Fullerton City Council – Page 35 – Friends For Fullerton's Future

April 23, 2019Behind Closed Doors

Community Stakeholder Survey Says

Tonight the Fullerton city council will pretend to go over the results of the Community Stakeholder Survey that just recently wrapped up. Remember that survey? It’s where the city is going to, and I quote:

For the next strategic planning session, the City will conduct a community stakeholder survey prior to working with the City Council to develop Mission and Vision statements, and ultimately set goals to implement the Priority Policy Statements.

We don’t have nice roads but at least we’ll have mission and vision statements.

The whole reason for this dog and pony show is to pretend to do something productive while our roads literally crumble around us each day. We’re in a structural deficit and only balance our budgets by selling capital assets (city owned property) and by not filling vacant positions.

So when people complain that we’re understaffed the current and retired staff are entirely to blame for this problem because they’re eating all of our general fund.

As to the survey itself, how engaged were the people of Fullerton in regards to this important mission of vision questing?

Vision

Super engaged, so responsive. The whole city was interested in giving their two cents… Oh. No. Nevermind. Almost nobody even knew this things existed and fewer participated.

706 people responded and 9 sent in written statements via email. That’s it.

It was a truly terrible turnout.

But the city, using that whopping return of 706 survey responses and 9 written statements will march ahead ever ready as a city to talk about what our local government’s priorities should be going forward in an open and honest fashion.

(more…)

April 16, 2019Chronic Failure

Tonight the Downtown Bars Win

by Joshua13 Comments

cronyism

The Fullerton City Council is about to hand the Downtown ~~Restaurateurs~~ Bar Owners two big wins and they’re going to continue to slap down the privacy of those in Fullerton in the process.

The first big win for the bars is in changing the rules around operating a bar in the Downtown area. This is partially because city staff thinks it’s too hard to do their jobs regarding enforcement. It’s just so hard to tell the couple of bars without Conditional Use Permits that they’re operating illegally.

The truth here is that it’s so hard to enforce anything downtown because council won’t let staff or the police department do their jobs so they all have to turn a blind eye to illegal operators and this change to Title 15 allows the downtown scofflaws to now operate *mostly* legally.

Except those without CUPs which the city will continue to ignore because favors and cronyism.

This is being sold as a way to make enforcement easier but let’s be real here – every year for a decade+ the Chief of Police (each of them) has signed off on Live Entertainment Permits which themselves say CUPs will be enforced. Our Chiefs of Police rubber stamp LE Permits for businesses that operate without required fire / life safety requirements.

So if the Police Chief is going to turn a blind eye to life safety in order to rubber stamp a permit for a favored business owner why should we believe that these new relaxed rules will be enforced? Because we’re supposed to “trust” these corrupt kleptocrats.

This Title 15 Change is being pushed to allow “legal non-conforming businesses” to now operate quasi-legally but staff won’t even tell use who that applies to in Downtown. We’re offering a form of amnesty without talking about who gets it and for what and if that’s even a good thing.

Ted White will likely prattle on about lumens and the percentage of tint on a window as cover but there are real concerns being omitted here. Why? Because saying “no, we allowed a business to illegally board up their windows with flammable material without fire sprinklers in clear violation of their CUP” doesn’t sound as easy to wash away in a rhetorical flourish such as “how do we know what 15% tint looks like”? (more…)

April 14, 2019April 14, 2019Ahmad Zahra

Chasing Rainbows

by Mr. Peabody18 Comments

I noticed two things in the Fullerton Observer the other day that on the surface are pretty innocuous but that upon a little reflection seem to be symbolic of the way our city government has operated over the years.

The first is the City’s proclamation of Arab American Month, a first, and no doubt conceived by new councilmember Ahmad Zahra who is himself an Arab American. Here is Zahra:

“As an Arab-American myself, I’m very proud of this moment, and I’m proud of our city for being such a wonderful, diverse place where everybody can celebrate who they are but work together for what is best for our community.”

Diversity and celebration. Hmm. Well, okay, a little color toner and some quality legal-sized paper, a few minutes of everybody’s time and you’ve got your proclamation. Go in peace.

The second item is about the rainbow flag flapping on the pole in front of City Hall. The City Council in March approved flying the banner that symbolizes LGBTQ rights, etc for LGBTQ Month. Mr. Zahra is also gay and this may account for the fact that Fullerton has finally got around to this pressing issue. This is a bit more problematic because here we have an official endorsement by the City. Personally, I’m all for equal rights for everybody – including marriage, and I couldn’t care less if Jennifer Fitzgerald orders that a Goofy flag fly over the City Hall. Still, it gives one pause to consider the priorities of our esteemed leaders – nobody’s rights are threatened by not flying the flag; meaning, of course, that the whole thing is an empty gesture.

And this brings me, finally, to the point of this post. We have a city council that has spent us to brink of fiscal disaster with no accountability, no responsibility and no concern at all for the taxpayers and citizens of Fullerton. They have squandered millions on vanity construction projects that were mismanaged, unnecessary, or downright dangerous. They have let the streets of Fullerton become the joke of Orange County. They have turned over downtown Fullerton to a gang of scofflaw saloon owners. They have nurtured a deadly Culture of Corruption in the police department, an infection that reaches from top to bottom. Meantime they are determined to ignore any of the calls for a correction to the course they have navigated.

Ask yourselves this question: Are any of the real municipal problems of Fullerton ever addressed? The answer, sadly, has been no. Meanwhile, empty symbolism and diversion are the order of the day. It’s easy pandering, and to the uninitiated might even look like something is being accomplished.

The question whether hollow gestures are better than none at all, especially when promoted by incompetent or corrupt officials, may remain academic. What is a practical reality is that in a month or so Fullerton will begin its Annual Can Kick – known as the budget approval. But the can is getting more obdurate every year and the lies coming from Fitzgerald and Flory ever more outrageous. Soon we will be able to see what sort of new flags from Mr. Zahra and his colleagues will be run up the flagpole. Will anybody salute?

April 1, 2019March 31, 2019A Step in the Right Direction

Fitzgerald Quits Fullerton City Council

by Jan Florys Dog23 Comments

I’m not telling the truth and you can’t make me…

Today Jennifer Fitzgerald announced her resignation from the Fullerton Council, effective immediately.

It’s a dirty job, but someone’s gotta do it…

“I can no longer even pretend to fulfill all the oaths I swore when I became a councilperson,” said Fitzgerald. “All the developer shakedowns, all the lies, all the influence peddling – I just can’t keep track of it all anymore. Balanced budgets, commitment to roads, honest cops – people want so much and I am so tired. I’m going to spend time with my family,” she stuttered weepily. “The evil has been backing up so much I feel I may burst.”

Mayor Jesus Silva responded to the announcement by saying ” I guess I’ll miss her helping me out at meetings when I started babbling like a boracho pendejo, but it will sure will be nice to have only one woman telling me what to do.”

Quick, get clear of the impending collapse…

Recently appointed Councilwoman Jan Flory had kind words for her colleague. “I’m going to miss Jen’ on council. To my lights she was the heart of the city and represents the very best commitment to service. We accomplished all sorts of things together – good roads, a successful downtown bar scene, an accountable police department, an unmatched string of balanced budges, effective and successful public works projects – you name it. She’s the reason Fullerton is where it is today.

Recently elected councilperson Ahmad Zahra was quick to praise Fitzgerald. “I thought at first she might be, you know, difficult to work with after she called out my long-winded moral posturing on the council appointment deal. But, later, when the chips were down, and she was willing to screw Whitaker just for the fun of it, I was so happy to make the deal to be on the water board. It was a very successful transaction.”

The council will now have to decide whether to replace Fitzgerald by appointment or by special election. According to the City Attorney a special election in November could cost eighty trillion dollars, which might come close to unbalancing the City’s budget according to City Manager Ken Domer.

March 26, 2019September 9, 2020Chronic Failure

Fullerton Puts Favoritism over Fire Safety

by Lonnie Machin16 Comments

We’ve received, via a Public Records Request, some of Community Development Director Ted White’s text messages with downtown bar owner Joe Florentine. It looks like Mr. White is working for Florentine which explains a lot:

Ted White Florentine Texts a Ted White Florentine Texts b

To clear this up, those “issues” that Mr. Florentine is talking about include all of his violations of the municipal code and his Conditional Use Permit – specifically his illegal refusal to install fire sprinklers.

Florentines CUP Fire Sprinklers

Florentine is in gross violation and Ted White is pushing a big change to the municipal code through council in order to facilitate Florentine’s bad behavior.

While Mr. White likes to talk about how hard his job is, how impossible enforcement is and how outdated it is to look at “lumens” regarding lighting – he doesn’t admit that fire safety isn’t on his list of priorities – nor is actually doing his job.

Florentine’s properties on the corner of Harbor and Commonwealth, the largest bar / nightclub in all of Downtown Fullerton, as far as we can tell, is the ONLY business given a pass on fire and life safety issues.

We also have it on good authority that Mr. White tried to illegally INCREASE the occupancy at Florentine’s properties, in violation of the law, while ignoring the fire sprinkler issue that has been ignored by staff for 10+ years. Why? Why potentially put more people at risk?

And Mr. White isn’t alone in his belief that one man is above the rules and laws in Fullerton.

Every single year the Fullerton Police Chief, currently Robert Dunn, issues Florentine a Live Entertainment Permit threatening to enforce the applicable laws/permits. And every year the Chief does nothing but wield his rubber stamp for downtown law breakers. This is worse than the old joke of the UN saying “Stop! Or we’ll yell ‘Stop!’ again!” because our Chief can’t even be bothered to use the “S” word. (more…)

March 19, 2019September 9, 2020Ahmad Zahra

Elevators to Nowhere – The Death March Isn’t Over

by Lonnie Machin5 Comments

It may have been expensive, but it sure was unnecessary…

Two years ago FFFF ran a series of posts based on the observations of “Fullerton Engineer” about the ludicrous elevators addition to the existing bridge at the Depot. Nobody wanted this project except for city staff and only because the dime was somebody else’s. And so a strange bureaucratic odyssey began with fits and starts of activity to waste $4,000,000 of transit money doled out by distant agencies. Then in 2017 the monster was shocked back to life with an infusion of $600,000 of Fullerton’s own cash. Ouch. Let’s let our Friend, Fullerton Engineer take it from here:

It appears as if the depot elevator project is grinding to a conclusion: the elevator foundations and steel are finally done and the traction elevators are almost complete. Are congratulations in order? Not quite, although I suspect there will be a victory celebration and ribbon cutting and back-pats all around when the City Council takes its first expensive elevator ride.

A construction sequence that should have taken perhaps seven months has dragged on for two years. That’s right – two years. No one in charge seems to have offered any explanation, probably because no one in authority has ever asked for any. As I noted in the spring of 2017, the request for more money was shrouded in double talk and obscurantism. Somebody was hiding something.

Over the past two years as I have driven by the site it was more likely that I saw no one working as when I did. So what were all those people who were being paid, and well paid, to oversee this fiasco doing? Who knows? Have delay claim change orders ever been processed? Have they been rejected? Is a lawsuit coming or is it just going to end in a feeding frenzy on a complicit public agency? PRA requests may shed light on this disaster, if in fact they are not ignored by the city’s lawyer.

Don Hoppe, our former City Engineer has disappeared into a well-pensioned retirement. His replacement, a professionally unqualified bureaucrat will take no heat for this embarrassment. It’s no-fault government where the taxpayer foots the bill.

— The Fullerton Engineer

March 8, 2019March 8, 2019Chronic Failure

Fun Friday

by Jan Florys Dog8 Comments

Fullerton humans – his niece accused someone in this photo of mailing a lewd scroto-selfie to her.

Try to find the winner.

February 25, 2019February 25, 2019Curt Pringle & Associates

Did Jennifer Fitzgerald Just Admit to Illegal Lobbying on Behalf of Jamboree Housing?

by Sean Paden11 Comments

Recently Jennifer Fitzgerald circulated to her closest supporters- via her Curt Pringle & Associates email account – her opening salvo in the 2020 election, an email entitled “2019 – A Year of Resolution and Re-commitment”.

Plus a few people she thinks are her closest supporters. Whoops.

There’s a lot to digest here, and the amount of mendacity, outright falsehoods and terrible policy proposals would take multiple posts to unpack.

But one particular boast stands out above the others:

No, not the one about the budget (although it is absolutely galling how she can still claim she balanced the budget two years after the City admitted we have a serious structural deficit and four years after members of the public started noticing). Instead, look at her claim that “Looking back over my six years of service on the Fullerton City Council, I’m proud of newly constructed affordable housing communities with… Jamboree Housing.”

So what’s the problem? Well, as Curt Pringle & Associates admit on their facebook page , Jamboree Housing is one of their clients. Which means that Councilmember Fitzgerald just bragged about breaking the law.

Two important caveats. First, I know from attending most council meetings over the last four years that Fitzgerald has avoided voting on any agenda item involving Jamboree Housing’s low income housing development since obtaining residence at CP&A. However, Government Code Section 87100 doesn’t just prohibit an elected official from making or participating in making a decision in which he or she has a financial interest – any attempt by an elected official “to use his official position to influence a governmental decision” is also illegal.

Second, and probably more important, this is could be yet another example of Fitzgerald misleading her voters about her accomplishments (and possibly CP&A clients, given that this email was sent via jennifer@curtpringle.com) and taking credit for something she had no role in, or claiming she accomplished something she did not.

“Hey, it was balanced for a few seconds!” – Jennifer Fitzgerald, probably

So which is it? Did she break the law and influence a decision that she had a clear financial interest in or does she just have a chronic aversion to telling the truth and chose to brag about her influence and effectiveness to Fullerton voters as well as potentially CP&A’s clients?

A quick poll of FFFF staff seems to indicate that “both” is not entirely out of the question as a possible answer, but maliciousness is in the eye of the beholder.

February 15, 2019February 15, 2019Ahmad Zahra

Flory Puts Grudge Over Law

by Joshua22 Comments

Brown Act

Well, it took precisely one meeting for Jan Flory to bring her bitter, mean spirited and petty nonsense back to the dais. And we have Ahmad Zahra to thank for that return. With the claim of experience and I quote, “no scandals”, as her selling points before being anointed I suppose it’s once again up to us malcontents to knock those talking points down.

In what was clearly a Brown Act violation the council voted to shank Bruce Whitaker and remove him from the Orange County Water Board and replace him with Zahra before Whitaker’s term has expired.

Gee, it doesn’t look like they agendized that…

The City Manager was contacted about this possibly illegal action and “after further consideration” from the city attorney they’ve repealed the illegal action and put it back on the agenda to make sure they shank Whitaker legally. Let us be honest here and admit that The Other Dick Jones™ never gave this any consideration in the first place. Man, not even one meeting with Flory back and the law has already been thrown to four-winds over the pettiest of nonsense. So much for experience and lack of scandals – something we’ll be talking more about in the coming days.

This move to go after Whitaker was payback from 2016 pure and simple.

It stems from Flory being bitter because after she left council in 2016 she wasn’t reappointed to the Orange County Water District board despite bringing a group of FlorBots to city council to lobby for her. The council voted at that time to appoint Whitaker under the premise that Flory was no longer on council by her own choosing and a sitting council member should represent the citizens of Fullerton on the advisory board. This was a decision I supported at the time and stand by today. Flory at last week’s meeting lamented her being removed “mid-term” from the board which is absolute revisionist history but alas now she’s playing up being a victim with a false narrative. Oy.

Add this to Fitzgrald’s willingness to take a stab at Whitaker at any time over nearly any issue and Zahra’s complete lack of guiding principles and this is what Fullerton gets. It’s gross, it’s petty, it was illegal and it’s going to be the new normal.

Despite neither Whitaker or Zahra being mentioned in the agenda and Zahra only being mentioned in the agenda materials relating to Flory appointing people to boards, hence the Brown Act violation and repealing of the outcome, Whitaker was removed and Zahra was put in his place.

Hmm, that doesn’t seem to be what they did last night…

A cynical mind would wonder if this is what Zahra was promised in exchange for selling out the citizens of Fullerton in the Flory appointment farce. Being that the OCWD appointment wasn’t on the agenda, outside of it being listed as something the council (not Flory) appoints one would be hard pressed to believe that Whitaker’s removal wasn’t planned in advance. Silva having a well written and prepared statement also points to this being pre-planned which ALSO likely means a serial meeting was held – also violating the Brown Act. Good luck proving all that, but it’s the way things are done in Open and Transparent Fullerton – just ask Zahra how many candidates he met with privately during the vacancy process for proof of this concept.

A backroom deal over the OCWD seat would certainly explain Zahra’s immediate about face and willingness to throw transparency and openness out of the window in support of the bitter bureaucracy booster and “scandal free” Flory family.

It’s rather sad as Zahra seemed like a man of principle for precisely one meeting. Since then we’re seeing more and more evidence that he has no integrity and this last Tuesday continues to confirm that he’s a man of little character and a whole lot of bluster. While he works to build his legacy and name recognition we’ll be here to keep you appraised of his and his cohort’s shenanigans and malfeasance. We’ll also keep your appraised of “scandal free” and “ready to go” Jan Flory’s performance.

January 30, 2019January 30, 2019About Us

Flory Wins Wheel of Candidates

by The Fish13 Comments

Accountability? It was never on the agenda.

Well, that was predictable.

In fact, after breaking up the FFFF kitty last night, those betting $1 on Jan Flory only got $0.98 back. Everyone knew it was coming.

Why? Because Fullerton gonna Fullerton and the house always wins. There was never any real chance that anyone was going to do the right thing. Ahmad Zahra of 2018 has clearly been through the establishment sheep dip, emerging as the self-righteous lecturer Ahmad Zahra 2.0 of 2019.

You didn’t know what the NUFF forum was for you to learn about a candidate so you could come speak your piece during last night’s public comment period? Ahmad is offended!

You don’t care about Ahmad’s latest sob story justifying his total lack of conviction to do the right thing by the voter? Ahmad is offended!

You expected Ahmad to abide by his word and not vote for someone lobbying for a position that hadn’t even been announced? Ahmad is offended!

Well, we can see where this is going to go for the next four years. Maybe we’ll start keeping a list of reasons why Ahmad is exempt from being held accountable for his own actions and statements. Excuses seem to be his tool of choice.

As for Jesús Silva, Fullerton’s next liberal lion, he just sold out his wife and the rest of Fullerton’s liberal cabal by granting a third vote to continue enforcement of Chevron’s development agreement for West Coyote Hills. There’s a flip flop that would even make Doug Chaffee envious. Sorry Fullerton, the bulldozer is coming, all thanks to Jesús.

No surprises from Fullerton’s Queen-of-Mean Jennifer Fitzgerald. One has to wonder what all those whispers between her, Ahmad, Jesús, and City Manager Ken Domer were all about.

As the council begins to tackle the problems created by their predecessors, at least they’ll be able to look over to the left and ask Jan Flory directly, “Remind us again, why did you do that?”

We, the collective imbalance that is FFFF, look forward to hearing how Indivisible types attempt to exculpate themselves as they realize their progressive reformers are actually no different from the cronyistic corporatists they despise.