Let the Victimhood Begin!

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.

Zahra-Busted
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.

Misuse of the City Seal

A Friend directed me to a item in the Fullerton Observer about how Mayor Fred Jung had misused the official City seal on business cards.

UPDATE: 6:45PM 10/31/23. To protect them from getting nasty calls from any mean spirited person out there, the phone numbers of these honest men who are trying to help Fullerton’s economic growth have been redacted. The cards were originally published in The Fullerton Observer. I’m curious where the Observer got the cards from to begin with., something tells me it was devious. Two wrongs don’t make a right. Hope The Observer follows suit, but don’t hold your breath. Admin.

There’s nothing odd or wrong about members of City commissions using official insignia and I bet it happens all the time. What is strange is the creation of non-existent jobs advertised on two of the cards we’re looking at here. There is no official thing as a Mayor’s Art Counsel (sic?) or a Mayor’s Economic Advisor. These endeavors would be purely unofficial and creating business cards for them is wrong. And there is no reason to include a résumé on the backside of anybody’s City-related card.

Look at us, look at us!

One of the reasons I’m posting this is because a few days ago FFFF published a blog post about the self-congratulatory and unsolicited statement sent out by Councilmembers Ahmad Zahra and Shana Charles about the situation in Gaza on City letterhead that includes the City seal, and that was published in the Fullerton Observer without objection. In the comments section one of our Friends questioned the dubious use of the City seal.

The self-righteous Kennedy clan that operates the Fullerton Observer is too dense to recognize their own hypocrisy here, but I’m not.

The misuse of the seal is happening, and it needs to be stopped, regardless of who is doing it.

Friends Around the Country: What Happens in Arkansas Stays in Arkansas. Or Does It?

Diamonds and chickens…

When people bother to think of Arkansas at all, an image of Ozarks hillbillies plucking Tyson chickens springs most readily to mind. Apparently folks there also seek opportunity by digging up diamonds out of the dirt; in fact the old state nickname was “The Land of Opportunity.”

There are all sorts of opportunities in Arkansas, I suppose, although not all may be of the sort one would want to share in their origin narrative with others. Of course the same thing could be said of California, too.

George Santos in Fullerton

Everybody knows the guy who embellishes everything thing he does, often to the extent of fabricating resumes. We encounter these people mostly in the workplace where their toadyism keeps them employed.

Politics seems to attract these types in droves. Why? First, because the only real ability required in politics is getting elected and the self-absorbed, even delusional narcissist’s only real ability is to lay a successful con on people too lazy or indifferent to do a little research. Second, because once you get in to office the slate is often (but not always) wiped quite clean by the investiture of authority.

He almost reeks of victimhood

Which brings me first to George Santos, the serially prevaricating, baby-faced congressman from New York who was elected last fall based on a litany of lies so disturbing and so manifold that you really have to wonder if this loser has any connection to reality at all. His mother didn’t die on 9/11; he wasn’t a Wall Street wolf; he didn’t play volleyball at Baruch College that required knee surgeries. And on and on. But he had branded – gay Republican and that seemed to throw everybody off the aroma emanating from this sad, greasy individual.

These days it’d pretty hard to hide your past if someone goes digging into it. From a chequered past as a Brazilian check kiter and transgender beauty queen, a Jew”ish” person of Ukrainian descent; the lies were so stupid and so plentiful that even the media and the electorate took notice.

I have noticed similar manifestations of the Santos Syndrome here in Orange County.

Exhibit 1 for the Prosecution Fullerton’s D5 Councilmember Ahmad Zahra.

You really like me!

Zahra popped up out of nowhere in 2018 to get himself elected the council. He, like Santos had a brand: first gay Muslim to run for office, etc. But nobody really knew anything about him except what he told them: Syrian refugee, a physician, a film maker. A real noble and honorable story right? There is no local media, the voters were stupid and Zahra’s only competition was Paulette Marshall who was caught committing crimes and had to quit. His 2022 campaign was a compendium of crap that gave him credit for doing things he actually opposed. It even included a fake hetero family.

To the narcissist success means getting other people to believe your bullshit and to love you; to recognize your brilliance without actually having to do anything but throw words they want to her at them. And so Zahra has managed to bamboozle the bamboozlable who have no interest in honesty so long as the their liberal shamanic proprieties have been observed. When the sacrifice has been made, nobody asks what happened to the ritual offering.

For the average Zahra adherent it would be bad form indeed for anybody to inquire if, in fact, that man was ever a doctor or even a real film maker. Or, if, in fact he has ever held a job at all. He could easily provide proof of the professional title he wants people to apply him. He could also have provided proof of the claim that he was exonerated of battery against a woman by the DA. But he never did.

For now Zahra’s little fife and drum corps marches on around the block, supported by the dishonest and the stupid. But for how much longer, I wonder. Like Santos, Zahra paints himself as the perpetual victim, unfairly attacked by his enemies because of this and that. When that little bell starts ringing you can be sure somebody is closing in on a truth about Zahra.

Chaffee Screws Pooch

There are two kinds of lame-duck, termed out politicians. There are those who no longer care to appease the rubes who elected them and let their real character come out. Then there are those who maintain the same fat-headed, dissimulating personas that they always carried about with them.

An especially small hat was located…

It is rare indeed to find the sort of swine we have in County Supervisor Doug Chaffee – an individual who has left a remarkable slime trail in his wake. Chaffee seems intent on combining the two elements described above, and that ain’t easy.

But no pot of gold…

A week or so ago Chaffee voted with his colleagues Don Wagner and Andrew Do to oppose hoisting the Rainbow Flag at the County, the flag a symbol for all non-hetero folks to feel some sort of pride in whatever sexual orientation they have discovered for themselves. This has been a sticking point for the new right for a long time as they fight a rear-guard action in the culture war they have already lost.

Apparently, Supervisor Wagner got his political start as a Bible-thumping school district member. And Supervisor Do is just another sleazy mid-County scumbag trying to hang on to what’s left of the Viet-Republican coalition. So why did Chaffee side with this pair of trogs against the two Democrats on the Board of Supervisors? Same old garbage peddled by his intellectual forbearers: if we let them do it we’ll have to let the Neo-Nazis raise the swastika over public buildings.

I’m sort of sick and tired of this sort of disingenuousness on the part of our “honorable” politicians. But I got sick of the Chaffee crime family a long time ago and like many other obnoxious problems, we’re just stuck with this on for another two and a half years.

First At Bat; Swing and a Miss

I was perusing old drafts of posts and came across one that needed to be published. The issue itself is bad enough – the virtual surrender of useful public land to build a “boutique” hotel. The fact that the “developer” had no experience and no track record was bad enough; but the idea that any hotel patron would want to spend the night next to the train tracks or in the vicinity of the downtown Fullerton week-end train wreck was laughable. What was even worse was the dumb rationale our council used to keep this metastasizing idiocy alive.

Over several years the dream of our former lobbyist councilperson-for-sale, Jennifer Fitzgerald – a boutique hotel – refused to die, even after Fitzgerald finally bolted from Fullerton. It’s last iteration in December ’22 was approved by our typically befuddled city council.

I’ll take a bite at that apple…

Which brings me to the point of this post. In her first meeting as the councilperson representing District 3, Shana Charles voted on this embarrassment. She spent that opportunity to display the critical thinking one would expect of a PhD, but demonstrated just the opposite. Listen:

It’s real nice that Ms. Charles felt obliged to share her “thought process” with her constituents. But whatever that process was, the result was comical. The the good doctor believed that such a boutique hotel will support “County functions” and “event and community centers” in DTF, but she didn’t elaborate on what those events and centers are. Why not? Because there aren’t any, unless you think of the Fullerton Community Center across the street from City Hall to be the sort of place out-of-towners will be so keen to visit that they’ll book a room at the Shana Charles Hotel.

While We Were Away. Another Story You Didn’t Read About In “Back The Badge”

Once upon a time, the Fullerton Police Department employed a detective by the name of Ron Bair.

FFFF had some fun with this idiot, here.

A real moron, right? FFFF questioned whether this “detective” could find his own ass in the dark. Unfortunately, Inspector Clouseau was not just an annoying, half-bright stumblebum. He was also the the sort of degenerate who would involve himself in a sexual relationship with a woman in a domestic/child custody dispute in which he had become a witness. That thought alone makes me cringe. Was it sexual extortion? The whole thing was completely piggish.

Naturally, the whole misconduct was swept under the rug by law enforcement, but the civil suit cost the taxpayers of Fullerton plenty in 2015 – $550,000 to be precise.

When you read that article did you enjoy the part where Chief Danny Galahad blames the woman for her “poor choices?”

“I understand your frustration with former officer Ron Bair, but you have blamed him for your situation, the judge, and now three additional members of our department,” Hughes told Castaneda. “You may also want to consider the poor choices you have made to contribute to your current situation.”

You have to admire the balls it takes to offer moral admonishment to the victim of one of your employees and the subsequent law enforcement cover-up. He doesn’t bother to mention that his stand-up officer was conveniently retired in 2013 (see page 35).

For some reason that reminds me of former Chief “Patdown” Pat McKinley casually blaming Albert Rincon sexual assault victims for not being  like the women who attended his stupid “She Bear” book signings.

 

The Great Disappearing Mayor’s Assistant

It was there a minute ago…

Magicians have been making things disappear for a long time. In fact it’s a staple of the repertoire. Making a public employee position come and go is harder. That’s because in a public agency budgeted positions, like money, have to be approved by the governing board in the first place. And once budgeted they never go away.

The pageant is over…

And yet somehow, during the year of her re-election bid, lobbyist-mayor Jennifer Fitzgerald demanded, and got, a special assistant from Joe Felz to help her with her mayoral chores, without getting any authorization from the city council to create a new position.

The individual in question is called Gladys Blankenship, who is probably a very nice person. Here she describes the scope of her “official” position on Linkedin. Check out the second bullet point. The rest is ginned up bureaucratic nonsense.

Experience

  • Executive Assistant, Assistant to Mayor of Fullerton, Assistant to Economic Development Manager

    City of Fullerton
    – Present (1 year 1 month)

    • Participate in special projects to develop and implement new processes, develop and standardize practices, assist in streamlining methods for improving existing ordinance and procedures
    Schedule and prepare all appointments and meetings for the Mayor of Fullerton
    • Provide office support for Mayor, City Manager and Economic Development Manager
    • Provide research for ongoing projects being presented to City Council
    • Provide knowledge and personal opinions on subject matters being presented in City Council and Economic Development Commission meetings
    • Perform clerical duties requiring the application of subject matter knowledge and interpretation of policies, rules and procedures
    • Provide assistance in preparation of draft and/or final form of material such as, memoranda, letters, reports, requests, etc., as assigned
    • Check, compile and assemble records information in preparation for City Council meetings
    • Assist in preparing and distributing agendas and related materials to various committees
    • Maintain and update ongoing projects, records and office filing systems for both the Economic Development Department and Commission
    • Provide information, including explanation of policies, procedures, rules and regulations, to City personnel and general public
    • Copy, file and appropriately dispose of sensitive documents
    • Record actions of meetings attended and transcribe taped records into minute format
    • Maintain subject matter files and records
    • Proficient in Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook

Looks like the deal was supposed to be that once Fitzgerald was safely re-elected, Ms. Blankenship would be quietly moved to another department where, presumably, a vacant budgeted slot existed to receive her tab. And we may safely infer that deal, since that is precisely what has happened; and Ms. Blankenship’s previous job has not been filled, nor will it be under new mayor, Bruce Whitaker.

Ms. Fitzgerald spent a lot of time during the election year lying about Fullerton’s allegedly balanced budget. It isn’t balanced, and hasn’t been for five years – ever since she came on to the city council. And now we discover that while the tide of red ink was rising ever higher, Fitzgerald demanded, and got, an employee all to herself.

 

Good Bye and Good Riddance

You have nothing to lose but your brains...
You have nothing to lose but her angry refrains…

Our old friend the historian Karl Marx wrote: History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.

And so in Fullerton we have had the spectacle of Jan Flory, a councilperson who worked us over good for two dismal terms in office, was driven out, and who returned 10 years later to provide the final act of a deplorable career.

I know who I came to work for…and it isn’t you!

Back in 1994 Flory ran as the Establishment candidate to push back against the reform-minded Recall that dared to drive out the incumbent stooges who imposed an unnecessary utility tax. She was the perfect candidate to advertise the fear and loathing the Old Guard had for anybody outside their inner circle.

In her first go-round she obligingly put her fingerprints on every big-government, no accountability scam put in front of her. She supported the illegal “in-lieu fee” water tax; she voted the cops and firemen the bank-breaking 3@50 retirement formula. She approved massive apartment projects in downtown Fullerton and actually voted to give away public streets to private business interests. She voted for every Redevelopment boondoggle that crossed her path. She bought the “Poisoned Park.”

And every step along this trail of tears she palpably dripped bitter venom for those who dared cross the “experts” at City Hall. Tragedy, indeed.

From 2002 to 2012 we were mercifully spared the the effluence of vindictive spleen sprayed on anybody who had the temerity to question what was going on in their own government.

But in 2012 the moribund Establishment needed someone to ride to their rescue; and to defend, deny, excuse, ignore and cover-up the serial crimes committed by the police department; and to fight the agenda begun by a new council majority, ushered in by yet another recall perpetrated by unwashed outsiders. Who better to call upon than the old warhorse, herself.

Flying hight at 8:00 AM
Pegasoid

Yes she won, by a scant 29 votes, and she immediately resumed her old role. Yet something was missing. Yes, the muumuus and wood beads were still there, and so was the old, surgically implanted steel rod. The complete lack of humor, grace or introspection suggested the Flory of old. But you could tell. Her heart wasn’t in it. Her performance was thin, shadow-like, even as she continued the water rip-off, covered-up the FPD Culture of Corruption with gargantuan out-of-court settlements, approved four non-balanced budgets – raiding reserves $43,000,000, approved more massive apartment blocks – activities that in the past would have brought a smug, self-satisfied smirk to her sneer. But the old joy was gone.

The third act was a farce – even until the inevitable bitter end: as left she hoped to give Fullerton a parting gift – the sad sack and detumescent Larry Bennet, whose job would have been to keep the “For Sale” sign over the sliding doors of City Hall.

Ah, well. Now, Mrs Flory departs again, hopefully for the final time. And as we see this petulant shrew out the door, let’s always remember her words from the 2012 campaign: to my lights… the city department heads are the heart of the city.

 

Karma Can Be A Bitch

The topic of drinking and driving has been in the Fullerton news the last few days. We all know the story involving City Manager, Joe Felz, by now so there’s no point in rehashing the details. Instead, I want to direct the Friends’ attention to the irony that surrounds us in life, sometimes almost like there’s some sort of cosmic plan.

Way back in August, 2012 at the start of the fall election campaign, Fullerton City Councilmen and candidates Travis Kiger and Bruce Whitaker, along with Greg Sebourn voted to turn back a $50,000 grant from the state to pay for those ridiculous DUI random checkpoints that are probably the least effective ways to corral drunk drivers.

The bars stayed open and the band played on...

Let’s let Fullerton’s in-house shrew, Jan Flory, herself a candidate that year, fill us in from an August 30, 2012 facebook entry:

OKAY, so let’s get this straight, our Tea Bagger councilmen (Kiger, Sebourn and Whitaker), voted to reject a $50,000 grant and send it back to the state because it was to be used for DUI sobriety checkpoints that they believe are unconstitutional. They did this without walking across the street and talking to Police Chief Dan Hughes, or Captain George Crum who wrote the grant application.

Whoops! They find out after the fact that $146,222 in additional grant funds were tied to the $50,000 for the sobriety checkpoints, soooo, if the $50,000 is rejected, then the $146,222 has to be turned back too. It’s not like our understaffed police department could use the money, right? Maybe they thought the state would know how to use the money better than we do at the local level. Massive miscalculation!

Miscalculation? Certainly, but not by Kiger, Whitaker, or Sebourn. The fact of entangling grant funding (if in fact it existed at all) was never shared with them by their own $200,000 City Manager, Joe Felz, or by $200,000 Police Chief Danny Hughes, both of who were just sitting there during the meeting. Why not? Possibly because they  had every reason to try to embarrass them and help get Flory elected. The consequent to-do with a MADD mob orchestrated by the FPD, and quite likely with the approval of Felz and Hughes themselves, was quite entertaining. Whether they knew about a link at the time, they sure found out fast, so fast that one might suppose a little back-room political shenanigans.

So now, let’s return back to late August, 2012 and hear again from the vinegary Flory as she regales us with her demagoguery :

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