The Fullerton Harpoon, Author at Friends For Fullerton's Future

August 15, 2024August 15, 2024Ahmad Zahra

Election Fraud – Again

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

In 2022 the Executive Director of the OC Democrat Party, Ajay Mohan, recruited unknown Tony Castro to run for Fullerton’s 5th District. The purpose was to siphon enough Latino voters away from Oscar Valadez to protect the incumbent, Ahmad Zahra. Sez who? Tony Castro, that’s who.

Well the same cast of characters is the same, but wearing different soiled feathers; this time it’s the District 4 election.

Friends were speculating the other day about whether the last minute appearance of a non-Latino candidate, Scott Markowitz, especially one spouting MAGA-type rhetoric wasn’t suspicious. It is. And the only credible explanation for this candidacy is to draw votes away from conservative Linda Whitaker. Proof you ask?

It turns out that the unknown Scott Markowitz was accompanied to the City Hall nominating paper pull by none other than Ajay Mohan, now a political campaign operative with something called Rocket Science Strategies.

So Mohan was there at the last minute to hold Scott’s hand as he began his fraudulent, and sure to be short-lived, political career.

Of course Markowitz successfully gathered his signatures; how many of the signatories really agree with Marko’s highly Trumpy ballot statement? Hmm. Here’s a partial list of signatories. Look at the last name -Diane Vera.

Some may remember Diane Vera from her scribblings for the ultra-liberal Fullerton Observer and her occasional squawking at city council meetings. She signed the papers of the would-be America Firster? How come? It gets funnier.

It appears that Ms. Vena already has a candidate she’s not only supporting, but has endorsed – none other than Vivian “Kitty” Jaramillo. Now that’s not very good, is it? She’s also a donor to the north Orange County Democrats’ club.

Of course, Diane isn’t the only one of Markowitz’s signers who’s True Blue. Karlo Marcelo is another member of the Democrats of North OC.

And then we have Dan Cash, another “progressive” liberal. Does he approve of the Markowitz ballot statement? Maybe someone will ask him.

If we needed any more evidence of a conspiracy, let’s consider Rocket Science Strategies, for a moment. It’s a limited liability company filed in California.

So this “consulting” operation includes Mohan, and one Lyndsey Lefebvre of La Habra, whose bio is quite telling:

It turns out that Ms. Lefebvre used to work for Mohan stirring up liberal activism as a full-time employee of the Democratic Party of Orange County. She’s been a union organizer, too.

Does Lyndsey approve of Markowitz’s ballot statement? She must since she probably wrote it.

And as the evidence of a conspiracy to create a phony candidate piles up, the only issue left is to ascertain who Ajay Mohan is actually working for. Whoever this might be, it’s crystal clear the beneficiary of taking votes away from Linda Whitaker is none other than former Fullerton meter maid, Vivian Jaramillo, the first and only candidate interviewed for endorsement by the Democrat Party of County. Is she involved in this fraud? She must be well-aware of it, although it’s more likely to be executed for candidate plausible deniability, as in the case of Tony Castro, by the Democrat Party itself.

August 13, 2024August 13, 2024Ahmad Zahra

Ad Hoc Tuah, Part Two-ah

by The Fullerton Harpoon18 Comments

If I knew what I was talking about this wouldn’t be Fullerton!

One week ago, true to form, the City created the “ad hoc” finance committee proposed by Councilperson Shana Charles to study Fullerton’s financial fiasco – an ocean of red ink.

The vote was 3-2.

Councilman Fred Jung who supported this proposal spoke of “resident input” as if that were something never tried before.

Ahmad Zahra pretended to be of two minds regarding this committee, citing earlier, phony push polls as proof of Fullerton’s thirst to be taxed more. But he was really all for it – gotta keep the sales tax idea on a burner. He virtually admitted that a tax was his goal.

Predictably in her comments, Charles gushed at Fullerton’s untapped well of civilian brainpower (why goodness, two actual professors showed up earlier in the meeting!) as a source of brilliant budget-closing ideas. Of course she misused the term “holistic” several times, but, whatever.

At first Bruce Whitaker offered that he had no objection to this committee, per se, but pointed out that previous fiscal ideas presented by the so-called INRAC citizen’s panel had been ignored by the City Council.

This idea was echoed by Mayor Nick Dunlap, who pointed out the obvious – that this committee had no other purpose than to keep the dream of a sales tax increase alive. He opined that it was City staff’s job to come up with ideas and plans for fiscal sustainability (a euphemism coughed up by Charles) presented to the City Council. This of course is the way it should be, although the irony that his staff failed miserably at this very task over the past year seemed to have escaped the notice of our mayor.

Dunlap’s statements convinced Whitaker to oppose creation of the committee.

Charles responded to her colleagues, by disingenuously acknowledging her recognition that a sales tax increase was not inevitable, a completely irrelevant observation intended to prove her “holistic” bona fides.

A lady named Maureen Milton called in, wanting some reassurance that the meetings of the committee would be open to the public.

The milquetoast was no longer even warm…

Our esteemed City Manager quickly muttered that the meetings would be noticed and public, but whether that half-hearted affirmation will be effected remains to be seen.

And so Fullerton has another of its footling and futile committees, five souls, one appointed by each councilmember. This is all being uber-rushed so that appointments will be made a week from today, on August 20th, so that the sales tax solution indoctrination can begin as soon as possible.

August 7, 2024August 7, 2024Ahmad Zahra

Election Sweepstakes Roll Along

by The Fullerton Harpoon18 Comments

There’s only a couple days left for candidates to file their paperwork to run for Fullerton City Council. The deadline is August 9th – unless the two incumbents in the 1st and 2nd District, Fred Jung and Nick Dunlap pull out – then there’s another week. Neither has filed their nomination documents yet.

I know who I want to work for, and it isn’t you!

Previously, two individuals turned in their nominating papers – Jan Flory, who’s been on the City Council on three different occasions, already filed to run against Dunlap Her record on the Council has been a trifecta of terribleness.

And then there’s some odd guy named Matt Truxaw who had filed for the 1st District to run against Jung. He seems like a sucker set up for the steamroller.

And now a third candidate has made it official: Linda Whitaker, wife of outgoing Councilman Bruce Whitaker, in the 4th District. Oddly, Ms. Whitaker has listed no occupation which is extremely unusual, not even a “retired” this or that. Does it matter that much? Maybe not. Flory calls herself a “retired family lawyer” which may not be helpful since people generally don’t have happy experiences in family court.

Finally, a new potential candidate has taken out papers to run in the 4th. The name is Scott Moskewitz, someone none of us have heard of. There is a 67 year-old Scott Moskowitz who lives on Woodcrest Drive. I have to wonder if this person isn’t simply a plant, an obscure name on a ballot meant to draw votes away from the only person in the race at this point without a Spanish surname – Linda Whitaker.

We all remember 2022 when the Democrat Party of OC set up a guy named Tony Castro to draw Latino votes away from Oscar Valadez in support of non-Latino Ahmad Zahra. Mr. Moskowitz pulled his papers very late – two days ago which may indicate a certain strategy. We shall see if he is in by Friday afternoon.

August 6, 2024August 6, 2024Ahmad Zahra

Ad Hoc Tuah Coming

by The Fullerton Harpoon13 Comments

You read that right. This evening the Fullerton City Council is being asked to create an “ad hoc” committee that would spend the next nine months considering our financial situations, and, presumably, making recommendations for next year’s budget hearings. The idea came from Councilmember Charles, supported by Councilman Fred Jung.

The fact that Charles initiated this process is telling. Her only observable skill on the City Council is to keep things the bureaucracy wants alive, alive.

And what they want is a recommendation to put a sales tax on the ballot at a 2025 special election.

The object here is simple. Keep talking about a 13% sales tax increase, a tax whose campaign the “public safety” unions will pay for and that might pass a 50% threshold in a low turn out special election.

When and where will this committee meet? Who knows? One thing is sure, meetings won’t be easy to find, and will likely take place midday somewhere – like a broom closet at the Fullerton Physical Plant.

According to our crack legal team of the I Can’t Believe It’s a Law Firm” of Jones and Meyer, “temporary” ad hoc committees are not subject to the Brown Act – California’s open meeting laws. Our City Manager, the hapless Eric Levitt, promises real hard to “notice” us peons, but wants to maintain “flexibility” to accomplish the “work” requested.

Of course that work is to work on the committee members to come to the right conclusion – a tax to fix the dire fiscal cliff years of pandering to the cops and the paramedics has created.

I sure hope that Nick Dunlap and Bruce Whitaker will see what’s going on; and that Fred Jung was just having some fun with pro-tax Charles. But then again, Fullerton, being Fullerton, has been known for this sort of thing: stalling, obfuscating, temporizing, hoodwinking, and generally doing the stupid thing in the end.

August 1, 2024August 1, 2024Ahmad Zahra

She’s In! The Return Of Jan Flory

by The Fullerton Harpoon26 Comments

A week or so ago FFFF reported that Jan Flory, the elderly, humorless scold who has been on the Fullerton City Council three times had taken out nominating papers to run this fall in the 2nd District.

FFFF rejoiced.

We didn’t necessarily think she’d go through with it, what with her pushing 80 years old, her historic constituency dying off, and running against the popular and well-financed Mayor, Nick Dunlap. Still the prospect of having Flory around gave hope for all sorts of blogging fun – once again reciting her horrendous pro-tax, pro-corruption record.

And now we learn that Mrs. Flory has indeed returned her nominating papers and is in the process of creating a new campaign committee.

Well, done, Jan, say I. Your record of “public service” is in a class by itself.

You were the one who approved the budget busting 3@50 retroactive pension bonanza to cops and paramedics.

You were the one who enthusiastically supported the illegal water tax.

You were the one who supported Measure S, the foolish sales tax effort.

You were the one who supported the ill-conceived Utility Tax, and wished it had been double,

You were the one who approved years of red ink budgets and lied about them to the public.

You were the one who cut a slimy deal with Ahmad Zahra to deny the citizens of Fullerton a chance to vote on a replacement for Jesus Quirk Silva.

You were the one who refused to create a citizens commission to reform the Culture of Corruption in the Fullerton Police Department.

You were the one who defended the Three Bald Tires in the wake of the Kelly Thomas murder by the cops. You called them honorable men.

You were the one to sneer and deprecate your own constituents if they dared criticize or complain about the actions of your beloved “staff.”

You were the one to support every Redevelopment boondoggle and every massive, over-built apartment block.

And of course the list goes on and on and on.

And so once again, FFFF says thank you, God!

July 23, 2024July 24, 2024Ahmad Zahra

Walk on Wilshire Limps Along

by The Fullerton Harpoon20 Comments

Last Tuesday the Fullerton City Council considered extending the so-called Walk on Wilshire project, a staff-driven closure of Wilshire Avenue just west of Harbor to auto traffic and leasing the street to adjacent businesses to operate for outdoor dining. The “pilot” program term ended in June but “economic development” bureaucrats sure wanted to keep it going even though it’s over fifty grand in the hole so far, with little but wishful thinking promising success in the future.

Right off the bat, Mayor Nick Dunlap recused himself. Apparently his father is part owner of the adjacent the Villa del Sol building that has tenants who may or may not want the street closure ended. That left four councilmembers to deal with the item.

It turns out that the folks in City Hall commissioned another one of those surveys designed to arrive at a pre-determined conclusion that City Hall wants. We’ve seen that over and over and over again. Guess what? Everyone just loves them some Walk on Wilshire.

Public speakers included about five or six people nobody had ever heard of before, suggesting that they were planted by staff or a councilmember like Shana Charles to be there. Oh, they just oozed enthusiasm for the closure, rhapsodizing on the exclusion of cars, the walking and the bicycling and the ambiance, etc., all the touchy-feely stuff you would expect.

Why write about news when you can try to make your own! (Photo by Julie Leopo/Voice of OC)

Saskia Kennedy, editor of the yellowing Fullerton Observer got up to extol the virtues of the plan, proving that making the news is a lot more fun than responsibly reporting it.

Several adjacent business owners spoke, complaining about the unfairness of the closure that only benefitted three adjacent restaurants and that hurts their business. They included the owners of Pour Company, Les Amis, and The Back Alley Bar and Grill, and Tony Bushala who owns the historic building at 124 W. Wilshire.

Two other speakers, Joshua Ferguson and Jack Dean made excellent arguments against continuing the closure. Ferguson pointed out that the council was being asked to make a decision based on insufficient information, while Mr. Dean reminded the council that the business and property owners on Wilshire, many of whom were not even notified of the meeting, have a paramount interest in this endeavor.

When the chit-chat was all over it became clear that there was not a majority in favor of continuing the program until December. Zahra and Charles naturally wanted to prolong the boondoggle, Fred Jung and Bruce Whitaker didn’t. In a rambling discourse Whitaker went to great but unpersuasive lengths to explain his switcheroo, but did hit upon one truth. The Walk on Wilshire is completely driven by bureaucrats in City Hall, and nobody else. A motion for continuing the Walk on Wilshire until the end of the year failed on a 2-2 vote.

But a waffling Whitaker was in favor of giving the participants three months to plan for the end of the program which wasn’t all that bad of an idea. However, Shana Charles thought she espied the eye of the needle and threaded herself though it, using all the arguments against the Walk on Wilshire to propose that staff review the mess, again, and come back, again.

Waffling Whitaker agreed to a return of the item in three months to study up on the issue, as if there hadn’t been plenty of time to do that already. And so a council majority voted 3-1 to keep the patient on life support, and as usual nothing was decided and there was no specific direction. Staff is supposed to review something, anything, who knows what.

There never seems to be closure until it is approved by the bureaucrats who are the real profiteers on money losing schemes. It’s job security.

July 18, 2024July 20, 2024Ahmad Zahra

Thank You God!

by The Fullerton Harpoon26 Comments

What appeared to be a pretty tame fall City Council election may have just become a lot more fun.

Word on the street is that Jan Flory pulled nomination papers yesterday to run against Mayor Nick Dunlap in the 2nd District election in November.

Who is Jan Flory? If you don’t know, take a spin through our files, here. You’ll find all sorts of entertaining stories about Ms. Flory and even about her creepy/pervy son Mike, who used to be a Deputy District Attorney and even tried to be a judge once.

Mike Flory Photo — How far did the apple fall from the tree?

Flory Call Log 01 — Maybe not breast fed long enough…

Jan Flory was elected to the City Council in 1994 and voted off in 2002. In those eight years she happily allowed an illegal water tax, voted for the disastrous retroactive public safety pension spike and supported the culture of unaccountability that has helped us get where we are today.

In 2012 she hauled herself out of the stable to try another lap around the track.

Her mission was to restore municipal authority to the Old Guard she represented, and to protect the Culture of Corruption at the Fullerton Police Department from any sort of reform. She informed us that the City Department heads were the “heart of the City.”

She put in her four years, patting her Chief of Police Danny Hughes on the fanny as they both walked out the door in 2016, a few days after the drunken City Manager, Joe Felz drove over a tree and tried to drive away. The ensuing cover up turned out to be expensive. Oops.

But Jan wasn’t done with us. Not by a long shot.

When an opening on the City Council occurred in 2019 guess who was there to snap up the job? After her appointment she rewarded the unemployed Ahmad Zahra for his vote with a paying gig at the Orange County Water District.

In this last stint Flory was happy to continue her love affair with unbalanced budgets and was one of the members of the Council, along with Jesus Quirk Silva, Ahmad Zahra, and Jennifer Fitzgerald who waged a legal vendetta against this blog and specifically against Joshua Ferguson and David Curlee. Of course that harpy-like mission cost the taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars, but didn’t cost the perpetrators anything.

Well, I sure hope Ms. Flory really does want to run. The entertainment value alone is worth it. Who her constituency might be is unclear. There aren’t that many elderly liberals left in Fullerton. She might get the support of the yellowing, and thinning Fullerton Observer crowd, but a humorless, stick-up-the-backside septuagenarian is not likely to appeal to anyone under seventy.

July 1, 2024July 1, 2024Ahmad Zahra

Boutique Fun and Games With Johnny Lu and Larry Liu

by The Fullerton Harpoon17 Comments

FFFF has already reported on some of the colorful financial background of Johnny Lu of TA Partners, our City’s stand-up partner on the so-called “boutique” hotel project at the railroad tracks. This hot mess even has a name: The Tracks at Fullerton Station. The development has morphed into a monstrous minotaur by adding approval for a massively dense apartment – an amalgamation which gives us a shocking 130 units per acre, overall.

Well, anyway, we previously shared the news that Johnny was in default on massive construction loans he somehow finagled for projects in Irvine a few years ago. The lender on those has foreclosed on those properties.

And here’s some even more recent news. It seems that Johnny has waded out into more legal problems over in LA, according to The Real Deal, a real estate news source. Here’s the thrust of the complaint by bamboozled investors on a “project” at Playa Vista:

“The investors — who form an entity called RUC14 Playa LLC — sued Lu, Liu and TA Partners, alleging commingling of funds, fraud and misrepresentation, court records show. Attorneys for TA Partners, which have requested for arbitration in the case, did not respond to a request for comment.“

Johnny and his partner, Larry Liu, declared their bankruptcy on the Playa Vista project. But let’s give the misunderstood boys a break. A little contrition goes a long way, right? Said Larry:

“We would like to offer our apology for the non-compliance during project execution,” Liu wrote in the letter. “Self-reflection is needed and I would like to apologize.”

Whatever any of this means to “TA Westpark LLC.,” the corporation that was awarded the Fullerton project entitlements (without any competition) remains to be seen. But now Johnny and Larry have equity – and boy have they got equity; see, Councilmembers Zahra, Charles and Whitaker handed them a bonanza – a plot of land available for hundreds of units – for a mere pittance: $1.4 million less associated costs.

Ms. Charles happened to mention at a council item about raising funds for Fullerton’s fiscal disaster, that the boutique hotel plan was moving along. But there was no mention of the fiscal disaster facing Johnny and Larry Enterprises. Does she even know? Does she understand what is happening? Does she care? Probably no on all three.

The plan here is crystal clear. At this point nobody is going to lend Lu and Liu a bent nickle. But these fine fellows will have entitlements worth tens of millions on this project; a project that never should have happened in the first place – an unsolicited proposal by a local guy who had no chance of building a birdhouse.

This project will be reassigned to a third party, someone the City “business development” expert bureaucrats will be sweet-talked into recommending. And then Johnny and Larry will quietly disappear from Fullerton with millions belonging to us.

Fullerton being Fullerton.

June 29, 2024June 30, 2024Ahmad Zahra

Bungling Boutique Boondoggle Blunders

by The Fullerton Harpoon12 Comments

Some folks have been asking about the fate of the idiotic “boutique” hotel project that had morphed into a hideously overbuilt hotel/apartment hippogriff that is twice the allowable density permitted per the City’s own Transportation Center Specific Plan. Of course the project was never contemplated at all in the Specific Plan, so who cares, right? Fullerton being Fullerton.

In an act of utter incompetence the City actually rushed the approval to transfer of title to the land, before the deal had received final approval. Then they gave it away the land for pennies on the dollar.

Friends may recall our last October post in which we discovered that the new “developer,” one Johnny Lu of TA Westpark LLC, was way upside down on loans he had somehow leveraged on apartment blocks in Irvine and was in default.

You may also recall that Lu started shifting the property to different corporations, the first of which, a Delaware corporation, was non-existent. And just for grins, Mr. Lu changed the property description, too, when he later deeded it back to his California Corporation.

Anyhow, it looks like Johnny has finally created and recorded the appropriately named Delaware corporation in March – only two years too late, but, hey, not bad for Fullerton, right?

There has been nothing but radio silence from City Hall as to the status of Mr. Lu and whether he has met any of the stipulated deadlines in the Development and Disposition Agreement, but as we have learned in the case of the Florentine/Marovich sidewalk heist, contractual obligations mean nothing when the “I Can’t Believe It’s a Law Firm” of Jones & Mayer is your City Attorney. Recently, cluelessly verbose Shana Charles indicated that the project was still alive and well. She didn’t mention Mr. Lu’s financial embarrassment, but then nobody else has, either.

And now for some sadly interesting news. It turns out the original Founding Father of the boutique hotel concept, Craig Hostert of West Park Development – the guy who sold the idea to Jennifer Fitzgerald, Jan Flory, Jesus Quirk Silva, Ahmad Zahra, Bruce Whitaker, et. al. – died in late May.

Poor guy. He went to his Reward after getting pushed out of his own scheme, and sticking us with the appalling, metastasized mess the concept has predictably morphed into; showing that once again, no bad idea goes unappreciated in downtown Fullerton. Being Fullerton, of course.

June 11, 2024June 11, 2024Behind Closed Doors

Chapman Parking Structure Deeded to City

by The Fullerton Harpoon16 Comments

A while back FFFF noticed a item forecast on the June 4th Agenda dealing with the property bounded by Whiting, Chapman, Pomona and Lemon – a parking structure built about 30 years ago for reasons still unknown. Curiously, the staff report calls it a “parking lot,” ignoring the fact that it’s actually an elevated parking structure – an asset that cost several million to build. The accompanying Quitclaim Deed only refers to parcels of land on the original Townsite Map, but doesn’t describe improvements on said lots.

According to staff it was built by the downtown Fullerton Parking Authority – which isn’t quite true because the parking district didn’t have any money. It was built by the Fullerton Redevelopment Agency which raised lots of money to waste on stuff like this.

Anyhow, the agendized item turns out to be a paperwork issue to deed miscellaneous portions of the site to the City from the now dead “Parking Authority.” The item was dutifully approved by our City Council.

Obviously, nobody caught the omission when the parking agency expired (another Jones and Mayer success story), but now the timing may suggest that the “opportunity site” as identified in the otherwise unrelated and never-ending “Fox Block” fiasco has attracted the attention of City Hall’s Monopoly-playing, “economic development” bureaucrats.