Fullerton BooHoo Archives - Page 4 of 29 - Friends For Fullerton's Future

November 1, 2025November 1, 2025A Manfro All Seasons

CHSR Propaganda

A helpful Friend sent in this California High Speed Rail (CHSR) propaganda video. It’s about what will happen in Fullerton if the LA-Anaheim line goes in – a giant boondoggle within a fantastically bigger boondoggle. It’s mindbogglingly stupid.

So Fullerton’s Transportation Center is going to have massive negative impacts for years as CHSR builds ramps and tunnels, removes and relocates south platform parking, shuts down Walnut Avenue, and who knows what all else?

And get this: Fullerton isn’t even a “preferred” site for a stop. That decision has already been made.

The silly sales pitch is laughable: all this disruption will make it easier for northbound commuter trains to get to the north platform without crossing all the tracks – nonsense because they can use the south platform with a little logistical planning.

I suppose we can get some satisfaction that this massive disaster will possibly never be built. There’s no justification for HSR between LA and Anaheim, except that cooked up by people like our old friend, lobbyist and conman Kurt Pringle working for who knows whom. Pringle’s grand contribution to this mess has already been the embarrassment of ARTIC, the $200,000,000 station that is no station at all, but sold to the silly and gullible as a necessary component of the Big Idea.

The travel time between LA and Anaheim for HSR is essentially the same as current Metrolink service. The short distance from Union Station, and Deadman’s Curve in Fullerton militate against high speed travel through densely populated areas.

But never let facts and commonsense stop the CHSR propaganda machine; after all, propaganda is almost all the CHSR has produced so far, plus a few grossly overpriced overpasses around Fresno. Not much to show for 18 years of effort, and billions wasted. Not a single track has been laid; not a single train car delivered.

Will Fullerton put up some resistance, even token resistance? We’ll see if anybody on our City Council has some courage. It’s a damn good issue to go to bat for; which means probably not.

October 27, 2025October 29, 2025A Manfro All Seasons

Les Amis Days of Squatting On Our Property Are Over

by Mr. Peabody72 Comments

So it looks as if the City of Fullerton has finally decided to quit playing pat-a-cake with Jinan and young Oliver Montecristo. The owners of the restaurant Les Amis who kept encroaching on public property without approval or permits, and who serially dodged paying tens of thousands of dollars to the City in rent, are having their “improvements” on public property removed by the City.

Here’s the notification to the City Council from acting City Manager, Eddie Manfro:

Mayor Jung and City Council Members,

I was informed this morning that Public Works crews have removed the outdoor dining encroachments at Les Amis restaurant this morning. This follows the 90 day extension that she was granted by City Manager Eric Levitt. Following her payment of $3,900 on July 23, 2025, no further payments have been received.

According to Director Bise, Les Amis was provided with a 48 hour notice prior to removal of the encroachments. Public Works will hold it for 30 days in case they wish to keep it for their future use (but not for installation in the public space).

A copy of Mr. Levitt’s 90 day extension is attached for reference. Thank you.

Eddie

No doubt the suddenly “pro-business” folks at the Fullerton Observer, and “doctors” Zahra and Charles will continue to spin this into a David and Goliath story: little David being the scofflaws who have paid almost nothing to the City in rent for 15 years and who blatantly refused to follow City rules about squatting on public premises.

The last City Manager, Eric Leavitt actually gave the Montecristo mob yet another 90 days to make good on their debts and encroachments. Les Amis got a two day notice and still refused to do anything. So Public Works did. And the City has generously volunteered to keep the Montecristo junk on hand for a month in case they want it for some reason.

I really hope Jinan and Oliver get a bill for cost of removing their junk from the public right-of-way, although I doubt if they’d pay it.

And speaking of ever so earnest Oliver, I look forward to his appearance at the next City Council meeting blaming Mayor Jung for his own mother’s failure to pay her bills and play by the rules.

October 25, 2025October 25, 2025Ahmad Zahra

When Kennedy Sisters Go Wild! Or, When AI Attacks!!

by The Fullerton Harpoon31 Comments

At the last Fullerton City Council meeting a bunch of people showed up to promote taxpayer relief for illegal aliens (AKA undocumented immigrants) being abused by ICE thuggery. They were inspired by the usual Zahra-Charles altruism that manifests itself in government spending your money to do something you probably don’t want it to.

When the Boohoos were done boohooing, the final Zoom caller laid out a nice riposte to the nonsense. The call was disrupted by loud shouts from the Fullerton Observer Kennedy Sisters and their pals, eventually drawing rebuke by Mayor Fred Jung – who rightly pointed out the disgrace of a supposed newspaper publisher trying to censor public comment.

But, see, the voice was AI generated, prompting Kennedy Sister cries “AI is not a person! No AI.” Ah, yes. However, “AI” did didn’t pop up out of nowhere. Somebody wrote the text of that statement. Somebody used text to voice software to record it. Somebody replayed it on the Zoom call.

I find it hilarious, but not at all surprising that the self-righteous Kennedy Sisters took it upon themselves to judge the propriety of an AI voiced comment just because they didn’t like what was being said. As we observe – a human created that statement based on human input. Had the call been supportive of the public expenditure you can be sure “AI” would have been met with cheers and applause.

You’ve gotta see and hear what happened. Fortunately the Boys in the White Van have helped out with a video that records the event. Be sure to watch to end where the ever-obnoxious Yolanda Harrison has her “statement” read by somebody else. Why? Because her husband, the equally egregious Todd, claimed she had had some sort of medical procedure leaving her unable to speak. Who’s to say that the AI call was made by someone unable to speak? Here’s the video:

What a damn disgrace, and proof positive of these people demanding that their self-righteous voice be allowed to drown out anyone who disagrees with their left wing ideology.

Anyhow, the City Attorney responded to a question by the Mayor, saying, no, the City has no authority to censor AI, and in fact has no ability to even authenticate the voice.

Why write about news when you can try to make your own! (Photo by Julie Leopo/Voice of OC)

This situation does raise an interesting topic that is bound to become more prevalent. In the meantime somebody needs to convey to the Kennedy Sisters the importance of free speech. They already censor legitimate commentary on the Fullerton Observer blog; now it seems, they think they are entitled to do it in City Hall.

And when has a real journalist ever yelled out partisan comments at a public meeting?

April 15, 2025April 15, 2025Ahmad Zahra

George Bushala Strikes Back

by The Fullerton Harpoon30 Comments

I’m really starting to like George A. Bushala, the guy who is standing up in public and saying the things that need to said about the fraudster councilman, “Dr.” Ahmad Zahra. At the April 1st Fullerton City Council meeting he also added the scalps of the Fullerton Observer and its two sister “editors” to his collection.

A couple days later, as FFFF shared, Skasika Kennedy recreated public comments (erroneously, of course) and added her typical “editor’s note” at the end of Bushala’s statement, bragging about standing up to his falsehoods.

It turns out that Bushala is not going to take this defamation lying down, and has retained counsel by the name of Briggs Alexander. This firm sent the following letter to Skakia Kennedy yesterday calling out her failure to show wherein Bushala had lied, and demanding that she reproduce (without editorial comment) a letter from young Bushala in lieu of facing legal action for libel.

Wow. Suggesting that the Kennedy Sisters behave like responsible journalists and quit defaming citizens. What a novel concept.

It’s pretty sad when it takes this sort of effort to get people who call you a liar to prove where the lies are. In this instance there are no lies since the documents detailing Zahra’s dubious slime trail across the United States have been published right here on FFFF. Of course the Kennedy’s have no interest in the truth and are completely enveloped by their ideological miasma in which truth is whatever helps you feel good about your cherished ideals; okay for private rumination, possibly costly in a public forum.

April 15, 2025April 15, 2025A Step in the Right Direction

Find Out About Fullerton’s History

by The Fullerton Harpoon8 Comments

A guy named Jesse La Tour has a website that includes lots of news pictorial history of Fullerton. You may remember Mr. La Tour from his days as editor of the Fullerton Observer when he actually brought a sense of fairness to the rag but left, or was pushed out when Skasia Kennedy took over the family red ink business. Before that La Tour was a bookstore/gallery operator downtown and was a council candidate in 2010.

It’s interesting to see the origins of small, agricultural Fullerton include racist, anti-Chinese, anti-Japanese, and and anti-Mexican hysteria.

Observer Hyperventilation, a permanent condition, apparently…

Mr. La Tours photo collection goes all the way into the 90s with examples of Fullerton Observer “progressivism” under Ralph Kennedy, pater familias of the dismal clan.

Anyway, there’s a lot of distilled information here, although the site strikes me as a bit more of a chronicle than an historical analysis. Still, Mr. La Tour must have arrived at some definite conclusions about why our town is the way it is, and seemingly always has been.

Fullerton, being Fullerton.

April 13, 2025April 13, 2025Ahmad Zahra

Derek Smith and the Wearin’ O’ the Green on the Fiscal Sustainability Committee

by Mr. Peabody23 Comments

Last fall a silly committee was created by the City Council to pretend to explore ways to raise Fullerton’s public revenue. It’s gone by the hopeful name “Fiscal Sustainability Committee.”

No one really believed this “ad hoc” committee was meant to do anything but to propose some sort of sales tax increase, and that’s exactly what they did this week at what looked to be their final meeting. Of course there were only 4 members present and they split on whether to propose a general sales tax increase or special sales taxes aimed at “public safety” and infrastructure.

But this predictable and inconclusive conclusion is not what my post is about.

This post is about a guy named Derek Smith, one of the appointees to this committee, lifted out of obscurity by none other than Councilman “Dr.” Ahmad Zahra.

Guess what a very quick search reveals? Smith was not a random appointment based on apparent fiscal experience. Derek Smith is the political operative for the UFCW 324, the grocery store worker’s local union. Does that ring a bell? It should. Derek was clearly the mastermind of the national HQ’s $60,000 contribution to an “independent” political action committee dedicated to electing Vivian Kitty Jaramillo last fall. The origin of that money suggests a much darker source: the local SoCal MJ dispensary cartel.

That’s a lot of green from the produce section. How come? Because the OCFW 324 represents workers in the local marijuana dispensary business, part of a wider cartel that has been trying, with the help of Ahmad Zahra, to crack into Fullerton for several years. Jaramillo was going to be their Golden Ticket for a revived marijuana ordinance.

So Smith’s real fiscal experience consists of blowing $60K of somebody else’s cabbage on the S.S. Jaramillo.

Mr. Smith made the news in Anaheim a couple years ago getting a suite at the Honda Center courtesy of Mayor Aitken after pushing $140,000 in her direction.

Backscratching is fun – with other people’s money…

Back to Fullerton, Cannabis Jaramillo’s loss to Jamie Valencia was disastrous to Zahra in so many ways, not the least of which could his apparent utility to the MJ cartel.

Anyhow, at the end of the meeting Smith voted to recommend a general sales tax increase for Fullerton to deal with our fiscal crisis, although in the front of his mind must surely have been the idea revenue from the sale of cannabis products – good for the budget, good for his union.

April 6, 2025April 6, 2025About Us

City Nixes Publications on Property

by The Fullerton Harpoon11 Comments

Last Tuesday the Council voted 4-1 to deny access to any non government publications on City property.

This seems to be the result of our humble request to allow FFFF a presence thereon, however one never knows since our attorney, Kelly Aviles, never got a response over the past couple of months to our request for access. Oh, well.

The new policy will remove other publications that already have access, namely the Daily Titan, the school paper at CSUF and the yellowing Fullerton Observer, a dreadful compendium of political bias, untruths, innuendo, rumors and libel.

Naturally the Observer crowd began bleating about censorship although nobody is censoring any of their drivel. They are still free to disseminate their trash at George’s Burger and at Ralph’s and any other place that will have them.

The lone no vote came from that champion of free press, Ahmad Zahra, who (we now know) “ran away” from persecution in his homeland and now can revel in yet another layer of heroic victimhood – political refugee! He actually sent a out a press release reiterating his loyalty to our country – the one he snuck into.

I’m not even going to bother reproducing that noble-sounding riff. Just remember this: When this story started Zahra absolutely did not want FFFF in City Hall in any form. A few years back he also voted to legally harass FFFF and to keep suing FFFF over the shared files affair – even after the jig was up. How’s that for First Amendment championship? Paper thin.

March 28, 2025March 28, 2025About Us

Silence is Golden

by The Fullerton Harpoon56 Comments

A couple months ago FFFFs attorney, Kelly Aviles sent a letter to the Fullerton City Manager announcing our intention to begin a paper edition of our humble blog, and requesting that the City permit distribution of that publication on City property – places like the lobby of City Hall and the Community Center.

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

FFFF hasn’t been particularly forgiving of all the murder, mayhem, misbehaving, and costly mistakes our highly paid employees have made over the years with the blessings of boobish city council members; the City has even gone so far as to sue FFFF contributors for mistakes made by employees and our City Attorney; therefore we figured our chance of getting our voice heard in City Hall was nil.

We were right.

Of course we knew the City was just stalling us. Now the wait is over.

If you check out next Tuesday’s council agenda you’ll notice Item #14. It’s a Resolution establishing a policy that keeps FFFF off City property and limits the presence of non-governmental communications to the Main Library “community corkboard” – at the discretion of the Librarian.

Wow, there’s steaming pile of bureaucratic jargon – enough to satisfy anybody who admires that sort of gobbledygook. My favorite sentence is “The policy emphasizes that all City facilities remain non-public forums.” Wouldn’t want a public forum in City Hall, now would we? That space is reserved for government propaganda.

I don’t believe this would be on the agenda at all without previous agreement in closed session, hidden away from prying eyes under the deceitful cloak of “potential litigation.” I wonder if they can legally enforce this policy.

We may have to start printing selected copy from our greatest hits and push pin them onto that community corkboard!

March 24, 2025March 25, 2025Ahmad Zahra

Accessory to Commit Perjury

by The Fullerton Harpoon28 Comments

Last August supporters of Fullerton 4th District Council candidate, Democrat Vivian Jaramillo, created a fake “conservative” candidate to draw votes away from the person presumed to be Jaramillo’s principal opponent – Linda Whitaker. The candidate, Scott Markowitz, committed, and plead guilty to perjury.

It’s abundantly clear that at least one person helped phony candidate Scott Markowitz commit the perjury when he falsely swore that he collected his nominating signatures. How is it clear? Because at least one of his nominators told the District Attorney Todd Spitzer that it wasn’t Markowitz who got them to sign, it was someone else; either that or Markowitz himself volunteered the information, which isn’t likely since he was arrested and booked into the Santa Ana Jail.

Speculation is increasing and questions are still being asked, such as: what’s the name of the person or persons who suborned Marko’s perjury, and why hasn’t Spitzer prosecuted him/her/them? In fact, a Public Records Act request was recently made to Spitzer’s office to reveal the name of the person or persons involved in the Markowitz case.

Back in the fall, suspicion fell immediately on a guy named Ajay Mohan, a former Democrat operative who held Markowitz’s hand at the City Clerk’s office while picking up nominating materials. But could Mohan have known any of the nominators well enough to get them to sign the papers of a MAGA-sounding candidate?

The Usual Suspects are smiling. For now.

Some folks behind the scenes put early money on creepy and desperate Councilman Ahmad Zahra, the immigrant marriage fraudster and serial prevaricator. Then attention turned to the equally seedy Aruni Thakur, the guy who tried to get elected to the Fullerton City Council in 2020 in a district he didn’t live in. Both are well-known local Democrat office holders who would have been familiar to the Democrat nominators like our old friend Diane Vena. Hey, what about Jesus Quirk-Silva, the dim-witted ex-councilman and husband of wannabe king/queenmaker, Assemblycreature Sharon Quirk?

Recently a new front runner has emerged, a chap named Andre Charles. Charles revels in the lofty title of President of the North Orange County Democrats club. His wife, the self-important, wordy, and ingratiating gasbag, Shana Charles, is on the City Council. Charles had both the motive and the means to sucker local Dems to nominate Markowitz in absentia. Indeed, several nominators of the faux Trumpy Markowitz are members of Charles’ Democrat club. Hmm.

So what was the result of the PRA request? Predictably, the DA’s office isn’t answering, saying they don’t have to – the records are confidential even in closed cases. But if no other crimes were committed, then who cares, right? Yet the response from some guy named Wayne Philips in the DA’s office does include this tidbit:

Is this merely a boiler plate brush-off, or is some investigation really still underway? Personally, I doubt any investigation is going on, but if I were one of the perps involved I’d still be a little nervous. There are probably lots of weak links in the chain of this scandal, and even Spitzer may be induced to do his job if evidence he is now suppressing is published.

March 24, 2025March 24, 2025About Us

Boutique Bungling Bears Bounty

by Mr. Peabody18 Comments

And by “bears bounty,” I mean the boutique hotel scam pulls Fullerton into ever deeper shitwater.

By now we all know how stupid, inept, and problematic the so-called “Tracks at Fullerton” has been.

Starting out as a boutique hotel, a dumb idea took on a bloated, lumbering life of its own and has been kept alive through bureaucratic inertia and predictable metastasis.

Now there’s a new twist. Word on the street is that the family of the guy with the original brainstorm, Craig Hostert of Westpark Development, is suing the current “developers” TA Partners. You may recall that Hostert is dead. His relatives seem to think that his money men, Johnny Lu and Larry Liu of TA Partners, pushed Craig out of his interest in the project. Johnny and Larry are said to be counter suing.

Parenthetically, I might add that Johnny and Larry are no strangers to the legal system, having left a trail of bankruptcies, foreclosures, and fraud in their wake. Fullerton being Fullerton.

I don’t know what the lawsuits might entail, legally, but due to the incompetent actions of Councilmembers Bruce Whitaker, Shana Charles, and Ahmad Zahra in upzoning the property, there could be a lot at stake. Remember, the City sold Westpark/TA almost two acres of land for $1.4 million (less demolition costs) while making it worth ten times that amount by abusing the allowable density in the Transportation Center Specific Plan.

Right now the City Hall silence remains deafening. We do know the council met in closed session about this awhile back, and still the public remains in the dark. Why hasn’t the City kicked Johnny Lu and Larry Liu to the curb long ago? They were supposed to have performed all sorts of stuff by now. Here are Johnny and Larry’s milestone obligations per the Development and Disposition Agreement, approved at the end of December, 2022.

Westpark/TA Partners are clearly in default. Plans submission was supposed to take place in December 2023 – fifteen months ago. Permits were required to be obtained fourteen months ago. Grading was supposed to start eleven months ago. Above ground construction was supposed to start by the end of last October – five months ago. See a pattern?

For some reason TA Partners was given some wiggle room in the actual verbiage of the contract for plans submittal – 240 days which would have been February of 2024, still thirteen months ago, and still a massive default.

Was there an “Unavoidable Delay?” Who gets to know? Why would the City fail to exercise its right retake the property? If you see a councilperson, please be sure to ask. Of course you won’t get an answer as the whole thing is shrouded in Closed Session secrecy. Without any action on the part of Fullerton, the two fly-by-nighters are still in possession of entitlements worth a pile ‘o cash – enough to excite the pecuniary envy of Mr. Hostert’s heirs and assigns.

I get the strange feeling that this latest legal entanglement might have repercussions for any case Fullerton might have in getting rid of Johnny and Larry. It shouldn’t, but it might be cause for staff to continue to string this thing out since it has been such a lucrative toy for Fullerton’s crack “economic development” employees.