Friends For Fullerton's Future

August 9, 2023August 9, 2023Ahmad Zahra

It’s Ba-a-a-a-a-a-ck. The Trail to Nowhere Resurfaces

It’s a truism that cherished ideas of bureaucrats never die, despite the best efforts of people with common sense to kill them.

Just keep reapplying. You may get the job someday…

And so the previously proposed recreation trail from the poisoned UP Park to Independence Park is back in the news. How do I know? Because of a typical propaganda piece in The Fullerton Observer. This “article” is so lame, so badly written and so full of bias for this idiot idea that I am reproducing it in its entirety.

Revitalization of Union Pacific Park Gets Approved

BY STAFF ON AUGUST 7, 2023 • ( 5 COMMENTS )

In a remarkable display of community engagement, the City of Fullerton organized a public meeting on June 29th to gather input from residents about the revitalization of Union Pacific Park and the construction of the Union Pacific Trail. The conference aimed to hear the public’s desires and ideas for these projects, with the park set to be refurbished and the trail transformed into a fully realized pathway connecting Union Pacific Park and Independence Park.

During the meeting, various discussions ensued, with attendees grappling with visualizing certain areas based on maps and images. To gain a better understanding, the proactive community decided to schedule an on-site visit to the park and walk the trail together.

Egleth Nuncci took the initiative to collect participants’ contact information, and on July 8th, an enthusiastic crowd, including new faces, gathered for the expedition. With the valuable assistance of the Parks and Police departments, the walkers could explore the proposed trail route safely. Among the participants were notable figures such as Parks and Recreation Commissioner Adrian Meza, Active Transportation committeemember Anjali Tapadia, and Fullerton School District Board Members Ruthi Hanchett and Aaruni Thakur.

As they traversed the trail, they encountered rough terrain filled with rocks, weeds, and litter. However, despite these challenges, everyone recognized the trail’s immense potential as a seamless pathway connecting the parks. After the enlightening walk, the project options were brought before the commission.

Option 1 was to create a simple trail with a bike lane, fully funded by grant money from the city.
Option 2 involved building an additional road alongside the path, but this would require city funding as the grant wasn’t sufficient to cover road construction.

Passionate voices emerged during the commission meeting, with many walkers advocating for the trail-only option, urging against sacrificing greenery for a road. Commissioner Meza thanked everyone who participated in the community walk, including city staff members, for their invaluable insights.

Ultimately, the commission voted in favor of the trail-only option, a testament to the power of community involvement and the collective vision for a connected, green, and vibrant future. The decision now heads to the council for final approval, further exemplifying the democratic process at work in shaping the future of Union Pacific Park and Trail based on the voices of the people it will serve.

The title suggests something has been approved, which isn’t even true – par for the Observer course, of course. We are told that the City of Fullerton organized some sort of field trip along the UP right-of-way and that a remarkable display of community engagement occurred. We learn that “notable” figures showed up; notable to whom? We are left to wonder. In a hilarious and ironic comment we learn that there was some police presence to escort the limousine liberal entourage along the rocks, weeds and litter. Clearly somebody thought this jaunt could be unsafe, and somebody was right. However the proposed trail will somehow alleviate all this unsafeness.

The Observer tells us about the boundless potential of “seamless” pathway between parks (if you don’t count Highland and Richman Avenues). At least these people have given up peddling the lie of connectivity between this route and anything else at either end.

What’s really strange is that in this article the “community walk” somehow morphed into a “commission” meeting with a vote taken to eliminate a multi-modal option (a direct contradiction to the position already laid out by the Fullerton City Council). And the Observer sums up fulsomely by claiming preposterously, that some sort of democratic process took place and the voices of the people, rather than the stupid idea of a couple stubborn and insubordinate bureaucrats, won the day.

What really happened is that on June 29th a select gaggle of hangers on was invited to walk the length of Alice Loya’s pipe dream. The Parks Commission met on July 10th to get the one-sided report of what happened and to make a recommendation (not an approval) to the City Council. The staff report for this meeting makes no mention of the council’s previous position on these topics: namely that the area should be treated as a whole – not a piecemeal collection of bad ideas, and that furthermore, a multi-modal approach to the right-of way be considered. This last option was never considered at all. The report also ignores the fact that the UP Park ad hoc committee has committed itself to nothing as yet.

In other words, Parks staff wiped the slate clean and regurgitated that same garbage they tried last time. Same old strategy that has worked so well for them in the past.

August 5, 2023Behind Closed Doors

Friends Around the Country: What Happens in Arkansas Stays in Arkansas. Or Does It?

by The Fullerton Shadow11 Comments

When people bother to think of Arkansas at all, an image of Ozarks hillbillies plucking Tyson chickens springs most readily to mind. Apparently folks there also seek opportunity by digging up diamonds out of the dirt; in fact the old state nickname was “The Land of Opportunity.”

There are all sorts of opportunities in Arkansas, I suppose, although not all may be of the sort one would want to share in their origin narrative with others. Of course the same thing could be said of California, too.

July 23, 2023July 23, 2023Ahmad Zahra

George Santos in Fullerton

by The Fullerton Shadow24 Comments

Everybody knows the guy who embellishes everything thing he does, often to the extent of fabricating resumes. We encounter these people mostly in the workplace where their toadyism keeps them employed.

Politics seems to attract these types in droves. Why? First, because the only real ability required in politics is getting elected and the self-absorbed, even delusional narcissist’s only real ability is to lay a successful con on people too lazy or indifferent to do a little research. Second, because once you get in to office the slate is often (but not always) wiped quite clean by the investiture of authority.

Which brings me first to George Santos, the serially prevaricating, baby-faced congressman from New York who was elected last fall based on a litany of lies so disturbing and so manifold that you really have to wonder if this loser has any connection to reality at all. His mother didn’t die on 9/11; he wasn’t a Wall Street wolf; he didn’t play volleyball at Baruch College that required knee surgeries. And on and on. But he had branded – gay Republican and that seemed to throw everybody off the aroma emanating from this sad, greasy individual.

These days it’d pretty hard to hide your past if someone goes digging into it. From a chequered past as a Brazilian check kiter and transgender beauty queen, a Jew”ish” person of Ukrainian descent; the lies were so stupid and so plentiful that even the media and the electorate took notice.

I have noticed similar manifestations of the Santos Syndrome here in Orange County.

Exhibit 1 for the Prosecution Fullerton’s D5 Councilmember Ahmad Zahra.

Zahra popped up out of nowhere in 2018 to get himself elected the council. He, like Santos had a brand: first gay Muslim to run for office, etc. But nobody really knew anything about him except what he told them: Syrian refugee, a physician, a film maker. A real noble and honorable story right? There is no local media, the voters were stupid and Zahra’s only competition was Paulette Marshall who was caught committing crimes and had to quit. His 2022 campaign was a compendium of crap that gave him credit for doing things he actually opposed. It even included a fake hetero family.

To the narcissist success means getting other people to believe your bullshit and to love you; to recognize your brilliance without actually having to do anything but throw words they want to her at them. And so Zahra has managed to bamboozle the bamboozlable who have no interest in honesty so long as the their liberal shamanic proprieties have been observed. When the sacrifice has been made, nobody asks what happened to the ritual offering.

For the average Zahra adherent it would be bad form indeed for anybody to inquire if, in fact, that man was ever a doctor or even a real film maker. Or, if, in fact he has ever held a job at all. He could easily provide proof of the professional title he wants people to apply him. He could also have provided proof of the claim that he was exonerated of battery against a woman by the DA. But he never did.

For now Zahra’s little fife and drum corps marches on around the block, supported by the dishonest and the stupid. But for how much longer, I wonder. Like Santos, Zahra paints himself as the perpetual victim, unfairly attacked by his enemies because of this and that. When that little bell starts ringing you can be sure somebody is closing in on a truth about Zahra.

July 11, 2023July 11, 2023Ahmad Zahra

Zahra Shoots Wad

by Disillusioned Ex-Hippy14 Comments

And not in any sort of good way.

In 2022 D5 Councilman Ahmad Zahra raised, and spent a small fortune hanging on to his low-pay gig as a Fullerton councilmember. Check it out:

At the end of 2021 Zahra had almost $33K in the bank, the product of furious, rabbit-fornicating fundraising from all sorts of strange people and places. In the next year – an election year – he really went to town putting the screws to donors.

During 2022, Zahra raised an enormous $83K from a wide assortment of unions, boohoos and lots of out-of-towners. And guess what? He spent it all! Plus $26K more. At the end of the year he had only $6.5K to his politcal name. This may be a record for Fullerton elections, certainly in the new district set up. And that leads to some fun math.

Looking at the election results we can discern two undeniable facts. First, Zahra spent an astonishing $42 per vote, and still won by only 300 votes. And, second, without the nearly 600 votes that went to Zahra’s stooge Latino-named candidate, Tony Castro (who has since disappeared), he would have lost to Oscar Valadez by 300 votes.

These numbers really make you wonder why it was so necessary for Zahra to raise and spend all this loot just to stay on our City Council. The inescapable conclusion is that his political career, such as it is, is the only thing this miscreant has going for himself. He’s not a doctor and he’s not a film maker. He’s an unemployed flim-flam artist. He did use his campaign credit card to pay for personal expenses in 2022, but that sort of self-indulgence can only go so far.

Another conclusion is that he has and will use his position of limited authority to continue fundraising and influence peddling, including and perhaps most of all with the legal marijuana cartel. The end game for Zahra must be for higher office – an elected job like State Assembly where he can continue peddling his brand to a wider audience and get paid a real salary to do it.

But as with most grifters, the end game becomes more remote as the lies pile up; and in politics the less bread you have to cast upon your own waters, the harder things are going to get for you.

July 9, 2023July 11, 2023Ahmad Zahra

Economic Development 101

by Joe Sipowicz8 Comments

In my last post I introduced the topic of Fullerton’s latest foray into “Economic Development” a term that really refers to the idea that a city can generate more sales tax revenue through its ministerial efforts so that it can hire more people and pay them more money.

This is the old California Redevelopment mantra that was used by cities across California for decades to hand out land, cash, and favors to chosen developers and retailers. Nowadays, there’s really only land to give away as we saw in Fullerton with the abysmal “Tracks at the Tracks” project that ironically handed away millions of dollars in potential up-front revenue that might have balanced our budget in 2025 all by itself.

I thought I would spend some time reviewing the Kosmont Companies report and watching our esteemed City Council’s review of said “Retail Market Strategy.” To say that I was underwhelmed would be an understatement.

The report is 90 pages long. 95% of it is data mined from some source which tells us nothing an ordinary person couldn’t fathom all by himself – like on-line shopping is a big problem – and which seems almost disconnected from the recommendations on pages 11-13.

I have to wonder about the source of all this tsunami of numbers and even their validity. One side-by-side pair of graphs was particularly dubious.

Somehow triple net rents in Fullerton spiked, even as vacancies soared. Meanwhile in the broader areas of Orange County, including neighboring towns, vacancies somehow dropped during the worst of the Covid pandemic. And in Fullerton the graph shows, rents stabilized, even dipped in ’21-’22 even though demand apparently skyrocketed. I’m not an economist but this sure looks like pure nonsenso-data to me.

Anyway, the recommendations are just a boilerplate laundry list of ways to spend money, and a lot of it, to hopefully make money. I’m sure Kosmont uses them over and over again in every “study” they perform. Here they are. Enjoy:

What a load of consultant bullshit-jargon leading to the inevitable conclusion that Fullerton needs to hire more people in order to pay for the ones we already have. If we look at these recommendation we see the old Redevelopment lingo writ anew – collaborations, outreach, improvement districts, façade improvements, “thematic” sidewalks, way-finding, public art. Don’t forget enhanced customer service! And of course collecting data (probably through the kindly and expensive offices of Kosmont itself). But is there a single mention of a public accountability program by which the people of Fullerton and their elected representatives can determine if money blown on this nonsense even paid for itself? Nuh-uh.

And of course Kosmont’s “study” diplomatically avoided mentioning Downtown Fullerton’s million dollar budgetary sinkhole, supporting the myth that it is an asset instead of a decades-old liability. Maybe they think thematic sidewalks will clean up the clientele.

The Council’s reaction to this consulto-gibberish was utterly predictable. Ahmad Zahra, who must have peed himself in excitement over Action Item 12 was completely on board and vocally supported the need to increase “staffing levels” to accomplish this laundry list of pabulum. He believes that art tourism, and all of Fullerton’s museums can pave the way to success. His accomplice in stupidity, Shana Charles was all giddy, too, and pointed out the inescapable link between economic development and Fullerton’s “urban forest” whatever that may mean.

Bruce Whitaker mentioned that he was a follower of somebody named Jane Jacobs and supported organic economic development. A wise position, but one completely at odds with his recent approval of the idiotic City-driven apartment/hotel boondoggle that flushed millions and millions right down the municipal commode.

In the end nothing specific was decided and the Council moved on, no one having bothered to find out, presumably because they didn’t care, what this 90 page report cost the taxpayers of Fullerton.

July 8, 2023July 8, 2023Ahmad Zahra

The Mantra of Economic Development

by Joe Sipowicz15 Comments

A Friend just forwarded an article in the Yellowing Fullerton Observer about the City’s latest foray into something called economic development – an effort to create more tax revenue, somewhere, somehow, sometime. The good folk in City Hall are alarmed at the looming budget deficit they forecast in the next few years. And they know full well that another attempt at a sales tax like the ill-fated Measure S promoted by Ahmad Zahra and Jesus Quirk-Silva would be a shaky proposition.

According to the Observer the City hired an entity called Kosmont Companies to assay Fullerton’s future and determine where tax generating opportunities may lay. At the June 20th meeting of the City Council a report by Kosmont was submitted for general perusal.

I note that Kosmont Companies is an operation whose sole raison d’etre these days is to work for Redevelopment Successor agencies and municipalities trying to gin up revenue to support the bureaucratic establishment. According to the staff report Kosmont was employed by “the City” in February 2023; since no agenda report exists for this contract, it must have been executed out of the public eye by our esteemed City Manager, Eric Levitt. I’ll address the report itself and the Council’s reaction in another post.

I often wonder why anybody thinks local government have any business promoting these types of endeavors. Government employees know little about business operations, nothing about the concept enterprise; they know defined benefit pensions, their union agreements and petty, make-work bureaucratic stuff. These same chuckleheads just up-zoned and entitled a massive apartment project on land they sold to the developer for 10% of its new value. As far as the unknown amount paid to the “consultant” I wonder if even that expense will be recouped by their own work product.

Just as bad, the economic development concept is created and run, for and by, the same people who stand to benefit from it – it it were to even work at all. And of course there is never any accountability for public resources expended in the pursuit of this talisman.

June 14, 2023June 15, 2023Doug Chaffee

Chaffee Screws Pooch

by The Fullerton Shadow13 Comments

There are two kinds of lame-duck, termed out politicians. There are those who no longer care to appease the rubes who elected them and let their real character come out. Then there are those who maintain the same fat-headed, dissimulating personas that they always carried about with them.

It is rare indeed to find the sort of swine we have in County Supervisor Doug Chaffee – an individual who has left a remarkable slime trail in his wake. Chaffee seems intent on combining the two elements described above, and that ain’t easy.

A week or so ago Chaffee voted with his colleagues Don Wagner and Andrew Do to oppose hoisting the Rainbow Flag at the County, the flag a symbol for all non-hetero folks to feel some sort of pride in whatever sexual orientation they have discovered for themselves. This has been a sticking point for the new right for a long time as they fight a rear-guard action in the culture war they have already lost.

Apparently, Supervisor Wagner got his political start as a Bible-thumping school district member. And Supervisor Do is just another sleazy mid-County scumbag trying to hang on to what’s left of the Viet-Republican coalition. So why did Chaffee side with this pair of trogs against the two Democrats on the Board of Supervisors? Same old garbage peddled by his intellectual forbearers: if we let them do it we’ll have to let the Neo-Nazis raise the swastika over public buildings.

I’m sort of sick and tired of this sort of disingenuousness on the part of our “honorable” politicians. But I got sick of the Chaffee crime family a long time ago and like many other obnoxious problems, we’re just stuck with this on for another two and a half years.

May 21, 2023May 21, 2023A Step in the Right Direction

The Associated Road War of Attrition

by The Fullerton Harpoon12 Comments

So characterized by Councilman Nick Dunlap is the no-longer ongoing attempt by City staff and liberal virtue signalers who were working hard to put Associated Road on a “diet.”

Mr. Dunlap seems well aware of how things that the bureaucrats want never seem to expire, and that meeting upon meeting are sometimes used to thin the herd of opposition until just about everybody has given up.

This seems to be what was going on with the rather unnecessary attempt to modify Associated by adding parking as a buffer for bike riders, along with the elimination of two vehicular traffic lanes. Meeting upon meeting were held to shore up support for the plan to get rid of two traffic lanes on Associated Road.

Here’s what happened at the council meeting study session on Tuesday. The City’s traffic guy announced that he had given up on the proposed new on-street parking, used to create a Class IV bikeway. Even staff could see the handwriting on the wall. The few citizens who were present (see herd thinning, above) still commented on the parking, but also remarked on the need for 4 traffic lanes. Those in favor of the project were all about big picture ideas that, in the context of this short stretch of road, seem sort of comical.

When the council finally started chatting about the project, Nick Dunlap almost immediately made a motion to leave the damn thing the way it is – tabling the item for good. Shana Charles fought a losing rear-guard action as she tried to waste more time and effort on this scheme. Bruce Whitaker wisely pointed out that the total daily traffic counts don’t reflect peak hour traffic when having four lanes might actually be useful. Finally, with the dubious assistance of lawyer Dick Jones of the I Can’t Believe It’s a Law Firm, the council finally just gave staff the direction to proceed with the planned repaving and to reproduce the existing lane and bikeway striping. And so without a decisive action by the City Council, the Associated plan in social engineering sputtered to an unceremonious demise, Whitaker, Dunlap and Jung seeming to agree to a collective adios.

Will this plan really die, despite the seeming death blow? This is Fullerton, where no idea, no matter how bad, really dies if staff really wants it to live.

May 20, 2023May 20, 2023Ahmad Zahra

OCPA Losing Juice. Fast.

by Fullerton Engineer31 Comments

The other night I was watching our esteemed councilcreatures meet so I could check out the Associated Road conversation and I stuck around for the discussion on whether to hire a “consultant” to figure out the cost for Fullerton to ditch the Orange County Power Agency.

The OCPA was conceived as a way to provide “green energy” alternative electricity to people in orange County who wanted it. The idea was the brainchild of the City of Irvine who paid for the start up costs. Eventually Fullerton, Buena Park, Huntington Beach and the County signed on.

From the get go critics attacked the new agency for secrecy and incompetence and failure to deliver a competitive price. It was up to individuals who wanted out, to opt out, a backhanded way to get, and keep customers. Not a good start.

Flash forward to today.

The County has pulled out of the OCPA, Irvine has been talking about it, too. Last Tuesday the Huntington Beach council voted to do the same; on the very same night the Fullerton City, debated the merits of hiring a consultant to figure out what the financial ramifications might be for us get out, too, before Fullerton is left holding the proverbial bag.

I have no idea why City Hall doesn’t already know the consequences of leaving the agency and why the exact formula wasn’t know before we got into it. Anyhow, the discussion wasn’t all that clear.

Ahmad Zahra, one of the people who voted for Fullerton to join this agency wasn’t there to opine on it. Bruce Whitaker and Nick Dunlap both expressed reservations about the whole deal, but went along with Mayor Jung’s suggestion of having the City Manager ask the agency to tell them what it would cost to bolt, instead of hiring a consultant to do it. That makes sense of course, but begs the question of why this wasn’t done a long, long time ago. Like on Day One.

Shana Charles who comically described herself as a “cost analyst” was pushing hard to waste money hiring somebody to pry the information, somehow, out of the OCPA – no doubt a way to embarrass Jung who is now happens to be the Chair of the OCPA. Her motion died a very slow death.

So where will this all lead? The OCPA claims to have reformed itself, but has provided zero evidence to show it has. The board got rid of the first problematic CEO even as they showered him with praise. As far as I can see this shows that nobody there is serious about anything.

Getting out of OCPA may be expensive and may get more so as members drop out; nobody seems to know, and if they do, they ain’t a-talkin.’ And that’s not only embarrassing, it’s a dereliction of duty on the part of the people who got Fullerton into this mess.

May 16, 2023May 16, 2023Ahmad Zahra

Fullerton’s Fiscal Ship About to Take on Water. Nobody Has a Clue What to Do

by Joe Sipowicz22 Comments

A few weeks ago the Daily Titan published an article about how, in a few years, Fullerton is going to be running in the red. Deep red. City projections point to being upside down $19 million between 2024 and 2028. Now that’s not very good, is it?

Here’s the grim forecast:

Naturally, the article quickly devolved into a vehicle for advocating the hiring of more people and paying them more, replete with completely fraudulent comparative pay statistics. On hand were Ahmad Zahra and his helper Shana Charles to bleat about unfilled positions and service deficits, always the first opening salvo in a new tax proposal – like the one Zahra pushed hard in 2020.

The head and the hat were a perfect fit.

Doug Chaffee, the senile Fourth District Supervisor of Orange County and a former Fullerton mayor contributed this gem to the conversation: “I think I would have been a little heavier on keeping our staff because they are the lifeblood of the city. They do the work.” Uh, huh. He failed to mention his own inept culpability in mismanaging Fullerton’s budget for years.

Hilariously, Zahra seems to think the phrase “economic development” has some sort of talismanic quality, as if there were anything City Hall could do to produce it. It never worked during the heyday of Redevelopment and it won’t do anything now. It’s just a shiny distraction that can’t even pay for the bumblers who are paid, and paid very well, to pursue it.

What economic development really means is a focus on increasing tax revenue to pay for the salaries and benefits of public employees and their bloated, guaranteed pensions. It would be refreshing if just once elected folks thought about less about raising revenue and more about living within budgetary constraints.

Mayor Fred Jung calmly opined that Fullerton has adequate reserves to handle the tsunami of red ink coming his way, but this is not reassuring. Fullerton went through the same crimson bath during the Fitzgerald/Chaffee/Quirk-Silva/Flory/Zahra regime, and anybody who thinks Fullerton is better off for the deficit spending it is a damn fool.