Jose Castaneda Archives - Friends For Fullerton's Future

June 24, 2021Carpetbaggery

How Long Was Jose Castaneda Cheating on Fullerton?

Socialists of a Feather

Carpetbagging has always been a problem in local politics, especially in and around Fullerton, and it looks like Fred Jung’s appointee to the Fullerton Planning Commission in District 1 might be the latest example.

Jung’s appointee to the Fullerton Planning Commission, one Jose Trinidad Castaneda III, recently told the Fullerton Observer that he “decided to move out of Fullerton” which would explain his boasting about being on a commission in the City of Buena Park and yesterday being his last PC meeting.

Castaneda - BP - Commission — Are you even qualified for this post?

But, in typical political hack fashion, it looks like Castaneda stopped being qualified to be on Fullerton’s Planning Commission at least as far back as 03 June according to Castaneda himself.

Here’s the application Castaneda submitted to Buena Park in order to qualify for his new commission that he himself signed digitally where he claims to have moved to Buena Park at least BEFORE the 3rd of June.

PRR Castaneda - BP

It’s interesting that on this form he claimed that he “served on the Fullerton Parks Commission and Planning Commission” in the past tense. Sure, he used to serve on the Parks & Rec Commission but at the time he filled out this document he was CURRENTLY serving on the Planning Commission – not formerly. Why lie?

Probably because owing to City Ordinance, it’s a requirement that somebody on Planning Commission be a resident of Fullerton. He was likely very aware of the problematic issue with voting on items that impact the city in which he no longer lives OR admitting to Buena Park that he didn’t live or do business with the city.

BP - Beautification

To be on the Beautification Commission in Buena Park you have to live in the Buena Park (which he claims on this form, while claiming otherwise on Facebook), work in Buena Park (his employer is in San Diego) or do business in Buena Park which he makes no mention of here. His only self-claimed qualification to be on this BP Commission, as written by him, is his residency..

Thus if he moved to Buena Park, as he claims on this form as his qualifying requirement to be on this commission, then ethically he should have recused himself from all votes and meetings on Fullerton’s Planning Commission. His recusal should have happened immediately after the date of his move, which was obviously at least before last night’s PC meeting if not before the 27 May meeting or sooner. Did he feel entitled to vote despite this obvious conflict? Did Jung or Fullerton’s City Attorney Jones & Mayer tell him the conflict didn’t matter? Did he bother to tell Fullerton, or Jung, that he had moved? Did he even move? Being that he obviously lied about having “served” in the past tense on Fullerton’s Planning Commission, the entire document is suspect which raises even more questions.

I guess for now we simply must say adieu to JTCIII as he, allegedly, leaves Fullerton behind in his endeavors to climb the political ladder in Buena Park. As for the facts of this matter? We probably won’t ever know the truth in this ethical quandary because Fullerton does ethics about as well as it paves streets.

February 1, 2021Fred Jung

FFFF Ally Appointed to Planning Commission

by Joshua16 Comments

Socialists of a Feather

It looks like Councilman Fred Jung has appointed a FFFF ally to the Fullerton Planning Commission by way of appointing Jose Trinidad Castaneda III. While it’s true one of our authors poked fun at his failed 2018 candidacy in D5, we’re known to poke fun at anybody and aren’t a hivemind here on FFFF.

What’s important to me personally and gives me hope is that Castaneda endorsed my campaign for City Council back in 2016.

Castaneda endorsed me not once but at least twice (that I saw), which is more than I can say for a certain Orange Juice Blogger who endorsed me and then rescinded said endorsement because politics and “prior commitments” before learning I existed and was more awesome.

JCTIII Endorses Me 2

Here’s hoping that some of the more egregious things I’ve heard about Castaneda are not true and that he is looking to represent all of Fullerton in his new duties.

That Castaneda endorsed me in 2016 shows, if nothing else, that he made some good choices 4 years ago. Let’s hope he keeps doing the same.

August 6, 2019September 9, 2020Behind Closed Doors

Follow the Bouncing Bureaucracy

by Lonnie Machin1 Comment

One of the biggest problems with government is that it’s slow to react and generally stupid in those reactions. This is largely because governments are run by incompetent bureaucrats who refuse to learn lessons from their own mistakes.

Let’s look at some complaints lodged against city appointed commissioners and how the city reacted to those complaints to see how the rules in government changed depending on the person involved.

First up is a complaint against our own Joshua Ferguson by city manager assistant Nicole Bernard. She apparently got mad at the posting of an anonymous complaint against her.

She asked the city to compel Joshua to remove the post and the lawyer the city used to look into it came back with a big fat no can do: (more…)

September 7, 2018September 9, 2020Carpetbaggery

District 5 Ballot Loses a Candidate

by Lonnie Machin132 Comments

Well, it looks like District 5’s ballot is going to be one candidate shy come election time this November as our prospective progressive/socialist climate warrior neighbor Jose Trinidad Castaneda III didn’t quite make the cut.

If you don’t know – you need 20 registered voters to sign a petition for you to run for city council and they must be valid signatures. 20. Castaneda, with his “deep roots” in District 5 opted to turn in just 23 (leaving the 7 extra spots blank) and a few were disqualified. Apparently Castaneda couldn’t be bothered to do the bare minimum which is to turn in 20 valid signatures.

Socialists of a Feather

Upon finding out that turning in just above the bare minimum number of signatures, despite some bloviating on his campaign Facebook page, wasn’t good enough owing to disqualifications he did what any good socialist does and he sued.

CastanedaSues

And today he lost that lawsuit.

CastanedaWritDenied

Let that sink in for when he runs his write-in campaign or perhaps carpetbags in 2020. He couldn’t be bothered to meet the bare minimum threshold and then sued because he didn’t think the rules should apply to him. This is not a mentality Fullerton needs or can afford and yet the mentality that typically is attracted to our City Council.

It seems that in this 60% Latino District the top two Progressives are a Caucasian Carpetbagger and a Syrian Showman. Which of the race baiting district election supporters saw this coming?

*Editorial Correction – In the original version of this post we said that District 5 lost a candidate. According to Castaneda’s lawyer, Greg Diamond, “Trini” plans on running a write-in campaign. So while he may still be a losing candidate, there will in fact be one-less than anticipated candidate on the ballot.

The original post also stated that Castaneda did the bare minimum. The law is to turn in 20 valid signatures and thus stating that Castaneda did the bare minimum is factually incorrect. Had he met the minimum threshold he would have qualified. He factually did less than the bare minimum and attempted to do just above the bare minimum.