Author: The Fullerton Harpoon

I new it was coming. Following fast upon the proverbial heels of a deliberately misleading City press release, the Kennedy Sister named Sanka regurgitated the same bullshit about the Union Pacific Park.

The headline says it all:

“Union Pacific Park Project Makes Progress Toward Long-Awaited Opening After 22 Years”

No, Siaska, the Union Pacific Park was already built and open 20 years ago. True, the site was contaminated – purchased by the City without due diligence – and was remediated.

But hey, why stop the lies coming? The park had been a gathering ground for gangs, drunks, and junkies. The City, under City Manager Chris Meyers and his successors, demolished the toilets and kept the fence surrounding the park in place. Why? Because due to social pathologies the place was an embarrassing multi-million dollar fiasco. The less said the better, and nothing said, better yet, for the masterminds of the disaster.

According to Kennedy, the site was so disrupted by the remediation it became useless, a statement that is a false. When the toxic stuff was discovered it covered less than half the park. The rest was wide open. Siska intentionally fails to explain the real reasons the park was completely closed after remediation: misuse, abuse and law breaking. The neighbors across Truslow Avenue complained.

Sometime after 2011 a fence was put up around the whole park and it had nothing to do with soils remediation. It was a reaction to the dystopian park. There has been plenty of opportunity in the past 15 years to re-open the park. Nobody wanted it re-opened. No one, that is, until Fred Jung, Nick Dunlap, and Bruce Whitaker voted to do that a couple years ago. But of course no accountability for the decades long disaster needed to be pursued. That wouldn’t be the Fullerton Way.

The solution now at Parks and Rec and its Fullerton Observers, is to pretend that because of the toxic contamination there has never really been a park, and that this “beloved neighborhood space” is finally being opened to cries of enthusiasm from all. That’s another lie.

Skakia remembers an ad hoc UP Park committee but ignores the fact that it withered away without doing anything. No plans reviewed contemplated a Kaboom Park.

Then Skansia shares this jargon-filled gem: “These surveys (Ed. done by no one knows who, no one knows when, participated in by someone, somewhere) highlighted safety and engaging programming as primary concerns, aligning with the broader goal of enhancing neighborhood security through increased recreational opportunities.” Probably the same useless patter uttered by City Hall Parks Department bureaucrats in 1999, and identical to the same wishful thinking that supported the recent Trail to Nowhere boondoggle.

Ah, yes! Positivity springs eternal in the precincts of Fullerton City Hall, and Sanskia concludes her drivel with a pathos-meringue filled appeal to hope and glory: “…the upcoming renovations aim to transform it into a vibrant community hub that fosters pride and engagement among residents. The goal is to create a safe, inviting environment that enhances the overall quality of life in the neighborhood.“

A few weeks ago, the Fullerton Observer’s eager young cub reporter, Elijah Manassero, wrote an article about some misuse of the official Fullerton city seal by a “private company” with ties to Mayor Fred Jung.

The company in question is a Korean-American showroom of some kind on Harbor Boulevard that promotes the Fullerton-Seongnam City Sister City relationship. The offending sign had been changed by the time young Elijah wrote his “story.”

That seemed like a real stretch to create news as the Observer is always doing because performing real journalism is too darn challenging for the Kennedy Sisters.

But wait for it.

On the internet chat site reddit, there is a “subreddit” called r/Fullerton. And guess what? r/Fullerton features our City seal right there on its banner, and done so, apparently, for years.

And that’s not all of course.

Guess who religiously cross posts his own anti-Jung, anti-Bushala, anti-Dunlap propaganda on reddit, not to mention the self-righteous crapola he writes for the Fullerton Observer? That’s right. Sweet young Elijah Manassero who is so alarmed by “unauthorized” use of Fullerton’s city seal.

A week or so ago, FFFF posted about the strange case of the missing PRA request, here, requesting communications between Councilperson Shana Charles and the City Manager, Mayor Fred Jung, et al. For some reason this request was omitted from the official log kept on the City website by the City Clerk.

Well, not any longer. The missing request has magically appeared in the log.

On July 30th, Charles let fly with this vulgar and toxic email:

Ms. Charles sure got her dander up. The reason for the outrage that caused the good professor to lose it? Here it is: the August 5th City Council meeting was cancelled.

So the City Manager and Mayor have cancelled the August 5th meeting and the ICE issue can be put off a couple weeks. If you’re an armchair social justice warrior like Charles is, this is outrageous! Shameful!

Shana is transformed into veritable jungle queen! She will explore any and all options! This will not be a quiet cancellation! Aux armes, Fullerton Boohoo!!

Of course no “blatant effort” was being made to silence anything. The council meeting on August 19th addressed the ICE lawsuit to Fullerton Boohoo satisfaction and life in Fullerton went on, somehow, despite the two-week delay.

The personal attack on Fred Jung was pretty objectionable since his health, whatever it may be, had nothing to do with National Night Out, a cop sponsored neighborhood building program which was being promoted by the Fullerton Police Department. And this isn’t the first time Charles has attacked Jung.

I have to wonder how this uncivil outburst might affect Charles’s promotion to Mayor in December, especially given her unlikely appointment as Mayor Pro Tem last year.

Just when you might have felt safe from the re-emergence of the bumbling, incoherent former Fullerton City Councilman, Jesus Quirk-Silva, you might be horrified to learn his political thirst for office hasn’t been quenched. It appears that Quirk-Silva wants to be on the North Orange County Community College Board of Trustees. Observe:

So about a month ago JQS filed the form 501 – the statement filed when you intend to be a candidate.

The OC Dems will no doubt get behind the guy who knows nothing about college except that he somehow graduated from one despite the obvious intellectual deficit. This will be the same agglomeration of Dems who tried mightily to create a council district for the sole purpose of keeping Mr. Quirk-Silva in a council seat.

If somebody wanted to they could make reference to Quirk-Silva’s votes on the Fullerton City Council – like his embarrassing, comical, and sadly disastrous flip-flop on the boutique hotel disaster, although that isn’t likely.

These community college trustee elections rarely cause much of a dust up because no one really cares who the nodding birds are. The most recent addition to this crew is a guy named Mark Lopez, an unethical bozo who tried to be on the Anaheim School Board at the same time and who got kicked off the latter.

Meantime, I should note there is an incumbent for the job, Jeffrey Brown who has been on the Board for well over twenty years and may be one of those people who love their little sinecure and will fight to keep it.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention a rumor circulating that the seat is now coveted by none other than Paulette Marshal. Yes, the same person whose lawsuit against Tim Shaw caused the Dems to lose their only seat on the OC Board of Education; who tried and failed as a candidate for that job twice, pretending to be a teacher; and who was previously busted for stealing campaign signs from private property during a phony carpetbagging scheme to get on the Fullerton City Council in 2018.

She may look like death warmed over, but her political ambition may not be dead.

It would be safe to say that nobody wants Pilferin’ Paulette around anymore, hovering in the background like the chorus in a Greek tragedy. But this miscreant has shown she’s willing to sink a big chunk of her kid’s inheritance into getting a political office – any political office. Well, nobody except Paulette, and her senile, corrupt husband, County Supervisor Doug “Bud” Chaffee.

Well, it’s really a fundraiser for Shaw’s 4th District County Supervisor campaign.

I’m not sure why Mr. Shaw is running for this seat. `Shaw ran for this job in 2018 against the senile and corrupt Doug “Bud” Chaffee and couldn’t beat him. He didn’t run in the 2022 election which saw two Democrats in the general election.

Shaw is a Republican in a district that is now solidly Democrat. Even if he were to make a run-off in the primary, he won’t win in the general election. He has no evident path to victory.

Shaw may have a name recognition problem. He gave up his job on the La Habra City Council a few years ago thanks to a lawsuit against him by Chaffee’s wife, Pilferin’ Paulette Marshall, the petty thief who wanted to force him off his other job on the OC Board of Education for holding incompatible offices. Shaw crossed her up by keeping his gig at the under-the-radar OCBOE, instead of the La Habra City Council. And therein lies a problem for him.

The OCBOE has been hijacked by a group of ultra-loony Trumpies and Shaw has been part of their team. If he were to get past a primary he would be mercilessly attacked as a fascist loon despite his generally moderate reputation.

Well, all that back story aside, Shaw is inviting folks to his reception out on Carbon Canyon Rd in October. It’s a horsey theme, I guess, so wear your Stetson and bring your credit card.

Yesterday U.S. District Judge Fernando Aelle-Rocha hit cannabis lobbyist Melahat Rafiei with a six month jail sentence and a $10,000 fine for fraud. In reality she had already pleaded guilty to trying to bribe two Irvine councilmembers to help her client – somebody in the local marijuana cartel. This seems like a light penalty for what she admitted.

Her adherents (she has some thanks to her years of disingenuous self-promotion in Democrat politics) claim that her ratting out some of Anaheim’s crooks should have meant no jail time at all.

What will this mean for the dope lobby in Fullerton? Hard to say. We know that the business has insinuated itself into Fullerton. Ahmad Zahra appointed one of its political spokesholes, Derek Smith to the Fiscal Sustainability Ad Hoc Committee. And the Dutiful Doctor from Damascus has been an active and open drum-beater for the marijuana dispensary cause for years. He actually recommended Rafiei as a lobbyist to at least one commercial property owner that I know. How many others have there been?

We also know that Zahra and the dope lobby worked real hard to elect Cannabis Kitty Jaramillo (above) last fall. Had Jaramillo won we would have MJ stores in Fullerton, possibly 100 feet from your house.

People have been speculating about Zahra’s ties to the local Marijuana Trust. How beholden is he? Ditto Sheena Charles, whose husband, Andre, got a tidy $4,000 from the marijuana worker union’s PAC, “Working Families for Jaramillo.”

The Fullerton Observer and their followers have been vocal about the political influence of Tony Bushala, but have been completely silent about the long reach of the MJ cartel into Fullerton politics. I don’t wonder why.

As the saying goes about the sooner or later discovery by the blind pig.

In this instance the issue was the lack of the actual solid waste RFP document in Tuesday’s presentation to the Fullerton City Council. Tender Elijah popped up during public comments to note this omission, and he was right to do so.

Maybe innocent Elijah came across this on his own – it’s pretty blatant. Or maybe he got it from my FFFF colleague Disillusioned Ex-hippy, who wrote this on Monday:

“Item 21 is the start of something big. Fullerton’s trash service contract is coming up in June, 2027 and staff wants to issue a Request for Proposal (RFP). The RFP solicitation document itself remains a mystery to the public because it isn’t attached to the agenda. Sorry.“

This sort of thing makes everybody look bad. The City staffer who got up to explain how come the actual document was not attached to the staff report gave the lamest of lame explanations: the ad hoc committee looked at it.

The bare fact that this actually happened bespeaks a culture in which the bureaucracy assumes the council won’t read anything more complicated than a Denny’s menu and will rely on staff to tell them what to do. This doesn’t happen in a vacuum. The sad fact is that most electeds are more interested in photo ops than in doing any real work. And reading documents you are voting on takes effort.

Then there’s the FU to the public, deliberate opacity through design or indifference. I think it’s the culture issue, again; a culture that is created by inertia, where sort of okay is good enough. Hopefully we will get a new City Manager who understands this. But don’t hold your breath.

FFFF has been notified that a complaint against serial prevaricator and immigration fraud Ahmad Zahra has been lodged with the California Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC).

Although I don’t have a copy of the complaint yet, the gist of it is that for years Zahra has been identifying the Capital One Bank in the City of Industry as a “payee” for all sorts of non-related campaign expenses. These include travel(?), web service and office expenses.

I decided to check out Mr. Zahra’s campaign expenses just for the first half of 2025. He listed only two payees:

Sure enough, there’s Capital One Bank. $2329, under the heading of OFC – Office Expenses. Office expenses? So where, exactly is Zahra’s campaign office? In his little apartment by the freeway? Someplace else? That’s a lot of paper clips and staples.

Comically, Zahra’s campaign “office expenses” brought him in exactly $0 in the first two quarters of this year, a fairly damning indictment of his business acumen, at best. Zero.

So I went back a few years for fun. Here’s an entry from 2020:

Sure enough, here’s Zahra using Capital One, City of Industry as a payee for IT expenses. Here are some more:

The Bank is listed as payee for IT expenses, and meeting attendance? Huh?

When he was running for re-election in 2022 Zahra was really casting his campaign bread on the waters. But a lot of the water was murky. One example listed the bank as payee for civic donations! To whom? What for? Who Knows? Big secret.

All of Zahra’s other Capital One “expenses” in 2022 were split among various FPPC codes, including more expensive travel, hiding the true nature of these expenses, and who he really paid.

A cynical person might conclude that Zahra has been deliberately hiding his real campaign financial activity for almost seven years. But why? Have any of these payments gone to personally support Zahra himself? Maybe the FPPC can find out.

And maybe Young Elijah Manassero, the young ethics crusader will dig deep into this mess.

And by the way, who is “Tammi McIntyre” who is signing off on this as Zahra’s treasurer and why on earth is she submitting this junk to the City Clerk? Is Tammi McIntyre in on something, um, untoward? Could be.

By the way AI coughed up this when I inquired about Capital One Bank, City of Industry:

AI says: Capital One has a presence in the City of Industry, California, specifically for auto loan payments. The address for mailing auto loan payments is: Capital One Auto Finance, P.O. Box 60511, City of Industry, CA 91716.

Why do the Kennedy Sisters feel compelled to create their own news and froth themselves and their handful of followers into self-righteous fury over some made up crisis? The answer isn’t good. It’s political grandstanding and journalistic incompetence.

The latest is their Fullerton Observer article demanding that the Fullerton City Council hold a public hearing on the matter of whether or not Fullerton should join a lawsuit against the the Immigration and Customs Enforcement for their “illegal” activities. The alternative, they suggest is an effort to decide this matter in the Council’s “Closed Session” since it pertains to legal activity and is thus exempted under the Brown Act.

The only trouble is that nobody has proposed discussing this matter behind closed doors. The agenda for the next meeting hasn’t even been created and won’t be published until a week from today. Whether or not the matter will even be on the agenda at all for the August 19th meeting is guesswork. Gee, I wonder who sold them this story.

But that’s not a deterrent to the enterprising sisters who once again are trying to whip up the usual suspects into attacking the council majority. They even created a dopey “open letter” making their speculation about a Closed Session decision look like a real effort that they have somehow uncovered. No sources are described, of course, following the Fullerton Observer’s usual trajectory of absent journalistic integrity.

Naturally, this whole thing is another attempt to go after Mayor Fred Jung in particular who is singled out:

“Event organizers invited Mayor Jung – but he failed to attend.”

Bad Jung. Bad, bad Jung! Looks like no effort was made to talk to Jung, or if it did, it was omitted from the screed.

The result of this will be another conga line of the usual speakers that we already know. And maybe some new faces drawn from the ranks of Fullerton’s liberal churches. This is probably why the ever-pious and election fraudster, Diane Vena, sent an email about this subject to the Servite friar, Dennis Kriz.

In July, former La Habra councilman Tim Shaw announced he was running for the OC 4th District Supervisor job. Again.

Way back in 2018, Shaw ran for this seat and lost in a close election to the miserable, corrupt, and now ostensibly senile octogenarian, Doug “Bud” Chaffee. Chafee is termed out in 2026.

But 2026 is not 2018. North Orange County is more demonstrably Democrat, and other than getting into, and losing a General Election to a Democrat, I can’t see much hope for Shaw. In the past he has run for things as an allegedly moderate Republican, but even that seems like a lost cause. This is particularly true since he resigned his La Habra gig so he could stay on the OC Board of Education that has recently become the playground of Trumpy lunatics. That association and his voting record there might help fundraising from a far-right corner – such as $2000 he already got from Howard Ahmanson, but it’s going to make his candidacy a tough sell to the general public.

Right now Fullerton’s Fred Jung and Connor Traut have a lot of cash on hand, where as Shaw has comparatively – under $20,000, but it’s still very early with the primary almost a year away.

I think Shaw’s candidacy is bad news for Fred Jung who, as a pragmatic centrist, needs conservative support. Traut is running as the inevitable leftist Democrat with all the usual institutional support. But that means very little, to which Vivian Jaramillo can attest.