The Steven Sherry Experience

Peeing in the canal, again?

Fullerton Boohoo comes in all shapes and sizes, but its members share one thing in common: a desperate drive to support Democrat Party candidates. Fullerton Forward, the brain child of someone called Steven Sherry is no exception. “Building a Better Future for All Fullertonians” is Sherry’s slogan #1. Slogan #2 is about “values”:

But you can forget the high-minded rhetoric. Fullerton Forward is really about helping the sort of candidates who pretend to profess this credo – brain-dead Democrats – the tax ’em then help ’em out via government ilk. These were the same sort of hypocrites who cooked up all the bullshit pretexts to keep Jesus Quirk-Silva on the City Council a few years back.

I won, I won…

We met Fullerton Forward a few weeks ago as Sherry orchestrated a comical People’s Council meeting with limited pizza. The Fullerton Observer wouldn’t say who was behind the get together that attracted the cream of Fullerton Crazy’s crop, and that appointed immigration fraud “Dr.” Ahmad Zahra as the People’s Mayor.

According to the Fullerton Forward website, an individual named Linda Gardner is on the group’s 3 person “advisory council” whatever that title may mean. Here’s her bio:

Linda “…has been active in local and state politics for many years, serving as President of Democrats of North Orange County for six years and continuing to be an active member. Linda has actively worked on campaigns for California Governor, Senate and Assembly as well as Fullerton City Council and major propositions and recalls.

Linda is currently a Delegate for the California Democratic Party. She is passionate about positive change for the future of Fullerton.”

Sherry a former Democrat lobbyist, boasts about himself:

For over a decade, he has also worked in political campaigns, founding his own consulting firm, NewWave Strategies, in 2020. Through his firm, Steven has raised millions for clients nationwide and built highly effective, resourceful advertising campaigns.

Most of this is undoubtedly made up, and after you finish this post you may think the same thing.

Andre, all smiles for cannabis…

This guy looks an awful lot like the under-employed Andre Charles, husband of the insufferable hot air bag Shana whose employment history is sketchy, at best.

Anyhow, Fullerton Forward has finally submitted the necessary Form 460 required of political action committees after the June primary. This document is instructive for lots of reasons.

Cannabis Kitty Jaramillo

First, we can see several of Fullerton’s cyphers who contributed – like the failed Cannabis Kitty Jaramillo, who sued the City so she could get elected; and our old friend, the pathetic election fraud participant, Diane Vena, who endorsed Jaramillo then signed the nominating papers of the phony candidate/confessed perjurer Scott Markowitz. We see you angry liitle eye doctor Anjali Tapadia; and you too, developer shake down artist Elizabeth Hansberg; Aha, over there, indignant front parlor antique, Karen Lloreda, recalled from the Dana Point City Council, and come to Fullerton to roost in the municipal rafters.

Sherry raised almost $17K, which looks okay. But wait. There are only two main contributors:

As we will see, one is frequent Council irritant Helen Higgins, and the other is some dude named Joel Maus, which means “mouse” in English. I have no idea what his motivation is. Maybe he’ll drop by to tell us. He’s the $5K “small business” moneybags.

Like Andre Charles, Mr. Sherry seems to believe that personally doing well by doing good is his life’s path. How’s that? you ask.

Because according to the Form 460 Schedule E, Sherry paid himself almost $6000 for the campaign he ran against Fred Jung in the primary, a campaign that only lasted a couple months. I won’t even share the percentages of Sherry’s cost versus the totals he spent and raised, because the Form 460 Schedule E totals don’t add up to the total expenditures listed on the Form 460 top summary.

The best part of Sherry’s activities, with his name almost obscured, was this remarkable payment he made to himself: $4560.80 for “fundraising.” WTF?

I love the amount this honest and transparent political action committee paid to scofflaw Mario Marovic for holding their fundraiser at “Madero 1899,” even as his fake Irish pub across the street still illegally squats on the Commonwealth sidewalk. Did the dummy Sherry list the cost of the Big Fundraising Party twice, somehow? If so, the numbers still wouldn’t add up to the summary page, so it hardly matters.

Naturally, Sherry paid his tribute to the Democrat Party of OC – $500 on April 27th – confirming the purely partisan nature of his new plaything.

By the way, I’m informed that Sherry’s self-serve creation is also now the object of an FPPC complaint, dealing with illegal campaign campaign sign disclosure rules.

Finally, we are we really to believe somebody who spent a lot to raise a little, and who, as treasurer and “Executive Director” of a PAC can’t seem to add, has “raised millions for nationwide clients?” Yeah, sure, Steve, whatever you say.

Almost half the money raised came from only two donors. If I were on that “Advisory Council” I’d be asking some serious questions of Mr. Sherry. Of course that won’t happen.

Say What, Observers?

REVISED 9:18AM

A week ago the Fullerton Observer Kennedy Sisters passed along a confused post about the City Council reviewing an appeal of a Planning Commission denial of the 32 unit project at Hermosa and Harbor, such appeal occurring on June 16th.

Except that the appeal hearing already took place back on May 5th.

Satkia Kennedy on the job…

It’s not unlike the Fullerton Observer “amateurs” to post stupid, befuddled, or erroneous stuff, but this is perplexing even to Observer observers.

It looks like an old post has been carelessly updated, but why? My first thought was did somebody like Ahmad Zahra or Shana Charles want this to come back – maybe because it wasn’t officially “tabled” as an issue? This has happened before. The agenda for the June 16th meeting hasn’t been published yet, so it seems possible that somebody alerted the Kennedy Sisters that this was returning for some reason. Our first sharp-eyed commenter below point out that the issue was forecast in the 6/2/26 agenda for the next meeting to pass a resolution defending the appeal. Why? I don’t know other than this is a due diligence exercise. Maybe this is where the Sisters got the idea of a rolling issue.

It looks like mostly just another Observer gagglefuck – a garbled post carelessly published by the Sisters. Sadly, Fullerton Boohoo/Fullerton Self-righteous will no doubt exercise another “we need housing” circus to embarrass the Council majority and to take a shot at the hated NIMBYies in north Fullerton.

ABC

No sale

Anyone But Connor. Connor Traut, that is, the nebbish, desperate political carpetbagger, hack and descendant/acolyte of the corrupt Anaheim Cabal gang.

His mentor was the unspeakable Jordan Brandman, another young political climber who never held a job in his life that wasn’t handed to him.

Here’s the thing: vote for Jung, Espinosa or Shaw, if you vote at all. North Orange County has the ability today to be rid of the Connor Traut Experience once and for all. If by some chance this “establishment” Democrat gets elected we won’t be rid of his incessant political adventures for another 40 years as he bobs back and forth between Sacramento and the County Hall of Administration – making sure there is no government accountability every slimy step of the way.

Traut, on the right.

Here’s a thought, Connor: get out of politics, get a real job that you earned, if you can, and support your family making a contribution to society. Don’t end up like your mentor, Jordan Brandman.

Queen For A Day

Back in the 1950s there was a TV show called “Queen for a Day.” Typical American women got to compete for the stupid title and probably won some housewife-drudgery prize like a washing machine or a vacuum cleaner.

The booby prize…

“Dr.” Ahmad Zahra got a similarly useless tile the other day, when a dozen Council irritants selected him as “The People’s Mayor.” Except that Zahra didn’t even get a useful home appliance. Instead he got a Fullerton Crazy diploma in a plastic frame.

Traut Hit

An anonymous Friend sent in the image below from a mailer hitting the Gomer Pyle look-alike Mayor of Buena Park, Connor Traut.

It seems to have been promulgated by a PAC, but that’s all I got. Is this in support of Tim Shaw of La Habra, or to help Fred Jung? Or was it just sent out by somebody that really dislikes the desperate for office carpetbagger, Traut?

I’m sharing this hoping someone can fill in the details.

More Monkey Business With the Budget?

If as is being claimed by “Erik” at Fullerton City News is unequivocally stating that Fullerton City staff has been unilaterally backfilling departmental funds without approval by the City Council. This would be unethical and illegal.

Elected officials have to approve these sorts of transfers from the General Fund as well as periodic budget adjustments. Period. Erik claims this has been going on for at least seven years and the amounts are substantial.

Erik uses this situation to suggest a City sales tax bailout is the wrong way to reward the bureaucrats who perpetrated this possibly criminal hairball.

Here is his post:

I’ve Got 24,816,001 Reasons To Not Support A Sales Tax

City Hall Spent $24.8 Million Without Council Approval And Now Wants A Tax Increase

Erik

May 21, 2026

Budgets are estimates, it’s an unpredictable world, and not getting it perfect is understandable. Fullerton City Hall staff and the city council are supposed to work together to determine how much money should go to each fund / department but ultimately it is the city council who, being elected, gets the final say on how we prioritize and spend that money. When council does this properly the residents are happy and councilmembers get re-elected, run for higher office, etc. When they don’t get it right they lose elections, get recalled, and/or face public scorn. The city council is our control mechanism over how our money is spent.

When a council appropriation ends up being more than what was needed, the remaining money can return to the General Fund without issue. When a council appropriation is not enough, the correct action is to request an increase from the city council. Again, city council is our control mechanism over how our money is spent. Staff does not have the legal authority to increase spending, only council does.

This is spelled out in City Municipal Code 2.68.030:

Prior to June fifth of each year, the City Administrator shall submit a budget for the coming fiscal year to the City Council for adoption.

And the restrictions given in City Municipal Code 2.68.050 which states:

C. Transfers of appropriations between departments and funds, or use of salary and accounts, other than those exceptions authorized herein, may be made only by authority of the City Council.

D. Expenditures in excess of the budgeted amounts are prohibited. (Ord. 1485 § 5, 1967).

This should be clear and simple. Need more money? Go ask council for it. However, it appears City Hall chose not to follow this practice (or the law).

During a conference call with a municipal finance expert, I was directed to the ‘Budgetary Compliance’ Section of the City’s 2025 Annual Comprehensive Financial Report (ACFR). They summarized that when that section is present in the report it means that something has gone wrong and in this case it’s by a lot. The ‘Excess’ column of this section lists money that city staff spent in excess of the council-approved budget and for 2025 it totals $11,148,422.

Consider for a moment what this means. Our only way of having a say over how our taxpayer money is spent is through the city council. They are elected to represent us and our interests. The municipal code confirms this is their decision to make. Yet in FY25 unelected bureaucrats at City Hall simply ignored the city council and the voters they represent and went and spent whatever they wanted.

  • Police couldn’t manage on their budgeted $61.3M? They spent $63.9M.
  • Fire couldn’t operate on $34.6M? They spent $36.2M.
  • ‘Capital Outlays’ went over by $6M. This one is especially troubling because there’s no clear explanation of what those funds were actually spent on.

Put another way, the city council budgeted a total of $132.9M to the General Fund but staff spent $144.1M … $11,148,422 of which was without council approval. You might notice on the Revenue side that we brought in $8.9M more than anticipated and should have had a $5.4M surplus. But staff’s $11,148,422 unauthorized spending pushed us from a large surplus to a $5.7M deficit.

This is a complete disregard of good financial practice by City HallWhile some overspending covers legitimate needs, the lack of prior approval violates the process residents rely on, a process that does not include staff spending whatever they want and stashing it on page 105 of next year’s ACFR. Their actions were in direct violation of the city municipal code and are a slap in our faces.

But wait… it gets worse. Much worse. If this were a one-time thing I could almost understand. But, Dear Readers, City Hall staff has disregarded city council approved budgets every single year for the past decade. See for yourself:

2024: $235,248
gdfgdfgd
2023: $455,176. And they were nice enough to put in a reminder that this was not legal spending.
2022: $3,881,625
2021: $5,057,613

Prior to 2021 accounting used a different format for the annual financial report known as the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR) and the format is a little different, but the pattern of spending beyond authorization continues.

2020: $2,200,681.
2019: $1,701,966

Starting in 2019 to present, staff has helped themselves to $24,816,001 of our taxpayer dollars beyond what our duly-elected council representatives legally allocated them. This money was taken without permission, outside of our established legal process, repeated every single year in recent history. This is an outrage.

Our current unrestricted cash reserves are $19.8M which, with a general fund of $144.1M gives us the current 14% reserve level. This is well below the council target of 17% and translates to 1-1/2 months. Had staff followed the budget all these years, our reserves could be as high as $44.6M which comes out to a 31% reserve level or 3-1/2 months. Or some of that could have gone to paving more streets.

But alas, it is already spent and gone and those who spent it are telling you to just give them more money via a sales tax increase. You should ask your councilmember how they feel about this, do they still trust City Hall, and what are they going to do about it?

We are being robbed.

Back to Harpoonville. This sounds pretty serious and I sure hope the crack accountants we have hired to check the books to explore a few facts:

  1. How were these transactions booked and who authorized them?
  2. Were the transactions simply glossed over in annual CAFRs and budgets without saying who approved them?
  3. When, if ever did the Fullerton City Council approve these transfers? Were any of them ratified after the transfers were made?

We have already seen the City play fast and loose with Redevelopment Successor Agency funds as well as other non-discretionary funds to pad the invalid General Fund. That was bad. And in retrospect, maybe those transfers were just part of an overall pattern of misfeasance.

The People Have A Meeting

Last week “the People” held their own meeting in front of City Hall since the Fullerton City Council meeting had been cancelled for lack of a quorum.

Who were “the People?” Nobody was saying before the event, except that the organizers were springing for limited pizza.

The turnout, predictably, was a couple dozen of the usual agitators at City Council meetings – a combination of Fullerton Boohoo, Fullerton Self-righteous, Fullerton Angry and Fullerton Nuts.

The ostensible theme of the get together was to bitch about the usual stuff, including transparency, which was funny because Sanka Kennedy of the Fullerton Observer who advertised this event, didn’t even bother to say who was putting on what turned out to be an overtly political event, whose principal purpose was to attack Mayor Fred Jung and promote Connor Traut in advance of the upcoming Supervisorial primary election.

It turns out the shindig was the work of Fullerton Forward, a political action committee cooked by council annoyance Steven Sherry, one of those underemployed political cling-ons looking to make his way in a cold, cruel political world. He was the one who sprang for the dozen pizzas, apparently.

O, the sparkling rhetoric from Crazy Air-punching Tim Johnson. Little Angry Bird, Dancing Ms. Green Card, Professor Curtis Gamble, Tender Young Elijah, Oliver the No-account of Montecristo, and other luminaries! Stika Kennedy, erstwhile “journalist” addressed the gaggle, too, showing again her failure to distinguish journalism from partisan politics.

The booby prize…

Then, at last, to the mawkish business of “appointing” the “People’s Mayor.” Angry Johnson had already prepared certificate of accomplishment for the Dodgy Doctor from Damascus, Ahmad Zahra! What a surprise!!

The People’s Mayor contemplating his political future…and then free pizza for dinner!

The entire affair was an unwitting foray into comic opera, so at least some entertainment value was produced.

Questions about whether such an overtly political event on public property is legal and whether Fullerton Forward had permits or insurance to put on this affair are being raised by concerned citizens (see what I did there, Observers?).

Limited Pizzagate

Over at the Fullerton Observer, the boohoos have gotten their panties in a knot over the cancellation of Tuesday’s Fullerton City Council meeting.

A post by the mysterious “Jack Hutt” is full of angst and anger that the meeting is not to be. Questions are being raised by unnamed sources, he says; unnamed observers are suggesting things, he says. It’s the usual Staknia Kennedy trope. Something is afoot Jack fears, and so a self-created opportunity to attack Councilmembers Jung, Valencia and Dunlap has presented itself to these self-styled journalists.

The People’s Mayor contemplating his political future…or perhaps what he might scrounge for supper working the 91 and Harbor Blvd.

Anyhow, fear not. Some unnamed group is having its own council meeting at 5:30pm on the City Hall lawn. Remember? The one they wanted to get rid of a few months ago. Bring your friends and your lawn chairs, says a flier designed and propagated by persons unknown.

And guess what? Someone, again unstated, is claiming “we” will appoint “The People’s Mayor,” a chance no doubt for the immigrant fraud and serial liar, “Dr.” Ahmad Zahra to finally get to call himself a Mayor of Fullerton even if it’s only Mayor For a Day.

Ad Hoc Tuah Part…Aw, Who Cares?

No laughing matter…

Fullerton’s so-called Ad Hoc Fiscal Sustainability Committee met again, and probably for the last time last Thursday. Like its predecessor, the meeting expended hours of lots of peoples’ time and accomplished nothing. Not very little. Nothing.

Hours and hours of already familiar Power Point readings.

Three things worth mentioning happened.

Miss Daisey was driven…

First, Daisy Perez, the Assistant City Manager reminded the committee that if the City were to get a dedicated “infrastructure” half-cent sales tax increase, that money could be diverted to pay for “maintenance” of police and fire department facilities. She said nothing about a commensurate reduction in the “public safety” budgets and naturally nobody on the committee asked her.

Later, when pressed, the City Manger had to explain that he needed some sort of City Attorney blessing before he could share polling questions asked by the City’s quality of life/pro tax consultant. Huh? The only people who get to know the questions are the ones who got phone solicitations? What bullshit is this? Fortunately, Joshua Ferguson was on hand to share the nature of the questions his wife got; of course they were directed to promoting a sales tax increase of some kind.

You will be taxed…sooner or later!

Later still, when everyone was fatigued, Perez tried to get the committee to vote on a laundry list of options, all of which would be passed on to the council. This is the precise swindle that occurred during the redistricting process courtesy of City Clerk Lucinda Williams – when Fullerton Booohoo was trying real hard to keep Jesus Quirk-Silva in a political job.

Chris Norby, our former City Councilman, County Supervisor and Assemblyman showed up to save the day. He shared the value of vacant properties the City owns, and threw in the airport. These collectively are worth half a billion he asserted. He didn’t remind committee members that these properties would be declared surplus, and that “affordable” housing developers would get first shot at them. He reminded the committee that sales taxes are inherently regressive, perhaps thinking anybody cared about that.

In the end a completely improper process of trying to vote on something, anything, occurred. Without following any order except prompting by staff, the committee voted 3-2 against a Tony Bushala suggestion of a 1/2 cent sales tax dedicate to infrastructure, and keeping in place an existing ordinance guaranteeing a certain percentage of funding for infrastructure.

Peace. No, piece. Another piece of your money. You have it. We want it.

Then the appointees of the liberals Shana Charles and Ahamad Zahra, Derek Smith and Jennifer Duong proposed their own idea: a one cent general sales tax. This failed 3-2, also with Bushala, Wehn and Wozab voting no.

Finally a legitimate motion was made by Eric Wehn and seconded by Bushala: investigate the possible sale of the water function to an independent water company. That proposal was finally passed 3-2 again with the liberal appointees voting no. This idea really has no place to go, except that an exploration of the Water Department’s vacant property should be definitely considered for offloading.

There seemed to be confusion about whether the committee could meet again to keep kicking the can around. No decision was made on that as far as I can tell, but I’ve seen so many Fullerton meetings dissolve into incoherence at their end that I really can’t say.

Rose Espinosa. Plant, Dreams, Grow, Joy

I have received several mailers from La Habra’s Rosie Espinosa who is trying, again. for the job of County Supervisor for our 4th District.

They’ve all been pretty amateur, but the one I got today was also really sort of pathetic. Espinosa has a granddaughter, apparently, and this cute little girl is the star of the pathos driven card.

I don’t know why anybody thought grandmothering was A) notable at all; or, B) something that would lead a voter to believe in her competence. Grandparents in general are known to be over indulgent, lenient, and weak minded when it comes to their grandkids.

Maybe it’s a grab for the older female vote? I can’t fathom it. To me it suggests electing someone who is just old, for Rose Espinosa must be pushing 70, and in the past 20 years County voters are moving away from the gerontocracy approach to County Supervisors.

Curiously, Espinosa’s campaign address – 1 W. Manchester Blvd. Inglewood – is the same as Inglewood’s City Hall. Now that’s just peculiar and could use an explanation.

Anyhow, Rose is a dedicated liberal Democrat, I guess, and despite her previous electoral failure maybe this time she can draw some votes from the loathsome operator Connor Traut, a student of the corrupt Jordan Brandman, a devotee of carpetbagging, and seemingly never having had to work for much of anything.