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August 28, 2024August 28, 2024Ahmad Zahra

Ad Hoc Tuah – Part Four-ah

Now that Shana Charles and Ahmad Zahra’s critical “Fiscal Sustainability (or something like that)” ad hoc committee has been created, and a quorum of that committee has been appointed by the City Council, I don’t see any reason why the three appointees can’t meet, appoint a chairman, and start on the all-important task at which our well-paid staff has dismally failed; to wit: figuring out how to stanch the red ink flow that our leaders and their professionals have created over the past decade or so.

Zahra and Charles couldn’t be bothered to find their own appointees. I guess it was too hard for them.

In my last post we already received some helpful comments about how to close the budget gap between revenue and expenses. In this in post I invite any other ideas that seem worth discussing, but that probably would never see the light of day in a city staff report. Here’s an outline of what we have so far.

Convert the paramedic function performed by the fire department into a privatized EMS job. Reorganize the “fire fighters” accordingly. Placentia has done this.
Levy a use fee on all downtown bars/clubs that serve booze after 10pm. The fee accompanies all CUPs. Those who create the mess pay to clean it up. No more subsidies for club owners. $5000 a month would generate almost a million bucks a year.
Alternatively, close all the downtown bars at midnight, and;
Get rid of the special downtown police force.
Eliminate the “economic development” division of the Community Development Department. No one knows what this function actually costs or what revenue it produces, but as one commenter put it, it doesn’t even pay for itself.
Start preserving commercial and industrial zones to generate business; stop handing out zone and General Plan changes in these zones for massive residential apartments blocks.
Get rid of the “I Can’t Believe It’s a Law Firm” of Jones and Meyer that inevitably makes more when they fuck something up, which is most of the time. To this day no one knows how much they billed the taxpayers of Fullerton by suing FFFF, Joshua Ferguson, David Curlee, on top of what the hundreds of thousands the City paid out in damages and attorney fees. Who knows how much the legal “advice” of this clown show has cost the City over the past 25 years.

dick-jones — Staying awake long enough to break the law…

Well, that’s just to get started. I hope the new committee will be open to these and other ideas. City staff has no incentive to propose anything except a new sales tax increase. I guess we need to help them.

August 26, 2024August 28, 2024Boohooism

Ad Hoc Tuah Part Three-ah.

by The Fullerton Harpoon19 Comments

A little late reporting this, but it appears that last week the Fullerton City Council appointed three members to the newly created Let’s Have A Sales Tax Committee, the brain child of Shana Charles and Fred Jung and Ahmad Zahra.

The item started out with a fizzle but got better as the hearing progressed. It appears that only three people applied. Charles and fellow committee-creator Ahmad Zahra couldn’t even find anybody to appoint. Charles who was in a big hurry to get this going only spoke to one person, who wisely declined. Zahra likewise failed find anybody and suggested the whole thing be re-advertised. It doesn’t seem to have occurred to these two worthies that 1) nobody applied because nobody cares; or, 2) people realize what a footling exercise this is.

But wait a minute. Maybe Charles’ genie is better off out of the bottle

Nick Dunlap said he was ready to go and appointed Jack Dean, a long-time anti-tax crusader who’s been around the Fullerton scene for a long time and knows the city. Apparently, he was active in the Great Recall of 1994. This makes sense since Dunlap correctly identified the whole process as a slow roll toward an inevitable tax proposal conclusion. Bruce Whitaker nominated a guy named Bill Brown who I don’t know anything about, but who I presume is another fiscal conservative.

Then came the real fun. Fred Jung, who was in zoom mode, nominated Tony Bushala, the founder of this blog in 2008, and who is well known for his huge roll in killing the last sales tax proposal, Measure S, in 2020, as well as the school bond attempts in the same year. It’s now pretty obvious that Jung’s role in this affair is to pull the plug out of the socket.

When the vote came, Zahra petulantly voted no to the three members appointment. He didn’t bother to say why. Charles simply said she’d be appointing her member later. The approval was 4-1 and we have three members to Ad Hoc Whatever It’s Called Committee.

So now the Committee exists and has a quorum. I wonder if they can’t start holding meetings as soon as they like. They can also start talking about ways to save money that the staff won’t touch, like a levy on all downtown bars/clubs open after ten P.M. to recoup something from the horrible 1.5 million annual red ink sink hole known as downtown Fullerton. Or they could discuss the elimination of the so-called downtown police Echo Unit that has caused as much trouble as it has prevented.

They might also discuss salary freezes, something all businesses do when times get tough.

Both Charles and Zahra know that if their chosen candidate, Vivian Jaramillo, is elected they can replace Whitaker’s appointment in December and get the tax train back on its predetermined rails. But if that doesn’t happen, this committee could surprise the employees in City Hall by coming up with some really inventive ideas.

August 18, 2024Ahmad Zahra

What Does Vivian “Kitty” Jaramillo Know About the Election Fraud that benefits Her?

by The Fullerton Harpoon65 Comments

FFFF has published very convincing evidence about the candidacy of Scott Markowitz in Fullerton’s 4th District election.

The addition of a non-Latino candidate, and one whose clumsy ballot statement reads like it came out of MAGA central, is aimed directly at Linda Whitaker, a conservative Republican, and not coincidentally, a non-Latina.

And who is the beneficiary? Why, none other than the one who got the one and only endorsement interview from the OC Dem Party – Vivian “Kitty” Jaramillo, a life-long public employee who used to write parking tickets paid for by her would-be constituents. The deal must be big for her. She sued the City so it would have to create a district she might have a chance of winning an election in Fullerton.

Back to Mr. Markowitz. His ballot statement includes nonsense about “America First patriotism” and “real” conservatism. But get this: Markotwitz has been hand-held by Ajay Mohan, a Democrat operative who used to be the Executive Director of the OC Democrat Party. Mohan, Friends will remember, was the guy who created the phony candidacy of Tony Castro in 2022’s 5th District race to draw votes away from Oscar Valadez, who narrowly lost to the non-Latino incumbent, Ahmad Zahra. Zahra and Mohan.

As FFFF discovered, Markowitz had some interesting nominators for his last minute campaign, including Democrats, one of whom, Diane Vena, a Fullerton Observer, had already endorsed Vivian “Kitty” Jaramillo. Hmm, indeed.

I’d sell out my mother for 10 votes, and I have…

The facts are indisputable, and pretty embarrassing unless you have no shame. We are investigating into who the shameless Mohan has been working for. We will find out. It’s not that hard.

In the meantime, let’s consider the target of this scam candidacy and the beneficiary thereof.

There is a phrase in Latin: qui bono? It means who benefits?, an excellent guide to discover who is behind a plan or scheme perpetrated by unsavory means. And of course that is Jaramillo. And so I ask (demanding would be fruitless) for Jaramillo and her campaign to come clean with what Jaramillo and her pals really know about the fraudulent candidacy of Scott Markowitz.

August 15, 2024August 15, 2024Ahmad Zahra

Election Fraud – Again

by The Fullerton Harpoon41 Comments

Tony Castro. Staying out of jail long enough to be of use to the Democrat Party of OC.

In 2022 the Executive Director of the OC Democrat Party, Ajay Mohan, recruited unknown Tony Castro to run for Fullerton’s 5th District. The purpose was to siphon enough Latino voters away from Oscar Valadez to protect the incumbent, Ahmad Zahra. Sez who? Tony Castro, that’s who.

Well the same cast of characters is the same, but wearing different soiled feathers; this time it’s the District 4 election.

Friends were speculating the other day about whether the last minute appearance of a non-Latino candidate, Scott Markowitz, especially one spouting MAGA-type rhetoric wasn’t suspicious. It is. And the only credible explanation for this candidacy is to draw votes away from conservative Linda Whitaker. Proof you ask?

It turns out that the unknown Scott Markowitz was accompanied to the City Hall nominating paper pull by none other than Ajay Mohan, now a political campaign operative with something called Rocket Science Strategies.

So Mohan was there at the last minute to hold Scott’s hand as he began his fraudulent, and sure to be short-lived, political career.

Of course Markowitz successfully gathered his signatures; how many of the signatories really agree with Marko’s highly Trumpy ballot statement? Hmm. Here’s a partial list of signatories. Look at the last name -Diane Vera.

Some may remember Diane Vera from her scribblings for the ultra-liberal Fullerton Observer and her occasional squawking at city council meetings. She signed the papers of the would-be America Firster? How come? It gets funnier.

It appears that Ms. Vena already has a candidate she’s not only supporting, but has endorsed – none other than Vivian “Kitty” Jaramillo. Now that’s not very good, is it? She’s also a donor to the north Orange County Democrats’ club.

Of course, Diane isn’t the only one of Markowitz’s signers who’s True Blue. Karlo Marcelo is another member of the Democrats of North OC.

And then we have Dan Cash, another “progressive” liberal. Does he approve of the Markowitz ballot statement? Maybe someone will ask him.

If we needed any more evidence of a conspiracy, let’s consider Rocket Science Strategies, for a moment. It’s a limited liability company filed in California.

So this “consulting” operation includes Mohan, and one Lyndsey Lefebvre of La Habra, whose bio is quite telling:

It turns out that Ms. Lefebvre used to work for Mohan stirring up liberal activism as a full-time employee of the Democratic Party of Orange County. She’s been a union organizer, too.

Does Lyndsey approve of Markowitz’s ballot statement? She must since she probably wrote it.

And as the evidence of a conspiracy to create a phony candidate piles up, the only issue left is to ascertain who Ajay Mohan is actually working for. Whoever this might be, it’s crystal clear the beneficiary of taking votes away from Linda Whitaker is none other than former Fullerton meter maid, Vivian Jaramillo, the first and only candidate interviewed for endorsement by the Democrat Party of County. Is she involved in this fraud? She must be well-aware of it, although it’s more likely to be executed for candidate plausible deniability, as in the case of Tony Castro, by the Democrat Party itself.

August 13, 2024August 13, 2024Ahmad Zahra

Ad Hoc Tuah, Part Two-ah

by The Fullerton Harpoon18 Comments

If I knew what I was talking about this wouldn’t be Fullerton!

One week ago, true to form, the City created the “ad hoc” finance committee proposed by Councilperson Shana Charles to study Fullerton’s financial fiasco – an ocean of red ink.

The vote was 3-2.

Councilman Fred Jung who supported this proposal spoke of “resident input” as if that were something never tried before.

Ahmad Zahra pretended to be of two minds regarding this committee, citing earlier, phony push polls as proof of Fullerton’s thirst to be taxed more. But he was really all for it – gotta keep the sales tax idea on a burner. He virtually admitted that a tax was his goal.

Predictably in her comments, Charles gushed at Fullerton’s untapped well of civilian brainpower (why goodness, two actual professors showed up earlier in the meeting!) as a source of brilliant budget-closing ideas. Of course she misused the term “holistic” several times, but, whatever.

At first Bruce Whitaker offered that he had no objection to this committee, per se, but pointed out that previous fiscal ideas presented by the so-called INRAC citizen’s panel had been ignored by the City Council.

This idea was echoed by Mayor Nick Dunlap, who pointed out the obvious – that this committee had no other purpose than to keep the dream of a sales tax increase alive. He opined that it was City staff’s job to come up with ideas and plans for fiscal sustainability (a euphemism coughed up by Charles) presented to the City Council. This of course is the way it should be, although the irony that his staff failed miserably at this very task over the past year seemed to have escaped the notice of our mayor.

Dunlap’s statements convinced Whitaker to oppose creation of the committee.

Charles responded to her colleagues, by disingenuously acknowledging her recognition that a sales tax increase was not inevitable, a completely irrelevant observation intended to prove her “holistic” bona fides.

A lady named Maureen Milton called in, wanting some reassurance that the meetings of the committee would be open to the public.

The milquetoast was no longer even warm…

Our esteemed City Manager quickly muttered that the meetings would be noticed and public, but whether that half-hearted affirmation will be effected remains to be seen.

And so Fullerton has another of its footling and futile committees, five souls, one appointed by each councilmember. This is all being uber-rushed so that appointments will be made a week from today, on August 20th, so that the sales tax solution indoctrination can begin as soon as possible.

August 7, 2024August 7, 2024Ahmad Zahra

Election Sweepstakes Roll Along

by The Fullerton Harpoon16 Comments

There’s only a couple days left for candidates to file their paperwork to run for Fullerton City Council. The deadline is August 9th – unless the two incumbents in the 1st and 2nd District, Fred Jung and Nick Dunlap pull out – then there’s another week. Neither has filed their nomination documents yet.

I know who I want to work for, and it isn’t you!

Previously, two individuals turned in their nominating papers – Jan Flory, who’s been on the City Council on three different occasions, already filed to run against Dunlap Her record on the Council has been a trifecta of terribleness.

And then there’s some odd guy named Matt Truxaw who had filed for the 1st District to run against Jung. He seems like a sucker set up for the steamroller.

And now a third candidate has made it official: Linda Whitaker, wife of outgoing Councilman Bruce Whitaker, in the 4th District. Oddly, Ms. Whitaker has listed no occupation which is extremely unusual, not even a “retired” this or that. Does it matter that much? Maybe not. Flory calls herself a “retired family lawyer” which may not be helpful since people generally don’t have happy experiences in family court.

Finally, a new potential candidate has taken out papers to run in the 4th. The name is Scott Moskewitz, someone none of us have heard of. There is a 67 year-old Scott Moskowitz who lives on Woodcrest Drive. I have to wonder if this person isn’t simply a plant, an obscure name on a ballot meant to draw votes away from the only person in the race at this point without a Spanish surname – Linda Whitaker.

We all remember 2022 when the Democrat Party of OC set up a guy named Tony Castro to draw Latino votes away from Oscar Valadez in support of non-Latino Ahmad Zahra. Mr. Moskowitz pulled his papers very late – two days ago which may indicate a certain strategy. We shall see if he is in by Friday afternoon.

August 1, 2024August 1, 2024Ahmad Zahra

She’s In! The Return Of Jan Flory

by The Fullerton Harpoon26 Comments

A week or so ago FFFF reported that Jan Flory, the elderly, humorless scold who has been on the Fullerton City Council three times had taken out nominating papers to run this fall in the 2nd District.

FFFF rejoiced.

We didn’t necessarily think she’d go through with it, what with her pushing 80 years old, her historic constituency dying off, and running against the popular and well-financed Mayor, Nick Dunlap. Still the prospect of having Flory around gave hope for all sorts of blogging fun – once again reciting her horrendous pro-tax, pro-corruption record.

And now we learn that Mrs. Flory has indeed returned her nominating papers and is in the process of creating a new campaign committee.

Well, done, Jan, say I. Your record of “public service” is in a class by itself.

You were the one who approved the budget busting 3@50 retroactive pension bonanza to cops and paramedics.

You were the one who enthusiastically supported the illegal water tax.

You were the one who supported Measure S, the foolish sales tax effort.

You were the one who supported the ill-conceived Utility Tax, and wished it had been double,

You were the one who approved years of red ink budgets and lied about them to the public.

You were the one who cut a slimy deal with Ahmad Zahra to deny the citizens of Fullerton a chance to vote on a replacement for Jesus Quirk Silva.

You were the one who refused to create a citizens commission to reform the Culture of Corruption in the Fullerton Police Department.

You were the one who defended the Three Bald Tires in the wake of the Kelly Thomas murder by the cops. You called them honorable men.

You were the one to sneer and deprecate your own constituents if they dared criticize or complain about the actions of your beloved “staff.”

You were the one to support every Redevelopment boondoggle and every massive, over-built apartment block.

And of course the list goes on and on and on.

And so once again, FFFF says thank you, God!

July 25, 2024July 27, 2024Ahmad Zahra

NEW COMPETITION IN THE 1st DISTRICT RACE

by Grover Cleveland23 Comments

A candidate has popped up to challenge Fred Jung for the Fullerton District 1 city council job.

His name is Matt Truxan.

I’ve never heard of this cat before but judging by his various facebook posts he is an old guard liberal. Here’s a recent post:

I can’t find much about this guy other than he wrote some sort of science fiction book and he likes to post “humorous” pictures of himself.

Probably not the best look for a candidate…

I think it’s a fair assumption that this person has been recruited by the far left in Fullerton to challenged Jung, who, as a Democrat hasn’t always pleased them. Ahmad Zahra can certainly be considered the prime mover of this rather hopeless campaign. As Truxaw himself points out, Jung is better funded than he is. At last count Jung was nearing $200,000 in his campaign account, a rather breathtaking amount. The goal here is probably to make him spend down his account, but Jung can still saturate the district with campaign promotion while spending a small part of the contents of that treasure chest.

I personally thought the lefty Dems would find somebody with a Korean name to make Jung spend his money. Maybe they still will.

July 23, 2024July 24, 2024Ahmad Zahra

Walk on Wilshire Limps Along

by The Fullerton Harpoon20 Comments

Last Tuesday the Fullerton City Council considered extending the so-called Walk on Wilshire project, a staff-driven closure of Wilshire Avenue just west of Harbor to auto traffic and leasing the street to adjacent businesses to operate for outdoor dining. The “pilot” program term ended in June but “economic development” bureaucrats sure wanted to keep it going even though it’s over fifty grand in the hole so far, with little but wishful thinking promising success in the future.

Right off the bat, Mayor Nick Dunlap recused himself. Apparently his father is part owner of the adjacent the Villa del Sol building that has tenants who may or may not want the street closure ended. That left four councilmembers to deal with the item.

It turns out that the folks in City Hall commissioned another one of those surveys designed to arrive at a pre-determined conclusion that City Hall wants. We’ve seen that over and over and over again. Guess what? Everyone just loves them some Walk on Wilshire.

Public speakers included about five or six people nobody had ever heard of before, suggesting that they were planted by staff or a councilmember like Shana Charles to be there. Oh, they just oozed enthusiasm for the closure, rhapsodizing on the exclusion of cars, the walking and the bicycling and the ambiance, etc., all the touchy-feely stuff you would expect.

Why write about news when you can try to make your own! (Photo by Julie Leopo/Voice of OC)

Saskia Kennedy, editor of the yellowing Fullerton Observer got up to extol the virtues of the plan, proving that making the news is a lot more fun than responsibly reporting it.

Several adjacent business owners spoke, complaining about the unfairness of the closure that only benefitted three adjacent restaurants and that hurts their business. They included the owners of Pour Company, Les Amis, and The Back Alley Bar and Grill, and Tony Bushala who owns the historic building at 124 W. Wilshire.

Two other speakers, Joshua Ferguson and Jack Dean made excellent arguments against continuing the closure. Ferguson pointed out that the council was being asked to make a decision based on insufficient information, while Mr. Dean reminded the council that the business and property owners on Wilshire, many of whom were not even notified of the meeting, have a paramount interest in this endeavor.

When the chit-chat was all over it became clear that there was not a majority in favor of continuing the program until December. Zahra and Charles naturally wanted to prolong the boondoggle, Fred Jung and Bruce Whitaker didn’t. In a rambling discourse Whitaker went to great but unpersuasive lengths to explain his switcheroo, but did hit upon one truth. The Walk on Wilshire is completely driven by bureaucrats in City Hall, and nobody else. A motion for continuing the Walk on Wilshire until the end of the year failed on a 2-2 vote.

But a waffling Whitaker was in favor of giving the participants three months to plan for the end of the program which wasn’t all that bad of an idea. However, Shana Charles thought she espied the eye of the needle and threaded herself though it, using all the arguments against the Walk on Wilshire to propose that staff review the mess, again, and come back, again.

Waffling Whitaker agreed to a return of the item in three months to study up on the issue, as if there hadn’t been plenty of time to do that already. And so a council majority voted 3-1 to keep the patient on life support, and as usual nothing was decided and there was no specific direction. Staff is supposed to review something, anything, who knows what.

There never seems to be closure until it is approved by the bureaucrats who are the real profiteers on money losing schemes. It’s job security.

July 18, 2024July 20, 2024Ahmad Zahra

Thank You God!

by The Fullerton Harpoon26 Comments

What appeared to be a pretty tame fall City Council election may have just become a lot more fun.

Word on the street is that Jan Flory pulled nomination papers yesterday to run against Mayor Nick Dunlap in the 2nd District election in November.

Who is Jan Flory? If you don’t know, take a spin through our files, here. You’ll find all sorts of entertaining stories about Ms. Flory and even about her creepy/pervy son Mike, who used to be a Deputy District Attorney and even tried to be a judge once.

Mike Flory Photo — How far did the apple fall from the tree?

Flory Call Log 01 — Maybe not breast fed long enough…

Jan Flory was elected to the City Council in 1994 and voted off in 2002. In those eight years she happily allowed an illegal water tax, voted for the disastrous retroactive public safety pension spike and supported the culture of unaccountability that has helped us get where we are today.

In 2012 she hauled herself out of the stable to try another lap around the track.

Her mission was to restore municipal authority to the Old Guard she represented, and to protect the Culture of Corruption at the Fullerton Police Department from any sort of reform. She informed us that the City Department heads were the “heart of the City.”

She put in her four years, patting her Chief of Police Danny Hughes on the fanny as they both walked out the door in 2016, a few days after the drunken City Manager, Joe Felz drove over a tree and tried to drive away. The ensuing cover up turned out to be expensive. Oops.

But Jan wasn’t done with us. Not by a long shot.

When an opening on the City Council occurred in 2019 guess who was there to snap up the job? After her appointment she rewarded the unemployed Ahmad Zahra for his vote with a paying gig at the Orange County Water District.

In this last stint Flory was happy to continue her love affair with unbalanced budgets and was one of the members of the Council, along with Jesus Quirk Silva, Ahmad Zahra, and Jennifer Fitzgerald who waged a legal vendetta against this blog and specifically against Joshua Ferguson and David Curlee. Of course that harpy-like mission cost the taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars, but didn’t cost the perpetrators anything.

Well, I sure hope Ms. Flory really does want to run. The entertainment value alone is worth it. Who her constituency might be is unclear. There aren’t that many elderly liberals left in Fullerton. She might get the support of the yellowing, and thinning Fullerton Observer crowd, but a humorless, stick-up-the-backside septuagenarian is not likely to appeal to anyone under seventy.