Ahmad Zahra – Friends For Fullerton's Future

June 27, 2026June 27, 2026Ahmad Zahra

Taking Out the Trash, Redux

On Tuesday the Fullerton City Council is going to address the topic of selecting the next solid waste hauler. This is a big deal, with a lot of money involved.

Last time, we saw the can kicked, as usual, when the council decided that six finalists would be permitted to sharpen their proverbial pencils and make final and best offers, en route to a final selection.

And so they did. I won’t bore the Friends with the various details of proposals because in the end each is offering different rates, services, and feel good community involvement, the last item a useless PR gesture that somebody in City Hall thought merited points in their selection calculations.

But two RFP respondents offered something else. Big loans to the City’s General Fund that would be recovered over many years via augmented rates.

EDCO has sweetened the pot by offering a $15,000,000 one time payment to the City to be recovered by a differential in the annual Consumer Price Index that is applied to fees.

Republic, the current hauler, is offering a $10,000,000 one time payment they are charmingly calling a “Community Enhancing Payment” which sounds better than “City of Fullerton Bailout.”

Obviously these two cash offer proposals would present the City Council immediate, if only very temporary, relief from the impending budget reserve liquidation, and will attract attention for that. The other positive political result could be the elimination of a November 2026 ballot tax question – a problem in getting on the ballot, and passage by the voters. However, the underlying structural budget deficit would remain and would need to be addressed, anyway, and immediately.

The formulas increasing the CPI scales would really be amount to a hidden tax on waste producing customers in Fullerton, and the City would be in the effective position of incurring debt leveraged on hauling fee increases. I presume the offerors and the City have investigated the legality of this.

Of the two proposers, EDCO was previously ranked first by a narrow margin, while Republic was in last place. The City’s relationship with Republic really soured during negotiations for SB 1383 when Republic did the old bait-and-switcheroo so there’s that to consider.

Is the upfront payment concept viable? I think so. It would buy some time for the City. But somebody would have to pay the piper, and somebody is still going to have to make the budget cuts required to balance a budget and no one has shown any appetite for this bitter menu. Appointing a useless committee to study things has been a waste of time. Almost.

One of the committee members did suggest the very thing that EDCO and Republic are offering demonstrating that at least somebody was thinking of alternatives.

My guess is that “Dr.” Ahmad Zahra and Shana Charles will not support this big payment option, seeing great liberal virtue in imposing a 13% sales tax increase like the ill-fated measure M of 2020. On the other hand, that passage is a risky business and they need 4 votes to make it even get on the ballot. Nick Dunlap probably would not vote for putting a tax on the ballot, or going with the upfront payment plan. But his vote might not be needed. The waste contract only needs 3 votes. Where are Jung and Valencia? I guess we’ll find out Tuesday.

June 24, 2026June 24, 2026Ahmad Zahra

Hey, Where’s Our Charter?

by The Desert Rat8 Comments

Today, one of our commenters, “Union Avenue,” wondered what happened to the idea of Fullerton becoming a Charter City.

13 months ago the Fullerton City Council voted 3-2 to start studying the idea of Charter City status for Fullerton, a move away from what it is now – a General Law City.

Then something almost odd happened. The issue disappeared completely. No discussion. Nothing.

This isn’t the first time in Fullerton something just vanished. We can all remember the $1,000,000 so-called Core and Corridors Specific Plan vaporized completely without a rearward glance.

Why did this go away? I don’t know, but I suspect that three councilmembers who voted for it lost interest or maybe decided it wasn’t worth the trouble, political or otherwise.

“Dr.” Ahmad Zahra and Shana Charles stirred up his usual claque to clamor against it, citing Fred Jung’s vaulting ambition, but failing to explain how, exactly, a charter would deliver an evil outcome.

I think it’s time to resurrect this idea, even though no one seems to want to chat about it. A lot of good could come from it. Despite the cries of horror from the Kennedy Sisters and their ilk, a new municipal organization could be created, with a strong, city-wide elected Mayor holding executive power and the accountability for it.

The “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” argument now seems absurd. The City is a breaking mess. The infrastructure is a disgrace and the finances seem to have been handed over to cluster of chimps. Things are not working. One only has to look at the budget disaster and the basic accounting errors to know it. Who knows what the proverbial “deep dive” into Fullerton’s personnel, purchasing, asset management and risk management might reveal?

When things don’t work, and haven’t worked for a long, time it sure looks a lot like an invitation to change.

But change is hard for everyone, especially when lots of people are involved in the making of it.

June 22, 2026June 22, 2026A Manfro All Seasons

The Dog Ate My Homework

by The Fullerton Harpoon44 Comments

Fullerton is supposed to have its budgets wrapped up by the end of June. That’s when fiscal years end and new ones begin. It’s in the Municipal Code.

But not this year. So a resolution was needed to keep the gears of government grinding in Fullerton at current levels so that “essential services” be maintained. At the June 16th meeting the City Council passed the appropriate resolution authorizing the continuation of the process into July. Here’s the casual explanation of what’s going on::

“Staff continues to evaluate revenue projections, expenditure estimates including cost containment and deficit reduction strategies, capital improvement requirements, reserve levels, organizational needs and other fiscal considerations as part of the FY 2026-27 budget development process.”

Permit me to translate the double talk: “a complete absence of leadership has stalled the process and nobody in City Hall has the remotest idea how to deal with the massive, impending budget shortfall except by taxation.”

We have seen over the past year the revitalization of the footling Budget Sustainability Committee that accomplished exactly nothing. Zero. Zip. Well, not quite nothing, because its members reflected the positions of those that appointed them. Dunlap’s appointee voted against all tax proposals offered up. Jung and Valencia’s appointees supported a half-cent special infrastructure tax, but not a general sales tax. Zahra and Charles’ appointees rejected a special sales tax and pushed for the one cent general sales tax.

One committee member suggested privatizing the Water Utility; another suggested borrowing from the deep pockets of the new (or old) waste hauler. Another idea was creating a business district to pay for the Downtown Fullerton deficit. Innovative concepts for a City on the edge of insolvency that got no traction. T he committee how disastrous budget cuts would be to the public, especially to the hallowed halls of “public safety” that sucks up the lion’s share of the budget. Service levels, donchaknow.

I don’t recall anybody discussing mandatory salary reductions. Maybe I missed it.

Which leaves the City with no viable tax path forward even getting one on the November ballot. Other revenue generating ideas went nowhere, including selling off real estate, particularly that where Water Fund activities are going on. Other ideas, such as selling the boutique hotel site aren’t practical because Council and staff and City Attorney have led to humiliation and fraud on the property and has seen it tied up in dispute.

Even as Fullerton’s “leaders” fiddled away their time, new information about huge accounting errors revealed the situation was even more dire than previously imagined.

It would be dereliction not to remind Friends that our illustrious City Council actually agreed to hire a bunch of ambulance drivers on credit and a dozen new “firefighters” at the behest of the their union even as the budget crisis loomed on the near horizon.

June 19, 2026June 19, 2026A Step in the Right Direction

Wilshire Avenue Hosts Party

by Mr. Peabody46 Comments

Yesterday the site of the former infamous “Walk on Wilshire” was home to a big party. The street was closed and lots of people set up chairs to watch World Cup soccer on a screen attached to a truck. A Friend sent over some images.

I don’t know anything about this get together – such as who organized it, etc. But one thing I do know is that it proved Wilshire can be closed for special events and then reopened.

This is what many people were saying all along as Fullerton’s Boohoo idiot brigade and the Observer nitwits clamored for permanent closure as an F-U to automobile traffic, and of course to residents and businesses in the 100 block of West Wilshire. Fortunately a modicum of intelligence prevailed and the wingnuts Zahra and Charles couldn’t get three votes to keep the street closed.

Put the bollards up, take the bollards down. So simple. So cheap, and so damned commonsensical. And of course nobody ever said that individual “parklets” couldn’t be utilized either, except that by the time City staff was on it as make-work, the clusterfuck naturally occurred.

So yesterday a few people were no doubt temporarily inconvenienced – instead of a lot more people being inconvenienced, and worse, all the time.

June 14, 2026June 14, 2026About Us

Boutique Hotel Remains in Limbo; But Johnny and Larry Have Been Busy

by Mr. Peabody24 Comments

Warning: Conceptual only, not to be taken seriously!

The City of Fullerton’s foray into boutique hostelry remains a big mystery to the public, partly because the public doesn’t know much, if anything about it; but mostly because the City staff doesn’t know what to do with their boondoggle and the people who voted for it – business experts Shana Charles and “Dr.” Ahmad Zahra certainly aren’t talking. Come to think of it, neither are the two councilmembers who voted against it – Fred Jung and Nick Dunlap.

Zahra’s Fullerton Transparency claque and the Fullerton Sisters are silent as the proverbial tomb.

The facts of this disaster hardly require another distasteful regurgitation, so I won’t do it, except to remind Friends that the City deeded over part of the Transportation Center parking facility to TA/Westpark for a pittance, given that they also change the entitlements making it worth 10 times what they sold it for. TA Partners is Johnny Lu and Larry Liu a couple of Chinese con men who had already pleaded guilty to fraud in LA County and who were in the process of going belly up on a huge loan in Irvine.

You may remember that the original grant deed that was recorded by Johnny and Larry was different than the one they recorded later, and the property description in the second recorded deed fraudulently includes the east end of the Depot loading dock now under leasehold by the Bushala Brothers, Inc., whose clock is ticking on their agreement. What a fiasco.

And it may be getting worse. That seems hard to imagine since the property was handed over three and a half years ago and nothing has happened. The hotel and attached mega apartment is supposed to be complete by October 21, 2026. My recollection is that the hotel and the attached mega apartment was supposed to be done only a few months from now. How many legally required milestones have been missed remains a part of the Big Sleep.

Meanwhile Johnny and Larry are said to have taken out a loan against their Fullerton real estate. I guess someone was willing to bet on the come, or just as likely, wasn’t – ahem – fully informed. Which deed was used to describe the lender’s collateral? Must have been the most recent one that includes the loading dock.

If some new loan fraud took place we can add that to the legal entanglements between TA Partners and the family of the original brainstormer, Craig Hostert, now unfortunately deceased. The agreement with the City should have excluded TA from creating debt on the property with permission from the City. But Fullerton, being Fullerton.

This comical boondoggle is now well over 7 years old and still there are no signs of official communication about the state of this mess, let alone resolution. Is staff trying to find a replacement to keep the embarrassment alive and save face for the disaster? Who knows?

June 12, 2026June 16, 2026About Us

The Steven Sherry Experience

by Disillusioned Ex-Hippy48 Comments

Fullerton Boohoo comes in all shapes and sizes, but its members share one thing in common: a desperate drive to support Democrat Party candidates. Fullerton Forward, the brain child of someone called Steven Sherry is no exception. “Building a Better Future for All Fullertonians” is Sherry’s slogan #1. Slogan #2 is about “values”:

But you can forget the high-minded rhetoric. Fullerton Forward is really about helping the sort of candidates who pretend to profess this credo – brain-dead Democrats – the tax ’em then help ’em out via government ilk. These were the same sort of hypocrites who cooked up all the bullshit pretexts to keep Jesus Quirk-Silva on the City Council a few years back.

We met Fullerton Forward a few weeks ago as Sherry orchestrated a comical People’s Council meeting with limited pizza. The Fullerton Observer wouldn’t say who was behind the get together that attracted the cream of Fullerton Crazy’s crop, and that appointed immigration fraud “Dr.” Ahmad Zahra as the People’s Mayor.

According to the Fullerton Forward website, an individual named Linda Gardner is on the group’s 3 person “advisory council” whatever that title may mean. Here’s her bio:

Linda “…has been active in local and state politics for many years, serving as President of Democrats of North Orange County for six years and continuing to be an active member. Linda has actively worked on campaigns for California Governor, Senate and Assembly as well as Fullerton City Council and major propositions and recalls.

Linda is currently a Delegate for the California Democratic Party. She is passionate about positive change for the future of Fullerton.”

Sherry a former Democrat lobbyist, boasts about himself:

For over a decade, he has also worked in political campaigns, founding his own consulting firm, NewWave Strategies, in 2020. Through his firm, Steven has raised millions for clients nationwide and built highly effective, resourceful advertising campaigns.

Most of this is undoubtedly made up, and after you finish this post you may think the same thing.

This guy looks an awful lot like the under-employed Andre Charles, husband of the insufferable hot air bag Shana whose employment history is sketchy, at best.

Anyhow, Fullerton Forward has finally submitted the necessary Form 460 required of political action committees after the June primary. This document is instructive for lots of reasons.

First, we can see several of Fullerton’s cyphers who contributed – like the failed Cannabis Kitty Jaramillo, who sued the City so she could get elected; and our old friend, the pathetic election fraud participant, Diane Vena, who endorsed Jaramillo then signed the nominating papers of the phony candidate/confessed perjurer Scott Markowitz. We see you angry liitle eye doctor Anjali Tapadia; and you too, developer shake down artist Elizabeth Hansberg; Aha, over there, indignant front parlor antique, Karen Lloreda, recalled from the Dana Point City Council, and come to Fullerton to roost in the municipal rafters.

Sherry raised almost $17K, which looks okay. But wait. There are only two main contributors:

As we will see, one is frequent Council irritant Helen Higgins, and the other is some dude named Joel Maus, which means “mouse” in English. I have no idea what his motivation is. Maybe he’ll drop by to tell us. He’s the $5K “small business” moneybags.

Like Andre Charles, Mr. Sherry seems to believe that personally doing well by doing good is his life’s path. How’s that? you ask.

Because according to the Form 460 Schedule E, Sherry paid himself almost $6000 for the campaign he ran against Fred Jung in the primary, a campaign that only lasted a couple months. I won’t even share the percentages of Sherry’s cost versus the totals he spent and raised, because the Form 460 Schedule E totals don’t add up to the total expenditures listed on the Form 460 top summary.

The best part of Sherry’s activities, with his name almost obscured, was this remarkable payment he made to himself: $4560.80 for “fundraising.” WTF?

I love the amount this honest and transparent political action committee paid to scofflaw Mario Marovic for holding their fundraiser at “Madero 1899,” even as his fake Irish pub across the street still illegally squats on the Commonwealth sidewalk. Did the dummy Sherry list the cost of the Big Fundraising Party twice, somehow? If so, the numbers still wouldn’t add up to the summary page, so it hardly matters.

Naturally, Sherry paid his tribute to the Democrat Party of OC – $500 on April 27th – confirming the purely partisan nature of his new plaything.

By the way, I’m informed that Sherry’s self-serve creation is also now the object of an FPPC complaint, dealing with illegal campaign sign disclosure rules.

Finally, we are we really to believe somebody who spent a lot to raise a little, and who, as treasurer and “Executive Director” of a PAC can’t seem to add, has “raised millions for nationwide clients?” Yeah, sure, Steve, whatever you say.

Almost half the money raised came from only two donors. If I were on that “Advisory Council” I’d be asking some serious questions of Mr. Sherry. Of course that won’t happen.

June 11, 2026June 11, 2026Ahmad Zahra

Say What, Observers?

by The Fullerton Harpoon12 Comments

REVISED 9:18AM

A week ago the Fullerton Observer Kennedy Sisters passed along a confused post about the City Council reviewing an appeal of a Planning Commission denial of the 32 unit project at Hermosa and Harbor, such appeal occurring on June 16th.

Except that the appeal hearing already took place back on May 5th.

It’s not unlike the Fullerton Observer “amateurs” to post stupid, befuddled, or erroneous stuff, but this is perplexing even to Observer observers.

It looks like an old post has been carelessly updated, but why? My first thought was did somebody like Ahmad Zahra or Shana Charles want this to come back – maybe because it wasn’t officially “tabled” as an issue? This has happened before. The agenda for the June 16th meeting hasn’t been published yet, so it seems possible that somebody alerted the Kennedy Sisters that this was returning for some reason. Our first sharp-eyed commenter below point out that the issue was forecast in the 6/2/26 agenda for the next meeting to pass a resolution defending the appeal. Why? I don’t know other than this is a due diligence exercise. Maybe this is where the Sisters got the idea of a rolling issue.

It looks like mostly just another Observer gagglefuck – a garbled post carelessly published by the Sisters. Sadly, Fullerton Boohoo/Fullerton Self-righteous will no doubt exercise another “we need housing” circus to embarrass the Council majority and to take a shot at the hated NIMBYies in north Fullerton.

May 30, 2026Ahmad Zahra

Queen For A Day

by Disillusioned Ex-Hippy7 Comments

Back in the 1950s there was a TV show called “Queen for a Day.” Typical American women got to compete for the stupid title and probably won some housewife-drudgery prize like a washing machine or a vacuum cleaner.

“Dr.” Ahmad Zahra got a similarly useless tile the other day, when a dozen Council irritants selected him as “The People’s Mayor.” Except that Zahra didn’t even get a useful home appliance. Instead he got a Fullerton Crazy diploma in a plastic frame.

May 26, 2026May 26, 2026Ahmad Zahra

The People Have A Meeting

by Mr. Peabody20 Comments

Last week “the People” held their own meeting in front of City Hall since the Fullerton City Council meeting had been cancelled for lack of a quorum.

Who were “the People?” Nobody was saying before the event, except that the organizers were springing for limited pizza.

The turnout, predictably, was a couple dozen of the usual agitators at City Council meetings – a combination of Fullerton Boohoo, Fullerton Self-righteous, Fullerton Angry and Fullerton Nuts.

The ostensible theme of the get together was to bitch about the usual stuff, including transparency, which was funny because Sanka Kennedy of the Fullerton Observer who advertised this event, didn’t even bother to say who was putting on what turned out to be an overtly political event, whose principal purpose was to attack Mayor Fred Jung and promote Connor Traut in advance of the upcoming Supervisorial primary election.

It turns out the shindig was the work of Fullerton Forward, a political action committee cooked by council annoyance Steven Sherry, one of those underemployed political cling-ons looking to make his way in a cold, cruel political world. He was the one who sprang for the dozen pizzas, apparently.

O, the sparkling rhetoric from Crazy Air-punching Tim Johnson. Little Angry Bird, Dancing Ms. Green Card, Professor Curtis Gamble, Tender Young Elijah, Oliver the No-account of Montecristo, and other luminaries! Stika Kennedy, erstwhile “journalist” addressed the gaggle, too, showing again her failure to distinguish journalism from partisan politics.

Then, at last, to the mawkish business of “appointing” the “People’s Mayor.” Angry Johnson had already prepared certificate of accomplishment for the Dodgy Doctor from Damascus, Ahmad Zahra! What a surprise!!

The People’s Mayor contemplating his political future…and then free pizza for dinner!

The entire affair was an unwitting foray into comic opera, so at least some entertainment value was produced.

Questions about whether such an overtly political event on public property is legal and whether Fullerton Forward had permits or insurance to put on this affair are being raised by concerned citizens (see what I did there, Observers?).

May 17, 2026May 17, 2026Ahmad Zahra

Limited Pizzagate

by The Desert Rat35 Comments

Over at the Fullerton Observer, the boohoos have gotten their panties in a knot over the cancellation of Tuesday’s Fullerton City Council meeting.

A post by the mysterious “Jack Hutt” is full of angst and anger that the meeting is not to be. Questions are being raised by unnamed sources, he says; unnamed observers are suggesting things, he says. It’s the usual Staknia Kennedy trope. Something is afoot Jack fears, and so a self-created opportunity to attack Councilmembers Jung, Valencia and Dunlap has presented itself to these self-styled journalists.

The People’s Mayor contemplating his political future…or perhaps what he might scrounge for supper working the 91 and Harbor Blvd.

Anyhow, fear not. Some unnamed group is having its own council meeting at 5:30pm on the City Hall lawn. Remember? The one they wanted to get rid of a few months ago. Bring your friends and your lawn chairs, says a flier designed and propagated by persons unknown.

And guess what? Someone, again unstated, is claiming “we” will appoint “The People’s Mayor,” a chance no doubt for the immigrant fraud and serial liar, “Dr.” Ahmad Zahra to finally get to call himself a Mayor of Fullerton even if it’s only Mayor For a Day.