson tells us that the story was removed at the request of Miaad herself who, upon further reflection, thought the thing appeared a little self-serving. That’s the narrative as told by Sitka Kennedy, anyhow.
And yet somehow the incurious OC Register got the tale, and for some reason decided to treat the donation as unquestionable philanthropy, and hence newsworthy; once the Register ran their bit the Kennedys obviously decided that it was okay to publish a redo. How come?
One observer, FJC teacher Jodi Balma, mentioned the Register article on Facebook. She called it a “strange puff piece” and reminded her friends that “Bushala” has lots of business with the Fullerton government at contentious meetings. This frequent Voice of OC “expert” had obviously mistaken Albert for his brother, Tony!
Jodi Balma knows a lot more than you do…
But Jodi, like the proverbial blind porcine, had unknowingly stumbled upon a truffle! As Vern Nelson reminds us, Albert Bushala owns numerous properties in downtown Fullerton that have nightclubs, and that he and his tenants have lots of business before the City Planning Commission that can use the kind assistance of a friendly police department.
Albert Bushala
Informed sources tell us that Albert Bushala currently has a Conditional Use Permit submitted to operate an events venue in the 100 block of West Commonwealth that will have a liquor license. Proposed hours of operation? 6am to 2pm.
Bushala Brothers, Inc. has submitted an Conditional Use Permit (CUP) application to Fullerton’s Planning Department for the development of a restaurant on the unused Santa Fe Depot loading dock.
Now
The loading dock has been empty for decades. It was the object of an earlier City history of property acquisition. The western half the space was leased to BBI in the early 1990s, when the eastern portion was not yet owned by the Fullerton Redevelopment Agency. After the City acquired the portion east of Pomona Avenue, they declined to consolidate the lease of the entire loading dock until the past few years under City Manager Eric Levitt.
Friends will recall that the revised depot lease that now included the loading dock adjacent to the Bushala leasehold was the subject of a cooked-up controversy last summer by “Dr.” Ahmad Zahra and the Kennedy Sisters of the Fullerton Observer, a “controversy” brushed aside by the council majority who recognized the potential for this unused structure.
So the loading dock is on its way to becoming a new downtown Fullerton venue that will enliven the depot area within the Transportation Center.
After review by City staff the application will ultimately be submitted to the Planning Commission for approval.
A new year, and for Fullerton, lingering problems remain a municipal embarrassment, except that the people in charge don’t seemed particularly inclined to terminate them.
Formerly a public sidewalk
The seven year-old boutique hotel has lots of current actors’ fingerprints on it. And then there’s the decades old case of the hijacked sidewalk on Commonwealth and Harbor, heisted by the Florentine Crime Family in 2002, who put a permanent structure on it, attached to a building they didn’t even own. It has never been returned.
Zahra Congratulates Marovic (in green cap) for his lawsuit…against us.
The current owner of the adjacent structure and the business in it, Mario Marovic, made a deal with the City in 2022 to remove the offending structure.
Marovic reneged on the agreement, and boy he reneged hard. The demotion was to start in March 2023 and be done by that July. Nothing started except that Marovic filed some sort of claim and lawsuit against the City for some made up reason, and the the whole mess disappeared into the usual mists of Closed Session.
In the meantime, Marovic has continued to benefit from the add-on as an integral part of his bar – Mickey’s Irish Pub for three years, and counting.
Meet the new proprietor, same as the old proprietor…
According to the deal rumor, Marovic was supposed to start removing the addition this month, January 2026. If there was a behind the scenes agreement, it should have been made public, although the City lawyers would proclaim the lawsuits pending until the removal is complete, and therefore not subject to public airing in public. Of course that would make no practical difference, but that’s the way it is – secrecy for secrecy’s sake.
Still there, after all these years…
I can’t see Marovic settling anything, stalling has been so fun; but maybe his legal bills are costing him more than revenue from the dozen chairs within the “bump out.” It would be nice to see Fullerton play hardball with this scofflaw, but it probably won’t happen. If the add-on actually does go away, I bet the taxpayers get stuck with the legal bill.
In the meantime the small contingent of “transparency” whiners at City Council meeting, the Fullerton Observer and their tender young investigative reporter Sweet Elijah Manassero don’t seem at all curious about this twenty four year-old scandal. I wonder why.
Warning: Conceptual only, not to be taken seriously!
The other day I described the history of the idiotic Boutique Hotel – a notion to build a high-end hotel on the site of the East Santa Fe parking lot at the Depot. The idea was, and is so stupid that it astounds any commonsensical thinker. And even worse, as the “unsolicited,” exclusive deal became less and less likely, the concept became bigger and dumber. The approved plan more than doubled the density allowed by the Transportation Center Specific Plan.
City projects are virtually immortal if they look like work for eager “economic development” bureaucrats or look like they can be sold as accomplishment by people like Ahmad Zahra and Shana Charles, who think (or pretend to think) that their gullible followers can be fooled into believing something good is happening.
That can’t be good…
Except that nothing good is happening. Our City officials increased the value of the property ten-fold through entitlements, but sold it for its original value – a staggering subsidy of at least ten million bucks. And that subsidy was handed to TA Partners, a flimflam operation fronted by a couple of con men, Johnny Lu and Larry Liu, at the end of 2022.
In the three intervening years nothing has happened so far as the public knows, even as TA Partners’ legal and financial woes have become public; woes that certainly should have been known by our economic development experts in City Hall prior to signing a contract, but weren’t. Why not? And why is the project at least two years behind schedule? Don’t ask. Fullerton being Fullerton.
The land was deeded over to Johnny and Larry without even an approved set of conceptual plans. But the deed was encumbered after a fashion with development and construction milestones.
And here’s the Schedule of Performance mentioned above:
Read. Weep.
I don’t know what sort of plans have been submitted, if any, but I know that grading should have started at least 20 months ago and hasn’t. And look at that project completion deadline – a Certificate of Occupancy by 10/21/26. That’s only nine months from now. As this fiasco looks worse and worse, not a peep from our friends at Fullerton Angry and Fullerton Transparency about the initial giveaway or the state of the schedule. They have more important if less expensive “scandals” to rant about.
More work ahead…
Of course the paragraph tacked on to the Grant Deed, above, describes the covenants attached to the land, but that’s it. Other language talks about the City’s right to legal recourse if the conditions of the covenants are not met. That’s pretty toothless since lawsuits are always possible; there is no mention of Johnny and Larry surrendering their new asset, an asset whose entitlements could still make it worth a fortune. Why the City hasn’t already initiated legal action is a mystery worth speculating upon.
We all know that when it comes to Fullerton redevelopment boondoggles, nobody ever takes responsibility for failures. It’s just not good form to hold the masterminds accountable. Often it’s not enough to just keep quiet; sometimes staff actively tries to keep the boondoggle gasping for air so it can be reassigned to some new front man. That’s what I think must be happening now.
By the way, a majority of the current City Council has not voted for this hot mess. It’s a legacy mess.
It’s way past time to learn what’s going on, to find out what the status of the Boutique Hotel and Apartment monster and to find out why the City hasn’t pursued legal remedy to protect our interests.
The other day my FFFF colleague, Fullerton Harpoon, published a post on a possible move on the part of Fullerton’s annoying liberal claque to drum up support for legalizing cannabis dispensaries in town.
A Hip Hop Drug Guy
It’s really hard to get worked up over Doc HeeHaw’s illegal “hip hop drug guy,” and Fullerton Harpoon was quite right in pointing out the absurdity of the “it costs so much to crack down on illegal stores” as a good argument for legal dispensaries when the real reason to have them is to generate large amounts of cannabis sales taxes and fee revenue.
With the Fullerton budget in parlous condition, cannabis revenue derived from an intelligent program isn’t such an unreasonable idea.
Let’s quickly dive back into history when we examine the previous cannabis dispensary ordinance and its revocation in 2020 and 2021.
Throughout 2020 public discussion was held regarding a potential cannabis dispensary ordinance. Public input was clear people wanted a 1000 foot buffer from “sensitive receptors” such as schools, parks, and houses. In fact the consultant’s map that reflected this desire became known as “the People’s Map.”
That was the map approved for recommendation by Fullerton’s Planning Commission. But a funny thing happened on the way to the City Council.
Flory: Was I really hoodwinked?
The ordinance was pushed through by the Council 3-2, in the waning months of 2020, even though an election promised a new councilmembers. Jan Flory, Jesus Quirk-Silva, and of course Ahmad Zahra voted yes. Jennifer Fitzgerald and Bruce Whitaker voted no.
The problem that many saw was that in the modified plan there was now generous latitude of potential locations, even to have a dispensary 100 feet from a residential zone. This latitude was undoubtedly the result of dope lobby pressure on Zahra and Quirk-Silva to increase their opportunities as much as possible, and to “share the pain” as Quirk-Silva put it. The public could shove it where the sun didn’t shine.
The other obvious problem was that the ordinance invested the authority to approve cannabis licenses in the hands of the City Manager, who at the time was the incompetent Ken Domer; the decisions would be shrouded in secrecy instead of transparently, in public
The People’s Map had been sandbagged by Flory, Zahra and Quirk-Silva.
Just said no…
In December 2020 and in the early months of 2021 the two new councilmembers – Fred Jung and Nick Dunlap joined Whitaker in pulling the plug on the ordinance. No one has tried to resurrect the issue – yet.
So I have a modest proposal. Why not go back to the People’s Map? Why not go back to the earlier suggestions that would have banned these stores within 1000 feet of anybody’s residence? In addition, why not require street visibility from a Primary or Secondary arterial so everything is in plain view? Sure, almost all of the cannabis businesses would be in southwest Fullerton – Council District 5, so what? That’s the reality of Fullerton’s zoning code.
As far as other revenue options go, two proposed special sales taxes on the 2026 ballot might not pass as they require 2/3 majority; even if the council waffles toward reverting to a general sales tax there would have to be 4 council votes to put it on the ballot. Are they there? Without these revenue sources the practical financial aspect of cannabis-generated revenue appears useful.
The same argument against a special or general sales tax increase is always there: why should everybody be asked to make a sacrifice for the city’s welfare when the City Council and the hundreds of municipal employees, whose salaries and benefits paid for by the public, have sacrificed nothing?
And here’s a final thought: why not restrict cannabis revenue to specific deployment – such as roads, sidewalks and street lights?
Difficult decisions such as who gets licenses and how many there should be remain. I’m not confident in our existing bureaucracy to regulate this use successfully, but to me an intelligent rethink of the issue that minimizes citizen concerns is not a bad idea at all.
2026 is here, portending all sorts of fun for Fullerton. Some haunting spirits will have to be propitiated, among them is the so-called “boutique hotel” fiasco, one of the parting gifts of former incompetent City Manager, Ken Domer left for his ultimate successor, Eric Levitt.
You will recall the project: a small, high end hotel at the train station, that over the years morphed into a massive housing project attached to it.
Grab it and consume it as fast as you can…
Domer was the facilitator of the stupid concept cooked up by our former Mayor-for-Hire, the lobbyist Jennifer Fitzgerald. His sole reason for being City Manager, in fact, appeared to be his willingness to enable Fitzgerald’s wish lists into fruition.
And Domer was the fellow who let the project move along, during the gestation – recommending a non-bid, exclusive negotiating agreement with Westpark LLC, a company that couldn’t build a birdhouse. Domer was fired in the spring of 2021 but his boutique child, an infant that should have been strangled in its crib, lived on, proving that make-work ideas supported by staff never die.
Looks good to me…
The years passed and Levitt became godfather to Domer’s baby. In this time his staff had uncovered a new and willing partner – TA Partners. Enter Johnny Lu and Larry Liu, two con artists who were already getting deep into debt and fraud elsewhere in Southern California.
Why is Johnny smiling?
By the end of 2022 the real disaster struck: on December 20, 2022, the City voted to approve an agreement to deed over its property, the value increased tenfold, without an approved project even in place. The supporters? Ahmad Zahra, Shana Charles, and inexplicably, Bruce Whitaker, the latter ignoring any of the warning signs that his instincts should have been screaming to him.
Warning: Conceptual only, not to be taken seriously!
Three years have passed. None of the milestones in the Development and Disposition Agreement have ben met. And nobody is talking about this fiasco, at least not in public. We have all learned that Larry and Johnny have pleaded guilty to fraud; that their project in Irvine collapsed, probably taken over by whatever investment bank was dumb enough to give them a construction loan.
Has the City even contemplated action? No closed session reporting has been forthcoming and no reasons given for why not. FFFF learned that the original Westpark guy, Craig Hostert’s family is suing Larry and Johnny for their hijacking of the project. They must see some sort of asset there. If so they are right.
Despite having failed to meet contractual deadlines, TA Partners owns this 1.7 acre parcel and is presumably paying their property taxes to keep it in the family. And the property has value thanks to a incompetent City Council majority.
They had me at boutique…
The entitlements approved by Whitaker, Zahra and Charles are worth a fortune, and can, with the City’s approval, be assigned to somebody else, a tactic that City bureaucrats have pursued in the past to keep embarrassing projects alive and kicking. But that may not work because only Zahra and Charles will keep voting for this disaster.
This fiasco is now seven years old and if there’s an end in sight, it isn’t even on the horizon.
