It’s a pretty sad thing if your first campaign action is a cheap deception, a deception that is really tantamount to a lie. Or as the Kennedy Sisters would scream: disinformation.
The other day FFFF reported on the 4th District Supervisorial campaign announcement of one Connor Traut, a nebbish-looking guy on the Buena Park City Council whose history is one of self-promotion and carpetbuggery. His mentor was the late creep from Anaheim Jordan Brandman who went nuts and died of acute meth intoxication..
The troutlet’s first announcement as a proclaimed candidate came soon after. In it, he proclaims that his campaign “eclipsed” the $100,000 donation mark in just the first 24 hours! What an unparalleled display of wide and dedicated support!
Little fish, big pond…
CONNOR TRAUT ECLIPSES $100K FUNDRAISING MARK IN RACE FOR OC SUPERVISOR
THANK YOU! I’m so grateful for the outpouring of support following my announcement yesterday that I’m running for Orange County Supervisor. I’m excited to announce that we’ve eclipsed the $100,000 cash-on-hand mark in the campaign’s first 24 hours!
It’s clear that our community shares our vision for the future of Orange County. We’ll continue working hard to raise the resources needed to reach voters in every corner of this district.
Politicians often publicize their bank assets, when they have any, as a way to scare off the competition and to induce potential donors to get on the bandwagon. Of course the confident ones don’t need to. That’s obviously what’s happening here. The problem is in the details.
See, the Troutlet didn’t actually raise any money at all.
That’s a goose egg, kid.
According to facts that came out on the Orange Juice Blog, what the Troutling did was transfer that hundred grand from his Buena Park City Council campaign account, money he has diligently raised over the past 6 years as a councilmember. It’s a shoddy little deception that goes right along with the outdated strategies that didn’t help Vivian Jaramillo, like having a bunch of endorsements from politicians that almost nobody has heard of. Like Jaramillo, he has been endorsed by Josh Newman, Sharon Quirk, Doug “Bud” Chaffee, Shana Charles, Jan Flory, Aruni Thakur and other Fullerton boohoo locals.
Oh, well. At least now we know what to expect from this obnoxious small fry: a marginal sense of ethics, and a lame, expensive, and lumbering campaign.
Sometimes you just have to ask yourself whether somebody is just plain stupid, a liar, or truly untethered to reality. No where is this better seen than in the case of failed City Council candidate Vivian Jaramillo and her followers. We have already seen Jaramillo’s pitiful valediction, full of spite, and of course bemoaning “dirty tricks” of an undisclosed nature as cause of her (heroic) downfall. It was a twilight struggle of good versus evil, see, in a Manichean battle for the soul of Fullerton. Light versus darkness.
One might find this whole thing ludicrous in a way, and write it off as sound and fury, signifying nothing.
But there seems to be more going on here than a self-entitled Karen of a candidate crying about how the kids got into the HOA swimming pool. The holier-than-thou delusion of self-righteousness still seems to run deep in Fullerton. And it matters when the waste of public money, and a lot of it is wasted on stupid, empty gestures, is defended by people like Jaramillo and her supporters.
FFFF has observed how the Observer Kennedy Sisters did their level best to ignore the Scott Markowitz candidacy, a perjurious fraud perpetrated on the voters of the 4th District by Jaramillo’s Team. Sharon Kennedy, the elder sister and self-styled journalist even went so far as to contact key persons in the scandal, Diane Vena, ostensibly to aid in disseminating a plausible backstory – one that made no sense. And no printed story about the true Markowitz tale was ever forthcoming. The story was dirty tricks against Jaramillo.
Apparently, Jaramillo’s friends on Facebook are now lamenting her loss, and many are blindly following the dirty tricks narrative even though none of them seem to be able to articulate just what those may have been.
We all know that social media provides no barrier for people who don’t know what they’re talking about to opine freely, but this is pretty ridiculous. Jaramillo’s friends either don’t know or don’t care about:
the self-sabotage the Jaramillo Team inflicted on itself
the fraudulent Markowitz scam, created by Jaramillo’s supporters to harm the candidacy of Linda Whitaker
that Jaramillo publicly supported the establishment and the later re-enactment of the MJ ordinance that could have allowed a dispensary 100ft from a house
the fact that out-of-town dope dispensary lobby pumped $60,000 to support Jaramillo
that the dope money was laundered through the national HQ of the grocery store workers union
that the marijuana loot was used pay people to hector and harass voters multiple times
that precinct walkers for Jaramillo slandered her opponents, Whitaker and Valencia
that Jaramillo used City personnel to have her opponents signs removed
that Jaramillo’s signs were illegally placed on public and private property
Et cetera, et cetera.
The election is over, but I get the sense that for the near future, at least, the boohooing and hand-wringing of Fullerton’s self-righteous left-leaners will continue – the self-pity, the blissful ignorance, and the high-horseyness competing for dominance.
Thoughts? My first thought is that Fullerton will never change, will never elect responsible and accountable City Councils who will appoint anything but ridiculous members to Commissions and never demand accountability from their staff. And that city staff will always get what it wants, and will keep pushing their agenda until a weary council concedes, or a compliant council agrees.
My second thought is a cliché. Hope springs eternal. We have never seen a strong City Council develop policy and direct staff to implement it. But it remains possible, if vey unlikely.
There seemed to be some confusion…
In District 1 the election is a foregone conclusion, incumbent Fred Jung will tattoo the weird, clownish Matt Truxaw, whom somebody pulled from obscurity, elevated to slightly above obscurity, and who will return to it Wednesday morning.
I know who I want to work for, and it isn’t you!
In District 2 we have the affable and earnest Mayor Nick Dunlap opposed by the octogenarian Jan Flory, the three-time political re-tread who has left her claw marks all over Fullerton’s worst disaster in the past 30 years. If you want mean, sanctimonious, vindictive, and inveterately pro-bureaucracy liberal, she’s your choice. She claims to be the “most experienced” candidate, which suggest an utter lack of self-awareness. Why she wants a fourth lap around the track is anybody’s guess. It seems highly unlikely that there are enough of Flory’s ilk to beat the eager-not-to-offend Dunlap, and I’m pretty sure that won’t happen.
Patsy Markowitz. Left holding the empty bag.
That leaves the 4th District, the place where Democrat operatives created a fake MAGA candidate, Scott Markowitz, to draw votes GOP votes away from incumbent Bruce Whitaker’s wife, Linda, who is running to replace him. Markowitz has copped to a perjury rap, leniently reduced to some community service. Did he rat on anybody? Let’s hope so.
Were there rats aboard the sinking S.S. Markowitz?
The forced smile may not last…
The would-be beneficiary of the Markowitz crimes is Vivian “Kitty” Jaramillo, among whose Democrat supporters must have been participants in the Markowitz election fraud. She is yet another superannuated liberal; she wants high density housing, no overnight parking restrictions, and oh, yeah, a new Golden Age for Fullerton’s underpaid and under-pensioned employees.
A former public employee and million dollar pension recipient herself, Jaramillo actually told the OC Register that she intends to represent the public employees. Jaramillo sought the endorsements of the local Democrat small-fry politicians, including the egregious Zionist Lou Correa. It’s an old-timey strategy but does anybody really care about that kind of thing in 2024? Jaramillo raised a lot of cash from unions. Has she used it wisely? We’ll know tomorrow night, possibly.
Whitaker, Linda
Linda Whitaker has been mostly low-profile from what I can tell. Like Jaramillo, she is another 70-something who seems, well, not too fired up. Not much has been heard of Linda except for except a couple forums and a lot of campaign signs.
4D voters saw some door hangers that included an odd photo of old bikers with Whitaker signs. I don’t know if Ms. Whitaker did any direct mail or is mostly counting on her husband’s name ID with voters.
Andiamo!
Word on the street is that the Whitakers took off for a week during the campaign to go to Fullerton’s Italian Sister City, which isn’t a good look for any candidate who wants to win, and wants people to think she can. Could this be right? It has the ring of truth.
Nurse Jamie
Finally, there is newcomer Jamie Valencia who has conducted a disciplined, well-organized, well-funded campaign, the campaign of somebody who looks an awful lot like a winner, and who may prove to be the biggest surprise in north Orange County politics in a long, long time. Will Valencia be the big beneficiary of the anti-Jaramillo campaign waged by Fullerton Taxpayers for Reform, and not Linda Whitaker? This would be a fun twist.
She got the OC Register editorial team’s endorsement and that, ironically, might hurt Whitaker more than Scott Markowitz ever would have.
Valencia is an attractive, comparatively young woman with kids, a registered ER nurse, and has got the endorsement of the police and fire unions, a helluva coup whatever one’s feelings about those unions might be.
Finally we have the school bond measures L & N, another deep reach into our pockets by grossly overpaid and overstaffed educrats. The fact that we are still paying off previous bonds doesn’t seem to have resonated with these folk, to whom we are nothing but a payday loan opportunity, wherein we pay the principle and interest. In these campaigns, the school districts use our resources to educate us while they shake down out-of-town architects, consultants, construction contractors and subcontractors to pay for the election. They often use district employees, facilities and even students as part of their campaign – it happened last time.
Pretty simple, really…
A guerilla opposition campaign has been waged by Fullerton Taxpayers for Reform with simple but effective signs and robotexts: bond costs are paid for by everybody one way or another.
Will the bonds gather the necessary 55% majority to succeed? The districts’ last bond effort failed in the March 2020 primary. That was right before the pandemic and it’s hard to see a path to success this time, either.
You really have to hand it to the Kennedy sisters, Skaskia and Sharon. They are on the verge of perfecting dumbass hypocrisy.
Patsy Markowitz. Left holding the empty bag.
For weeks and weeks they ignored the obviously phony 4th District candidacy of Scott Markowitz and made every effort to dismiss it as a non-story. When Marko was scooped up by the District Attorney and charged with perjury all they did was repost the DAs press release. When Marko plea bargained they then began to delete comments that questioned their obvious dereliction and bias.
When they finally reported the story of Markowitz’s guilty pleas, it was in their print edition – where nobody could comment at all, and where they continued to pretend that the fake MAGA candidate, hand-held by Democrat operative Ajay Mohan, was a real candidate, now dropping out, instead of what everybody knew was true: Markowitz was a plant to take votes away from Linda Whitaker to the benefit of Observer favorite, Vivian Jaramillo. The unstated implication was clear: Marko acted alone and any other conclusion was a Bushala conspiracy theory.
The prevarication ran deep
What all of this really means is that the Observer Sisters, despite their self-righteous posturing as an “independent news” operation, is just the opposite. Recent FFFF readers started catching on watching their performance on the Trail to Nowhere and the moronic Wilt on Wilshire where the two studiously omitted passing on relevant facts, but actively engaged in drumming up support for their cherished boondoggles.
Why write about news when you can try to make your own! (Photo by Julie Leopo/Voice of OC)
Longer term Observer observers, of course, long ago cottoned on to the preachy sanctimony and bias of the Observers, noting the disparagement, snide innuendo, and outright lies aimed at their supposed political enemies. It’s been going on for 45 years and was the stock-in-trade of the paterfamilias, Ralph Kennedy. Just a week or so ago, while they were deleting comments they permitted a salacious and defamatory comment about Councilman Fred Jung.
Of course nobody is forced to go to the Observer blog, and except for the unintended comedy, errors, misspellings and factual errors and omissions, there really is no reason. Ditto the print edition that is still killing trees for absolutely no reason. On the other hand there is no reason anybody has to treat the Observer even with the modicum of respect one might give a legitimate news outlet.
Phony Fullerton 4th District candidate Scott Markowitz has been arrested by the DA and charged with perjury and falsification of public documents. Somebody other than Markowitz circulated his nominating papers, but he attested that he did.
Normally, in these types of situations that would be the end of the story. Except that in the case of Markowitz – a political unknown – he had help. How much coaching he got, and by whom, remains something of a mystery, but it’s obvious that his perjury was suborned by others.
I’d sell out my own mother for 10 votes, and I have…
We do know that one of his manipulators is the former Executive Director of the OC Democrat Party, one Ajay Mohan who accompanied Markowitz to the City Clerk’s office to pull papers. Was Mohan the circulator? Was it somebody else, somebody that the nominators trusted? Who wrote the carefully crafted and cynical MAGA statement Markowitz got on the ballot? Certainly not Markowitz.
Happy Jaramillo…
Who else may have benefitted from the scam will give us a clue to the extent of the election rigging. Vivian Jaramillo is the number one suspect since Markowitz’s candidacy was meant to attract non-Latino voters from Linda Whitaker.
I will get what I want, one way or another…
One layer deeper, we can discern the shadowy figure of Ahmad Zahra, Fullerton’s 5th District representative who desperately needs Jaramillo’s support to finally become America’s first gay, Arab, Muslim Mayor; and who also needs Jaramillo to finally bring home the marijuana dispensary bacon.
Then there’s Ada Briceno, the current Chairwoman of the OC Democrat Party, the group that endorsed Jaramillo without even talking to anybody else. There’s a big prestige issue here, the ambitious Briceno has a record – she was certainly aware of the Tony Castro scandal in 2022, when her ED Mohan created the fake Latino candidate in Fullerton’s 5th District to protect the egregious Ahmad Zahra.
Slithering things…
The name Aaruni Thakur has also been mentioned, in the comments section below. He deserves special attention. Apparently his family lives and owns property on Wooodcrest, not far from the abode of Scott Markowitz. He and his family have given a lot of money to Jaramillo, and his previous fake carpetbaggery in the 4th District in 2020 gives a fine example of his moral compass.
Above the lowly riffraff are politicians who have invested their political prestige in Jaramillo’s candidacy and who may want to protect that investment while also creating office holders beholden to them. These include Assemblywoman Sharon Quirk, State Senator Josh Newman, and Congressman Lou Correa. How shallow or how deep are the roots of the Markowitz Conspiracy?
Bushala says stop!
All of these issues are presented as a prelude to the topic of this post, which is a letter from Fullerton activist, Tony Bushala to the District Attorney Todd Spitzer asking that the investigation into the situation be continued to find out who got Markowitz to lie.
It’s very clear that at least one other person was involved in suborning perjury. One would have to be relentlessly stupid, a Kennedy Observer, in fact, to believe that Markowitz the political novice, himself was the sole director of this play; that he cooked up the plan; that he decided to create a campaign committee for appearances; that he decided to change his party affiliation; that he that he made sure his new affiliation was on his FPCC documents when it wasn’t required; that he, for some reason, needed and recruited a surrogate to circulate his petition; that he conceived and wrote his ballot statement; that he knew nothing else was required and quietly disappeared, his apologists at the Observer saying he was somehow “threatened” into hiding.
There is an old Latin apothegm: qui bono? Roughly translated the question asks “who benefits” from a given situation whose origins may not be completely clear. Well, let’s find out.
On Tuesday Nick Dunlap was appointed Mayor of Fullerton by the City Council.
That’s “Mayor Dunlap” to you…
Dunlap seems like a decent fellow. He’s been courteous and collegial and always seems to be engaged in meetings. Congratulations to him. Apparently he’s turned down the job in the past, maybe because he’s got a couple of young kids.
I’m not voting for Zahra and you can’t make me…
Fred Jung, the outgoing Mayor was chosen as Mayor Pro Tem, the person who runs meetings if the Mayor is indisposed.
The real story here is that once again Ahmad Zahra was passed over. Oh, the humanity.
Intelligent commentary was not forthcoming…
His band of followers spoke emotionally for him. Why, you’d think he was the incarnation of St. Joan, St. Francis, Albert Schweitzer, Tiny Tim and Mighty Mouse, all rolled into one. Of course that little cavalcade was also the same group of folks who show up every week to challenge the ethics and honesty of the Council majority – at Zahra’s behest.
The system of rotation must be upheld they cried passionately. Fairness, they wailed. One guy got himself so wound up he looked ready to take punches at the air. The agitation. The furor! District 5 will have no Mayor some of the underserved proclaimed. The wailing and gnashing of teeth!
Too much scotch, not enough water…
Even former Councilcreature Jan Flory hauled herself out of inebriate haze to deliver comments whose sole purpose was one last attack on Bruce Whitaker, challenging him to put aside his ill-humor and do the right thing by Zahra, hilariously neglecting to observe her own 30-year old, still unsatisfied vendetta against Whitaker. Clearly the stick up her backside remains firmly in place.
And this was before the vote.
I know what’s best. Trust me.
But none of the offended folk seem to have reflected that there must be an excellent reason for Whitaker, Dunlap, and Jung to deny Zahra “his turn.” Those three obviously don’t like Zahra and don’t trust him. His penchant for self-promotion and his demeaning attitude toward them, so typical of the left-leaning know-it-all, has probably worn very thin. They know it is Zahra who has been orchestrating the ongoing harassment of them through his collection of oddball minions.
Zahra has been said to have filed a complaint to the police against Fred Jung for being a meanie of some sort, a claim that was refuted by everybody present. Zahra lied about being exonerated for a crime to which he pleaded guilty to have his record expunged. These aren’t good ways to earn trust and respect among your colleagues. And then there’s his ties to Melahat Rafiei the dope lobbyist and bribery queen who was just rung up by the US Justice Department.
Then, that very night, the public discovered that Zahra had gone behind the Council and City Manager’s back to talk to a State agency all by himself.
And who knows how many other shenanigans have been played by this unemployed, self-righteous, utterly transactional individual; and who knows what other skeletons might be inclined to tumble out of his closet?
And the end of the meeting Zahra was brought to tears by the injustice, choked up like a little child who wasn’t allowed to play on the monkey bars. The pathos was so thick it brought Zahra’s remaining followers in attendance to weep right along with the object of their affection.
(Revised: I missed the Date Qualified column and so missed the fact that Shelby Perea and Rosalia Guillen did not qualify for the ballot. The text of the post is revised to reflect this)
Here’s the list of candidates in Fullerton’s 3rd and 5th District elections in November.
The most notable feature is the number of Spanish surnamed candidates in the 5th, a fact that makes it much easier for the arrested and charged incumbent, Ahmad Zahra, to continue his sanctimonious hypocrisy from the dais.
This is all ya got?
We already know that Tony Castro is an unemployed dead-beat who gives off the aroma of a Zahra plant meant to split the Latino vote. Oscar Valadez seems to be a good Catholic boy with a family, a house, a real a job, and standing in the community – all of which set him apart from the empty suit, Zahra. Valadez’s statement says a lot of popular sounding stuff and he’s a Stanford graduate. Geez, it would be nice to have a councilman who wasn’t a preening, self-absorbed weasel? Oscar has the support of Fred Jung, so that’s another positive indication. Zahra wants to save murals and “assets.” He says he’s lived in Fullerton for 21 years which is probably just another Zahra lie he figures nobody can disprove. Among his other supporters of dubious intelligence, he lists the octogenarian bird-brain Molly McClanahan – which is almost cause for pity.
This is a Boohoo. There’s just no getting around it…
Over in D3 there are 3 candidates. We’ve already been introduced to Shana Charles, whose statement includes “progressive” catch-phrases. Her statement about restoring Fullerton’s “gutted” services means one thing – another swing at a tax increase. Her backers are the Quirk-Silvas, of course. I wonder if she’s ever even bothered to thank the Council for creating a district that she is in and that Jesus Quirk-Silva is not! The second candidate is Arnel Dino. But Dino Arnel sounds way better, so that’s what I’m calling him from now on. Mr. Arnel seems to be a lefty also, which doesn’t bode well. Those who have seen him perform on the Planning Commission are immensely underwhelmed. The final candidate is John Ybarra who seems to have relocated to the 5th District. His campaign statement is concise and rational. It appears to be a somewhat conservative and pragmatic voice. One thing is certain: the other two will never fight for accountability at City Hall.
The final element in this election will be the Independent Expenditure committees. The cops and emergency truck driver unions will back Zahra and most likely Charles – liberals, yes, but public union supporters, uber alles.
Things could be better. Or they might get worse…
Then there’s Fullerton Taxpayers for Reform, an I.E. run by Tony Bushala that evidently has set its sights on Zahra. They have already launched a shot across Zahra’s bow, and are likely to continue the pummeling until Zahra’s attitude improves.
Here’s a delightful season’s greeting from Fullerton power couple Sharon Quirk and Jesus Quirk-Silva.
We’re a team!
As far as these things go, it’s completely benign. Or banal. Especially compared with those tasteless cards mailed by the woman who financed the Quirk-Silva’s house, Loretta Sanchez.
Great minds think alike…
But there’s a bit of a problem here, and one I sure hope the “greeters” address.
The mailer was paid for by Ms. Quirk’s campaign committee, which is okay so far as that goes. But her husband, Jesus Quirk-Silva is the co-beneficiary of this epistle, since he too, is an elected official.
Now there’s nothing illegal about benefitting politically from your wife’s political ascendancy, unless, of course, there is fungible benefit therefrom.
And so, I hope that Mr. Quirk-Silva will be reporting this donation from his wife’s campaign coffers; and of course that the missus will be reporting the contribution.
The train of thought was weak but it sure was short…
We here at FFFF have never thought of Jesus Quirk Silva as a very bright fellow, but he seems to have learned at least one thing on the Fullerton City Council. And that lesson came courtesy of former councilwoman-for-hire, Jennifer Fitzgerald.
Gone, but not forgotten…
That lesson is simple: it’s more fun to try to peddle influence based on your elected position than it is to hold down a day job.
And so Mr. Quirk Silva has embarked on a new potential career path – away from teaching multiplication to slack-jawed pre-pubescents, and into the exiting realm of lobbying local governments.
Who knew a liquid could have so many angles…
Quirk Silva’s “employer” is Adan Ortega, of Ortega Associates, who you may remember as the desperate Fullerton MWD director who was replaced by Fred Jung, and who then tried to get appointed as a representative from the city of San Fernando.
I fully expect Quirk-Silva to attempt to follow in the footsteps of Fitzgerald, although he can barely utter a coherent sentence.
Now why does any of this matter, really? Because government ought to be about governing, not about being a bagman between special interests, other lobbyists, developers, and your colleagues on local boards and councils.
As a Fullerton Councilman, Quirk Silva doesn’t have that much juice, but he could be pulled and persuaded very easily. More importantly, his wife, Sharon Quirk Silva, is a state Assemblywoman, and as such actually does command respect for how she might be able to move something along in Sacramento.
And now back to Ortega. FFFF sources have indicated that he was attempting to break into the legalized marijuana biz here in Fullerton as a lobbyist, but got caught up in the interminable incompetence of the last city council, and the reluctance of the new council to go down the happy MJ trail. The same sources suggest that a cartel of cannabis interests from Long Beach is still very interested in reviving the issue in Fullerton.
You said it, man. Nobody fucks with the Jesus
The Jesus has been a long-time, big-time cheerleader for legalized dispensaries in Fullerton, so there are several loose strings as yet not quite tied together.
