Category: About Us

These things never seem to go well in Fullerton.

Apparently the Union Pacific Trail disaster-in-the-making has lost another month – groundbreaking on July 2nd, as reported by Sanka Kennedy of the Fullerton Observer Kennedy Sisters. She fails to remind her followers that the project completion, including plant establishment is the end of October per the agreement with the bankrollers of the project, the incurious and somnolent State Natural Resources Agency. This bureaucracy is much better at handing out free money than they are securing its efficacious expenditure.

Congratulations all around.

In another Union Pacific story, Siaska tells about a workshop of some sort to gin up ideas for renovating Union Pacific park, the dismal space purchased by the City in 2000 without benefit of environmental testing. The first park was a drug addled, gang infested disaster and closed even after soils remediation and a cost of $3,000,000. Since nothing has changed there is no reason to suspect a new park will succeed any better than the old. But pickleball courts are in high demand in the barrio!

Skasia misinforms readers that the remediation issue took place in 2014, probably so as to cushion the shock of the real truth: the park was built, closed because of contamination, remediated in the 2000s and not opened again because nobody wanted it reopened – especially the people who wasted all that money in the first place.

Sankia reminds us that a committee was formed to review this park four years ago, but not that it dissolved into nothingness as these committees always do. Start over, says the City, the land is your canvas,and toy hardhats for everybody, and whatever happens, don’t look in the rear-view mirror. Here’s my favorite line:

“The initiative, which seeks to reinvigorate the family-oriented neighborhood, has been in the works since discussions about the park’s redesign began in 2019.”

A family oriented neighborhood? As opposed to what? The truth is that discussion of reopening the park came from Fred Jung who was disgusted by the whole disaster of the “Poison Park.”

Digging back to 2023 Kennedy found the ever quotable “Dr.” Ahmad Zahra to lend HIS vast knowledge of his district:

District 5 representative, Council Member Dr. Ahmad Zahra expressed his support at the City Council Meeting in October 2023, highlighting the project’s importance: “Many residents in that area have seen an entire generation of children grow up without access to a park.”

What a load of utter bullshit. The residents of “that area” have free and unfettered access to Independence Park, Richman Park and Lemon Park. If you believed Zahra you’d have to conclude the kids in the ‘hood were living in plywood crates in a Tijuana slum.

Naturally, Skaisa omits reference to Zahra’s 2021 vote to turn the park space into a private event center, a bone-headed and illegal move. But, again, Fullertonions, we don’t dwell on the past here. Forward to the Future.

On Tuesday the Bushala Depot lease agreement was not voted upon. It item was continued until July 15th.

But that didn’t keep a gaggle of Zahra followers from trying to continue the narrative of subsidies and below market rate rent.

Our new friend, tender young thing Elijah Manaserro, local scholar, was there to do just that. And a few other callers in.

My favorite speaker was the itinerant pest Curtis Gamble, whose near homelessness makes him qualified to opine on real estate deals.

When public comments were done, Zahra showed his role as coordinator of the opposition. He wanted comparative market rates, he said; there won’t be any, but okay, fair enough. But then he displayed his fundamental ignorance by including agreements with The Summit Restaurant and the Boys and Girls Club – completely different properties.

The fact is that the Santa Fe Depot doesn’t have any “comps” in Orange County. The historic building is is unique and made up of several disparate areas, each of pretty small space; in other words, hard to rent out. And the Loading Dock, proposed for inclusion in a revised overall lease, is only connected to an area already leased by the Bushalas. Adaptive reuse will require a huge outlay of money to effect structural reinforcement, enclosure and interior finishes. And because there is no place for kitchen or restrooms, it is functionally useless for anybody except the Bushalas who have ten year lease extension options.

Here’s the hypocrisy part. Remember the ill-fate “boutique hotel/monster apartment,” an unsolicited proposal with no RFP, no RFQ, no RF-anything? Do you remember any of Fullerton BooHoo raising Hell about that? Me neither. I do remember that Ahmad Zahra and Shana Charles voted to give con-men Johnny Lu and Larry Liu a $14,000,000 price subsidy on a parcel they upzoned themselves. Talk about short-term memory loss.

Hopefully when this item returns, staff will explain (based on their extensive expertise) the expertise Fullerton Boohoo is always praising – that the deal they negotiated is not a subsidy and that rather than losing money, the deal will bring in tax revenue to the City and to the County; and that letting the Loading Dock fall down doesn’t help anybody – even those taxpayers Zahra and Charles pretend to care so much about.

On tonight’s City Council meeting agenda you’ll see an item about a lease revision at the historic Santa Fe Depot between the City (owner) and the leasee – Bushala Brothers. Inc.

Apparently the Bushala’s have been trying to get a lease on the entire loading dock portion of the Depot for the better part of 10 years while rolling it into an updated lease for the entire building. These efforts seem to have been met with the usual obstructionism from City staff, who in the past seemed happy to stall and temporize.

But mirable dictu, the Age of Miracles isn’t past! A lease has finally been agreed, and the opportunity to see a successful adaptive reuse of the loading dock into a commercially viable space may be at hand.

Happiness all around, right?

Heavens, no! Enter Ahmad Zahra and Fullerton Boohoo. The new running dog for this dog and pony operation is a sweet young thing named Elijah Manassero who writes articles for the Fullerton Observer attacking Tony Bushala and using the phraseology of Zahra and Vivian Jaramillo. Apparently Elijah has taken to social media to proclaim his outrage over the Depot lease.

Crazy deal? Insanity? Really, innocent, young Elijah? That’s what you wanna go with? No “City taxes” are spent on this arrangement and there is no subsidy, ya poor, dumb sap.

Now we may be sure that the “well below market rate” nonsense was fed to him by Zahra or somebody else who knows even less about commercial real estate – like Skaskia Kennedy who is also parroting the idiot “subsidy” line. The fact is that there is no other potential tenant with any interest in the loading dock and never has been.

A tax-paying tenant on the loading dock would increase sales taxes to the City. Having no tenant contributes nothing, a fact that has escaped poor young Elijah and the younger Kennedy Sister.

Over thirty years ago the Bushalas were the only non-subsidy demanding respondent to an RFP by the City of Fullerton to lease and restore the Santa Fe Depot, a fact reflected in the lease value – then and now. The restoration was successfully performed and the building is now on the National Register of Historic Places – an undeniable and rare success story for Fullerton Redevelopment.

More recently, the Bushala’s have donated tens of thousands of dollars in labor and material to help volunteers perform stabilization and repair efforts on the loading dock roof structure that the owner – the Fullerton taxpayers – haven’t had to spend a dime on. More malfeasance, naive Elijah?

It’s way past time to put the loading dock platform to productive use – use that is profitable to the taxpayers pliable young Elijah and Fullerton Boohoo pretend to care so much about.

And tonight’s the time to finally do it.

Could be. He’s done it before by posing as the author of crap written by an Orange County Water District PR employee.

This time is different. Now an article purportedly written by Zahra is about making Big Oil pay for stuff in California because of climate crisis that has ruined peoples’ “worlds” (no examples are given).

It’s sort of funny in an odd way to think that anybody might care about Zahra’s opinion on environmental issues, but the malignant narcissist never stops to consider his own small importance.

What stood out to me is that the articles sure looks a lot like it was written by an AI program. It has that same stilted language and repetition of phrases that makes you think of a high schooler’s homework that has been strung out with useless verbiage to make the minimum page requirement. I’ve become pretty adept at recognizing AI fluff stuff, and this sure looks like it.

As a supposed doctor of something (although no license, no practice, no patients, no research, no income) we might expect Zahra to write his own aricle for Observer at least once.

But I’ll ad this. The Observer has never been known for good or even competent writing, so there’s that.

At the June 3rd Fullerton City Council meeting, George Bushala directly asked Shana Charles something I raised a few weeks back when I discovered that her husband, Andre Charles was paid $4000 by the marijuana workers union that was invested big time in the ill-fated council campaign of Vivian Jaramillo.

Obviously, the issue raises questions about Ms. Charles relationship with the legalized dope lobby.

Her response to Mr. Bushala was pathetic. You’ll have to ask my husband about that, she said cavalierly through her idiot grin.

Hey, wait a minute “Doctor” Charles. California is a community property state, meaning that you benefited from that four grand just as much as your loquacious hubby. Your husband is not a public figure making policy decisions for the people of Fullerton. You are. And why should anybody have to chase down Mr. Charles on his daily rounds?

By the way, will you be showing that $4K on your Form 460, presuming you ever get around to filling it out? Will you declare yourself ineligible to discuss cannabis related issues, as your followers demanded (unnecessarily, it turns out) that Councilwoman Valencia do with regard to campaign donors? If not, why not?

As an aside, my favorite bit of the exchange came when “Dr.” Ahmad Zahra identified the union in question as a grocery store workers organization, as well as a cannabis workers crew. And this outfit isn’t a lobbyist, he proclaimed.

Hmm. Of course we remember that Zahra appointed the OFCW political lobbyist, Derek Smith to the ad hoc Fiscal Sustainability Committee so we know he’s lying about the lobbyist thing; but we also knew he was lying because his lips were moving and noise was coming out.

Why would grocery store workers union give a rat’s ass about a city council election in Fullerton that has almost zero control over their interests? And other than recruiting a few dozen potential union members from dope store workers why would the national union HQ flood $60,000 to Jaramillo’s election? Smart money places the donation of that kind of loot right back to the cannabis lobby itself, bankrolling the effort to elect pro-dope Jaramillo.

Zahra also made a point that it was bad to vilify unions, something nobody had done.

Three days ago, the Fullerton City Council convened an emergency meeting, but their discussions were swiftly undermined when confidential information about the upcoming departure of City Manager Eric Levitt was leaked. This breach of confidentiality sparked serious concerns about ethical conduct and legal compliance, with council members Ahmad Zhara and Shawna Charles under suspicion.

The Brown Act, which ensures the transparency of local legislative bodies, was violated, eroding public trust. The leak is suspected to have come from Ahmad Zara and/or Shawna Charles, who have personal ties to individuals at the Fullerton Observer. This raises concerns about transparency, an issue that both council members frequently discuss but consistently fail to uphold.

This incident highlights the need for greater accountability and transparency within the Fullerton City Council, namely Zhara and Charles, including stricter enforcement of confidentiality, training on ethical conduct, and clear consequences for violations. The public deserves representatives who uphold the highest standards of integrity and professionalism.

Ever ask yourself how America got stuck with not one but two Trump presidencies? There are lots of reasons, including the fact that a great many Americans are generally stupid, incurious, nativist, fearful of this or that, and of course, did I mention really stupid?

But there’s something else going on here too, and that’s the phenomenon of ordinary folk who are just sick and tired of liberal academic preachers preaching to them about how to live, what to believe. This is precisely why there is so little outcry among the masses about Trump’s war on academic elites.

They had it coming.

For decades the problem of an impractical and ideological driven agenda telling everybody how to talk and how to behave and what to think has gotten worse and worse. There was bound to be a reaction.

What does this have to do with Fullerton? Well, I’ll tell you. Fullerton is an academic backwater – with a third-tier university and a junior college; and that means that these institutions and their camp followers are going to try extra hard to polish the produce of their politically correct world-view. In some circles this passes for enlightenment – just like accepting at face value any idiot who checks the right boxes.

Let’s take Fullerton’s leading liberal politicians, two individuals who revel in the tile of “Doctor” and who, like the conscientious patent medicine peddler, love to dispense their dubious wares.

First exhibit for the prosecution. Shana Charles, a CSUF teacher whose specialty is “public health” a silly academic field of activity ginned up to fill the ranks of graduate schools. Ms. Charles is naturally a barely contained wind bag whose supercilious and lengthy lectures are truly annoying. But despite the smiles there is no doubt that Charles considers herself a superior intellect, perfectly suited to the role of moral preacher.

My second exhibit is none other than the good Doctor from Damascus, the self-righteous Ahmad Zahra, whose pontifications on moral probity and the defects thereof practiced by his colleagues are common fare at council meetings. Like his ally Charles, Zahra’s lectures run on for a long time and are characterized by hand-wringing and finger pointing. Yeah, Zahra looks down on you and me, and why not? He’s a member of the cosmopolitan intelligentsia, see?

Naturally Zahra and Charles have no experience that would actually help them understand their constituents. Who needs experience when ideology is so potent? Their playground is the unaccountable arena of feeling good about their liberal thoughts, and of course in telling everybody else what to do. This is exactly the high-handed moral bossiness that pisses off so many people.

In Fullerton we also know that our liberal moral and truthy exemplars have proverbial feet of clay.

The idea of the adipose Shana Charles lecturing anybody on any sort of health, is preposterous; wasting millions just to pay heed to the all-important concept, efficacy be damned – bike trails that nobody will use – is especially painful.

And then there’s “Dr.” Zahra, an unemployed parasite with no income (read his Form 700 for fun) whose speechifying on morality, the spirit of the law, and so forth is remarkably hypocritical even for a low-grade politician. We’ve seen his record: a phony marriage to a woman in Arkansas to stay in the country; claiming exoneration for an assault and battery case where there wasn’t any; plagiarizing articles to appear like an expert on water issue; and filing a false police report against one of his colleagues. What a guy.

These people need fuel to keep their fire going and that sustenance is provided by the various academic flotsam who think that Zahra and Charles represent everybody – instead of just themselves. In fact these folk are the ones who are always nattering about “the people” who want this or that (expensive) nonsense; and largely because “they” are “underserved” the classic liberal/bureaucratic label that patronizing boohoos stick on Latinos, and blacks and anybody else who needs a financial or bureaucratic middleman to give them something “nice.”

And I would be remiss if I didn’t mention those other purveyors of liberal tripe, the Fullerton Observer Sisters, Sharon and Skaskia, whose censored blog and twice monthly screed is dedicated to supporting whatever nonsense is ladled out by their heroes, too dumb to understand the extent of how they are being manipulated.

“Dear Deputy O.C.D.A. Heather Heslep-Morrissey,

This email and the attached letter are a follow-up to your correspondence dated April 9, 2025, regarding my request to further investigate the Scott Markowitz scandal. Less than a year ago, Mr. Markowitz was caught and arrested by the O.C.D.A. for perjury and falsifying a government document, specifically his nomination papers for the November 2024 election for a City Council seat in District 4.

As stated in your letter, the new evidence I am providing proves that Mr. Markowitz did not act alone in his attempt to defraud the voters in the November 8, 2024, election. Based on the new facts contained in the attached letter, it is clear that a conspiracy to suborn perjury was in effect.

Part IV of an essay sent in to FFFF.

At present, Fullerton Heritage is applying to place historic preservation layers over four neighborhoods. While we heartily dislike SB 330 and SB 9, our experience with the local players has been negative. There are enough unpleasant memories that we wish we could assign to the scrap bin. But Fullerton Heritage members have been intrusive and confrontational in Skyline Park over things they don’t like. It is hard to shake when you are attacked at your own house. Especially when the neighborhood has never had a historic preservation layer over it, and where all the neighbors have done their best.

FOR A BAR, THE DRINKS COULD BE STRONGER: BOOHOOISM AMONG THE SELF-APPOINTED TASTE ARBITERS

Homeowners without HOAʻs assume they will make their own choices and not hassle with those who think they know better. While Fullerton Heritage isn’t an HOA, some of its members mimic one even if a neighborhood doesn’t fall within their scope.

Heritage proponents have given unsolicited opinions on everything from windows, gardens, and house colors. But their opinions aren’t necessarily rooted in the rules set forth by the city. They like to make stuff up, inferring there are rules in areas where there are none. A Fullerton Heritage board member, even made up a rule about painted bricks and unsuccessfully tried to use it against her neighbor. That this was a neighborhood without a preservation layer, and that the house was built in the mid-1960’s made no difference to her. She just wanted the power to stop her elderly neighbor from painting his fake brick facade. Fortunately, she failed (the house looks great). But it was not her first grab for authority. Many years ago, she took photos of neighborhood homes without the owner’s consent and ran away when people tried to ask who she was. They found she’d had free reign of the FH website and posted rando things about many of the homes. (They were later taken down). But make no mistake: Their lack of boundaries will be your problem, too.

At their worst, a call was made to city planning to complain about new windows, already installed in a house that was in the process of remodeling. Never mind that the city approved the work a year earlier. The city issued a stop-work anyway. The Boohoo-Who didn’t want to accept that the city allows for new energy-efficient double pane windows, and no one (except for someone applying for the Mill’s Act -but that’s another tangled story) is beholden to single-pane wood windows. Replacement metal, vinyl, aluminum clad or composite double-pane windows, with or without grids are allowed. These have all been approved, installed, and scarcely noticed by neighbors already. It’s an environmentally mindful push past the battle cry for wood windows by Fullerton Heritage members with a personal preference.

But we also got the impression of a too-close relationship between the City and Fullerton Heritage. When asked why the stop order work was issued, the city couldn’t say why. But that a Boohoo-Who had the power to bring an approved project to a halt is a forewarning that with this group, there is no discussion.

Just recently, their president tried to shut down dissent at an informational meeting. It was next level assholery, but it was on par with the scolding from another FH member who admonished anyone who disagreed with her. Is this a bar or a high school? Did they really think they could have a meeting about other people’s homes without push back? This seems like a group from an era where people were expected to get along by going along. If they’ve spent any time listening or talking with the younger generations, they’d know that the world doesn’t work that way anymore.