According to the Fullerton Police Department, their employees killed another person Saturday night.
Responding to a domestic dispute call in the 700 block of West Orangethorpe Avenue the cops arrived on the scene and discovered a 19 year old male “matching the description” on the sidewalk. Here’s the tale from the press release:
Despite repeated commands from officers, the suspect was noncompliant. In a sudden turn of events, he lifted his shirt and pulled what appeared to be a handgun from his waistband, prompting an officer-involved shooting.
Officers immediately began life-saving measures until paramedics arrived, but the suspect was pronounced dead at the scene. A pellet gun, closely resembling a Smith & Wesson handgun, was recovered near the suspect.
Oh, no. Another one of those dreary FPD press releases that always sound like an immediate exculpation rather than a simple statement of the bare facts
At the point of first contact the cops confronted a guy who may or may not have done anything wrong. We know he wasn’t juiced because if he had been the statement would have said so. There goes Excuse Option One.
We don’t know what those “commands” given by the police were, of course, or even if they were reasonable. It will be interesting to see and hear what sort of dialog ensued during this confrontation. Was it calming, or was it the sort of thing that might prompt escalation?
Then there was “…a sudden turn of events.” What is this a high school creative writing class? For some as yet unknown reason this young man decided on the ever popular Excuse Option Number Two: suicide by cop. The inevitable “waistband” is deployed by the cop writer, although the PR had earlier stated that the culprit had been waving a knife at Dad at the incident address. I’m not sure who wanders around with a pellet gun shoved in his pants but there was one, apparently that (closely!!) resembled a Smith and Wesson handgun.
We will be comforted to know that all will be revealed within 45 days via one of those Critical Incident Community Briefing Video.
The other night City Councilperson Ahmad Zahra put on quite a display of self-righteous indignation. The topic was whether or not to look into the advantages of Fullerton becoming a charter city. That move might give the city some flexibilities our current status as a General Law city might not afford. The issue was about as dangerous as self-rising flour, but to hear Zahra go on about it you’d think a vast conspiracy was afoot to separate Fullerton citizens from their freedom.
His outraged and disjointed diatribe must have lasted five minutes. He went for the cheap seats. Anger. Sardonic smiles. Dramatic hand gestures. Putting on, taking off glasses. Goodness gracious. How he longs to be a Third World dictator.
Zahra’s indignance was theatrical, of course. He had to play out his part in front of the dozen people he could muster to attend the meeting and cry about impending doom. But his description of the charter city idea was phrased in language that denigrated the current Council majority whom “nobody trusts,” nobody being, presumably a few dozen Zahra puppets and the Observer Sisters.
Their goal, according to Zahra, was to create new “land use” rules that would benefit the person who put the majority in their Council chairs and who spends his time buying up properties left and right. The unnamed bogeyman of Fullerton Boohoo – Tony Bushala. Goodness gracious, Zahra went on, the City of Fullerton itself was at stake.
Zahra’s other claims were so stupid and impossible that they hardly need to repeated except to show how desperate he has become. A charter city he falsely exclaimed, could get rid of competitive bidding on projects leading to shoddy construction! A charter city he falsely claimed could evade California’s prevailing wage laws leading to shoddy construction!
And then: the roads fix the roads. The roads are as bad as ever. The priceless wrap up? Zahra said the Council majority would tell people what they want to hear. And it won’t be the truth. Wow. Coming from leaky, weepy, dedicated to his con of the boohoos, Zahra.
When Zahra had finished his histrionics he was immediately challenged by Councilman Nick Dunlap for his previous no votes on infrastructure spending. Zahra interrupted noisily, as he has been doing lately, but was shut down by Dunlap and Mayor Jung. Councilwoman Jamie Valencia told Zahra not to worry – his Academy Award will come someday. She was greeted with boohoo boos from Zahra’s pals in the audience.
Spin and kick…
One telling part of this episode was when Councilperson Shana Charles, who had just cheerfully stated her interest in the charter possibility, voted no on the motion simply to study the idea – right after Zahra’s melt down.
The motion carried 3-2 so we have not heard the last of this issue.
The City Council meeting agenda for March 4th has some interesting “Closed Session” items on it. For those who don’t know, Closed Session is a private meeting of the Council when legal, personnel or real estate issues are involved. The City Attorney attends the session, too, in our case the hapless buffoons of The I Can’t Believe It’s a Law Firm of Jones and Mayer.
Here’s the line up of issues.
Number 1 is about something up at the City Owned golf course – one of the too little scrutinized assets of the City of Fullerton. This has been a source of embarrassment for City staff and FFFF instruction in the past.
Ferguson and Curlee. The easy winners…
Our Friend David Curlee ran afoul of City Staff when he uncovered the rank incompetence of Alice Loya and Hugo Curiel as well as the misappropriation of Brea Dam Enterprise funds. And that’s likely the reason they dragged him into the FFFF/Joshua Ferguson lawsuit.
Why is Johnny smiling?
Number 2 is about the idiotic “boutique” hotel fiasco in which the City up-zoned the Hell out our property and then virtually gave it away to “Westpark/TA” an operation run by a couple crooks whose prior record was never disclosed to the City Council or the public. Well we found out all about it, even if our highly paid “professionals” in City Hall didn’t bother.
Any reasonable representatives of the people would have shit-canned this deal on Day 1. Not Fullerton, of course. What in the world could they be negotiating? TA hasn’t met any of its deadlines, got caught recording a phony deed, etc. TA should have been dumped a long, long time ago and their purchase amount forfeited. Interestingly the City seems to have brought in Best, Best and Krieger to do represent the City. At least it isn’t Jones and Mayer. Still, I wonder why.
Zahra Congratulates Marovic for his lawsuit…against us.
Number 3 is about our old friend Mario “Bump Out” Marovic, the scofflaw who took over from the Florentine Family in ripping off the public. He’s still illegally occupying the space he was supposed to have demolished two goddamn years ago.
Forgotten but not quite gone…
He is obviously in default of that agreement – a deal that moronically permitted him to open up his businesses and profit off our building on our sidewalk. Our indifferent City staff and Council doesn’t seem to have the stomach to give this weasel notice that he has been trespassing and that they were going to demolish the building add-on and restore the sidewalk themselves.
No, we don’t have to say shit…
Number 4 is one of those “anticipated litigation/significant exposure to litigation” items in which secrets can be withheld from potential litigants – like Friends for Fullerton Future – based on the squishy definition of the word “significant,” and self-serving public servant who happens to be defining it. Could this item be related to FFFF’s request for presence on City property? I don’t know, but I wouldn’t be surprised.
We’ve seen his own flailing effort to create a controversy over Councilwoman Jamie Valencia’s campaign contributions, going so far as to basically accusing his own City Attorney of incompetence in the matter. And that’s not the only unforced error made by this little fellow.
Zahra says take a hike!
Back in January Zahra decided not to re-appoint his Planning Commissioner Arif Mansuri, a gentleman FFFF has noted as a diligent and intelligent representative with actual professional credentials. Zahra instead appointed a young guy named Adrian Meza.
Never heard of Meza? I didn’t either so I did some research. The guy is one of those identity politicking “progressive” types, without any discernable ability who hang around politics for critical self validation – just like his apparent mentor, Ahmad Zahra. Meza says he is a Digital Marketing Specialist, whatever that means, and works for a company that arranges egg collection and surrogacy for gay people. What this has to do with experience in land use and planning is beyond me.
More importantly, Meza is a member of the that preachy and self-righteous crowd that doesn’t do an awful lot of thinking for themselves. Naturally he has been a writer of some kind for the Fullerton Observer that touted his video about how bad Fullerton’s roads are. The video recommended new taxes, of course, and even spent time wedging in support for the Trail to Nowhere with a hat tip to the community disservice of FFFF.
His bio on linkedin suggests he is still a Parks Commissioner (his first listed title!) and and even lists his efforts for the Observer as some sort of real job. Other stuff is part-time work in municipal park departments. Of course, like Zahra, he describes himself as a “videographer” with one amateur attempt listed. Man, talk about fluffing. We do have another Zahra on our hands.
Nothing left but empty bloviation…
Anyway, this selection has come to grief, apparently because Mr. Meza doesn’t currently live in Fullerton. as required by law. WoW. That’s embarrassing. How is it that Zahra didn’t know his guy doesn’t live here? And an even better question would ask whether Meza has been on Fullerton’s Park and Rec Commission while not a citizen of Fullerton. That would look bad. The question deserves an answer from Zahra; if Meza was willing to be on our Planning Commission illegally there’s no reason to suppose he had no qualms about being a Parks Commissioner while living, say, in Anaheim.
Of course no one will get an answer from Zahra about this, because no one will ask. Hopefully one of the other Councilpersons who ratified the nomination will try to find out. But I doubt it, Fullerton being Fullerton.
“Follow the Money” is their headline. But wait. Isn’t something missing?
Indeed, yes. They decided to publish information about the three winning candidates whom the really don’t like. And of course Fullerton Taxpayers for Reform has been the bane of big spending bureaucrats and politicians for years. But where is the information on Vivian Jaramillo?
Missing in action, I’d say.
But I checked all the right boxes!
Jaramillo got lots of campaign contributions from local unions, public employees, and lot from Fullerton’s public pension retiree gaggle. Not too much surprise there, so why not publish it? It’s still relevant.
But what really stood out was the omission of the massive Independent Expenditure Committee created to get Jaramillo elected. “Working Families for Kitty Jaramillo” was the recipient of $60,000 up front from the national HQ of the grocery store workers union. The local union “sponsored” the IE, but the dough came from Washington DC and the smart money was on its origin being none other than the Southern California dope dispensary cartel.
The marijuana money would be real hard for the Kennedy Sisters to explain without reminding folks that Jaramillo earned the nickname “Cannabis Kitty” due to her prior staunch support of Ahmad Zahra’s push for the broadest marijuana ordinance – the one he, Silva, and Flory voted on at the end of 2020.
The look of vacant self-satisfaction…
More even handed “reporting,” right? I don’t suppose anything is going to change from these darlings. The sniping, innuendo and criticism of Valencia, Jung, and Dunlap will continue unabated, with the usual conflation of news and editorial – in violation of any journalistic standards.
The wasteful fantasy known as “Walk on Wilshire” may be dead – even though its advocates continue their public weeping – but interesting information about the boondoggle continues to to come to light – information that doesn’t put Fullerton in a good light. WoW is yet another Fullerton cautionary tale.
One issue about WoW never discussed in public, was the Mulberry Street Ristorante parklet’s violation of the standards of Southern California Edison regarding setbacks around their transformer vaults.
Oops.
There’s the culprit, deceptively hiding under car…
It turns out there’s an Edison tranformer vault in the street right in front of the “ristorante,” and right where their “parklet” was built. Here’s the plan for the parklet. The vault is dead center in the middle of it.
The problem popped up in October, 2023 when an Edison inspector discovered a problem: Edison requires a 15ft set back around the outside of their concrete vault, free of construction.
Oops.
Now, we can’t tell what that set back would look like without a sketch. So let’s make one!
The off-limits area inside the black square essentially eradicates the poor parklet. Oops!
Edison sent Mulberry Street a couple warning letters, the second, repeating the issues, in December, 2023.
Mulberry St. Ristorante replied to both these missives, saying more or the same thing each time.
Saying fuck you to Edison isn’t a very smart thing to do if you happen to use electricity, as we will soon see. Be sure to notice how Brandon Bevins, Mulberry’s Manager, also advises Edison to talk to the City of Fullerton!
This correspondence triggered a series of subtly urgent communications between the City Engineer and Edison at the end of 2023. Even our highly paid City Manager, Eric Levitt, was somehow dragged into this low-grade stupidity – all because the City staff who “managed” this project never thought to talk to Edison in the first place.
The tenor of the correspondence and the subsequent meetings was polite, but somewhat stiff since SCE had zero intention of looking the other way. In fact, SCE notified Mulberry Street that they were going turn off the juice to the whole property on January 19, 2024 sans compliance. So Bevins, who must have been panicking, tried to scare the City into desperate action.
Bevins was plenty pissed, and suggested that the we pay the costs for his parklet – just north of $40,000! So now the City had another self-inflicted wound. But wait. Mulberry wasn’t in the clear, either.
In correspondence from December 2022 the City (somebody named Matt Laninovich) erroneously tells Bevins that their parklet can cover the SCE vault so long as there is a hinged door in the parklet platform for access. Of course he pulled that out of his ass; but he also wisely informs Bevins to consult with Edison. Had Bevins done so he could have saved everybody time and trouble, including himself. Nevertheless, the City is now a full partner in a SNAFU that was completely avoidable.
A resolution of sorts was achieved on January 24, 2024 when Edison agreed to let the parklet remain if seating on it were limited to an area outside a 15ft radius from the perimeter of the iron manhole in the middle of the vault. The manhole would have to be reinforced (in case it might blow off in an explosion, presumably) and the vault had to be accessible from the Wilshire Avenue side.
This resolution doesn’t look too promising for Mulberry Street that also had to pay for that additional manhole restraint. Look. There’s hardly any room for seating left.
Was the parklet enlarged to make it actually work? Did Edison finally look the other way? Documents acquired from a Public Act Request don’t inform us: at this point information provided by the City about this issue ends. Was there more? Who knows?
One thing I do know is that images of the operating parklet from last year show tables within the no-go zone.
How much risk were the patrons who used the Mulberry Street parklet exposed to for the past year? How much risk if Edison had not spotted the issue to begin with? I don’t know, but Edison has safety rules for a reason. The explosion of the transformer in Huntington Beach in 2019 gives us some indication of what can go wrong, and the consequences of that episode were actually considered lucky.
Walk on Wilshire. A tail-wagging-the-dog gift that keeps on giving. The thing is a moot issue now, fortunately. But if anybody feels like asking good questions about this or other city-created public hazards, I’ll bet my Nevada ranch they won’t get good answers.
The trouble with the City of Fullerton’s Public Records Act system is that responses are so dilatory, so frequently incomplete, and often so non-responsive, as Friends have seen over the years, it’s hard to know if you can draw any firm conclusions from what are charitably called public records.
Here’s an interesting request made a couple of weeks ago.
The request has elicited a “full release” response, so we may infer, I hope, that it really is full.
It’s a total waste of money, but it sure is short…
Why is this request interesting? Because the obscure State Department of Natural Resources is the grant-giving sugar daddy of the 2.1 million dollar UP Trail fiasco.
I noted back on January 27th that there were problems with the Trail to Nowhere project schedule, namely, that the design and construction milestones were seven and five months late, respectively.
It’s hard to know the exact status of this boondoggle because nobody in City Hall is saying anything about it to the public. I (confidently) assume the final design was never submitted to the State because the City Council never approved it, never released a bid or awarded a contract. Construction has obviously not started. Now there are just eight months left to do it all.
The trees won’t block the view…
This is where the PRA request comes in. The response just shares a short email string between Fullerton and Natural Resource Department people trying to set up a meeting for a briefing on some water project up north and its impact on MWD cities’ water supply. That’s it. There is nothing about the grant for the so-called UP Trail.
The project showed little promise, but they didn’t care…,
So what is the status? Were the milestones waived by the Natural Resources Department? Has some schedule modification been made? If so there’s no correspondence (at least none shared by the City Clerk) that show it. That’s pretty odd, isn’t it? Is it possible the State isn’t even keeping track of the agreement and the City isn’t bothering to remind them? That strikes a believable chord.
At this point it seems highly unlikely that the Trail to Nowhere could be completed in time, but maybe hope springs eternal. The State doesn’t seem to care.
Ahmad Zahra and his pal Shana Charles made a big deal about this dumbassery and organized such an annoying Astroturf backing for it, that the previous council majority chickened out and agreed to the mess. They haven’t been talking about it either, even though they already took a victory lap and threw themselves a party.
FFFF received a fun email the other day, pecked out by Fullerton 5th District Councilman Ahmad Zahra. It is directed to Fullerton Assistant City Attorney Baron Bettenhausen, a fellow that the Friends met yesterday. Ahmad writes on January 27th, and is obviously still in a grand funk about losing his precious Walk on Wilshire the previous week.
We’re #1.08!
The tone of the letter is pretty unfriendly since Zahra seems to believe Bettenhausen has left out something real important in the discussion of Jamie Valencia returning campaign contributions. Of course, as we have seen, none of this would have been necessary if Bettenhausen knew the law and had known about the FPPC decision in Palo Alto before January 21st.
But let’s let Ahmad speak for himself:
From: Ahmad Zahra <ahmad.zahra@cityoffullerton.com> Sent: Sunday, January 26, 2025 9:55 PM To: Baron J. Bettenhausen <bjb@jones-mayer.com>; Richard D. Jones <rdj@jones-mayer.com>; Eric Levitt <Eric.Levitt@cityoffullerton.com> Subject: Conflict of interest question
Caution: This is an external email and may be malicious. Please take care when clicking links or opening attachments.
Baron, at the last council meeting, you had opined that CM Valencia could vote on the matter of Walk on Wilshire since she had returned the campaign contributions to Tony Bushala and Cigar Shop owner, both of whom have direct economic interests in the decision. Community members have shared with me some concerns regarding your rendered opinion and I’d like clarifications from you.
Was the FPPC consulted on this matter, as has been the practice in the past on complicated issues (example: CM Charles votes on CSUF)? If so, where is their opinion letter and why was it not presented at the time of the meeting?
There’s been a claim that the funds hadn’t been actually returned even if the return check was issued. This is a claim from a resident that raised concerns but no evidence was presented. But it does bring up the question, what evidence did CM Valencia present to you and why was that not made public? This is especially relevant because that reporting period for campaign committees isn’t until Jan 31st, occurring after the meeting itself with no chance for the public to verify any of this.
In your opinion that night, while you addressed the letter of the law, did you factor in the spirit of the law? It seems to easy for anyone to take contributions, use them, then conveniently return the funds before a vote. This is especially important to know as CM Valencia was fully aware of the WoW vote since apparently it was a question asked to her during the campaign.
I would appreciate a clarification on these questions and would request that an FPPC letter confirming your opinion on this matter be made available to the public to prevent any legal issues. Any correspondence to the FPPC should also include the concerns of the public for a comprehensive review.
I am also requesting that any action to execute the reopening of Wilshire be delayed until such legal questions are resolved to avoid any legal challenges to the city.
Note: I am writing this email in the interest of the public and thus deem it and any response to it in the public domain and not under any lawyer confidentiality privilege.
Oh dear me. Where to start. Naturally, Zahra wants to make up and nurture a scandal where there is none. He’s obviously been stirring up an element of outraged Fullerton Boohoo to keep the red herring going. He even uses the same language as the Kennedy Sisters: “there’s been a claim,” and “This is a claim from a resident that raised concerns but no evidence was presented.”
FFFF first addressed the non-applicability of the law in question way back on January 21st. We know Zahra reads FFFF, but maybe he didn’t catch that post.
Anyway, Zahra wants to know if the FPPC has been consulted about this horror of horrors. We now know that the FPPC previously ruled on the identical issue in a case in Palo Alto. FFFF relayed that information, here on February 10th. The answer is clear as a bell: the law doesn’t apply. Bettenhausen should have known this before January 21, and maybe even before Valencia gave back money she didn’t have to.
Ahmad made me wear this and took a picture.
Then Zahra’s deep sea fishing expedition turns to the completely baseless “actual claim” that although a check may have been written, it wasn’t cashed, challenging Valencia’s integrity and Bettenhausen’s lack of diligence.
Zahra’s final numbered point is really funny. He wonders why the “spirit” of the law is not being upheld. Poor Ahmad should be addressing his lament to the State Legislature instead of his own attorney, but, whatever.
Here goes…
Zahra wants the FPPC findings on the issue to be made public, and he requests that WoW remain open until such time as the FPPC responds. Zahra’s worried about legal challenges? From whom? The Kennedy Sisters and Diane Vena? Man, what a failed Hail Mary. WoW was unceremoniously removed a few days after Zahra’s demand letter. Thousands more laughed than did weep at it.
Poor Ahmad wraps up his missive by letting his own lawyer know that this email and any response are free from attorney-client confidentiality – in the public interest, of course. That’s good ’cause we got it, Ahmad, being members of the public, and all. Was there ever even a response by Bettenhausen in the end? Who cares
Friends may remember the name Diane Vena in connection to the 2024 phony Fullerton District 4 council candidacy of newly minted Republican, Scott Markowitz. Poor Diane signed his nominating papers for some as yet unconfessed reason, although Sharon, the elder Kennedy Sister has claimed it was the behest of a fantastical and unnamed “conservative friend.”
But I checked all the right boxes!
Of course the problem was that Poor Diane had already endorsed a candidate in that election – Vivian Jaramillo. Her endorsement, whatever it’s worth, was on Jaramillo’s website. She was obviously an ardent member of Team Jaramillo. Uh oh. That’s not very good is it?
Bringing it all back home…
Anyhow, Poor Diane also makes a frequent nuisance of herself at council meetings, and the meeting of February 4th was no different. Her public comment was just so wonderfully inane, delusional and daft. Add in some Grade A Fullerton Boohoo boohooing and you have something that is so elevated in near-artistic sublimity that it deserves special recognition. Seriously, I couldn’t write a better satirical piece on the now defunct “Walk on Wilshire” and the dumbass boohooing that supported it.
The following AI summation is reproduced from the Fullerton Observer:
Diane Vena: She wanted to express her thoughts on the closing of Walk and Wilshire. Honestly, her heart was heavy. That morning, she drove down a street that used to be something beautiful, but it had now been reduced to just an ordinary little street. She had come to love Walk on Wilshire, especially the lake area, and appreciated seeing how many others loved it too. She was there with a friend on Friday when they were dismantling everything; it might have been Thursday, but she couldn’t remember for sure. As she watched them take it all apart, she cried because she couldn’t help it. She disagreed with one of the previous speakers: many people paid taxes, and roads should serve all of us, including those who walked, those who could not drive, and those who simply preferred not to. She believed they had lost something beautiful. That morning, all she saw was about 200 feet of road with cars driving through, and there wasn’t much traffic or activity. Normally, that space would have been filled with people enjoying breakfast, walking their dogs, or simply strolling along. She saw it as a tragedy that they had lost such a vibrant community space.
Of course the pathos of the paradise lost is funny. But so is the recognition that now cars can and do use the reopened street. Poor lachrymose Diane’s tears are wasted, of course; but in her worldview somehow the street belongs to pedestrians, too.
Faites-vous attention, Claudette et Mimi…
I’m reminded of one of those bad paintings of Parisian boulevards with witless pedestrians wandering around in the middle of street.
Poor Diane misses the morning hustle and bustle no rational person ever saw: mythical dogs and masters meandering in the street; strollers strolling back and forth across the 200 length of roadway. It had been “beautiful,” but now was “ordinary.” But at least Poor Diane noticed car drivers using the street – the very purpose of a paved road, in fact. And she unwittingly admits that she was one of them.
That’s the bureaucratic snarl that surrounds the standard American community due to mandates from Sacramento and Washington.
Half a mile of high-density housing.
We just had 13,000 potential new housing units shoved down our throat by the State of California Housing and Community Development pointy-headed paper pushers with the connivance of SCAG – the Association of Southern California Governments, that supplies the cooked up numbers. The good folks at SCAG answer to nobody, and the State Legislature just loves them some housing bureaucracy – and the more intrusive, the better, apparently.
And now what, you ask? Why another mandate – a five year “2025 Housing Consolidated Plan” required by the people at the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development. Here’s the City of Fullerton’s grand announcement of…a survey to get the ball rolling.
A cynical type person might suspect that the only real reason for any of this massive and seemingly eternal paper chase is to keep public employees employed: hiring consultants, reviewing surveys, gathering “data,” writing reports of compliance, reading reports of compliance, writing notifications of compliance and non-compliance, writing more reports, reading more reports, handing out awards for compliance, and general bureaucratic backslapping all around.
The effects of all this mumbo jumbo on the communities it impacts are neither here, nor there. The government Kabuki-hustle described as public participation is necessary, but let’s be honest. The goal of this splendidly vast empire is simply to amass more budget and hire more people at government agencies. If only American industry could match this amazing growth record over the past 60 years.
We gotta go up!
So what motivates local compliance with all this gobbledygook? Well, there’s the old carrot and stick, as you might imagine – two sides of the same metaphorical coin. If you play nice and do what you’re told you get Federal and State money, part of which you can use to hire people into your city’s “housing” department, a thing that didn’t exist until the 60s and 70s. That’s empire building, a point of pride for your garden variety city manager. Everyone wants a cookie, right?
You know you can’t resist the Big Cookie!
But if you don’t go along and try to fight back against the idiot mandates, like Huntington Beach is doing right now, you incur the full wrath of State and Federal magistrates; from houseacrats to attorneys general and judges – the latter really just loyal public employees in silly robes. The reluctant jurisdiction will be threatened with a cut of of State and Federal payments, grants, and other beneficent distributions from far away capitals. No cookie for you, naughty boy.
