The 2022 Emily Roe Voters Guide!
With ballots being mailed out in next week, it is time for my Fullerton 2022 Emily Roe Voter Guide.
With two districts and six candidates, the choices Fullerton voters will make in November can enhance government accountability and fiscal responsibility.
DISTRICT 3
Shana Charles
An associate professor in the public health department at Cal State Fullerton, Shana Charles has never served on a City of Fullerton commission or committee. As an associate professor in public health, Charles has little to no qualifications to serve on City Council as far as we can tell. Why are you not running for Fullerton School District Board Shana? You seem way more qualified for that than this generous leap to run for City Council. Charles failed to win her last race for School District in 2018. She turned around and tried, unsuccessfully to get appointed to Fullerton City Council in 2019, and then again turned around and unsuccessfully tried to get appointed to Orange County Board of Education this year.
Those who seek power are not qualified to hold it.
Charles is a socialist, who has no experience and is not qualified for City Council just like the old disaster Pam Keller. She skipped the only public forum so far so voters had no idea what she stood for beyond her tell us nothing candidate website. And then the Fullerton Observer questionnaire.
When asked about housing in Fullerton, Shana’s answer was: “With median home prices at $900,000 and rentals for $3000, our city cannot house its essential workers. We must work with any and all available programs to provide relief”. Sounds like code for rent control and building low income housing in mass. Fullerton would be the next Santa Ana under Shana’s leadership.
Her thoughts in the city budget being balanced for the first time in decades: “Our current budget is penny wise, pound foolish”. So you would spend money we don’t have as a city to pay for programs like low income housing and rental assistance. Fullerton was a small step away from insolvency before this current Council made the necessary cuts to maintain reserves. But for Shana turning Fullerton into the next Westminster is a good goal.
Arnel Dino
Fred Jung’s appointee to Planning Commission, Arnel Dino is the Commission’s Vice Chair. His voting record on Planning Commission is in line with solid Planning Commissioners in Fullerton’s recent history like Bruce Whitaker, Nicholas Dunlap, and Ryan Cantor. He is visibly clunky and sometimes talks more than he should, but he could be a viable City Council selection that will mark a huge improvement from the previous Jesus Quirk-Silva. Dino served on the Infrastructure Committee. His resume is extensive so Dino has governing experience that he will need. We are not on fire over Dino, but he could be the best of poor choices. Dino’s forum performance was not off the charts great, but was not a disaster either.
Johnny Ybarra
After failing miserably to run for City Council in District 5 in 2018, the election that gave us Ahmad Zahra, Johnny Ybarra is now running in the District where he actually lives. The former carpetbagger is a real estate agent. Not sure what to make of his candidacy since he seems to only have signs around. But his answers during the only forum so far – Fullerton Collaborative – was an unapologetically misadventure. He sounded both unqualified and uninformed. The bar is not high to beat Ybarra who is finally being honest and running in his actual District.
DISTRICT 5
Tony Castro
Wow is this kid shot out of a cannon! Not sure how much Red Bull Tony Castro drinks, but leave some for the rest of us buddy! Pro rent control and pro police reform, Castro is hellbent on turning Fullerton into the next Santa Ana, crime ridden and filled with homeless. Castro participated in two forums so far: Fullerton Collaborative and Fullerton Observer. The answers he gave were unbalanced and unbelievable. He actually said that in 2019 Fullerton had a “21 million dollar surplus”! What!?! Did you Google that son? Because Wikipedia is not good governance.
Oscar Valadez
Oscar Valadez is the best choice of all six candidate running for City Council. A family man, father of two, graduated from Stanford University and has been a church going, volunteer in his community, a community he was born and raised in. He too lacks experience in governing, but he did participate in both Fullerton candidate forums and his answers were thoughtful and articulate. He said he wants to be a “bridge between the community and city staff to implement effective policies”. That sounds like government efficiency, hopefully government accountability and better customer service. His answers to the Observer questionnaire speaks to a man who is prepared to lead with humility, a welcome change for District 5.
Regarding homelessness the candidate responded: “Fullerton needs to find ways to compassionately enforce our anti-camping ordinances”. Yes.
Commenting on leadership, Valadez answered: “Public representatives must be reminded that they serve for the good of the residents. Council members must prioritize problem solving and focus on building and maintaining productive relationships based on trust. As a fresh voice, I’d focus on collaboration and remain grounded in serving, not myself, but our residents”. Amen.
Valadez could be a brighter future for Fullerton.
Ahmad Zahra
Not sure what more needs to be said about Ahmad Zahra. He’s the incumbent so Castro and Valadez have a mountain to overcome in an election cycle that will feature historically low voter turnout and engagement. When the public is uninformed or in the case of Zahra, misinformed, it is ample space for bad actors like con artists and ponzi schemers to thrive and that is exactly what Zahra has done, misled and manipulated Fullerton residents, the Fullerton unions, the Fullerton business, the Fullerton Observer, etc. During both candidate forums and the Observer questionnaire, Zahra took credit for everything short of creating the internet. The hubris is astonishing.
Four more years of Zahra will bankrupt Fullerton, both fiscally and morally.
There is a simple question: Do you support the direction of government accountability, fiscal sustainability, and money for streets and roads that Fullerton seems to be going in under Dunlap and Whitaker?
If the answer is yes, the choices are simple.
Sorry, but Dino Arnel is a zero. Sort of feeble and definitely malleable. His description here is a sad joke.
Arnel Dino voted unanimously 9-0 with his infrastructure committee to place a special tax on 2020’s ballot to fix our roads and ailing infrastructure. It was the only solid plan in 20 years to fix our busted up roads.
That very same Arnel Dino then flip-flopped his (unanimous) vote after someone in the city got to him and then he suddenly supported the “general tax” called Measure S, which was an abject FAILURE!!
Arnel promises plenty of flip-flopping and failure if he gets elected to council; count on it.
Your comments about Johnny Ybarra were not kind, yet he’s the only candidate with a sense of fiscal responsibility and a good head for business which is EXACTLY what this city needs right now.
Lastly, teachers & educators need to stay out of politics. They’re simply too out of touch with the real world. You hear me Jésus, Sharon and Shana?
Zahra tried to give away a public park. He is a typical liberal who condescends and patronizes his Latino constituents. He has a small gaggle of hens that follow him around, but fortunatly the truth about this self-serving creep is coming out.
Charles, no!
Arnel, No!
Zaro Zahra, NO!!
If they are not in government you think they’re about to be bad and corrupt “socialists.” You plainly state that simply wanting to serve your community in government disqualifies you. What?
If they are already in government you think they’re bad and corrupt.
Government bad, we get it.
Serving oneself isn’t the same thing as serving the community.
“WE GET IT.” Yes I do. Because we have issues with how many voices are boinking around in our head. Sometimes it seems like only 2. And those are our good days!
Dino Arnel is an idiot. He’s got no support. Nothing.
His name is Arnel Dino. You got it backwards.
Who cares?
….and I thought I was hurting for viable candidates in Dist. 5 (will look closer at Oscar Valdez). District 3 has no good options; really feeling for those folks. I’ve never been a fan of districts. They’re meant to give us better representation, but look at what we have as a result.
Charles is the only one who knows what’s the job entails. If you hate committees or hate politicians not knowing the answer and having to hire someone else to find the answer, then the answer is Charles. Dino will roll over when the going gets tough and Ybara didnt know anything about the OCFA. Also using socialist as negative is pretty stupid if you realize the ones who made differences in our country were socialist, Rosa Parks Martin Luther King, Mark Twain, Oscar Wilde, Albert Einstein, GEORGE ORWELL (the man who wrote “1984” (big brother is watching) and Animal Farm) WERE ALL SOCIALISTS, but that’s a whole College class that I would have to teach you all.
Point is Charles knows what she’s talking about, she’s not stupid and going to spend money she doesn’t have, and if she WAS a socialist like you say she is, she will cut taxes on the lower and middle classes (which this blog would very much enjoy) and only tax the upper classes. The property owners, the landlords that try to take code enforcement employees for dinner to hide the fact that their properties are slums.
Remember “The landlords operate a certain kind of monopoly against the tenants. The demand for their commodity, site and soil, can go on expanding indefinitely”, yeah that wasn’t written by Karl Marx that was written by Adam Smith “The Father of Capitalism”. Adam thought big landlords were parasites and were only rich because they were rich. But again, that’s another college course.
Dr. Shana, most importantly don’t forget to add, “I am woman, hear me roar.”
Or would that be another college course?
Actually, the only one of those people you mention who really was a socialist was George Orwell – AND HE WAS AN ENGLISHMAN. Whoever taught you your “College class” was a fucking ignoramus.
So you do admit: Charles IS a socialist!!
Thanks for that, at least, dummy.
In a 1961 speech to the Negro American Labor Council, King declared, “Call it democracy, or call it democratic socialism, but there must be a better distribution of wealth within this country for all God’s children.” -MLK
Albert Einstein LITERALLY wrote an article titled “Why Socialism” where he talks about the need for socialism
Mark Twain was a huge HUGGE supporter of the knights of labor and was very anti capitalist, read his book “the new dynasty”
And Rosa Parks attended multiple communist meetings, the reason I wouldn’t consider her a communist is because she spoke more about socialism than communism but I don’t think you know the difference because it’s a whole college class.
And before you even say that none of these people weren’t socialist or communist atleast do your research before calling it a lie. Because there is video of mlk being a socialist, Einstein literally wrote and article, twain wrote a book, and parks was photo graphed at communist meetings. I could have added more American heros that had socialist dog whistles but these were the ones that were factuals
Sorry, I missed all their important “socialist” writings because there weren’t any.
Samuel Clemens went broke many times investing. Failed capitalist sounds so much better than socialist.
I have never heard of Einstein’s socialist writings and I bet nobody else has either. In any case – a German.
MLK’s quotation that you cite is ambiguous, of course. He never advocated socialism.
Rosa Parks might have been a Zoroastrian for all I, or anybody else cares.
In any case, the point is you admit the woman is a socialist. So thanks for that.
You also sound a lot like that Hooger dude.
Heroes? Photographed is one word genius!
If you also admit Charles is a socialist, you will also admit she will lower taxes for the lower/middle/working class. Saying that socialists will increase taxes on working people is the same as saying 1=2, or that antifa are facist
Oh, you mean like the Zahra sales tax? A regressive tax on working people. You really are an idiot.
Hey UNInformed Reader, cut taxes on the lower and middle class!? You need to read more about local government because that is not how that works dummy.
Measure S was the “progressive” answer to years of overspending. And everybody knows a sales tax hurts poor people the most.
Speaking of forums, have the candidates for school board ever discussed the hot button issues in Ed these days, like curriculum that include gender/sexuality or anti-racism in their forums?
That would be nice if they did, but apparently it’s the third rail for CRT libs Ruthi and Lauren. They’re avoiding these issues to keep it blue vs red.
True. And the Observer kindly dissed Wozab and Van Hook, so now we know to vote for them.
The only solution to the “Fullerton Problem” is to move to another city.
The gal told me to look out for Oscar so I found this video https://youtu.be/0_IUqXvOsGg and just like the gal said, ganja Tony is bankrolling this bloke. Charles is a better choice because she has a PhD and has a lot of government experience working in government positions and Public Health. I think Fullerton already has enough bloody idiots in charge of everything.
Haha. Fake Tosser. They aren’t even in the same race. You’re as ignorant as Tony Castro – fake candidate!!
What are you talking about? They are both Council candidates in different districts but they are Council candidates. You blokes bag the one with the big brains and support Mr foreign language specialty for everyone. I suppose this bloke is gonna guarantee graffiti will be translated to English for everyone. What the lovely gal is telling me from the collaborative is the ganja Tony wants dope stores everywhere and he wants his blokes pulling the lever to get them in. She said it’s just a Turf War and Zara is from a different ganja cartel. I think ganja is no good and I think maybe some of you smoke too bloody much of it.
Fake tosser. Haha. If you’re a limey, I’ll swim the Chunnel.