Remember the political campaign that got started by a bankruptcy lawyer pretending his vocation was “Fullerton Parent” and who was endorsed by a gaggle of political crooks, liars and bagmen?
Well, it appears the crooked campaign of Andrew Cho got itself in trouble by heisting images from the Friends of Coyote Hills website in order to strike an environmentally friendly posture.
The funny thing about this is the obvious attempt to cover ground lost to Cho’s opponent, Fred Jung, on the open space issue. Cho has been repeatedly hit by Fullerton Taxpayers For Reform as a puppet of overdevelopment lobbyist Jennifer Fitzgerald, our departing Mayor-for-Hire who has her fingerprints all over every apartment prison block built in Fullerton over the past 8 years.
Rudy says thumbs up, way up, to suckers, who are born every minute.
The idiots who run FSD agreed to pay some chucklehead named Rudy Ruetigger $2000 as a motivational speaker at an August management retreat. We reported about that, here.
Ruetigger, a shameless self-promoter actually talked somebody into making a fictional movie account of his pathetic football efforts at Notre Dame.
The luck of the Irish was about to run out...
Despite immediate ridicule, the FSD stuck to their guns.
What sort of lessons were learned by FSD management at this retreat? Maybe Superintendent Mitch Hovey or one of the pathetic Trustees who voted for this will travesty will stop by and enlighten us.
Over the years we’ve learned that boldfaced spin and self-serving regurgitation of misinformation is a regular indulgence for those union mouthpieces over at the Liberal OC. Like most, we quickly grew tired trying to make sense of the noise emerging from the OCEA’s propaganda machine and so we’ve learned to ignore it. But every once in a while someone new comes along and gets sucked right into the blue vortex.
A few weeks ago, Chris Prevatt wrote this blurb supposedly “Busting the Myths” about how public employee pensions don’t cost us hardly anything and the real problem is… well something somewhere else. He backed that up with the audacious claim that public employee compensation only sucks up about 10% of California’s budget, a dubious statement which was then re-quoted by OCEA booster Nick Berardino in this letter to the OC Register.
Well somehow our perplexed new Friends over at UnionWatch.com stumbled upon Prevatt’s steaming pile and decided to break down this mythbuster’s logic. In a lengthy post based on conservative figures and some elementary math, the unnamed blogger discovered that the LiberalOC was off the mark by a factor of six. In fact, conservative calculations pinned public employee compensation at about 67% of California’s budget, far more than Prevatt’s 10%, putting public employees right back at the top of the lineup as a primary suspects in the case of California’s budget woes.
So nobody really knows if it was Prevatt or Berardino who initiated the transmission of this blatant error, but it doesn’t really matter. It served their purposes for a few moments and a couple of union adherents probably sucked it up and will continue to pass the falsehoods along. At least now the rest of us know better.
Yes, Friends, it’s that time of year again, when Fullerton’s City Council chooses one of its number to act as Mayor for the upcoming year.
Time to come clean…..
And as predictable as the summer monsoon in Bangladesh, the Fullerton Observer has begun laying the foundation for another wailing session, decrying the mean council trio of Jung, Dunlap and Whitaker for passing over Observer inamorata, Ahmad Zahra, the preening, deceitful, egomaniac councilman from District 5, who has gone well out of his way to alienate the three, any one of whom could get him chosen Mayor.
Here’s the doleful headline:
Will District 5 Get Mayoral Representation at the City Council Meeting on December 5?
It’s sort of fun to read the litany of complaints and grievances that follow, written by somebody called Jack Hutt, whose angry essay is just another attack on Fullerton’s three more or less sensible representatives.
Mr. Hutt starts decrying the fact that a mayoral rotation policy is not being followed. Well, what a shame that is. A council not feeling bound to adhere to a policy it evidently disagrees with.
Hutt does ponder the question of the motives of Jung, Dunlap, and Whitaker, a little:
“One has to wonder what happened in closed sessions that made council members Jung, Whitaker, and Dunlap publicly disrespect Zahra. Will the council members ever tell the public the reasons?”
Good question. And yet poor Hutt doesn’t seem to realize Closed Session deliberations are cloaked in secrecy by law. It doesn’t really matter to Hutt anyhow, because in his very next sentence he telegraphs his intent:
“Or is it so petty or phobic that it can not be uttered?”
Now our offended writer has rolled three insults into one conclusion. The three are either so petty, or gay-hating, that they must cower in fear, terrified to let the public know how low they are.
Later, Hutt rolls out his big gun:
“He also survived a vicious negative campaign funded by Tony Bushala.” Whenever the Observer crowd gets agitated enough they relentlessly name the object of their greatest fear and loathing: Tony Bushala. Hutt follows suit, of course, but as usual omits the fact that Zahra’s 2020 campaign was diligently manicured by him and his sycophants to omit facts like his real biography, his servitude to the marijuana dispensary cartel, his constant self promotion, and his arrest record; that the campaign against Zahra was aggressive, but honest every step of the way; that Zahra dished out over $100,000 to keep a Latino candidate from representing a Latino district. Oh, and Zahra was party to the creation of a fake Latino candidate, Tony Castro, to siphon votes away from Oscar Valadez
Comically, Hutt wraps up his essay with a shot at Nick Dunlap’s lack of interest in his job and makes a hopeful pitch for none other than…Jesus Quirk-Silva:
“...Jesus Silva, who was Gerrymandered out of District 3, now lives in District 2, and although this district is marginally Republican, it is competitive, and he would be a formidable candidate.”
The train of thought was weak but it sure was short…
Now, it wouldn’t be an Observer article without repeating an old lie heard over and over and over again. Quirk-Silva was, as we all know, gerrymandered into District 3 which gave him the opportunity for a free run at Greg Sebourn’s job in 2018 when he was still a city-wide councilman. The redistricting map done in 2022 cleaned up the previous nonsense with rational district boundaries that left Quirk-Silva with no district to run in since he was now in District 2 – and we’re all better off for that.
Here’s the truth: it takes three votes to get elected Mayor. End of story. The facts of precisely why the three councilmen don’t trust, don’t like, don’t want to choose Zahra as Mayor are evidently real. And Zahra is probably better off if the real reasons of antipathy toward him don’t come out; and if they were to emerge, I suspect Zahra is counting on the head-in-the-sand obliviousness of his fife and drum corps to ignore any cogent reasons that might be forthcoming. It’s victimhood uber alles.
Way back in 2010 a bumbling, incoherent Anaheim councilmember named Harry Sidhu was running for County Supervisor in our district – a district in which he didn’t live.
The beautiful Calabria Apartments. Insecticide optional.
Sidhu’s first fake address was in dubious-looking apartment on Lincoln Avenue in west Anaheim. He was busted and a complaint was filed with District Attorney Tony Rackaukas; after all, lying on a voter registration is perjury.
The DA could have ended Sidhu’s rancid career as a politician then and there, but decided to whitewash the affair even as Sidhu had by then moved to a second phony address in the district.
Flash forward to 2022 and Sidhu, by now puppet Mayor of Anaheim thanks to Disney & Co. was tuned up by the FBI and the Department of Justice, even as he and his cronies tried mightily to give Arte Moreno, owner of the LA Angels land around the stadium for a fraction of its worth. His payoff, as recorded in conversation with a local fixer was a $1,000,000 re-election campaign contribution by the Angels.
Oops.
Well, Sidhu, the perennial assclown, has now pleaded guilty to several crimes and his sentencing is upcoming.
And so we bid a fond farewell to one of our favorite public servants and hope that his fate provides an object lesson to ambitious politicians – especially in Fullerton -whose greed and warped sense of self-importance causes them to ignore their responsibility to the public trust.
During a recent City Council meeting on August 2, the video footage shows Mayor Jung calling the Closed Session portion of the meeting to order with Jung, Dunlap, Silva, and Zahra present.
The video footage in its entirety is shown here:
At the 2 minute mark on the video, the City Council returns and Jung is seen calling the regular meeting to order with Jung, Dunlap, Silva, and Whitaker present.
What happened to Ahmad?
The City Clerk remarks, “Councilmember Zahra is around here somewhere”.
Where is somewhere? Was he using the restroom to drop a deuce?
Over 20 minutes later (see 23:00 on the video), Zahra triumphantly returns and announces, “Just apologies for coming a little late”.
A little late? Where’d you go?
It doesn’t take 20 minutes to take the Browns to the Super Bowl.
August 2 just so happened to be National Night Out. National Night Out is described as an evening to “enhance the relationship between neighbors and law enforcement while bringing back a true sense of community. Furthermore, it provides a great opportunity to bring police and neighbors together under positive circumstances”. What a crock! One easy way to bring back a true sense of community: Stop murdering Kelly Thomas and Hector Hernandez FPD!
Stop animal cruelty!
The answer always lies in Zahra’s social media because the criminal cannot help himself from posting badly aimed selfies with random photo victims of his narcissism. “Our council meeting was short so I got a chance to join the annual National Night Out event hosted by our Fullerton Police Department,” his post reads.
Twenty minutes is about the time it takes for a not so in shape Councilman to gingerly walk across Highland Avenue and down Amerige Avenue to the plaza downtown, take a handful of poor photos of poor victims of his unlimited vanity, and walk back to City Hall.
For Ahmad Campaigning for the next job > Doing the job he was elected to do.
Voters will remember his betrayal of his oath of office to faithfully discharge the duties of his office.
Time to take out the trash Fullerton.
A-B-Z. Anyone but Zahra!
Fullerton voters have many choices in life.
But in 2022, they are given the opportunity to choose between a man who was charged by the OCDA for battering a woman and so busy trying to keep his job, he fails to do it, a deadbeat political hanger-on and a long time Fullerton Resident, Oscar Valadez, a family man, a businessman, a father of two young children.
Fullerton voters will neve be given a clearer choice.
Word from a well-placed source suggests that back in 2020 after being arrested and charged with battery and vandalism perpetrated against a woman named Monica F., Fullerton City Councilman Ahmad Zahra, through his Irvine attorney, hired a P.I. to investigate his “alleged” victim.
Now why would anybody do that?
I leave it to readers to draw their own inferences from this.
The issue of whether Zahra was “exonerated” as he exclaimed publicly, and that he and mom were the real victims; or whether he pled guilty to get his dirty slate wiped clean remains in doubt. He has never provided any evidence from the District Attorney Todd Spitzer that charges against him were dropped.
Whatever the case, the broader story is not going to go away, and in fact is likely going to become a focus of opponents in this fall’s City Council election.
Our 4th District County Supervisor, Doug “Bud” Chaffee probably figured he’d receive some token Republican competition in a re-election campaign this year. Another dud opponent in a district going blue for good.
What he probably didn’t expect was competition from members of his own party. FFFF has already chronicled the backroom ambitions of Ahmad Zahra whose only legitimate interest is getting name recognition.
Buena Park City Councilwoman Sunny Park stands accused of stealing campaign signs critical of her 2018 run. (Courtesy of Sunny Park)
Well, now he has a another opponent: Democrat Sunny Park of Buena Park’s City Council. Ms. Park has put out notices ‘n everything, so it’s a real deal. Whether she too, is in it for name recognition, is highly likely. There are less than 5 months to the June 7 Primary so good luck, Sunny.
The fact that Chaffee is being challenged by members of his own tribe suggest a deep dissatisfaction with his feeble presence at the County where he seems to be nothing but a puppet of Republican crook, Supervisor Andrew Do. Chaffee’s vulnerable.
Crime doesn’t always pay in Fullerton…
And finally, an amusing coincidence vis-a-vis Park and Chaffee. During her first campaign Sunny was busted stealing campaign signs pronouncing her a carpetbagger; and of course Bud Chaffee’s wifie, Paulette, was caught stealing signs naming her a carpetbagger, too!
And that’s where I put the sign in the back of the car…
Sunny lawyered up and took her case to a jury who hanged itself 10-2 for acquittal. Pilferin’ Paulette pleaded guilty to petty theft, paid Tony Bushala $20, and did some piddling “community service” which she may or may not have used for photo ops.
When he’s not lecturing us on ethics, Fullerton City Councilman Ahmad Zahra climbs down from his high horse to participate in all sorts of activities that don’t seem very ethical at all.
We have also seen how Zahra claimed authorship of Water District-related articles actually ghost-written by a district bureaucrat; and how he tried to leverage this pseudo-expertise to keep his well-compensated seat on that board.
Grab it and consume it as fast as you can…
Then there’s the about-face Zahra played on the suckers of Fullerton when he announced that the open seat on the Council should be decided by a vote, and then promptly voted to appoint Jan Flory to the vacancy at the behest of Jennifer Fitzgerald.
The closer you look, the worse it gets.
And that last bit is what this story is about. The deal that Zahra cut with Fitzgerald to appoint Flory and get himself appointed to the lucrative Orange County Water District Board, a board that pays stipends for all sorts of meetings and sub-committee meetings.
Check this out:
Just before Zahra was replaced on the Water Board in 2021 by Bruce Whitaker, the District paid $10,000 to “CL7” for something called a “OC Water Special Water Insert.” I don’t know what that means, but I do know that CL7 is the name of Jennifer Fitzgerald’s side biz – when she wasn’t using the City to make bank for lobbyist Curt Pringle. So what’s going on here? A little gravy slopping out of the boat, or a legitimate job for a real public service? Knowing Fitzgerald’s complete lack of ethical compass and her influence peddling, I would bet on the former. Easy enough to find out: a PRA on the work order and a sample of the work product, and maybe any correspondence regarding this contract ought to do it.
And did Zahra have a role in this little handout? Was this a little payback for getting appointed in the first place? These sorts of little deals happen in OC political/government circles all the time. It’s all just easy government cheese. Maybe Zahra will be forthcoming about what this was all about. Maybe, but don’t count on it.
