It means you aren’t very smart. You aren’t attractive. You aren’t talented. You aren’t educated. You do have a chip on your shoulder and you do seem to think people owe you something. Mostly because you grossly overestimate yourself, and the Kennedy Sisters think you check all the right boxes.
But I checked all the right boxes…
On Tuesday evening Ms. Jaramillo appeared at the Fullerton City Council to take the council majority to task for rejecting her nomination to the Planning Commission. It was a graceless, rude performance.
She didn’t seem to grasp the irony in her insulting the people who voted against her, just like she did last December in what we wished had beenher final goodbye statement. Alas, no. Here is “Cannabis Kitty” showing up again like a bad penny. Some of her comments about the council majority:
Afraid of her, or;
Childish in their rejection of anything Zahra
Disgusting
Idiotic
She whined that voting “no” on an appointment was just never done! And recent appointments by Jamie Valencia are “the usual suspects,” unqualified “bozos” only wanting “personal glory, and who are not “interested in the betterment of the City.” Not like her, of course. Why, one of these appointees, a former Mayor, was even referred to by Fullerton employees as “Mayor Bozo,” Jaramillo recalled.
She failed to mention that object of her denigration, Chris Norby, is also a former County Supervisor and State Assemblyman now willing to serve on a low-grade committee almost nobody knows about because he is simply a good citizen.
Zahra wants you for Ahmad’s Army!
Of course Jaramillo got her facts wrong, or more likely, pretended to, omitting that only a few weeks earlier her sponsor, Ahmad Zahra voted noon Valencia’s appointment of Arif Mansuri, a professional engineer, to the Transportation Commission.
Jaramillo essentially identified Valencia a puppet of Jung, who she wrote off completely as a “little dictator.” She was “bummed,” she said because the absent Nick Dunlap wasn’t there to hear her lament of his action. She had hoped better of him. She didn’t remind anybody that in her December letter to her friends at the Fullerton Observer she referred to Dunlap as a knucklehead. Short or selective memory?
The happiness vanished in a political haze…
Now I don’t know about you, but it looks to me like Jaramillo is just prone to insulting people who refuse to acknowledge her superior qualities. Of course she is bitter about losing to some unknown who’s only lived in Fullerton “a hot minute.” I don’t care about that, but I find it surprising that her own sense of entitlement is so immense that it would cause her to expect the targets of her abuse to appoint her to anything.
Just when you think they couldn’t be more biased, vindictive and stupid, the Kennedy Sisters, Skaska and Sharon prove you were wrong. They not only lace their “stories” with prejudicial editorializing, now they have now taken to publish letters to their “newspaper” that give every appearance to be cooked up to cause mischief.
M. Chapman, maybe?
In the mid-March version of the Observer there is a very strange “letter” by someone calling themselves “M. Chapman.” It’s a weird missive alright, so odd and so badly written that you get the idea it was written by one of the sisters herself. I’ve seen walls at FJC covered in globs of pre-class gum that made more sense.
Our correspondent informs us of a house on Wilshire Avenue that nobody wants to talk about. It’s a Big Mystery to M. Chapman because no one wants to “save” it either. A conspiracy is afoot, make no mistake!
The house is an abandoned, dinky 400 square foot box that somebody tacked siding and a porch onto in the 1960s. It’s decrepit and looks like a fire hazard; but not to Chapman who sees a treasure.
For some reason Chapman thinks the “unsafe” City notices are “poorly written,” a claim I’ve never heard before, but obviously inserted here to suggest something untoward is going on.
Then the letter gets interesting. You see, the property next door is a “land grab” by “Bushala” and the insinuation is that he wants this derelict property for some reason.
Beauty and The Beast
The first statement is just defamatory. Bushala Brothers, Inc. bought the vacant lot next door from the North Orange County Community College District with the condition that they relocate a NOCCD bungalow from Chapman Ave., which has been accomplished – a fine upgrade to the neighborhood. (picture above). BBI was the highest bidder, responding to an open and fair public bid. The house is now owned and occupied by a family member who bought it at market rate from BBI. Naturally, Chapman provides zero evidence to support his insinuation that maybe “Bushala” (by now we have to ask “which one?”) wants to own the dilapidated property next door. That’s classic Observer Sister stuff, right there.
At this point, it seems pretty obvious that somebody is cooking up information and “M. Chapman” is regurgitating it. Now who could that be?
Chapman is real interested in his/her architectural discovery, it seems, so he/she turned to Fullerton Heritage for help, but they wouldn’t “touch it with a ten foot pole.” More sinister evidence of something, Chapman concludes. Chapman says he/she was referred to the Observer(!) for some inexplicable reason – the Kennedy Sisters know very little about anything.
Then Chapman reveals the stupidity of his/her own narrative by sharing that Fullerton Heritage did indeed touch the issue with a ten foot pole. In fact, somebody at FH went way out of their way to do Chapman’s homework for him and provide a bunch of information, alas, none of it evidentiary to suggest the derelict shack was historical.
In parentheses at the end of the quote, someone thinks the run down mess would make a great “juice and java shack” which, of course the lot is not zoned for. Was it Cheri? Was it Chapman? Was is Skania Kennedy? Whoever said it, they got the shack part right.
(I now have it on excellent authority that the last paragraph in quotation marks did NOT come from anybody at the City or Fullerton Heritage. In other words, the “editor” – Skasia Kennedy made a glaring editorial error that wouldn’t have been made in a high school news paper.)
This “letter,” doesn’t quite seem right. It’s a sort of patched together amalgamation of supposed innocence (just asking questions here!) while sharing both outright libel and concocted “guesses” that lead the reader to suspect that information was shared with M. Chapman (if there even is one) from a source that wants to publicly disparage “Bushala” over something nobody gives a damn about.
And that means that the Kennedy SIsters, Skasia and Sharon, who published this tripe are complicit in this cut-rate farce.
No, it’s not a musical recording. Not exactly. There’s no music, but there’s a lot of singing sad songs and lamentations.
Fullerton Boohoo, old and new…
It seems that what’s left of Fullerton’s Old Guard liberals and a scattering of younger adherents to no-fault government are having a real hard time grasping the reality of the Fullerton City Council’s new commonsense majority. These lefties don’t ask a lot of intelligent questions. They believe in empty abstractions and are happy to regurgitate whatever nonsense is spoon fed to them by the likes of Ahmad Zahra. They are appalled by councilpersons Jung, Valencia and Dunlap who have the audacity to question the go along, get along status quo of unaccountable government.
The meeting on Tuesday, March 4th was a total disaster for the so-called “progressives”
We noted that the idea of exploring charter city status for Fullerton was moved along, despite the all the silly fears of those gathered together by Zahra to oppose the concept.
What we didn’t cover was the introduction of measures to keep people from camping in public places and the protection of public facilities. It’s about time the City decided to end its attraction to vagrants who pose a public safety risk. Those votes were 3-2, of course, with Zahra and Charles siding with the immigrant homeless instead of their homed constituents.
No bueno…
Other issues were agendized, too. There was the topic of a letter opposing an AQMDs ban on gas appliances. Seeing the practical problems of the policy, the majority decided to oppose the measure. The vote was the same 3-2. Since there’s nothing a liberal likes more than following the mandates of completely opaque government agencies, Zahra and Charles were compelled to vote no, citing “public health.”
The following entertaining interchange took place (according to the Fullerton Observer Kennedy Sisters with their usual additions):
Mayor Jung without asking for council comments, said “I will move the item” – but Councilmember Zahra said he had some questions.
Councilmember Zahra made some clarifications, “For those who mentioned this was overreach from the state – this is not from the state. The governing body [SCAQMD] is multiple cities in Southern California, a regional body of members from LA, Orange and San Bernardino counties.” He said the letter merely states that we are supporting this – or not supporting this. So nothing is being imposed here locally whether it [the letter] goes out in the negative or positive. The actual SCQAMD meeting where this will be decided happens on May 2 – so anyone passionate about it can attend that meeting,” he said.
Mayor Jung “Is there a question somewhere in there?”
Councilmember Zahra passing over Jung’s unnecessary interruption went on to say – “The clean air rules are for manufacturer’s not residents and the rules transition gradually. So no one is going to come and take your gas stove. If we are looking at this from a public health view – he said we do have high air pollution in Orange County – those are facts. I think we should stay out of this discussion for now, or – in my opinion – we should support public health. So I am not in favor of sending this letter out.”
Jesus H., speaking of gas emitting appliances…
First, Mayor Jung was actually following Robert’s Rules of Order, in which motions drive discussion, not the other way around. But Zahra had questions, right? Questions? No, that was a lie. he wanted to make yet another campaign speech, and he did. Jung, quite reasonably, lost his patience with the usual Zahra pontification, and asked where the questions were. The “interruption” was not unnecessary since Zahra had already interrupted a legitimate motion; Jung’s was appropriate response to Zahra’s out-of-order speechifying, which Jung did allow to continue.
Naturally, Zahra lied once again, trying to make the SCAQMD look like a sovereign local agency, when in fact it gets its diktats from Sacramento, via the California Air Resources Board (CARB), the Governor, and the Legislature.
Finally, there was a traffic issue, the topic being the signalization of the Euclid/Valley View intersection. Staff supported this, but only by using some sort of grant money, meaning it’s not a priority; the guesstimate for the cost would swallow up the City’s total traffic signalization budget for a year. As a side note, there’s already a signal at the Hiltscher Trail crossing – just a few hundred feet to the north.
Zahra and Charles really wanted to throw half a mil at the problem and move on.
However, in the end the council chose to turn the item back to the Traffic and Circulation Commission for more review and more public outreach. For some reason Zahra pushed for “closure” on this issue, probably just out of spite, and to make the council majority look bad in front of the audience. But since they had no dopey, liberal ideal that could be used to manipulate anybody Zahra and Charles went along with sending the thing back to the TCC.
Fullerton is a General Law city. The question of studying the costs and the benefits of adopting a municipal charter was on the agenda for the last city council meeting.
To charter or not to charter. That became the debate. But it shouldn’t have been.
Rather than accepting the benign idea of beginning to study the pros and cons of Fullerton being a charter city, numerous public speakers, a claque obviously organized by Ahmad Zahra, and Zahra himself, began reciting a litany of reasons to not even study the idea. Of course they didn’t know what they were talking about, and kept spewing nonsense, like ginned up election costs, scary rejection of State paternalism, mandates, and planning control, and all sorts of drummed up stuff leading to the inevitable conclusion that California state government is benevolent, well-run, desirable, and comforting.
Fullerton Boohoo, old and new…
The speaker list was comprised of the usual suspects: our old, nattering friend (and Scott Markowitz nominator) Diane Vena; the ever-angry Karen Lloreda; the bitter, avian Anjali Tapadia and others.
Cluck.
Good grief, even the superannuated Molly McClanahan appeared, cluck-clucking her disapproval of the proceedings. And there in the audience sitting next to McClanahan, was none other than Jan Flory, looking pretty worn out. Flory didn’t say anything, mercifully, but perfunctorily clapped when speakers questioned the motives and integrity of the council majority. On McClanahan’s other side sat Ms. Lloreda, which was appropriate: two former city councilwomen recalled by their constituents.
Several school district boardmembers showed up, too, trying, and failing to explain the nexus between the municipal charter topic and the welfare of their districts. That was just pathetic lackeyism for Zahra. Boy, have they backed the wrong horse.
Too much coffee?
As noted before, Zahra’s indignant, theatrical and lengthy diatribe was even more ridiculous that the dumb speeches of his little entourage. He began a recitation of how a 15 member elected charter-writing committee would become a political springboard for bad people (i.e. those not chosen by him) funded by bad interests – like Fullerton Taxpayers for Reform, presumably. This was amazing since nobody in their right mind would pursue this approach. I don’t know if any city ever has. But Zahra must have thought it was good obfuscation to help confuse the already dimly lit brains of his followers, I guess.
Still in the second stage of grief…
There was a plot afoot said Zahra, with devious manipulators pulling the council’s strings to buy and sell Fullerton, somehow, sometime, somewhere. Don’t believe what they say, said the master of prevarication.
Ferguson speaks. Fullerton Boohoo is not happy…
One speaker, Joshua Ferguson supported the study, pointing out that the process of voting on a charter was actually highly democratic because it gave people a chance to participate in how their city is governed. The Three Old Ladies shook their heads in disapprobation.
The three councilmembers who voted to simply consider the idea – Jung, Dunlap and Valencia – didn’t try to justify some positive end result, reasonably supporting a study, the sort of thing people like Zahra and his friend Shana Charles normally adore.
The idea here is that actually learning things about something relating to city governance is a good thing.
I don’t know anything about the benefits or drawbacks of having a municipal charter; neither do the people of Fullerton;. neither does our City Council, two of whom, Zahra and Charles voted to remain ignorant.
The other night City Councilperson Ahmad Zahra put on quite a display of self-righteous indignation. The topic was whether or not to look into the advantages of Fullerton becoming a charter city. That move might give the city some flexibilities our current status as a General Law city might not afford. The issue was about as dangerous as self-rising flour, but to hear Zahra go on about it you’d think a vast conspiracy was afoot to separate Fullerton citizens from their freedom.
His outraged and disjointed diatribe must have lasted five minutes. He went for the cheap seats. Anger. Sardonic smiles. Dramatic hand gestures. Putting on, taking off glasses. Goodness gracious. How he longs to be a Third World dictator.
Zahra’s indignance was theatrical, of course. He had to play out his part in front of the dozen people he could muster to attend the meeting and cry about impending doom. But his description of the charter city idea was phrased in language that denigrated the current Council majority whom “nobody trusts,” nobody being, presumably a few dozen Zahra puppets and the Observer Sisters.
Their goal, according to Zahra, was to create new “land use” rules that would benefit the person who put the majority in their Council chairs and who spends his time buying up properties left and right. The unnamed bogeyman of Fullerton Boohoo – Tony Bushala. Goodness gracious, Zahra went on, the City of Fullerton itself was at stake.
Zahra’s other claims were so stupid and impossible that they hardly need to repeated except to show how desperate he has become. A charter city he falsely exclaimed, could get rid of competitive bidding on projects leading to shoddy construction! A charter city he falsely claimed could evade California’s prevailing wage laws leading to shoddy construction!
And then: the roads fix the roads. The roads are as bad as ever. The priceless wrap up? Zahra said the Council majority would tell people what they want to hear. And it won’t be the truth. Wow. Coming from leaky, weepy, dedicated to his con of the boohoos, Zahra.
When Zahra had finished his histrionics he was immediately challenged by Councilman Nick Dunlap for his previous no votes on infrastructure spending. Zahra interrupted noisily, as he has been doing lately, but was shut down by Dunlap and Mayor Jung. Councilwoman Jamie Valencia told Zahra not to worry – his Academy Award will come someday. She was greeted with boohoo boos from Zahra’s pals in the audience.
Spin and kick…
One telling part of this episode was when Councilperson Shana Charles, who had just cheerfully stated her interest in the charter possibility, voted no on the motion simply to study the idea – right after Zahra’s melt down.
The motion carried 3-2 so we have not heard the last of this issue.
At last night’s Fullerton City Council meeting, Ahmad Zahra revealed his second nomination for the city’s Planning Commission. You may recall that his first nomination, Adrian Meza, doesn’t live in Fullerton and couldn’t take the job. Zahra’s new nominee? Vivian “Kitty” Jaramillo. Friends may well remember Jaramillo from the fall city council campaign, where she finished behind Jamie Valencia.
Full of hot air…
Jaramillo’s nomination went down like the Hindenburg. Zahra and Charles voted yes, of course; Valencia, Dunlap, and Jung voted no. Unequivocally. How come? These appointments are usually rubber stamped by the Council.
In defeat, malice…
Well, Friends may also recall Jaramillo’s political valediction, presented in the Fullerton Observer: a bitter lamentation how dirty tricks sank her little boat:
Rule number one in politics must be that if you want somebody to vote for you, try to refrain from calling them knuckleheads and puppets. During the campaign Jaramillo questioned Valencia’s credentials and commitment; not a big deal in an election, but not helpful later on when you want something from your former rival.
Where’s the lie”
Then there’s the marijuana dispensary problem. Jaramillo has been a big supporter of the now reversed ordinance that would have permitted the greatest latitude for future permits. Dunlap and Jung had already votes to repeal that law. The thought that the dope lobby contributed $60,000 to get Jaramillo elected certainly must have caused pause for the council majority.
And then there’s the problem of Zahra’s own recent vote against nominations made by Jung and Valencia, most noticeably the choice of Arif Mansuri to the Traffic and Circulation Commission. If you’re going to start voting no on qualified nominees you should expect reciprocation for your unqualified ones.
My guess is that Zahra was on the phone after the meeting to boohoo like a little girl to one of the Kennedy Sisters, and they’ll be crying in print real soon about the usual outrage.
The City Council meeting agenda for March 4th has some interesting “Closed Session” items on it. For those who don’t know, Closed Session is a private meeting of the Council when legal, personnel or real estate issues are involved. The City Attorney attends the session, too, in our case the hapless buffoons of The I Can’t Believe It’s a Law Firm of Jones and Mayer.
Here’s the line up of issues.
Number 1 is about something up at the City Owned golf course – one of the too little scrutinized assets of the City of Fullerton. This has been a source of embarrassment for City staff and FFFF instruction in the past.
Ferguson and Curlee. The easy winners…
Our Friend David Curlee ran afoul of City Staff when he uncovered the rank incompetence of Alice Loya and Hugo Curiel as well as the misappropriation of Brea Dam Enterprise funds. And that’s likely the reason they dragged him into the FFFF/Joshua Ferguson lawsuit.
Why is Johnny smiling?
Number 2 is about the idiotic “boutique” hotel fiasco in which the City up-zoned the Hell out our property and then virtually gave it away to “Westpark/TA” an operation run by a couple crooks whose prior record was never disclosed to the City Council or the public. Well we found out all about it, even if our highly paid “professionals” in City Hall didn’t bother.
Any reasonable representatives of the people would have shit-canned this deal on Day 1. Not Fullerton, of course. What in the world could they be negotiating? TA hasn’t met any of its deadlines, got caught recording a phony deed, etc. TA should have been dumped a long, long time ago and their purchase amount forfeited. Interestingly the City seems to have brought in Best, Best and Krieger to do represent the City. At least it isn’t Jones and Mayer. Still, I wonder why.
Zahra Congratulates Marovic for his lawsuit…against us.
Number 3 is about our old friend Mario “Bump Out” Marovic, the scofflaw who took over from the Florentine Family in ripping off the public. He’s still illegally occupying the space he was supposed to have demolished two goddamn years ago.
Forgotten but not quite gone…
He is obviously in default of that agreement – a deal that moronically permitted him to open up his businesses and profit off our building on our sidewalk. Our indifferent City staff and Council doesn’t seem to have the stomach to give this weasel notice that he has been trespassing and that they were going to demolish the building add-on and restore the sidewalk themselves.
No, we don’t have to say shit…
Number 4 is one of those “anticipated litigation/significant exposure to litigation” items in which secrets can be withheld from potential litigants – like Friends for Fullerton Future – based on the squishy definition of the word “significant,” and self-serving public servant who happens to be defining it. Could this item be related to FFFF’s request for presence on City property? I don’t know, but I wouldn’t be surprised.
Yesterday FFFF related the story of how Fullerton Councilmember Ahmad Zahra got rid of his Planning Commissioner Arif Mansuri for some young guy named Adrian Meza. In effect, the Planning Commission lost a professional engineer and would have gained a political wannabe whose day job is “marketing” for a fertility clinic that gets gay male couples children.
Mansuri ain’t buying it.
It turns out that Mr. Mansuri still wants to serve his fellow Fullerton citizens and Councilmember Jamie Valencia thought that was a good idea. So at the January 21, 2025 Council meeting she expressed her intention to nominate Mansuri for the Traffic and Circulation Commission. That item came up on the February 4th, 2025 council agenda – Item 3.
What’s of interest here is that Zahra voted no on Item 3, that included Mansuri’s ratification to the T&C Commission.
I will get what I want, one way or another…
What’s the big deal you ask?
Well, for starters it’s highly unusual for one councilmember to vote against a nomination made by one of his colleagues, particularly one who is more qualified than most Fullerton commission appointees. In Fullerton such things have always been considered bad form; in this case especially, since the man is qualified. We may conclude that Zahra doesn’t like Mansuri anymore and voted against him out of malice; or maybe it was spite against Valencia for favoring his own castoff commissioner.
Mansuri was appointed 4-1 so there’s no effect on almost anything by Zahra’s petulant vote. Almost. Because this vote creates a recent precedent of sorts that means nobody gets an auto pass when it comes to future appointments. And that includes Zahra himself who will be shopping for a new Planning Commissioner one of these days.
We’ve seen his own flailing effort to create a controversy over Councilwoman Jamie Valencia’s campaign contributions, going so far as to basically accusing his own City Attorney of incompetence in the matter. And that’s not the only unforced error made by this little fellow.
Zahra says take a hike!
Back in January Zahra decided not to re-appoint his Planning Commissioner Arif Mansuri, a gentleman FFFF has noted as a diligent and intelligent representative with actual professional credentials. Zahra instead appointed a young guy named Adrian Meza.
Never heard of Meza? I didn’t either so I did some research. The guy is one of those identity politicking “progressive” types, without any discernable ability who hang around politics for critical self validation – just like his apparent mentor, Ahmad Zahra. Meza says he is a Digital Marketing Specialist, whatever that means, and works for a company that arranges egg collection and surrogacy for gay people. What this has to do with experience in land use and planning is beyond me.
More importantly, Meza is a member of the that preachy and self-righteous crowd that doesn’t do an awful lot of thinking for themselves. Naturally he has been a writer of some kind for the Fullerton Observer that touted his video about how bad Fullerton’s roads are. The video recommended new taxes, of course, and even spent time wedging in support for the Trail to Nowhere with a hat tip to the community disservice of FFFF.
His bio on linkedin suggests he is still a Parks Commissioner (his first listed title!) and and even lists his efforts for the Observer as some sort of real job. Other stuff is part-time work in municipal park departments. Of course, like Zahra, he describes himself as a “videographer” with one amateur attempt listed. Man, talk about fluffing. We do have another Zahra on our hands.
Nothing left but empty bloviation…
Anyway, this selection has come to grief, apparently because Mr. Meza doesn’t currently live in Fullerton. as required by law. WoW. That’s embarrassing. How is it that Zahra didn’t know his guy doesn’t live here? And an even better question would ask whether Meza has been on Fullerton’s Park and Rec Commission while not a citizen of Fullerton. That would look bad. The question deserves an answer from Zahra; if Meza was willing to be on our Planning Commission illegally there’s no reason to suppose he had no qualms about being a Parks Commissioner while living, say, in Anaheim.
Of course no one will get an answer from Zahra about this, because no one will ask. Hopefully one of the other Councilpersons who ratified the nomination will try to find out. But I doubt it, Fullerton being Fullerton.
The trouble with the City of Fullerton’s Public Records Act system is that responses are so dilatory, so frequently incomplete, and often so non-responsive, as Friends have seen over the years, it’s hard to know if you can draw any firm conclusions from what are charitably called public records.
Here’s an interesting request made a couple of weeks ago.
The request has elicited a “full release” response, so we may infer, I hope, that it really is full.
It’s a total waste of money, but it sure is short…
Why is this request interesting? Because the obscure State Department of Natural Resources is the grant-giving sugar daddy of the 2.1 million dollar UP Trail fiasco.
I noted back on January 27th that there were problems with the Trail to Nowhere project schedule, namely, that the design and construction milestones were seven and five months late, respectively.
It’s hard to know the exact status of this boondoggle because nobody in City Hall is saying anything about it to the public. I (confidently) assume the final design was never submitted to the State because the City Council never approved it, never released a bid or awarded a contract. Construction has obviously not started. Now there are just eight months left to do it all.
The trees won’t block the view…
This is where the PRA request comes in. The response just shares a short email string between Fullerton and Natural Resource Department people trying to set up a meeting for a briefing on some water project up north and its impact on MWD cities’ water supply. That’s it. There is nothing about the grant for the so-called UP Trail.
The project showed little promise, but they didn’t care…,
So what is the status? Were the milestones waived by the Natural Resources Department? Has some schedule modification been made? If so there’s no correspondence (at least none shared by the City Clerk) that show it. That’s pretty odd, isn’t it? Is it possible the State isn’t even keeping track of the agreement and the City isn’t bothering to remind them? That strikes a believable chord.
At this point it seems highly unlikely that the Trail to Nowhere could be completed in time, but maybe hope springs eternal. The State doesn’t seem to care.
Ahmad Zahra and his pal Shana Charles made a big deal about this dumbassery and organized such an annoying Astroturf backing for it, that the previous council majority chickened out and agreed to the mess. They haven’t been talking about it either, even though they already took a victory lap and threw themselves a party.
