Category: About Us

As we’ve just seen the idiotic half-mile Trail to Nowhere© now requires almost twice as much City money as it did when the City Council approved it 16 months ago. As the project languished in bureaucratic limbo for that time the City cost has gone up from $330,000 to $600,00 – with no explanation from the City Manager or the City Engineer – just the feeble “increased scope” excuse.

Lest you think this is a one off, you’d do well to think again.

I went back to the original grant application submittal. You may remember the document – the one so full of bullshit you need wings to stay above it.

Here’s the heading of page one:

Please note that when the City Council approved the grant application the City cost was a mere $170,720. By the time the Council approved the project, the contribution from the Park Dwelling Fund (derived from a fee from development, restricted to new park facilities) jumped to the $330,000 amount seen above. So before it was finally approved, nobody bothered to tell the City Council that Fullerton’s contribution to the senseless project had jumped a whopping 94%.

And now the City’s responsibility has metastasized to $630,000, an unbelievable increase of almost half a million bucks over the original cost used to pitch the project. If you like math, the overall increase is 290% from Day One. The Council wasn’t told, public wasn’t told, and I’m pretty sure the State wasn’t told.

Just think about it, Friends. An almost 300% increase and not a single person in City Hall raised the issue of an arithmatic cost escalation. And there’s no reason to suspect there won’t be more increases, courtesy of change orders, and that those will be approved behind closed doors by the City Manager, with no scrutiny by the public or by Councilpersons Dunlap, Jung or Valencia. Zero Zahra and Shameless Charles showed they don’t give a damn about taxpayer money.

Here’s an example of just one item of new work: we already know there is no line item in the bid for reworking access to the 10 toxic plume testing wells on the trail site. How much will that cost? Who knows? Does anybody even care?

The City Council would be very wise to explore not only the reason for the alleged “increase in scope,” but also to inquire about future budget increases due to unforeseen conditions – the low bidders best friend.

On Tuesday the seemingly inevitable rubber stamp of the Trail to Nowhere© contract award didn’t happen. That’s thanks to the presentation of facts that were deliberately being obscured by City Staff in an incompetent agenda report.

Public speaker Joshua Ferguson raised the issue of the increased City cost that FFFF raised, here; and noted that the phrase “increase in scope” was marvelously uninformative.

When the “Consent Calendar” finally rolled around, Councilman Nick Dunlap, to his credit, pulled the item for discussion. Once again Mr. Ferguson unloaded on the lack of transparency, and the failure to describe why the City cost had doubled. He also correctly observed the likelihood of more and more costs as the project was being built. Fullerton Engineer has already expertly shared the likelihood of that, here, when he predicted an eventual City borne cost increase of $800,000. At $630,000 we’re getting there real fast, and a shovel hasn’t even broken the contaminated soil yet.

Then Dunlap took over.

He was demonstrably upset that the item was on the Consent Calendar in the first place, and noted, correctly, that the additional money had to come from somewhere else. Dunlap referred to a transfer from the General Fund; that’s not what the staff report said. The staff report referred to a Park Dwelling Fund transfer, as FFFF has noted. It really doesn’t matter. We already saw that next years CIP only identified a few Park Dwelling Fund projects for a total of $250,000. So where is the additional $300,000 coming from, and what is it displacing? Excellent questions.

City Manager Eric Levitt volunteered to answer Dunlap’s questions in “two minutes,” a promise that would almost certainly never have happened in two minutes or with coherency. To his credit, Dunlap smelled a wagon load of bullshit coming down the road, and demanded a continuance.

A few of the usual suspects popped up to demand immediate approval of the Trail to Nowhere© construction contract. Poor Egleth Nuncio, claimed her health had been impaired advocating for the trail and picking up broken glass on the right-of-way, the latter a claim so preposterous that I’m surprised nobody burst out laughing. But maybe it happened during the infamous Skaksia Kennedy photo op.

But trees, right? Before waddling off in a huff, she promised a vast turn out on May 20th, which should be a fun rehash of uninformed nonsense as her overlord Ahmad Zahra mobilizes another cry-and-cry session from Fullerton Boohoo.

Finally the Council voted 3-2 to continue the item until May 20th meeting. Once again staff misled the Council by implying that a May 20th meeting was needed to secure the bid within the required 60 day window to hold a public bid. No one thought to inquire about that, because the bid took place on April 22, meaning that there’s another whole month after May 20th in which the contractor has to honor his bid. Zahra and Charles voted no, neither giving a rat’s ass about the escalating cost of this boondoggle.

Of course the Friends know that the real reason for the desperation of the May 20th date; it’s because the City is already so far behind in its Trail to Nowhere© project milestone obligations that the completion date is already impossible to make, and that not even the State of California can look the other way forever.

Last night the Fullerton City Council voted down a desperate attempt by “Drs.” Charles and Zahra to rescind a recently approved policy that excludes non-government publications on City premises – except for a spot in the Library.

As FFFF noted the other day the whole thing was a ginned-up reason to force another vote and to mobilize Fullerton Boohoo. The transparent pretext of “new information” fooled nobody, since it was obviously just cover for Shameless Charles to get right with her constituency and at the same time to subject the council majority to another round of uninformed harangues by Zahra’s mindless minions.

Somehow a content neutral policy of excluding news outlets from the City Hall lobby was construed as an all-out assault on the free press and freedom of speech, yadda yadda. The Fullerton Observers were outraged, of course.

At the end, the inevitable wind-up speeches were completely predictable. Charles went into a long and winding circumlocution meant to separate her from her previous voice in support of the policy.

Zahra, as usual, outdid himself in his insufferable, twattish way, nattering about freedom and admonishing staff and the City Attorney that they are paid by all Fullerton, not just the council majority, and that being legal doesn’t make something right. The irony of this bullshit was lost on Fullerton Boohoo, but not on me. This is the same little miscreant who voted time and time again to pursue a lawsuit by the City against FFFF, Joshua Ferguson, and David Curlee. Zahra’s lawsuit against FFFF was an attempt to punish people expressing a First Amendment protected right. The City lost that lawsuit, costing the people of Fullerton, the folks Zahra pretends to care so much about, upwards of a million dollars. That’s a lot of asphalt repair for your district, “Dr.” Zahra.

Zahra blamed FFFF for being behind an intricate plot to get the Observer out of City Hall, a compliment really, although whether deserved remains to be seen. The new paper FFFF publication, the Fullerton Tribune (I’ve seen the gallery proof), can’t be dispensed there, either.

The vote to rescind the policy failed 2-3 with Valencia, Jung, and Dunlap voting no.

At the end of the interminable yakking, Jung moved to “table” the issue, a parliamentary tactic of using a positive majority vote that makes it impossible for Charles and Zahra to resurrect the thing through some fabricated “new information” in two weeks or beyond. Hopefully, on future votes Jung will remember to do this the first time around, or better yet, make it clear that 2 council people can only agendize new items, not something they lost.

The motion to table passed 3-2, Charles and Zahra dissenting, evidence that still want to bring it up again.

In the Kennedy Sisters’ early May print edition the failing Fullerton Observer, there appeared another story about a City ban on non-government publications in City facilities. The article was supposedly written by somebody calling him/herself Matthew Ali.

The tale included a new explanation for Shana Charles flip-flop on the issue, to wit, the City Attorney previously asserted that the City of Irvine had banned this sort of stuff from their City Hall, when in fact they hadn’t. Ms. Charles and her apologists seem to feel okay hanging their hat on this flimsiest of hat racks.

In reality, Charles was pressured by Ahmad Zahra, Fullerton Boohoo, the Kennedy Sisters, and her pals at the Daily Titan to change her mind. And because Fullerton’s nonsensical “2 councilmembers can re-agendize anything they already lost” policy, it will get another hearing. And presumably another, and another, and another as “Drs.” Zahra and Charles discover ever “new” information that was denied them at the most recent hearing.

Anyhow, back to Matthew Ali, the typically incompetent Observer scribe. In the article he/she includes this completely and demonstrably false statement:

“The issue was instigated by a blog that sent a letter to the City of Fullerton threatening legal action if rack for a (currently non-existent) newspaper it said it was planning to publish was not made available for public display.”

FFFF’s attorney Kelly Aviles did send a letter to the City Manger requesting an opportunity to display a publication on City premises, and asking for guidelines, placement procedures, etc. But the correspondence requested a response only. There was no threat of legal action at all. That is a deliberate lie cooked up in the feeble and febrile noggins of “Matthew Ali” and the Kennedy Sisters.

I also add that Matthew Ali has absolutely no idea whether a publication exists or not.

Anyway, here is the actual language of the letter sent by Kelly Aviles to the City of Fullerton:

Dear Mr. Levitt:

I hope this finds you well. I am writing to you on behalf of my client, Fullerton’s Future, who’s in the process of launching a new newspaper publication to serve the residents of Fullerton. As part of the marketing and distribution efforts, my client seeks to place a newspaper rack in the lobby of City Hall, similar to the arrangements that have been made with other local newspapers.

We respectfully request the City Council grant approval for my Client to install a newspaper rack in the lobby of City Hall. My Client has secured a financial commitment from a local businessman for a significant amount of private financing to launch this new business endeavor committed to contributing to the local community by providing important local news, restaurant reviews, business advertisements, and information that reflects the diverse interests of our city’s residents and their needs for alternative news sources. In addition, an application to form a new 501-c4 will soon be filed with the IRS for this venture. 

Please let me know if there are any specific procedures or requirements that need to be followed to facilitate this request or if the Council has any preferences regarding the placement of such a news rack at City Hall. We are eager to comply with any guidelines you may have.

Thank you for your time and consideration and we look forward to your response.

Sincerely,

Kelly Aviles

Well, it looks like another letter from our other attorney may be in order to make the Kennedy Sisters correct more of their deliberate misinformation.

After several months of radio silence, the UP Trail has finally emerged from its bureaucratic cocoon. The City Council is scheduled to vote on approving the construction contract at Tuesday’s meeting. Contradictory to Edgar Rosales promise to the Parks Commission, the City Council never approved the final plans before the bid, and never authorized a public bid, either. Just ran out of time. They’re approving the plans and specifications the same time as the contract award. How’s that for ass backery?

And the Council is being asked to “invest” another $300,000 of Fullerton money into The Lost Trail, as predicted by FFFF over the past few years. That’s now $630,000 of City dough, a sum never previously agreed to by anybody. Seriously, is anybody in charge?

The staff report casually informs us: “The City requires additional funds to complete the project due to a change in the project scope in which Park Dwelling Fund (Fund 39) has available funds.” Conveniently there is no description of the change in scope. Not a single word to justify plowing another 300 grand into this disaster. Not a single damn word. More transparency.

Speaking of costs, here’s the project budget and bid results:

Please note that the low bidder’s bid is exactly the “Engineer’s Estimate” for construction, a likelihood so remote without serious massaging that we have to wonder about KASA Construction. Also, if we toss out the low and high bids, the median bid amount is $2,286,000, $440,000 over the years-old City estimate – more cause for concern. There is a cluster of bids between $2,246,000 and $2,500,000. Even with the KASA bid.

Even with the new transfer of yet another $300,000 from the Park Dwelling Fund to cover costs that were not given the council in 2023, can anyone seriously believe it will be the last request for this?

Tellingly, no one from the City staff has ever bothered to share ongoing annual maintenance costs for this debacle, either. They don’t know and don’t care.

Who knows why The Trail to Nowhere was not included in the 2025-2026 CIP because most of it will be done (hopefully) during that fiscal year. Oh, well. There is still no explanation of why there is nothing in the CIP plan for the UP Park renovation previously promised by Jung, Whitaker, and Dunlap in August 2023, and which was supposed to precede the trail, a fact now conveniently forgotten by everybody except FFFF. 20 month ago is ancient history in Fullerton. Hindsight is 20/20.

FFFF has diligently followed the Trail of Tears since its Astroturf cheerleaders started braying about “nice things” for south Fullerton. Where will these people be when the trail is unused, unsafe and falls into the same disrepair as so much of Fullerton’s infrastructure? Not on the trail itself, of course.

If you want to see how our crack Parks Department handles landscape maintenance check out the abysmal plantings around the wood stairs in Hillcrest Park sometime.

The Trail to Nowhere begins at Highland Avenue since it doesn’t connect to Phase 1. There is no public accommodation except people walking or riding a bike on the Highland sidewalk. It dies in the virtually abandoned back corner parking lot at Independence Park where nobody wants to go. There is no connectivity to anything else. There never will be. The thing runs through an area of junkyards, used tire stores, an asphalt plant, auto repair places and a coating plant. Homeless call it home. So do the junkies.

For a quarter mile it runs alongside the Santa Fe Main Line.

FFFF has already noted the complete failure to meet the State’s milestones in the agreement. That contract called for plant establishment to be included in the October 2025 completion. That won’t happen. The bid sheet for the project includes a 90 day plant establishment requirement, meaning the landscaping would have to be done by the end of July to meet the deadline. Fortunately for the City, nobody at the State seems to care about its agreement.

Worst of all, maybe is the fact that the City minions and their Council bosses can’t seem to understand the idea of a wider, comprehensive plan for this strip of industrially zoned land and that maybe this right-of-way could have used for something useful. Their narrative is that somehow this trail all by itself will turn the area into something other than it is. That’s just moronic.

But the guiding principle here is not effectiveness, efficiency, stewardship, or even basic common sense. No, it’s about spending other people’s money and who gives a damn if it fails? Will any City staff members be around to accept their roles in this fiasco? Of course not. Will the people who wore down a weak Council into approving this mess be around to claim responsibility for their role?

Of course not. This Fullerton rolling contraption has no rear view mirror.

Fullerton’s garbage collection may seem like a pedestrian subject to you and me, but it’s a lucrative franchise for guys in the business of picking up our “solid waste” and hauling it to the land fill, or to the nearest materials recycling facilities (MRF).

The history of garbage collection is pretty dull, but it’s informative. A local family-owned company, MG Disposal, had the contract for decades under “evergreen” terms, apparently.

They got the gig when Eisenhower was President, in 1955. MG was eventually bought out, successively by Taormina Industries and then Republic Services, a mammoth solid waste collection company traded on the New York Stock Exchange. The latter took place around 2009 when a new agreement was created with the City. Still, the relationship lineage was still there. In essence the City has been doing business with related, successive entities for 70 years.

Anyhow, the existing contract was signed 16 years ago if you’re counting. There have been three amendments to the agreement, but the service itself hasn’t been put out to bid to see if anybody else can do it better, cheaper, more effectively, etc. It seems unlikely that Republic can be underbid, but why not see?

Government agencies have the unfortunate habit of extending contracts in the out years because putting things out to bid takes effort, and the incumbent contractor is familiar, comfortable, and has likely developed a symbiotic relationship with both government employees and their political overlords. And the one thing you don’t want to screw up is garbage collection. That’s ruined promising careers in municipal government and in politics.

What is the right amount of time to keep evergreen deal going? I don’t know. But 70 years seems like an awfully long time; even the past 16 seems like a long time if you feel like giving Republic a brand new start in 2009.

I think it’s about time to rattle this franchise cage and see who out there might be willing to respond to a bid solicitation. It may nor result in a change, but it’s just due diligence toward the people of Fullerton who pay for the service.

An alert Friend directed my attention to the online version of the Fullerton Observer in which Sanskia, the younger Kennedy sister, is informing people that they will have a second chance to weight in on the City Council’s April 1st decision to severely restrict where non-governmental publications can be disseminated on City property.

A second chance? How come? Let’s let Skasia tell us in her own words:

“During a council meeting on April 15, Mayor Protem (sic) Dr. Shana Charles and Councilmember Dr. Ahmad Zahra expressed their discontent with the decision, asserting that the council had not been presented with all necessary information before making such a significant ruling. Both officials indicated their intention to rescind the policy at the upcoming meeting scheduled for May 6.“

Hmm. The implication here is that these two have decided to re-agendize the matter on May 6th. A person with a little bit of common sense might well wonder how a council minority could resurrect an issue previously decided by a majority of the council. Well, of course they shouldn’t be able to; the policy of permitting two members to agendize an issue presupposes that it is a new item, not one previously decided by the City Council. Otherwise a minority could keep dredging up decided issues, ad infintum. A baboon could grasp this.

But no. You see “necessary information” of some sort has popped up, according to Zahra and Charles, not previously presented by the staff or the City Attorney. This alleged insufficiency is their pretext for stirring the whole thing up again.

Why does this seem familiar?

Because Zahra and Charles pulled the same horseshit on the Trail to Nowhere at the end of 2023 when they claimed that new revelations by the State required more public hearings. The City Manager, Eric Levitt, with the blessing of City Attorney Dick Jones permitted the issue to be put on the agenda. At the end of 2024 Charles trotted out the “new information” schtick to keep the Wank on Wilshire on life support until Vivian Jaramillo (hopefully) could get on the council and keep it going.

The main point seems to be about about giving Charles an excuse to change her vote. She will have to try to explain what “new information” has caused her to change her vote, and that might be unintentionally funny. But that wouldn’t be the only outcome.

If the issue is agendized for the meeting on May 6th by Levitt, the Council majority will be subjected to the usual hours long harangues from Fullerton Boohoo and the Kennedy Sisters. They, finally, may even be caused to wonder about the future of CM Eric Levitt and Dick Jones of the “I Can’t Believe It’s a Law Firm.”

But probably not, Fullerton being Fullerton.

Anyhow, we’ll know for sure May 1st when the May 6th meeting agenda is published,

Oscar Valadez ran against “Dr.” Ahmad Zahra for Fullerton’s 5th District council job in 2022. He came within a few hundred votes of winning, thanks to the suspicious candidacy of “Tony Castro” whose job was to siphon Latino votes from Valadez. Zahra also spent over $100,000 to keep his little $1000 a month job. What a rotten investment.

Well, Valadez is running again for the same seat in 2026 and his chances look pretty good to me. He’s not letting the proverbial grass grow under his feet, and is holding a kickoff party Thursday evening at The Charleston place on Commonwealth Avenue. Here’s the notice:

It seems pretty early to be doing this sort of thing, but we may be sure that his likely opponent Zahra is already busy shaking down contributions like he did last time, especially from his friends in the legalized dope lobby.

2026 won’t be a repeat of 2022, no matter how many fake candidates Zahra and the Dem Party Central vomit up. In 2022 voters hadn’t yet found out that Zahra, the immigrant gay man had orchestrated a fraudulent and illegal marriage of convenience in the 90s to an American to stay in the USA and pursue some sort of movie-making career. We can be sure they will be informed all about it, along with Zahra’s other myriad misdeeds.

Valadez will also be running with the title “Fullerton Planning Commission,” an impressive sounding job.

Early yesterday morning Fullerton police had some sort of run in with what is characterized as an unhinged guy in Lemon Park. After some sort of scuffle the guy croaked. Hmm.

Here’s the notification by the Fullerton Police Department, replete with the usual self-serving lingo.

Now why am I reminded of the Kelly Thomas incident?

Erratic behavior, additional officers (to assist in investigation?!), uncooperative male, more officers needed to restrain, oops cop “violently bit” on the arm by suspect causing injuries (note the use of the plural), paramedics arrive, guy pronounced dead at “local hospital.”

Something about this whole episode seems surreal. A guy holding a “smoldering” cardboard box? More superhuman strength, of course suggesting the ol’ PCP, meth, whatever. We are informed that the suspect began to “show signs of a medical emergency” which makes me wonder about what sorts of “restraint” were used.

Of course at the end of this literary masterpiece we are reminded that the ever-vigilant District Attorney Todd Spitzer will conduct an “independent investigation” that will be nothing more than a condemnation of crazy homeless dudes and a clean bill of health for the FPD.

Friends will recall that back on March 1st Fullerton Engineer noted how the “90%” drawings of the Trail to Nowhere had been rubberstamped by the Parks Commission in early January. Right now Fullerton is at least 10 months past the State’s grant deadline for completed design, but who cares, right?

It’s not like Wade Crowfoot – the head of the State Natural Resources Agency that awarded the grant – is paying any attention at all. If he is he obviously has no intention of holding the City to its contractual milestones, spelled out below.

Parenthetically, we also learned from Edgar Rosales that soils testing had been done last August and required minimal remediation. Yay! The only trouble is that the City in its application for the grant lied, claiming the project was “shovel ready” and that testing had been performed. But let’s not let any of this disturb the confident nap of Mr. Crowfoot.

The completed plans were supposed to go to plan check and then final plans to the City Council for approval. That hasn’t happened yet. And the agenda forecast shows nothing about it for May 6th. May 13th is a budget session. The job still has to be bid and awarded. The completion deadline is October, and that includes plant establishment (see schedule, above).

So what gives?

The Dismal Trail does show up on a map in the capital projects “design” phase on the City’s website:

Here’s the description that goes with the map:

Of course the “planned start date” (not the contractual one) shows a start of seven weeks ago. Oops.

But, hey, wait a minute. The City has just promulgated a draft of its proposed Capital Improvement Projects (CIP) for the next 5 years, and guess what? No trail to be seen.

Next year the City is planning on spending $250,000 of Park Dwelling fees on three projects: $50K on Misc. Maintenance on Park Facilities – a misuse of Park Dwelling Fees, by the way; $100,000 on the Bastanchury Greenbelt; and another $100K on the Valley View Hillcrest Park kiddie playground. There is nothing shown in the out years at all.

There is no mention of the Trail to Nowhere at all. Zip. Nada. How come? I don’t know.

I also notice that the UP Park Reconstruction is shown on the website CIP map.

Starting at the end of August? Oh, c’mon, who’s kidding whom? There’s no mention of this project in the CIP forecast, either.

It looks to me like the Park Dwelling Fees will be tapped out next year. This could be because the gargantuan “Hub” project was granted a delay paying their upfront fees because, well, because who the Hell knows? Ask a City Councilperson when you get a chance.

With Fullerton it’s hard to know what going on because of constant conflicting information between and even from individual departments, out-of-date web pages, and the like.

There’s something cooking here and it doesn’t smell very appetizing.