Friends For Fullerton's Future

December 11, 2024December 11, 2024Ahmad Zahra

Who or What is A Connor Traut?

I don’t know much about someone called Connor Traut, but he’s running to represent Fullerton as our next County Supervisor for the 4th District. This lad, I am told, is on the City Council in Buena Park where he carpetbagged a while back to run for office. I am also informed he was once the political protégé of one-time wunderkind Jordan Brandman, the Anaheim councilman who went nuts and died of severe meth intoxication.

This appears to be one of those Young (fill in the party name) types who hover around political circles and crave the attention that only elective office can bring. OC politics is full of these people who would rather have an unaccountable job in politics than honest work, even as a lawyer. He says he’s a “consumer protection trial attorney,” on his campaign website but on his business website we discover he’s really a personal injury lawyer, or so he says. Better to stick with consumer protection, which is probably a safe thing to say, in a space where you can sneak into the USA, have everyone call you doctor, and are actually dumb enough to believe you are sincere. But whatever it is Traut does, it’s obvious this youngster would rather be a full-time politician.

I don’t know about you, but it seems unseemly for somebody to start politicking for an office a year and a half before the primary in 2026. Could have at least waited a few weeks, ’til 2025.

Anyhow, it seems the young Trautlet has been super-busy getting endorsements from the usual suspects – the claque of local Democrat small fry. Check out the “partial” endorsement list.

If some of these names look familiar to you, you’d have good reason. Many of these establishment Democrats just endorsed the otiose campaign of Vivian Jaramillo. It appears that there is an effort to produce an inevitability around the callow Connor, the same strategy that failed so spectacularly for Team Jaramillo.

Nothing left but empty bloviation and Bulgarian clothing…

What’s interesting about this list is one name that is not on it – Dr. Ahmad Zahra. I wonder why this is. It’s pretty obvious that Zahra could try for something else in the 2026 Primary – like replacing Sharon Quirk in the State Assembly. So why not endorse The Traut? Is it just an embarrassing omission?

As a fun side note, I see that Senator Josh Newman is euphemistically referred to as “retired,” although he is still in office. I guess this will avoid having to change the website in a few weeks. Some suggested Newman might run for Supervisor. Guess not. Ditto Quirk who is an endorser, or her husband, the limitlessly clownish Jesus Quirk-Silva.

Who else might run for 4th District Supervisor? Well, Fullerton’s Fred Jung, for one. He has name ID and a huge pile o’ cash that will put the Traut Show to shame. He just got over 70% of the vote in his re-election bid without needing any institutional Democrat Party support at all. I wonder if Jung were to run we might not see a Zahra spoiler candidacy as a way to split the vote of Fullerton – the largest city completely within the 4th District. This could explain the non-endorsement by Zahra.

Fullerton’s Mayor, Nick Dunlap could give it a go. He’s just destroyed Jan Flory in his re-election by a huge margin and can raise cash. But he doesn’t seem the type who craves political office or the proverbial limelight. How about Bruce Whitaker? He could try, as the County has a long history of antiquated politicians looking for a nice Supervisorial pasture – incumbent Doug “Bud” Chaffee, for one. He could get Republican votes, but that doesn’t seem enough anymore; and he can’t raise money and will be out of office. Some Repuglican hack from Brea? Steve Vargas ran in 2022 and came in 4th.

I can see no other plausible candidates unless we see the return of Fire Hero, Coto Joe Kerr, who ran for this seat in 2022, or some other as yet unseen phony carpetbagger.

December 11, 2024December 11, 2024Ahmad Zahra

The Hypocrisy of California’s Government

by Mr. Peabody7 Comments

For 50 years California has enjoyed/suffered the benefits of CEQA – the California Environmental Quality Act. The intent of the law was to assess the environmental impacts of various projects proposed by private developers and even the government itself – be it dams, roads, civic projects, etc. Some projects, mostly the big ones, required EIRs – Environmental Impact Reports, that cited impacts and measures of mitigation.

Now, I don’t pretend to be an expert on CEQA, but I’ve been told that all too often it is just a bungling paper chase that enriches “consultants,” and instead of addressing impacts, coughs up lots of gobbledygook and ginned up “studies” to talk around the problem. And this is just as true for governments’ reports as for those of developers.

Last night I listened to Fullerton’s beloved City Council vote for a new zoning law – the Housing Incentive Overlay Zone (HIOZ), including an explanation of why it was exempt from CEQA even though over 13,000 new units were being incentivized. The excuse was that no specific building was being proposed. You might think that is reasonable enough given that specific location has a lot to do with environmental impacts on thing like roads and street lights and traffic, etc.

And yet the new mandates from Sacramento dictate that because there is some sort of housing “crisis” new developments may be built “by-right” that is to say, without local controls over specific aspects of projects that would normally be comprehensively addressed in Conditions of Approval. Which means that those 13,000 units may not be attached to amelioration of the impacts they create.

And of course 20% of the new units must be reserved for low income tenants, another philanthropic mandate with unknown repercussions on the community.

Here’s the summation: the single-party legislature has serially made such a mess of California over the past 30 years that the fixes for the problems require that they jettison other mandates previously deemed critical, such as CEQA.

Locally, cities have been threatened with legal action by the State’s Governor and Attorney General if they don’t comply; and they are threatened by deprivation of State funding and grants by the Housing and Community Development Department, run by faceless bureaucrats. If cities try to fight back, like Huntington Beach has, the legal results are costly and a foregone conclusion.

And so Fullerton’s City Council went along with the inevitable, acquiescing to the demands of Sacramento in a sad 4-1 vote. Only Bruce Whitaker voted no in what is his last official vote.

I’ve heard it said that government spends half its time trying to fix problems it created during the other half. Sounds about right.

December 10, 2024December 10, 2024Ahmad Zahra

HIOZ It Going, Fullerton?

by Mr. Peabody16 Comments

A special meeting of Fullerton’s City Council is taking place tonight. Why? To address the so-called 6th Cycle of the Housing Element of the General Plan and the concomitant Housing Incentive Overlay Zone, or HIOZ, for those who prefer government acronyms.

The City Council has already postponed rubber stamping this twice which is odd, because they usually clean their plates like good little boys and girl.

Friends may recall that City staff proposed the opportunity overlay to construct as many as 30,000 new units with almost zero City control. This, even though the Sacramento houseacrats only demanded 13,000. I say “only” even though this lower number would still add twenty to thirty thousand new residents to Fullerton with new, massive apartment blocks on re-zoned commercial and industrial property.

I previously opined that the 30,000 number was just a dodge, to give the City Council the appearance of having fought a tough fight to “save” Fullerton, while quietly acquiescing on the destructive 13,000 mandate. This would be of particular benefit to the 2026 re-election chances of Shana Charles and Ahmad Zahra, both of whom are ardent lefties and both of whom would love to see those 13,000 units without regard for the damage dome to the City’s schools, roads, infrastructure and neighborhood cohesion.

I wouldn’t be surprised to see a roll-out of the usual suspects singing hosannas to the Council for acceding to the 13,000 units.

And that hypothesis seems right on. The Council has already directed staff to remove the Chapman and Commonwealth “corridors” from the HIOZ plan where the application would have been the most damaging and controversial. And paring back the scale of the disingenuous plan gives a victory to the Save Fullerton crowd who may have actually believed the 30,000 units was an authentic proposal. That group includes some our friends at the Fullerton Observer who will happily embrace the 13,000 as a wonderful compromise.

Why all these meetings? Maybe it’s a necessary part of this Kabuki to give the façade of public review to something that was always a foregone conclusion – satisfying the knuckle headed legislators and the faceless bureaucrats in Sacramento; and their running buddies in the Southern California Association of Governments, and the California League of Cities.

And why a Special Meeting, other than to instill a sense of Heap Big Emergency about bowing to the diktats of an out-of-control legislature?

December 7, 2024December 7, 2024A Step in the Right Direction

Water, Water Everywhere Nor Any Drop to Drink

by Joe Sipowicz16 Comments

I will get what I want, one way or another…

Friends may remember the tussle on the City Council in the weeks following City Councilmember Ahmad Zahra’s election in 2018. At first he opined that a replacement election to fill Jesus Quirk-Silva’s vacate at-large council seat was right and proper. There was applause.

But then something weird happened. A month later Zahra went back on his word and voted to appoint Council retread Jan Flory for another lap around the track. After Flory was safely installed on the council, she, Jennifer Fitzgerald, and Zahra voted to replace Bruce Whitaker on the OC Water District Board with…Zahra.

“Well, Joe, who cares” I can hear some of you saying. But apart from the role the OCWD plays in the OC water wars, and the huge pile of cash the agency sits on, the appointment pays. And pays damn well. For an unemployed “film producer” what could be better? Suddenly the Flory appointment didn’t look weird at all.

So check this out, Transparent California’s report for our hero, Zahra.

During his two years on the water board Zahra made some damn good money – tens of thousands of dollars in pay and benefits. And while on the board he pimped the awful Poseidon desal scam and got district PR people to write articles he published in the Fullerton Observer under his own name.

In 2021 Fitzgerald and Flory were mercifully gone; Zahra was removed from the OCWD, replaced with Bruce Whitaker. Zahra’s Mother’s Milk was turned off at the spigot and he has only collected his council stipend since

Fullerton Folk are now speculating about whether the 2024-elected council will appoint Zahra as Mayor, an honorific job he desperately wants. A Vivian Jaramillo victory in District 4 would have got him that. But it also would have gotten the ability to vote himself back onto the OCWD board, and back on that gravy train.

Alas ’twas not to be for Zahra. Jaramillo was beaten by newcomer Jamie Valencia who was denigrated by Jaramillo’s precinct walkers and by Jaramillo herself. She owes the Democrat nothing and may not have any inclination to do favors for the man who promoted her opponent, big time.

December 5, 2024December 5, 2024Fullerton BooHoo

Dumb, Dishonest, or Just Delusional?

by Mr. Peabody23 Comments

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.

December 4, 2024December 4, 2024Vivian Kitty Jaramillo

Jaramillo Lamentations

by The Fullerton Harpoon34 Comments

A Friend forwarded this post election statement by Vivian “Kitty” Jaramillo:

Poor Kitty. Done in by “dirty tricks” of some unmentioned sort – despite all the hard work put in by her team. Team Jaramillo. The crew that discovered, recruited, hand-held phony “Republican” Scott Markowitz, and who even wrote his MAGA ballot statement to draw votes away from Jaramillo’s opponent. Markowitz pleaded guilty to perjury and falsification of public documents. No mention of that in her farewell address.

There is a big shout out to the UFCW union that laundered $60,000 of out-of-town marijuana lobby money to buy mailers and pro-Jaramillo precinct walkers. Lots and lots of them who harassed each voter multiple times in order to elect Jaramillo.

Kitty says now the pressure is on to see if there will be improvements in D4, the district she created for herself to win. Some irony there, eh? There is already an improvement.

She wishes the best for the City Manager and City employees (not counting the cops and firepeople who endorsed her opponent). No mention of the people of Fullerton who never seemed to be on her self-centered radar. But we we knew her priority was city workers, because that’s what she volunteered to the OC Register in another foot-shooting moment.

Employees present and past love Kitty. Yes, massive six-figure pensioners, keep on truckin.’

Despite claiming to be an agent of civility, Kitty can’t resist to take a swipe at the “other two knuckleheads,” presumably Jung and Dunlap.

Before she waddles off down the Trail to Nowhere to make tamales, Kitty reminds us again of the unfairness of it all. Apparently “good guys” couldn’t get past the finish line because somehow, the “red line” kept moving. I have no idea what this lament is about because she and Team Jaramillo did cross the finish line, whatever color it may have been. She just wasn’t in first place when she did cross it.

Well, now Vivian can go back to just being an annoying, self-important busybody who can’t do any damage; a boil on the butt of Fullerton: irritating but not dangerous.

December 3, 2024December 3, 2024Ahmad Zahra

2024 Election is Over

by The Fullerton Harpoon12 Comments

Today the OC Registrar of Voters finally certified the November 2024 election results. In Fullerton’s 4th District race Jamie Valencia has defeated Vivian Jaramillo by 53 votes.

With hard work, the support of the “public safety” unions, and relentless public service announcements by Fullerton Taxpayers For Reform about Jaramillo, Valencia prevailed in her electoral debut.

Jaramillo, the handpicked candidate of the OC Democrat Party was backed by a small fortune invested by the marijuana dispensary lobby and the government paper-pushers union. Unfortunately for Jaramillo, her supporters (with or without her knowledge) created a phony candidate, Scott Markowitz to draw male and Republican voters away from Linda Whitaker. The plan backfired spectacularly as Markowitz was busted for perjury and falsifying public documents – charges to which he pleaded guilty.

I’d screw over my own mother for 10 votes. And I’ll do it again.

The scandal was used by FTFF to hammer the Jaramillo campaign.

Meanwhile, Linda Whitaker, wife of outgoing D4 Councilman Bruce Whitaker ran a lackluster campaign effort even though she raised a lot of money. She seems to have been hoping for enough name recognition to win. A mid-campaign excursion to Italy was symbolic of her campaign’s entropic trajectory.

Yes, I was a phony from Day 1. And it was obvious…

And then there’s Markowitz, the completely fraudulent candidate and perjurer who may or may not have ratted on his accomplices in a remarkably quick plea bargain deal with the District Attorney. Despite publicly disavowing his scampaign, Marko still got 1020 votes, an electoral testament of some kind, probably better left unexamined.

Matt Truxaw. Probably not the best look for a candidate…

Mayor Nick Dunlap and Councilman Fred Jung both won re-election easily. Jung’s 40 point win over a hitherto unknown comedian/science fiction writer named Matt Truxaw was a forgone conclusion.

Dunlap’s big win over former Councilperson Jan Flory may finally signal the demise of the self-righteous, morally bankrupt, and sclerotic Fullerton Gerontocracy.

The consequences of the Valencia victory may soon start to become apparent. The election winners will be sworn in on December 17th. The council will then choose the Mayor and Mayor Pro Tem for 2025. The liberals in Fullerton will be in high dudgeon indeed if their darling, serial liar and immigration fraud Ahmad Zahra is not chosen Mayor. If that does not occur, we can expect a similar disappointment for America’s first openly gay, Muslim elected in America, again in 2025.

Finally, in other local election news, we are rid of soon to be ex-State Senator, Gas Tax Josh Newman, whose new district appended him to a vast area of central Orange County where he was an unknown, and this after being a loyal water bearer for the Sacto Smash N’ Grab Club. Oopsy. Newman lost to a former Assemblyman and buffoonish librarian from Irvine, Steven Choi. Newman rose from political obscurity eight years ago. Will he return to it? Some are saying he should run for County Supervisor in 2026. If so, he’s not going to get any help from those who hopes for him in 2016 as an outsider were badly misplaced.

December 1, 2024December 1, 2024Bruce Whitaker

What is Fullerton’s Future?

by The Fullerton Harpoon20 Comments

If the current situation in the District 4 election remains unchanged, Jamie Valencia will be the newest member of the Fullerton City Council.

Will she, like her soon to be predecessor Bruce Whitaker, form a reliable majority with Nick Dunlap and Fred Jung? I don’t know. But supposing she will, it’s fun to speculate on what issues, if any, could be in the offing for Fullerton’s future.

Domer-Decorations — Hitching to Desert Center

Remember, Friends, that Dunlap, Jung and Whitaker have never really bucked City Hall bureaucratic authority, with the singular exception of getting rid of hapless City Manager, Ken Domer, and that happened after four or five months of dithering.

It’s a total waste of money, but it sure is short…

Would a new council majority be willing to take on any sort of real policy direction? Would it be willing to reverse awful decisions made previously? We may consider such City Hall monstrosities as the Walk on Wilshire and the equally stupid Trail to Nowhere as projects crying out for their plugs to be pulled. What about the “boutique” hotel that morphed into a monster, high density boondoggle, whose “developer” has a series of bankruptcies and judicial losses to his credit?

What about Mario Marovich’s “bump out” building addition, a theft of public property over 20 years ago that still squats there on the Commonwealth Avenue sidewalk, despite an agreement with Marovich that should have gotten rid of it 16 months ago?

Hey! What are we going to do about the public money drain known as Downtown Fullerton? Anybody willing to discuss a bar tax on the people who have been making tens of millions off of us over the past 20 years?

And then there’s the deplorable “6th Cycle Housing Element” to the Fullerton General Plan, a program of mass housing mandates that, if effected, would destroy the City. SO far the Council has shown no sales resistance to the idea of 13,000 new residential units, even as their staff has cooked up a plan for 30,000.

Are there personnel changes that might happen, that ought to happen? Will there be new policies demanding accountability by our well-paid and benefitted staff? Would a new council majority put a halt to the staff penchant for drumming up Astroturf support for its boondoggles?

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

And let’s not forget the good folks who make bank on us dispensing the worst legal advice imaginable over the past 30 years without any accountability for losses, bungling, conflicts of interest; yes, the I can’t Believe It’s a Law Firm of Jones and Myers who oversaw and vigorously pursued the lawsuit against Joshua Ferguson, David Curlee and the FFFF blog itself.

Is change coming? Anything is possible, I suppose, but this is Fullerton, and Fullerton, being Fullerton, no idea is too stupid to die.

And of course Cannabis Kitty Jaramillo could be the beneficiary of her followers’ petitions to the Almighty for the “good guys” to win. In which case, other sorts of changes will be coming, none of them good, which would be the subject of another post.

In the meantime, let’s go ahead, Friends. Let’s indulge ourselves in speculation, and even more importantly, sharing what we think are good ideas.

November 28, 2024November 29, 2024A Step in the Right Direction

Happy Thanksgiving, Friends

by Mr. Peabody16 Comments

Here is a re-print of as FFFF Thanksgiving message from way back in 2011. There is no mention of downtown noise bungles, Trails to Nowhere, Walks on Wilshire or boutique hotels. Bankhead and Jones are long dead. The Recall a distant memory. However, the message is still very pertinent, and it’s way easier to reproduce an old one than come up with a new one.

As we pause today to give thanks for whatever we have to be thankful for, please consider how fortunate we are to live in a nation where freedom of speech actually means something.

This blog has never abused that basic right. We are abusive, rude, enlightening, abrasive, endearing, funny, not funny; we are free with our opinions, but never make things up. And we always remember what Dick Jones, Don Bankhead and Pat McKinley do not: that we derive the right from ourselves, and not from the government that would make us fill out a little blue card to speak to them.

We have been accused of being angry. Hell, yes we’re angry: as our elected representatives cut ribbons and hobnobbed at Chamber of Commerce mixers and rubber stamped every idiocy put in front of them, our city (ours, not theirs) was turned over to a gang of grifters, liars, thugs, pickpockets, perverts and killers.

These same buffoons have turned downtown Fullerton into a urine-soaked, booze addled free-for-all upon which our city council unleashed a band of uniformed goons hardly better than the low-lifes they invited into our city.

They have given their campaign contributors free land and even public streets upon which to erect the overbuilt stucco’d monstrosities that have swallowed up the historic downtown. Are they even ashamed? Hell, no, they are proud of what they have done and apologize for nothing.

Yes, there is anger; yet, anger tempered by hope. Hope that with a clear, sharp message Fullerton can be relieved of the dead hand of an ancient and corrupt regime. That message of hope is being delivered by the Fullerton Recall campaign.

You are all welcome to share that hope. And be assured: the winter of discontent will give way to a new year and spring of accountability and responsibility on the part of Fullerton’s elected representatives.

November 26, 2024November 26, 2024Ahmad Zahra

They Did What?

by Mr. Peabody14 Comments

I have to admit I haven’t been paying much attention to the development of Fullerton’s “6th Cycle” General Plan Housing Element. I figured it to be a fruitless paper chase in which a consultant got paid a bunch of money to produce umpteen pages of incomprehensible gobbledygook. Turns out I was right about that.

The other thing that caused indifferent resignation on my part was the housing mandate decreed by the State Housing and Community Development Department, often referred to as “State HCD.” It so happens that their mandate for Fullerton was to create the opportunity for 13,000 new residential units, as determined by yet another faceless bureaucracy, Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG), whose mission is to do whatever the State wants, regardless of what is good for its constituent members. The 13,000 units are part of SCAG’s Regional Housing Needs Assessment (RHNA, pronounced ree-nuh). These people sure love them some acronyms.

Where these 13,000 unit opportunities are supposed to go in a built out city is no mystery. It will require re-zoning commercial, office professional, and industrially zoned property to admit new residential use. Lots of it.

Well, that’s bad enough, but our crack Community Development Department saw fit to propose a new zoning overlay that could accommodate 30,000 new units. You read that right. 30,000 units, a sum that could increase Fullerton’s population to near the quarter million mark. Their justification? It’s so they won’t have to do anymore bowing and scraping to State HCD. At least not for a while. Or so they say.

The whole thing is ludicrous. First, the rationale for giving the Sacramento boneheads more than they demand is crazy. It’s like paying a million bucks in ransom when the kidnapers only asked for half a mil with no guarantee they won’t do it again. Then there’s the practical side of this. There would be no new roads, no new sewer and water superstructure added, no new schools built, and sixty thousand new auto trips daily. And don’t forget the inadequate parking. It’s a farce piled on top of another farce. But somehow everything will work out, our six-figure experts tell us..

The mechanism to perform this new housing miracle is the called the Housing Incentive Overlay Zone (you guessed it, there’s an acronym – HIOZ). Staff and their consultants have identified hundreds and hundreds of real estate parcels that would receive the new overlay zone, but they don’t seem to be unduly concerned about the effect to the City of Fullerton of losing land for commercial and industrial purposes. It seems that in the grand bureaucratic scheme of things, satisfying other bureaucrats in Sacramento is even more important than losing that sales tax revenue they’re always hunting around for like rabid wolverines.

Well, fear not, Friends. In reality the 30,000 units was likely just Kabuki theater meant to look like a good faith effort to outdo even the demands of anonymous paper-pushers at SCAG. The City Council discussed this issue last week and there’s no way any of them are going to give the State more than it wants.

Of course, there’s another possibility, too. A political one. The utterly incompetent Ahmad Zahra and Shana Charles, Fullerton City Council’s two ultra-liberals, are up for re-election in 2026, and, cynic that I am, I have to wonder if they both won’t use this silver-platter opportunity to campaign on how they defended Fullerton’s quality of life by fighting hard against 17,000 apartments that were never going to happen anyway. Now that would be cynical, wouldn’t it?