Search Results for “opaque” – Friends For Fullerton's Future

May 9, 2026May 12, 2026About Us

Opinion: Fullerton Residents Deserved Better Than Zahra’s Shady and Opaque History

Now, finally in his last year of public preening and pontificating on our dime, Fullerton Councilmember Ahmad Zahra deserves an appropriate retrospective from FFFF. And this backwards look is colored by Zahra’s own continual critique of his colleagues for their lack of transparency. His claque, in particular the lonely old Kennedy Sisters of the Fullerton Observer, are willing to pass along these accusations without a shred of curiosity about their own hero.

Transparency.

Mug shot of the one-time Mrs. Ahmad Zahra.

Back in mid 1990s the immigrant Zahra came to America with a dream in his heart. That dream was stay here. To that end he quickly married a woman in Arkansas named Michelle Salmon in order to jump the green card line. In Zahra’s case the marriage fraud takes on a pungent charm since Zahra is proudly gay and has said in print that he has always known he was gay.

The newly minted husband left right away for the sunshine and beaches of California, leaving his unheartbroken and probably a little wealthier bride in Little Rock. When the statutory time obligation passed he divorced his abandoned wife, and here he remained. Zahra has never bothered to share his brief sojourn in Arkansas in any of various biographies, and why would he? That would be transparent.

Zahra claims he is a medical doctor although he certainly didn’t attend any medical school in the First World. Maybe in the Third World? There is no record of his practicing medicine anywhere, and he has never even bothered to share his medical school diploma. That would be transparent.

Sometime in the 2000s he says, Zahra, claiming to be a “film maker,” washed up on Fullerton’s shores. Zahra still claims film making as his job, even though no one can find any recent cinematic work to his credit. How he makes ends meet is a mystery and the wherewithal for his trips abroad (he says they are) is a matter of conjecture. Zahra never explains where he gets his income. It certainly isn’t from making movies. The public has the right to know how he supports himself. That would be transparent.

Zahra’s first action on the City Council was a cheap flip-flop that you never read about in the Observer. Despite his call for an election to replace Jesus Quirk Silva’s citywide seat, he soon voted to disenfranchise Fullerton voters and appoint the old retread Jan Flory; in return he got a great paying seat on the Orange County Water District Board where he pulled in $70,000 over a couple years. Zahra never talks about his decision reversal, nor do his followers. That would be transparent.

While on the Water Board, Zahra published three articles under his own name in the Fullerton Observer about water-related issues. It was later discovered that the articles weren’t written by Zahra at all, but rather by an OCWD PR hack. Zahra didn’t care and neither did the Observer Sisters, who tried to explain the plagiarism as some sort of amateur error by somebody, probably Jesse Latour. Transparency?

In the middle of Zahra’s first term on the City Council, he was busted and charged by the District Attorney for battery and vandalism. The case vanished as happens when somebody pleads guilty, pays a fine and does some community service. That gave Zahra the chance to falsely claim that he had been “exonerated” and offered to show evidence of that claim. But he never did. That would be transparent.

Zahra has been a cheerleader for legalized marijuana dispensaries in Fullerton. He had recommended the services of the later-convicted dope lobbyist Melahat Rafiei. He appointed Derek Smith, an MJ union lobbyist and peripheral character in the Anaheim Cabal crew to be his representative on the Budget Sustainability Committee. Zahra has never revealed his ties to the legalized marijuana cartel and what was in it for him. That would be transparent.

In Zahra’s worst offense against the people of Fullerton, he voted over and over again to sue David Curlee, Joshua Ferguson and FFFF. That flagrant abuse of power cost the public hundreds of thousands of dollars in a settlement. Zahra was aided and abetted by the Fullerton Observer’s Sharon Kennedy who actually employed an “expert” family member to assist City Hall’s reckless lawsuit. Zahra lied to the Voice of OC, claiming he was a “fan” of settling the lawsuit from the beginning, even though he voted against the final settlement. No explanation for this disaster was ever forthcoming from Zahra or his accomplice, Sharon Kennedy. That would be transparent.

In 2021 Zahra tried to privatize the UP Park and turn it into a commercial events center masquerading as a non-profit fish farm. The move was illegal as hell, but none of his friends cared so why should he? Zahra never reminds anyone of that harebrained scheme, but loves to talk about how his district is park poor. Transparency?

Tony Castro. Staying out of jail long enough to be of use to the Democrat Party of OC.

In his 2022 reelection campaign, Zahra spent $120,000 to keep a job that pays a thousand bucks a month. Part of this campaign involved the Democratic Party’s creation of a patsy candidate with a shady past but with a Latino name, Tony Castro, to beat his real opponent, Oscar Valadez. How much did Zahra know about this phony candidacy? Come to think of it, how much did Zahra know about the perjury of another fake candidate in 2024, Scott Markowitz, recruited by north county Dems in order to elect Cannabis Kitty Jaramillo. Once again Sharon Kennedy of the Observer not only ignored the story but ran interference. More transparency.

In October of 2021 Zahra filed a false police report against his colleague, Fred Jung. The cops interviewed other councilmembers who denied Zahra’s tall tale. End of story. Except that the story has never been reported by Zahra’s Observer friends and of course never discussed by Zahra. That would be transparent.

Zahra’s campaign finance reporting has been the subject of an FPPC investigation. First reported in August of 2025, it still seems not to have been resolved. A credit card payee, not vendors was routinely reported, leaving an unclear record of who was the beneficiary of these payments, payments that might have benefitted Zahra personally. Zahra has said nothing about this complaint. His friends at the Observer don’t seem interested, either. So why would he? That would be transparent.

That’s quite a list of misfeasance and malfeasance. Transparency? Not so much. Zahra has had the good fortune of having bamboozled the simpletons at the Fullerton Observer. And he has groomed a stable of eager young fellows who appear to be interested in political upward mobility and are happy to parrot the transparency schtick. To these followers and acolytes there is no reason to delve into their hero’s own extensive catalog of lies, secrets, hypocrisy and plagiarism.

March 10, 2026March 10, 2026Boohooism

What’s a Chamber of Commerce For?

by The Desert Rat9 Comments

A Friend has forwarded a press release from the North Orange County Chamber of Commerce. This used to be the Fullerton Chamber of Commerce that merged with other groups in neighboring towns, I’ve been told.

The Chamber is throwing itself a birthday party brunch in celebration of 133 years of existence. The fare, donuts, is in keeping with the odd year number to celebrate.

Notice that presentations will be made by Republic Services, the massive corporate trash hauler whose contract with Fullerton is up this year; and SCAG, the completely opaque regional agency responsible for the nonsensical 13,000 new housing units shoved up our backside by the Sacramento Affordable Housing Cartel (SAHC). That seems sooooo fitting.

For the past 30 years Fullerton Chamber of Commerce has gone from tax-fighter to weak little sister of Fullerton City Hall. Under the dim bulb Theresa Harvey, the Chamber became an auxiliary of the City, which is appropriate because after she left the Chamber she became the Chair of the CSUF Auxiliary – another totally opaque agency that plays monopoly with money with virtually no oversight.

The Chamber became a lap dog, not a watch dog for the waste and dumbassery in City Hall. Ms. Harvey was a completely clueless puppet. Under her, the Chamber actually threw their lot in with the public employee unions in 2020 in support of the Measure S sales tax.

Parenthetically, the CSUF Auxiliary has become a final stop for local small-time influence shoppers like Harvey and her predecessor James Alexander, and that brought us the disastrous Elk’s Club/Universaity Heights faculty housing debacle.

Apparently there’s a new guy in charge at the Chamber, but I can’t say I’m hopeful. The Chamber should be promoting small businesses at City Hall, and promoting economy and efficiency in local government, not “tax your way out of it” boohooism. Will it?

Anyway, I thought back to the days in 1993 and 1994 when the Chamber stood up for businesses large and small, fighting City Hall on the unnecessary utility tax imposed by McClanahan, Bankhead, and A.B. Catlin. Those were fun times.

March 2, 2026March 2, 2026Boohooism

Government Make-work Alive and Well

by Disillusioned Ex-Hippy29 Comments

Fullerton may be on the verge of financial crisis, but let it not be said that creative ways for its employees to stay busy aren’t possible, if you can find “other peoples’ money” to do it. We’ve seen it in spades on the ridiculous Trail to Nowhere, built mostly with money from an unaccountable and irresponsible State agency whose only observable job is to give away money with no answers to questions even checked for truthfulness.

The next silly project in line comes to us courtesy of the State Legislature, again, in the form of AB 1572 that mandates that “non-functional” turf can’t be watered with potable water. Municipalities are first on the hit list, and that includes the formal lawn in front of City Hall. The item is on tomorrows Council meeting agenda.

The City can declare that the City Hall lawn is functional and walk away. Oh, but that won’t do! We have to get rid of the grass and replace it with drought resistant plantings of some sort or other. This strategy scratches the itch of those who feel moral gestures are more important that facts, who love big government mandates, no matter how footling, and those who want city staff to be happy and productive.

How much water will *this* use? Who cares?

The City thoughtfully promulgated a call for ideas from the citizenry in a press release a couple of months ago. Re-imagine the municipal front yard! A blank slate! A blue sky! The world is your oyster! Presumably your idea will save water and respect the ecosystem, etc., etc. Grateful citizens sent in pictures of idyllic succulented and lavendered walkways!

At least one submission had a sense of the ridiculous nature of this nonsense.

A giant Hornet and a giant Titan! Come to think of it, maybe this suggestion was serious, Fullerton being Fullerton.

But there is no money budgeted, alas! What to do? Well a budget transfer from Water Non-Rate Revenue funds can be tapped. I have no idea where this money would even come from, the Water Fund being supplied by rate payers. Another option to pay for the new, giant cactus garden is to apply for, and get, a grant from the Metropolitan Water District, one of those huge, opaque agencies that practically answer to nobody.

I have to wonder what the ultimate savings would be water-wise, and what the existing cost of watering the grass is. The fact that the City uses free water paid for by the rate payers has always been an issue and naturally no facts about the acre foot volume or the cost to the rate payers are included in Tuesday’s staff report. No data will be presented except the results of the survey done to solicit public opinion.

I could make the pitch that the reflecting pool, steps and lawn were part of a neo-formal aesthetic that went along with the 1962 building, but that would be a waste of my time and yours. Somebody has decided that the pool and the grass is offensive to modern sensibility, and provides an opportunity to engage the public in a feel-good Kabuki drama.

February 8, 2026February 8, 2026About Us

The Money Game

by Grover Cleveland27 Comments

Money is the mother’s milk of politics – the famous phrase shamelessly coined by Jesse Unruh, former California politician and fixer.

And nowhere is this more true than in Orange County, where Supervisorial districts include 600,000 residents and getting people out to vote (for you) requires lots of investment in media of one kind or another. Setting aside independent political action committees, the politician’s own expenditure is critical.

Since our own District 4 Supervisorial job is up for election in 2026 (the senile and corrupt Doug “Bud” Chaffee being termed out) it is timely, on the verge of a primary campaign, to see how much money the various candidates have raised, and how much they have on hand.

The second half of 2025 finance statements for the D4 candidates are now viewable on line. The results of July-December fundraising are interesting.

The big cash leader is Fullerton’s own Mayor, Fred Jung. He raised a whopping $145,000 bucks in the second half of 2025, and had a cash balance of $354,000. He’d have more but spent almost 50K in 2025 mostly on campaign consultants. That’s a lot of money.

Connor Traut the eager office hopper from Buena Park; the carpetbagger who lusts after politcal office, raised $64,000 and has $225,000 in the bank. Of course $100,000 of that was shifted from his existing campaign account, a move he sleazily pretended was a real 24 hour fundraising effort.

Tim Shaw, the only Republican in the race raised $60,000 and has $69,000 on hand.

Rosie addresses the Boys in the Back (of the) Room; Will they hear her?

The final candidate who I am aware of is Rose Espinosa from La Habra. She raised a paltry $14K, but thanks to one of those personal loans politicians make to themselves, in this case $150,000, she’s got a $160,000 total.

The primary election is June 2nd, so a tsunami of political outreach will probably be starting in a month or so. What are the prospects for these free spenders?

Won’t look you in the eye while you’re trashing him…

Fullerton is in the 4th Supervisorial District, in fact, it is the largest city completely within the boundary of the district. Three of the last four D4 Supervisors have been on the Fullerton City Council. This gives Fred Jung a natural edge over candidates from Fullerton’s much smaller neighbors like Buena Park and La Habra. Jung, however has no help from a political party, if in fact that means much anymore. He is now registered NPP – no political party preference. His record of defying the kooks in Fullerton will help, not hurt him with conservatives and independents.

Connor Traut is the nebbish candidate of the Democrat establishment and has all the usual endorsement from the same people endorsing the thief Paulette Chaffee for NOCCCD board. He has a lot of money on hand, but only 63% of what Jung has stockpiled. Being an elected in Buena Park isn’t much of a help since it is historically apathetic in politics and he moved there just to get into a municipal office.

Tim Shaw, the only Republican running, has zero hope of being elected. He came close seven years ago, but the district has become even more Democrat and less Republican. He is a member of the whackadoodle and opaque OC Board of Education. That will get him some charter school lobby money as a sop. He might do well enough to make a run-off in November by coming in second, but he can’t win in a general election. In 2022 two Democrats made the runoff. Shaw has no path to victory.

Rose Espinoza, another Democrat, has no foreseeable path, either. All the Dems are behind Traut, for what that’s worth, and Espinosa has no name ID outside of small La Habra, where getting elected doesn’t seem all that difficult. Still, as the only woman in the election she’s got that going for her. But she hasn’t raised much money. But she is willing to risk her own dough, apparently, and that says something. Something sort of Paulette Chaffee-esque. She has run for Supervisor two or three time previously way out of the money.

The OC 4th District Supervisor election is likely going to be won in the flatlands of Anaheim where none of the above candidates is very well known. There are lots of Latino voters in these precincts and that might help Espinosa. There could be the better part of 25,000 to 30,000 votes there. Large, but not enough to help an Anaheimer do well. At this late date I can’t think of any who could or would try to run.

January 27, 2026January 27, 2026Boohooism

Pilferin’ Paulette: Busted Thief Running for North Orange County Community College Board

by The Fullerton Harpoon26 Comments

Paulette discussing critical education issues with a bunch of helium-filled balloons.

And that would be Paulette Chaffee, disgraced wife of our senile and corrupt County Supervisor Doug “Bud” Chaffee. It had been rumored last summer that this perennial candidate was again looking for an elected job, and that this seat might be it.

Mrs. Chaffee is desperate to be elected something. Her strategy has been to cling like a barnacle to the hope of something education related, that being the easiest sort of thing to be elected to. She has run and failed twice to be on the opaque Orange County Board of Education spending who knows how much of her kids’ inheritance in the process.

Before those BoE runs, Mrs. Chaffee bought a condo in the newly formed 5th District, and faux carpetbagged into it to try to get on the Fullerton City Council, even though she really lived in a posh house up on a hill. That election saw her get into trouble with the long arm of the law.

Paulette Stolen Sign — Crime doesn’t always pay in Fullerton…

Chaffee was caught on video – twice – stealing campaign signs. She pleaded guilty and paid a fine and quit that race. But she wasn’t done self-promoting for future political advantage.

And that’s where I put the sign in the back of the car…

Her community service, it was said, provided education related photo content for her future OC Board of Education attempts.

This unelected’s strategy has been to photobomb just about every political event imaginable, always haunting the background like the chorus in a Greek tragedy. You name it, there she is. Her husband anointed her OC 4th District Ambassador, whatever the Hell that was supposed to be.

Even the most cynical political creatures might be understood for withholding their endorsement of Pilferin’ Paulette. However some seem not to be even bothered by her checkered past. Here are some of the endorsements from her website:

The future is getting shorter all the time…

But Mrs. Chaffee has a problem and it isn’t callow youth. She is at least 76 years old and time is running out. Moreover, the seat she is running for has two rivals.

One is the dim bulb Jesus Quirk-Silva, former Fullerton councilmember, who has his own set of endorsements, several the same as Chaffee’s. Even his wife endorses him. Could he be bought off to go away? Not likely.

And then there’s the 24 year incumbent, Jeffrey Brown, who isn’t going anywhere and will enjoy the title NOCCCD Board Member as his job title on the ballot.

The only thing we can be sure of in this election is that the potential for merriment, FFFF style.

March 13, 2025March 13, 2025A Step in the Right Direction

Fullerton Boohoo Sings the Blues

by The Fullerton Harpoon43 Comments

No, it’s not a musical recording. Not exactly. There’s no music, but there’s a lot of singing sad songs and lamentations.

It seems that what’s left of Fullerton’s Old Guard liberals and a scattering of younger adherents to no-fault government are having a real hard time grasping the reality of the Fullerton City Council’s new commonsense majority. These lefties don’t ask a lot of intelligent questions. They believe in empty abstractions and are happy to regurgitate whatever nonsense is spoon fed to them by the likes of Ahmad Zahra. They are appalled by councilpersons Jung, Valencia and Dunlap who have the audacity to question the go along, get along status quo of unaccountable government.

The meeting on Tuesday, March 4th was a total disaster for the so-called “progressives”

FFFF has chronicled some of the defeats the boohoos have suffered at that meeting. We noted that the nomination of the angry, pro-dope Vivian Jaramillo to the Planning Commission went down in flames.

We noted that the idea of exploring charter city status for Fullerton was moved along, despite the all the silly fears of those gathered together by Zahra to oppose the concept.

What we didn’t cover was the introduction of measures to keep people from camping in public places and the protection of public facilities. It’s about time the City decided to end its attraction to vagrants who pose a public safety risk. Those votes were 3-2, of course, with Zahra and Charles siding with the immigrant homeless instead of their homed constituents.

Other issues were agendized, too. There was the topic of a letter opposing an AQMDs ban on gas appliances. Seeing the practical problems of the policy, the majority decided to oppose the measure. The vote was the same 3-2. Since there’s nothing a liberal likes more than following the mandates of completely opaque government agencies, Zahra and Charles were compelled to vote no, citing “public health.”

The following entertaining interchange took place (according to the Fullerton Observer Kennedy Sisters with their usual additions):

Mayor Jung without asking for council comments, said “I will move the item” – but Councilmember Zahra said he had some questions.

Councilmember Zahra made some clarifications, “For those who mentioned this was overreach from the state – this is not from the state. The governing body [SCAQMD] is multiple cities in Southern California, a regional body of members from LA, Orange and San Bernardino counties.” He said the letter merely states that we are supporting this – or not supporting this. So nothing is being imposed here locally whether it [the letter] goes out in the negative or positive. The actual SCQAMD meeting where this will be decided happens on May 2 – so anyone passionate about it can attend that meeting,” he said.

Mayor Jung “Is there a question somewhere in there?”

Councilmember Zahra passing over Jung’s unnecessary interruption went on to say – “The clean air rules are for manufacturer’s not residents and the rules transition gradually. So no one is going to come and take your gas stove. If we are looking at this from a public health view – he said we do have high air pollution in Orange County – those are facts. I think we should stay out of this discussion for now, or – in my opinion – we should support public health. So I am not in favor of sending this letter out.”

Jesus H., speaking of gas emitting appliances…

First, Mayor Jung was actually following Robert’s Rules of Order, in which motions drive discussion, not the other way around. But Zahra had questions, right? Questions? No, that was a lie. he wanted to make yet another campaign speech, and he did. Jung, quite reasonably, lost his patience with the usual Zahra pontification, and asked where the questions were. The “interruption” was not unnecessary since Zahra had already interrupted a legitimate motion; Jung’s was appropriate response to Zahra’s out-of-order speechifying, which Jung did allow to continue.

Naturally, Zahra lied once again, trying to make the SCAQMD look like a sovereign local agency, when in fact it gets its diktats from Sacramento, via the California Air Resources Board (CARB), the Governor, and the Legislature.

Finally, there was a traffic issue, the topic being the signalization of the Euclid/Valley View intersection. Staff supported this, but only by using some sort of grant money, meaning it’s not a priority; the guesstimate for the cost would swallow up the City’s total traffic signalization budget for a year. As a side note, there’s already a signal at the Hiltscher Trail crossing – just a few hundred feet to the north.

Zahra and Charles really wanted to throw half a mil at the problem and move on.

However, in the end the council chose to turn the item back to the Traffic and Circulation Commission for more review and more public outreach. For some reason Zahra pushed for “closure” on this issue, probably just out of spite, and to make the council majority look bad in front of the audience. But since they had no dopey, liberal ideal that could be used to manipulate anybody Zahra and Charles went along with sending the thing back to the TCC.

November 11, 2024Ahmad Zahra

Got Headache?

by Mr. Peabody12 Comments

If not, and if for some perverse reason you want one, I recommend watching the final hour of the September 25th Planning Commission meeting.

The Commission’s job was to make recommendations to the City Council about the City’s plan to placate the State of California’s Department of Housing and Community Development’s demand to plan for the inclusion of 13,000 new housing units in a city that is effectively built out. The housing numbers are ejaculated by the Southern California Association of Governments – an unelected body run by bureaucrats – and adopted by the State. And cities can just sit down up and shut the fuck up. The numbers are appalling and would mean another 25,000 residents with the attendant traffic, parking and burden on schools and infrastructure.

Amazingly, California being California, the environmental impacts are brushed aside with a bureaucratic flick.

The specific agenda of the evening was to review the new Housing Element of the General Plan, and the pertinent Zone Code Amendment that adds a “Housing Incentive Overlay Zone” or (HIOZ) to hundreds of commercial and industrially zoned parcels of land.

I have never seen five people so confused and so fundamentally incapable of dealing with the business in front of them in my life. Motions were made; substitute motions were moved; secondary substitute motions were made. Some were opaque; some were vague; some disappeared altogether; some were retracted. Some blossomed into nonsense. Some issues were bifurcated. Confused discussion was interlarded into motions without seconds. Staff was dragged into the motion process.

The Chairman, poor Peter Gambino lost control of the meeting, try as he might.

One Planning Commissioner, Arnell Dino, seemed particularly adept at muddling everything up; another, Doug Cox, seemed to want to run the meeting, and kept interjecting and interrupting out of order, and kept asking for repetition after repetition of proposed motions; Commissioner Patricia Tutor seemed just as befuddled as the rest, trying to connect motions to the three resolutions proposed by staff. Commissioner Arif Mansouri, who unfortunately oversimplifies his pronouns and drops definite articles at least stuck to his motions, all most to the end; his goal was to removed the Chapman and Commonwealth corridors from the proposed housing overlay incentive zone that could put high density housing up against low density, single family neighborhoods.

An hour of everybody’s time was completely wasted as the sinking Commissioners struggled mightily to grasp a hold of any plausible object that appeared to float.

Ironically, at the end of the meeting a self-exhausted Planning Commission just rubber stamped everything that was put in front of it and passed it along to the City Council for approval.

In the end some of the participants actually seemed to be laughing in a mirthless sort of way. What the audience thought of this clownish death march is best left to the imagination.

Some zoning details were kicked to a Special PC Meeting that was be held last Wednesday. I declined to watch fearing for my sanity.

The issue is coming to the City Council on November 19th and we can be sure of two things. Ahmad Zahra and Shana Charles will push hard for the maximum urbanization of Fullerton, and clarity will be the first casualty of the hearing.

February 12, 2024February 13, 2024Ahmad Zahra

The Compartmentalization Effect. Or Worse.

by Fullerton Engineer17 Comments

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

Now that the Council majority of Dunlap, Whitaker and Jung have done a 180 flip-flop and accepted the so-called Trail to Nowhere grant, it seems like a good idea to remind Fullerton about some things that the City still doesn’t want us to know.

About eight weeks ago – several weeks before the Council flip-flop – I wrote a post about the presence of test wells on the Trail to Nowhere. These wells were installed to test the levels of trichlorethylene (TCE). Not only were the wells situated on the trail but also farther south, in the middle of the street in the 300 block of West Truslow Avenue.

I offered the fact that no one can do this sort of thing on public property without permits from the City of Fullerton and that surely the Engineering Department or Development Services Departments has records of those encroachments. The scope of the actual TCE contamination has been known for 20 years or more, and the State of California and the Environmental Protection Agency have known all about it. So has City Hall, since groundwater contamination in north Orange County was the subject of a massive lawsuit involving the Orange County Water District. Plus, someone was installing test wells on City property.

I asked how was this contamination could be omitted from the City’s grant application to the State Natural Resources Agency.

The grant has finally been accepted by the City, but the problem remains. Two problems, in fact. The contamination is still there, of course, and so are the test wells – an issue not addressed in the project budget. But an even bigger question remains. Was the omission due to a management problem – complete compartmentalization of City departments? Or, worse was the problem deliberately ignored?

In either case Fullerton has a fundamental problem the cause of which is clear: complete lack of accountability that appears cultural. City Manager Eric Levitt was preceded by a long leadership vacuum in which City Managers like Joe Felz and Ken Domer were simply along for the ride – chosen, apparently for their elastic sense of responsibility. Yet, Levitt has been around for two years and seems to show the same flexible attitude.

If departments are sequestered behind opaque compartment walls, there is a failure of corporate leadership, and an inevitable decentralization that was, and is, a recipe for costly failure. That’s on Mr. Levitt. If City employees knew about the contamination issue and either said nothing or deliberately lied to the State, that’s a problem of employees who feel utterly secure in their behavior, knowing that consequences for bad actions is not a problem; this is on Levitt, too.

In the specific case of the Trail to Nowhere, the three councilmembers who flipped their votes have some explaining to do, and not just about a matter of opinion, good idea/bad idea. They need to explain how and why the City application for the grant omitted mention of a real and present issue, and also what their City Manager (who just got an 8% raise) is going to do about it. If they don’t they’re part of the accountability problem.

August 17, 2023August 17, 2023Ahmad Zahra

Trail to Nowhere Goes Nowhere

by The Fullerton Harpoon15 Comments

On Tuesday night the Fullerton City Council again shit-canned the moronic recreation trail proposed on the old Union Pacific right-of-way.

Councilmen Bruce Whitaker and Nick Dunlap both presented compelling reasons; that the proposal failed to address requests from the Council in 2021 that the area be addressed wholly, not by piecemeal projects. Mayor Fred Jung joined them in voting to turn back the grant money.

Naturally, Ahmad Zahra championed the wasteful project, pretending to be offended by Dunlap’s observation that maintenance was issue since Fullerton can’t take care of the parks we already have. It didn’t seem to occur to him that his position was grossly patronizing to his own constituency who must be separated from the hard truths of fiscal realty. He was joined in his profligacy by Shana Charles who giggly gushed over the opportunidad to bestow a top-down gift to the community – and after all, it was free money and wasn’t going to cost anything.

A gaggle of speakers showed up to defend Option 1 – a bike trail that would pass through some of the worst, least safe parts of Fullerton. A couple opined that a useless trail was desperately needed. A few Spanish-speaking women appeared to regurgitate the talking points of Zahra, but as usual displayed a complete factual deficit. Their job was to bad-mouth Option 2 that could have include an auto passage along the trail, and again to babble about “the children.”

One speaker named Jane Rands actually provided intelligent and pertinent points, to wit: the City staff had not developed a general concept for the redevelopment of the area, and that the trail has no connectivity to anything else in the trail system, a point lost on the thoughtless Zaharites.

So in the end the council majority voted on Option 3 – give the money back to the opaque agency that took it from the taxpayers and doled it out in the first place. In a fun twist, Jung added a caveat to his Option 3 support: that the Up Park be re-opened ASAP.

After the vote was taken, one of Zahra’s lunatic followers began screaming at the Council about being racists and insensitive beasts, etc., and had to be removed from the chamber by the pit-sitting cop. And Zahra could be heard muttering under his breath into the open mike: “Bushala.”

October 7, 2021October 8, 2021Ahmad Zahra

Housing Scam Averted

by Mr. Peabody17 Comments

Here at FFFF we like to praise our City Council when they do something smart; when they don’t we smack them on the snout with a rolled-up copy of the yellowing Fullerton Observer.

Well, Lo and Behold! On Tuesday, last, the Council voted 3-2 to shitcan a horrible scam cooked up by California’s houseocrats to reward developers and speculators by taking over market rate housing at The Aspect apartment project and control rents – for people who make between $102,000 and $123,000. Yes, you read that rightly, Friends. According to our experts, if you make more than that, by definition, your housing is “market rate.” The perniciousness of this scam cannot be overemphasized. A new term has been cooked up to describe these unfortunate six-figure po’ folks: the Missing Middle.

The way this scheme works is that the City cuts a deal with the California Statewide Community Development Authority – a perfectly opaque agency, to be sure. The CSCDA floats a bond, the proceeds of which will buy out the existing owner, rewards up-front the agents and speculators who put the rancid deal together; management will be left in the hands of other parasites who are in on the deal, too. Did I mention that the sale price may well exceed market appraisal? Well, why not?

The funniest part of this may have been the revelation that the complex has a 98% occupancy rate – an astounding number – people who can ALREADY afford to live there! And these good folks will be the recipients of the small lowering of rents – or be forced to move out if they don’t have a long-term lease..

A reasonable person may well wonder why ANY of this is necessary, and the answer from the government Wohnungen uber alles crowd will be so crammed with feel-good bullshit that you know right away it’s a scam.

One of the problems is that because the apartment project is now owned by the government the property owner (CSCDA) pays no property tax; in order to sweeten the deal on The Aspect, the promoters promised a “Host City Fee,” essentially an annual tribute to the City. Meanwhile other entities are just shit-out-of-luck.

The enormity of this nonsense is pretty significant; all one has to do is look to Anaheim – a pay to play town where the City has spent gargantuan amounts buying up big apartment projects and rewarding the lobbyists like Curt Pringle, who skim right off the top of this sort of crap.

Well, finally, back to council meeting. Councilmembers Whitaker, Dunlap and Jung were adamantly opposed to this, to their credit. Not surprisingly, Zahra and Quirk-Silva who petitioned to put this item on the agenda were all-in for it, babbling phrases like “outside the box” and “innovative thinking” and brushing aside concerns about unknown details full of devils.

Thanks to Jung, Dunlap and Whitaker, and of course shame on Zahra and Quirk-Silva who were very clearly in the pocket of whichever lobbyist was promoting this idiocy.