Knock yourselves out.
No, it’s not the Fullerton Observer itself, but it is a story related by Stikia Kennedy on that unfortunate publication’s blog. The post seems to have vanished, as is sometimes the case when it suits the publisher/CEO. In this instance it caught the attention of Mr. F.L. Olmstead before it was dispatched; and he sent it to me.
It seems that a local resident named Jensen Hallstrom has been jumping a short wrought iron fence to make homemade repairs to the big slab of redwood dedicated to veterans. It’s in Hillcrest Park not far from the Isaac Walton lodge.
Mr. Hallstrom has been seen at local City Council meetings sharing his personal efforts to repair damaged and missing names. That was was a big mistake, for apparently he has been issued a cease and desist letter from the City, to and from his trespass and his activity.
Ever the intrepid partisan, Shakira Kennedy seizes upon this David and Goliath tale to spin a yarn about it is somehow the result of the ethics of the Council majority, honesty, transparency and yakkity yak yak yak. It doesn’t seem to have occurred to Kennedy that Fullerton parks staff just hates it when private citizens do unsupervised stuff in City parks, and no political interference is necessary. That fight’s been going on for 35 years, without a peep by two generations of Observers.
Anyhow, Mr. Hallstrom should also know better. He got into a squabble with the City a few years back over the impromptu and unauthorized “native garden” he planted along the Hiltscher Trail. This latest effort seems to suggest a fundamental immaturity on his part.
Shiitake Kennedy’s older sister Sharon even put in an appearance in the comments to decry the event and wonder aloud if Jones and Mayer didn’t have anything better to do than to get the City involved in more legal activity in which they get to bill more hours.
Now that’s ironic. Did either of the Kennedy’s raise an objection about the legal costs associated with the idiotic lawsuit against this blog that was approved by a liberal Council majority? Did any Observers call out the enormous waste of legal fees involved in the foolish and Air Combat lawsuit caused by an incompetent Airport Director who couldn’t understand his own lease? Of course not.
Accountability doesn’t apply to the left-leaning Democrats favored by the Kennedy Sisters whose gaze becomes myopic when dealing with the likes of Ahmad Zahra, Jan Flory, Jesus Quirk Silva and their ilk.
Why this post was pulled is anybody’s guess. Maybe it will mysteriously pop up in the Register.
At Tuesday’s Fullerton City Council meeting our honorable elected representatives found out that our fiscal reserve funds were overpopulated with bucks that belonged someplace else. I haven’t been able to view the video – the City Clerk’s link doesn’t work – so I’m relying on a Voice of OC article.
It seems monies that should have gone to Fullerton’s Redevelopment Successor Agency and other sequestered funds were being counted in the general fund reserve pool – $10,000,000 worth. How and why this occurred wasn’t spelled out in the article except as some sort of accounting error:
“These funds remain part of the city’s overall fund balance, but are now set aside in a way that better reflects their intended purpose,” said Steven Avalos, the city’s finance director, at Tuesday night’s meeting.
Wow, that’s an application of bureaucratic soft soap, massaging what amounts to an egregious accounting error, or worse.
What it means is that all previous budget discussions led by Mr. Avalos and his predecessor have been nonsense for the past 5 years. And decisions in just the past year obliviously come into sharper focus for their foolishness – like going in-house with ambulance drivers and hiring a bunch of new, permanent “firefighters” based on a one-time FEMA grant. Parenthetically, I note that Mr. Avalos was appointed City Treasurer earlier in the Tuesday meeting. That’s a bit funny, really.
The Voice reports heated and loud interlocutions between Ahmad Zahra, the perpetual grandstander, liar, and victim, in exchanges with Mayor Fred Jung and Nick Dunlap. The exchanges as reported generated a lot more heat than light, but so it is when Zahra begins his sanctimonious routine. Ironically Zahra says a new sales tax increase won’t help.
We are informed by the article that City Manager Eddie Manfro is going to meet with the ad hoc Budget Sustainability Committee on March 30th which seems like just a stall of 12 days.
One interesting statement was uttered by Jung in a Voice interview:
“I think we were set up to fail.”
We don’t know what this means because apparently the reporter didn’t follow up. Does the Mayor believe this misallocation of funds was deliberate to create a budget crisis at some point? Who knows?
Things are grim in City Hall, and a cactus garden in front isn’t going to cheer anybody up.
No, of course not. The truth is not in him. If it were he would have explained how he, the first gay Muslim in America married a local woman in Arkansas to jump the Green Card line.
The Damascus Dodger is featured in a three part interview with Stiskia Kennedy in the Fullerton Observer. It’s an opportunity for the Kennedy Sisters to give the scam artist another of their tongue baths and to avoid anything that resembles the truth about Zahra and his career, a career that resembles a jailbreak more than anything else.
“In a recent discussion, I spoke with Fullerton City Council Member Ahmad Zahra about his role and responsibilities. We engaged in a Q&A session that delved into the challenges and rewards of serving the community at the municipal level. “
First Satkia wants to know how to stand up to influential donors. Suddenly Tony Bushala’s unseen presence fills the room. Zahra’s response? He lies of course. Naturally, Zahra is a profile in courage, standing up to the “special interests” over whom he prevailed in his two elections. This demanded his “wisdom and thick skin.” This history is false, of course. Nobody knew who he was in 2018 and he slipped in past a couple others; naturally he ignores the facts of his 2022 run when his victory was not won on any issues, but by spending $120,000. And then there was his recruitment of Tony Castro, the dummy Latino candidate who the OC Dems set up to take votes away from Oscar Valadez. Oops.
Stikia follows up with campaign finance. Zahra complains about political action committees and the poor plight of the “community-focused” candidate (presumably just like him). No questions are asked or answered about Zahra’s big campaign donors, just as the Kennedy Sisters never bothered to ask who gave money to Cannabis Kitty Jaramillo in 2024, and what they hoped to get out of it. The cannabis workers’ PAC gave $60,000 to help Cannabis Kitty, but that’s not the sort of mean, nasty PAC Zahra has in mind.
Zahra says his opponents spent more than he did and he still won in 2022. That’s a lie, too, but he knows the Sisters won’t check him on it. Dredging up another Fullerton Boohoo gripe about Mr. Bushala, Zahra bemoans the fact that donations can be returned so that councilmembers can vote on the donor’s project. This is reference to Councilwoman Jamie Valencia’s return of money to Bushala before the vote on the stupid Walk on Wilshire in which Bushala had no legal interest. That return wasn’t even necessary per state law so why is this a problem?
Staksia’s last question is about ranked choice voting about which her interlocutor knows nothing and doesn’t care. He wants to curb “unethical practices” by PACs, saying nothing about the fraudulent candidates Tony Castro and Scott Markowitz whom his party set up so their pals like Zahra and Jaramillo could get elected in Fullerton. And that betrays Zahra’s true feelings about the community he pretends to love so much.
On Tuesday night the Fullerton City Council did something very rare for a government agency. Nothing.
The issue at hand was a response to a State mandate to get rid of non-functional turf by denying it potable irrigation water. Therefore it was believed that some sort of xeriscape would be needed to replace the lawn in front of City Hall. I have has posted a couple times about this nonsense.
Oh Dear. Surveys were conducted, the charade of public input was exercised, copious staff time was spent culling and collating in preparation for the inevitable routine: hiring consultants and “designers,” organizing charettes, redrafts; months of fruitful effort developing bid quantities, taking bids, awarding and managing contracts, etc., etc., ad nauseam.
And then the remarkable occurred: leave the damn thing alone. In fact, while you’re leaving the grass alone, re-open the fountain that has been shut down as a virtue-signaling gesture years ago. Staff didn’t see that coming. Neither did I.
Some folks rightly pointed out that the lawn was functional – as a gathering place for meetings, protests and even municipal-sponsored events! First Amendment and civic pride. That sealed the deal.
But the road of lawn laissez-faire was not without a couple of speed bumps. “Dr.” Ahmad Zahra wanted a grand public arts gesture somewhere on the lawn; maybe All the Arts for Kids could help! Seeing the opportunity for a grand social gesture slipping away Shana Charles asked that “options” be presented to the Council, completely contradictory to the motion that had been made to leave the damn thing alone. She used to make this strategy of last minute obfuscation work, but it won’t work this time, despite her insistence on MORE TREES, maybe even an enormous fig that would serve as shade for generations to come.
Completely absent was the Fullerton Heritage Group who should have been there to protect the integrity of the original building elevation’s relationship to its surrounding. Nick Dunlap got it. The formal exterior of the building was part and parcel with the site design – created 65 years ago. It’s a landmark. The Heritage Group wasn’t interested, apparently.
I wonder if anybody has notices several empty tree wells in the sidewalk along Commonwealth in front of City Hall. There used to be shady ficus trees there (see picture, above), but not any more. If anybody had given this any thought they didn’t say so.
Anyhow, well-done Jung and Dunlap and Valencia for doing the smart and the right thing.
First, don’t ask me why the guy spells his name like that, because I don’t know.
Mr. Maldonado is a candidate for Fullerton’s 5th District in the election this fall. At least he has created a campaign committee. That’s the seat that will be left by “Dr.” Ahmad Zahra, the immigrant fraud, woman batterer and general prevaricator.
There’s a connection there. Zahra appointed Maldonado to the Parks and Rec Commission where he has been photo bombing boohoo events lately. He is also some sort of young Democrat Party operative, which makes sense, following in the footsteps of Jordan Brandman, Connor Traut and the like. Except that unlike them he seems to have a real job, being some sort of chemical tester. He’s yet another mid-twenties Fullerton fellow who seems very eager to make Zahra happy.
Is this a real candidacy? Some folks had thought that Vanessa Estrella, Sharon Quirk’s newly minted school trustee might leap into the breach to defend Fullerton Boohooism. She still might, but time is running out. The days of last minute candidacies in Fullerton are pretty much over.
It would also make sense that young Jozef is the Tony Castro of 2026. You all remember Tony Castro – the last minute candidate in 2022 recruited by the Team Zahra to draw votes away from genuine Latino candidate Oscar Valadez. This could be the same slimy strategy to help Estrella, I suppose. At least Maldonado’s candidacy would have verisimilitude. Tony Castro’s did not, and neither did the Dems fake candidate in 2024, Scott Markowitz, who had to plead guilty to perjury.
Curiously Maldonado’s form 501 shows no zip code in a redacted address, which is peculiar. Why would anybody omit that on a candidate statement?
On the other hand maybe I’m being too cynical. Perhaps this will be a real candidacy and maybe Estrella will be happy staying where she is – for now. After all she’s barely been in office for a year.
Maldonado spoke at the February 3rd City Council meeting solely to attack Mayor Fred Jung for some supposedly divisive remarks that criticized his detractors. Poor Jozef was obviously following direction from Ahmad Zahra; and he obviously doesn’t really understand that mindless attacks don’t get you elected and that Zahra is a spent force, if he was ever much of a force to begin with.
This candidacy begs the question of whether or not Fullerton wants or needs another Zahra-type liberal who is more than happy to spend your money, lots of it, on his conscience-causes, from illegal immigrant welfare to boondoggle park projects that have no budget for maintenance.
Here’s a fun item on Tuesday’s Closed Session calender.
And some backstory for the uninitiated:
Three and a half years ago, Mario Marovic, who owns the building on the northeast corner of Commonwealth and Harbor, agreed to a deal with the City to remove the City’s (formerly Florentine’s) notorious “bump out” encroachment that was stuck onto the side of his structure, on the public sidewalk – a space he didn’t own and was making improvements to at the time.
The idea, I suppose, was to get Marovic to rid the public sidewalk of the illegal room addition without the City having to pay for it and answer embarrassing questions; and Marovic would get to open his fake Irish pub, a facility whose CUP drawings included the bump out. Happiness all around, right? Only a couple decades late.
Wrong.
It turns out that Marovic never had any intention of demolishing the bump out. The deal required demolition to start March 2023, three years ago. Of course Marovic has done absolutely nothing except submit a claim for damages to the City provoking a lawsuit that has dragged on for over a year.
Will this saga finally be over on Tuesday? Don’t bet on it. The City is always diffident in these matters, going so far as “Dr.” Ahmad Zahra mugging with the scofflaw and giving him some sort of certificate of appreciation; but Marovic isn’t the diffident sort. He may be tired of paying legal bills, but there’s almost nothing stopping him from resetting the clock and beginning a whole new delay cycle.
The sweet young “investigative reporter” Elijah Manassero has posted an “opinion” piece at the Observer blog. No investigative research was necessary for the Kennedy Sisters’ cub reporter. It’s all sanctimonious cant about how Fred Jung and Nick Dunlap have demonstrated “how not to run a city,” by delaying a necessary tax increase, and of course by getting rid of the ever incompetent Jennifer Fitzgerald lackey, Ken Domer.
Fullerton is in dire economic straits because of the Jung/Dunlap mismanagement, says the youthful bud Elijah, whose grand experience running anything other than his eager mouth is exactly zero.
But hold on a second!
It was just a few weeks ago that Shana Charles and “Dr.” Ahmad Zahra and Co. were touting Fullerton’s massive reserve funds, funs so well and amply stocked – $30,000,000 – that Fullerton taxpayers could easily cough up a tiny $200,000 to hand over to undocumented immigrants for lawyers, food and rent.
So which is it? Is it possible that Charles and Zahra deliberately lied to their acolytes? Or is the situation really as dire as the green sprout Elijah now asserts?
It seems both can’t be true.
Fullerton Boohoo is generally so stupid and so lacking in self-awareness that they end up arguing against what they have previously said. This sort of inconsistency is not abnormal for people clinging to ideology over practicality.
FFFF has taken advantage of numerous opportunities to relate the doings of the cannabis lobby in Fullerton.
We have all seen how Ahmad Zahra has endorsed the the idea of a cannabis dispensary on almost any commercial corner in Fullerton; how the sad mental train wreck of Jesus Quirk-Silva was eager to spread the pain to all of Fullerton’s representative districts. That’s old news, from 2020.
News of more recent vintage is that in 2024 the dope lobby, fronted by the grocery store workers union pitched in to elect Cannabis Kitty Jaramillo with an astounding $60,000, dumped into a pro Jaramillo political action committee.
How come? Because this union also represents the cannabis dispensary works in Orange County. I note that the origin and intent of this contribution was never discussed in the pages of the Fullerton Observer.
Of that $60,000, $4000 was shuffled to Andre Charles, who styles himself a political consultant. What he does between elections remains a mystery, as does the service he provided Team Jaramillo for that $4000. But Andre’s sketchy employment history is of little concern, except that the source of his conjugal bliss is none other than Mrs. Shana Charles, a Fullerton City Council member and a vociferous advocate for public health.
Ms. Shana, as FFFF has noted, is running for re-election in Fullerton’s District 3 this fall. She has kicked off a re-election campaign and has begun the task of fundraising. Her second biggest contribution was $1500, and came from came from the very same dope workers union that fronted the Cannabis Kitty PAC. A coincidence? I doubt it.
The marijuana dispensary lobby needs three votes to revive the ill-formed dope ordinance of 2020 approved just before the election of that year by Ahmad Zahra, Jesus Quirk-Silva, and the possibly sober Jan Flory (pictured above). That ordinance was revoked a few months later and the lobby determined that it was worth a huge monetary investment in Fullerton politics.
The FFFF inbox had an interesting communication in it this morning – a copy of an anonymous posting on a Facebook page called “Fullerton Buzz” warning that a Fullerton City Councilmember might be their landlord.
The portentous lead-in:
“It has been found that Montclaire Apartments is owned by Mayor Pro Tem Nicolas (sic) Dunlap.”
Shocking!!!!
Little tidbits of information about companies City Councilman Nick Dunlap is affiliated with are included in the communication to lend verisimilitude.
But verisimilitude to what? Someone thinks that owning real estate is a crime? Someone thinks having an income is bad? Seriously?
My supposition is that someone wants somebody to think Dunlap is some sort of evil plutocrat, associating rental income with ill intent. This anti-rentier Marxist philosophy underlies so much of the thinking of Fullerton Boohoo that the author could be any number of people, but obviously someone at least active enough to know to use Dunlap’s title “Mayor Pro Tem,” probably someone still pissed off that Ahmad Zahra and Shana Charles were passed over for the mayorship in December, thanks to Dunlap’s votes.
More than than that, this seems to be an invitation for denizens of the aforementioned Montclaire Apartments to engage their landlord in his capacity of a Fullerton Councilman, a troublemaking tactic so common to the Kennedy Observer Sisters and their ilk.
Additionally, it should be noted that the aforementioned Spadra Property Company is a property manager, as indicated here, and not a property owner. So that’s sinks the whole point of the attack.
Could it be our friend, the flowering young sapling Elijah Manassero who is behind this lame effort? Quite possibly. But then Ahmad Zahra has a whole stable of eager young sycophants trying to ascend in the cold, cruel political world.