Yesterday FFFF related the story of how Fullerton Councilmember Ahmad Zahra got rid of his Planning Commissioner Arif Mansuri for some young guy named Adrian Meza. In effect, the Planning Commission lost a professional engineer and would have gained a political wannabe whose day job is “marketing” for a fertility clinic that gets gay male couples children.
Mansuri ain’t buying it.
It turns out that Mr. Mansuri still wants to serve his fellow Fullerton citizens and Councilmember Jamie Valencia thought that was a good idea. So at the January 21, 2025 Council meeting she expressed her intention to nominate Mansuri for the Traffic and Circulation Commission. That item came up on the February 4th, 2025 council agenda – Item 3.
What’s of interest here is that Zahra voted no on Item 3, that included Mansuri’s ratification to the T&C Commission.
I will get what I want, one way or another…
What’s the big deal you ask?
Well, for starters it’s highly unusual for one councilmember to vote against a nomination made by one of his colleagues, particularly one who is more qualified than most Fullerton commission appointees. In Fullerton such things have always been considered bad form; in this case especially, since the man is qualified. We may conclude that Zahra doesn’t like Mansuri anymore and voted against him out of malice; or maybe it was spite against Valencia for favoring his own castoff commissioner.
Mansuri was appointed 4-1 so there’s no effect on almost anything by Zahra’s petulant vote. Almost. Because this vote creates a recent precedent of sorts that means nobody gets an auto pass when it comes to future appointments. And that includes Zahra himself who will be shopping for a new Planning Commissioner one of these days.
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.
That’s the way it looks. FFFF’s attorney Kelly Aviles sent word to the City that Friends for Fullerton’s Future was planning a periodical publication and wanted to dispense it on City property – City Hall, the Fullerton Library, the Community Center. You may recall our post.
Our lawyer has not heard anything in the past four and a half weeks. There is an obvious stall tactic, of course. This means one of two things. Could it be because the City doesn’t know how to respond? Or, maybe the City wants to ignore the request just hoping somehow it will go away.
Staying awake long enough to break the law…
We do know that there is no love lost between FFFF and Fullerton’s astonishingly still employed City Attorney, the I Can’t Believe It’s A Law Firm of Jones and Mayer. These cut rate pettifoggers, hand job lawyers, and low percentile law school grads don’t like us because of our myriad posts outlining their incompetence, corruption, and self-dealing. They even tried to sue FFFF and a couple of its writers a few years back. Their loss must still hurt their misplaced professional pride.
Obviously, the immigration and marriage fraud Ahmad Zahra doesn’t like us because we are anti-Muslim homophobes, which hilariously corresponds exactly with his exercise in self branding. Whether his pal in the “progressive” ideology charade, Shana Charles is opposed to an FFFF presence in City Hall is unknown.
No comment…
What about Nick Dunlap and Fred Jung? We have been sort of nice to them when they do good things; also not so nice when they cave in to Fullerton’s boohoo phalanx. Are they trying to blackball us? I don’t know and I don’t know if Jamie Valencia has even heard of our humble blog.
Whatever the dynamics, we’re not giving up. If a squalid rag like the Fullerton Observer, with its innuendo, errant information, sanctimonious and blatant politicking can be disseminated on public property, so can our proposed chronicle.
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
The other day The Fullerton Harpoon published a post on how new Councilwoman Jamie Valencia got bad advice regarding receiving and then giving back campaign contributors who had expressed definite opinions about the ridiculous Walk on Wilshire – and another vote was coming up! He opined that the bad advice about Section 84308 in the Government Code (“the Levine Act”) may have come from the City Attorney Jones and Mayer – through one channel or another – a suggestion supported by later events.
As Mr. Harpoon ably showed by commonsense and State legal findings, the law in question does not even apply to the people opposed to Walk on Wilshire who gave Valencia campaign contributions over $250 in the past year.
It turns out that some dope is still pursuing that angle – to create a scandal out of nothing, and find a smoking gun where no gunshot was even fired. My money would be on one of the Kennedy Sisters of Fullerton Observer fame. Here’s a Public Record Act request dated 2/3/25:
Now, we now this request should have been responded to with a brisk “there are no relevant records” like a city does when it’s trying to hide something. In this case it would be true since the law doesn’t apply. Even the dodo who submitted the request cites the scope of issues involved in the law: permits, entitlements and licenses that clearly don’t apply to Walk on Wilshire opponents.
Enter Baron Bettenhausen, Esq.
We’re #1. 08!
Mr. Bettenhausen, is graduate of the Regent School of Law, Now he’s a partner in the I Can’t Believe It’s A Law Firm of Jones and Mayer. His response to reporter Gabriel San Roman about the Valencia matter, was trawled in the Public Records Act request, above. The response is incompetent, immaterial and irrelevant.
Let’s see what Bettenhausen had to say to San Ramon:
Notice how Bettenhasen throws the rat on Valencia, claiming it was her decision to return the money because of her determination of a conflict with the law. Well, we already know what she did it, but not being a lawyer herself, we have to assume someone who is, or who had access to one, gave Valencia her options.
Bettenhausen admits it’s his firm’s responsibility to hand out legal advice regarding the “Levine Act” to the City Council, but notes that it’s the councilmember’s responsibility not to run afoul of it – another bit of obvious information meant to deflect from the real problem.
What’s the real problem? Valencia, Bettenhausen intones to the reporter, has “cured” the Levine Act problem, but he doesn’t acknowledge the truth: that there was nothing to cure. This is like your doctor telling your friends that you’ve been cured of a nasty disease when you never had it in the first place.
No, I wasn’t asleep. I was praying…
If no one at Jones and Mayer was responsible for guiding the action provoking Valencia’s return of campaign contributions last fall, they are certainly responsible for knowing the contents and the applicability of the damn Government Code, including the Levine Act, to Fullerton decision makers in various circumstances. The lawyers at Jones and Mayer either didn’t know the law or they don’t care. Maybe both.
Ignorance and apathy? Throw in some occasional malice to FFFF and other Fullerton troublemakers. What a team.
Because we care so much about the Friends, FFFF is alerting you to potential hazards caused by power company transformers, especially those locate inside in-ground vaults. Transformers have been known to explode on occasion and the results can be catastrophic. When this happens the lid or access manhole of the vault can rocket upwards and the super-heated oil inside the transformer can become a fiery shower.
Here’s a video of just such an explosion at the Old World Village in Huntington Beach back in 2019.
Yikes! That must have been pretty hairy for the folks in attendance. Here’s another video of the Biergarten restaurant owner who was burned pretty badly by the blast and was suing Southern California Edison for not replacing the faulty transformer.
Why Edison allowed lots of people regularly in this proximity to the vault is a damn good question. And why the City of Huntington Beach permitted this use in this site is another one.
So there’s an object lesson here, folks. Be aware of all public safety hazards, including if not especially those related to (monopolized) public utilities. Public safety is not just a matter for the cops or the fire department – until something blows up.
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.
