I have to admit, I don’t know who Jamie Valencia is. But I know what she wants. She wants to be Fullerton’s 4th District Councilmember.
She is a serious candidate. Real serious. Here’s her website: https://www.jamievalencia.com/
There isn’t much to go on, issues wise, but according to her website Ms. Valencia has the endorsement of Fullerton’s power police union and the influential carpenter’s union. Because of the latter, I’m assuming she is a Democrat, and if so, is going to cause some real problems for the OCDEM establishment that went out of their way to slide Vivian Jaramillo into this office, even going so far as to create a fake candidate, Scott Markowitz, to help her do it.
The Old Guard has chosen…ethics are no obstacle…
Another candidate with a Latino name is the last thing they could have wanted.
Ms. Valencia is a registered nurse, a profession that garners respect; Jaramillo is a retired Fullerton municipal employee, a code inspector and a writer of parking tickets. The comparison is stark. Ms. Valencia says she is 41 on her ballot statement; she looks a lot younger. Jaramillo is at least 70 and looks her age. In an election where age and its attendant difficulties have become a big deal this could be really significant.
Can Nurse Jamie make Fullerton feel better?
But even more significantly, Valencia has raised a startlingamount of money for her campaign in a few short weeks. Somewhere between 15 and 20 grand, based on the 497 forms posted by the City Clerk. That borders on the fantastic, and it’s only the third week in August. She must know some important people who believe in her.
In a race that looked shaped up to be between the establishment Democrat and the wife of the well-known and well-like outgoing councilman, Bruce Whitaker, a whole new dimension has opened up.
The new dimension is name is Jaimie Valencia. When FFFF leans more about this newcomer we’ll be sure to share it.
It’s pretty rare when one of our commissions really does its job, so when they do I’m happy to advertise the fact. Last week the Fullerton Planning Commission re-reviewed the noise ordinance that was kicked back to them by the City Council for further consideration, and they excelled themselves.
Their performance was so rewarding it almost makes me want to overlook the first time this group unanimously passed virtually the same proposed ordinance in November, 2023. This time they really took their jobs seriously.
The staff report for the item, given by some guy named Edgardo, was the same nonsense they pitched before, and they essentially asked the Commission to rubber stamp it yet again.
But this time there is a problem. It seems that no matter how many words they throw at the issue, staff can’t talk around their own complete lack of effort at code enforcement in Downtown Fullerton. They admit it now, claiming (without a shred of evidence) that the existing noise level is unsupportable in court, and begging the question of why amplified music is then allowed outdoors at all – it wasn’t for decades. We were informed that a “vibrant” downtown (pictures of happy people) requires more noise, not less. The underlying theme was the usual tripe: DTF is an economic asset whose saloon proprietors must be coddled at all cost. Look the other way, fast!
Incredibly, our new friend Edgardo informed the Commission that current levels of noise are acceptable to the citizenry based on the fact that so few complaints are lodged. Complete balderdash, of course. Naturally the bald declaration of “acceptability” was unsupported by any complaint data, suggesting that if there is a record, it is an embarrassing one. And the Commission learned from public speaker Joshua Ferguson that the City doesn’t bother with code enforcement and almost never has, leading Commissioner Patricia Tutor to wonder if this lack of responsiveness might have caused citizens to give up complaining.
One poor lady, the owner of Les Amis was there to push for the proposal. Unfortunately, as she admitted, she does live music in her establishment without the benefit of the required entertainment permit. Oops. Code enforcement to the rescue!
Local hero…
Tony Bushala got up to speak, sharing his story of being driven out of his downtown home due the noise. He also produced a lengthy list of errors and omissions in the proposed ordinance and stuff that was just contradictory. It turns out that the public and the Commission were not presented with a complete underline/strike-out version, showing pretty clearly that counsel Baron Bettenhauser of the I Can’t Believe It’s a Law Firm, had not, as he claimed, looking up from his cell phone, read the damn thing.
Edgardo and Baron work their magic…
One zoom caller named Maureen said the smartest thing of the night. She actually suggested that without actually hearing the sound on site, she (and presumably everybody else) was at a loss to really fathom the mystery of decibel levels.
Tutor tutors staff.
Commissioner Tutor was particularly effective in asking pertinent questions, one of which, was how come, after 10pm when music is supposed to move indoors, isn’t the decibel level lowered. A really commonsensical question. She didn’t get a commonsensical answer. The acoustical consultant from some operation called Dudek explained that during their noise collection procedure, that seemed to be the general noise level.
What’s going on here?
Oops again. Commissioner Cox pounced on the fact that the collected data was based on a noise level that was one, currently illegal; and two, based on a situation where there is no code enforcement, thus kicking up the noise level that staff was claiming was acceptable! He didn’t say so, but it was pretty clear that Mr. Dudek Guy had been receiving coaching from staff on the noise levels they found acceptable.
Mansuri ain’t buying it.
The other main sticking point was where to measure noise from – a certain distance from the noise source or a certain distance from the property line; two choices were offered with the greater distance being recommended. Commissioner Mansuri was unpersuaded by staff. That issue tied everybody up in knots off and on for the better part of an hour. Finally it was concluded that the noise sampling site needed a rethink.
Thanking God it’s over…
Finally, mercifully, Commissioner Arnel Dino moved that the whole thing come back in May with the entire code changes organized and clarified and that in the interim the Planning Commissioners would go out themselves with decibel monitors and experience for themselves the problems of sound accumulation, reverberation, etc. So that’s what is going to happen. Imagine that – first hand experience without the muddled abstraction of decibel levels on a piece of paper.
As usual it was obvious that our hand-wringing staff was pursuing their path of least residence by raising sound thresholds, making it harder to enforce even that, and refusing to enforce the requirements of the bar-owners’ entertainment permits – things like closing doors and windows. How many times have we seen staff guide the consultant they chose to get what they want? Happens all the time. And how many times must the public be subjected to uninformed or misinformed opinion passed along as Gospel truth by our public employees? Happens all the time. And when will the City Council demand honesty and competence from its bureaucrats? I’m afraid we all know the answer to that.
It’s a total waste of money, but it sure is short…
As has been predicted, a concerned Fullerton Friend has decided that the dismal Trail to Nowhere was such an insult to California’s taxpayers and to any commonsensical Fullerton resident that he was going to do something about it.
So he wrote a letter to the State of California Natural Resources Agency and addressed it to the Agency’s boss, Mr. Wade Crowfoot. I understand that the letter was sent by registered mail so it may be hard for Mr. Crowfoot to claim he didn’t get it.
Well, well, well…
Cynics will say that the California bureaucrats at these agencies don’t care how their grants are spent, or in this case, misspent. Their jobs are to dole out the dough without a backward glance. In this case there was no real forward glance either; judging by the initial approval, they swallowed Fullerton’s tale by the proverbial hook, line, and sinker.
Anyway, it’s a good synopsis of the various inaccuracies and falsehoods in Fullerton’s grant application. Here is the text of the letter, forwarded to us by its author:
Mr. Wade Crowfoot Secretary for Natural Resources California Natural Resources Agency 715 P. Street, 20th Floor Sacramento, CA 95814
Dear Mr. Crowfoot, I am writing to you as a concerned citizen of the City of Fullerton, to inform you of irregularities in a Grant Application made by the City of Fullerton to your agency which resulted in the award of a Urban Greening Grant to build a recreational trail on an abandoned section of the Union Pacific Railroad right-of-way. This is a 2022 grant for $1,777,200.00, under Grant Agreement U29194-0 which itself was authorized by Senate Bill 859. The irregularities in the Grant Application falls into two categories: first, omission of pertinent information required by the application; second, outright falsehoods about the projected positive aspects of the project. The application failed to alert the State that one of the adjacent properties to the proposed trail is contaminated by trichloroethylene (TCE), a known carcinogen. The property (311 South Highland Avenue) is identified by the EPA and the State of California Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC). Reports have indicated a TCE plume emanating from 311 South Highland in a southerly direction, precisely under the proposed trail site. There are currently 10 Monitoring test wells along the proposed trail site and several others in adjacent properties. The proposed project budget does not include any cost for additional testing, remediation, and/or export. There is no inclusion of the need to rework or replace the existing test wells. Beyond the unmitigated environmental concerns, the City of Fullerton Grant Application asserts “connectivity” as a positive feature of the proposed trail. These assertions are demonstrably false. The proposed trail does not connect to any businesses; it does not connect to Downtown Fullerton; it does not create connections between parks and schools; it does not connect different parts of the City and is actually contained within the same compact area. In fact, the proposal for Phase II does not even connect to its predecessor, Phase I, which itself was a selling point in the Grant Application. In truth, the proposed trail is a disembodied half-mile length of property that starts and stops without reference to any other transportation corridors. To the West, Phase II terminates with the Burlington Northern Santa Fe right-of-way at the back corner of Independence Park, a park so poorly maintained that the playground, courts, and gymnasium have been closed off to the public for several years. On the East, Phase II abruptly ends at a sidewalk adjacent to Highland Avenue, a North-South thoroughfare serving approximately 11,500 vehicles daily, per the City’s own traffic study in 2019. Even if Phase II connected to Phase I, which it does not, Phase I itself stops at the back of the abandoned Union Pacific Park which was closed due to contamination 15 years ago. There is no practical extension in either direction. Despite these facts, the City of Fullerton’s Grant Application included a projected 105,000 annual users, a number that is simply preposterous on its face. The proposed trail does not pass through a residential neighborhood, but rather a blighted industrial strip situated between two dilapidated, neglected, and run-down parks. In short, it doesn’t go where anyone with common sense would want to go. The existing abandoned right-of way has provided plenty of evidence of being unsafe. There is rampant drug use, homeless encampments and two violent deaths over just the past few years. The City of Fullerton cannot afford to maintain the proposed facility, as is clearly witnessed in the condition of the trash strewn, dilapidated, weed-infested Phase I, a condition deliberately omitted from the grant application. The idea that this area has been so poorly maintained but somehow the City will be able to be good stewards of the area only AFTER the State grants it nearly $2 million more, is insulting. The $1.77 million grant represents resources that could, and should, be used elsewhere. Fullerton’s Application was disingenuous, at best. At worst it included falsehoods dressed up in words echoed back from the stated objectives of the Application Form in order to defraud the State. In writing this I am hoping that your Agency will reevaluate this project, rescind the funding, and find a better use of this valuable Grant money. Thank you for consideration of this matter.
Before we publish the unedited video of our former City Manager, Joe Burt Felz, arrested for drunk driving, only to be taken home and tucked into bed by his own MADD recognized cops, let us share some highlights of the video as shared and analyzed by FFFFs own Joshua Ferguson. Ferguson was the target of a vindictive and highly expensive lawsuit courtesy of the City’s “I Can’t Believe It’s A Law Firm” of Jones and Mayer. And so it is appropriate for Joshua to remind us what happened – and to remind those not paying attention that the Felz catch and release was a far from isolated case of malfeasance by our police department and our esteemed leaders in City Hall.
There is no no doubt that Danny “Gallahad” Hughes lied to the City Council about Felz, and that the cops knew doing the right thing was professionally dangerous.
As Ferguson says, if there is a lesson to be learned in this long train of corruption, you can be sure that Councilmen Ahmad Zahra and Jesus Quirk Silva haven’t learned it. They voted until the bitter end to keep the moribund lawsuit against FFFF staggering along.
20. AMERICAN RESCUE PLAN ACT UPDATE On March 11, 2021, President Biden signed the American Rescue Plan Act which programs over $1.9 trillion in relief funding related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Councilmember Jung requested, with concurrence from Mayor Whitaker, to hold an initial discussion of local funding opportunities. Recommendation: Provide direction as appropriate
On tomorrow night’s council agenda we see that Item #20 is a discussion about what to do with the Democrat’s Federal relief dough, estimated to be in the neighborhood of $35,000,000. That’s a nice neighborhood, especially if you’re a stumblebum city manager like Ken Domer who is hanging on to quarter mil per year job by the skin of his teeth.
Hitching to Blythe…
This pile o’ cash is undoubtedly already attracted the attention of the Hero unions who will be clamoring for equity, parity, and any other ity they can think up. And of course Domer has been complaining about his poor, overworked skeleton staff crew, too, so there’s that.
I know that the bureaucrats will be applying pressure to use the money for payroll and pensions. How do we know this? Because that’s what they were pushing hard with the late and not lamented Measure S tax. We can be sure that staff will be doing the usual song and dance about what the Biden Bucks can and cannot be spent on.
Well, here’s what I say: $35,000,000 will pay for a whole lot of paving and a whole lot of sidewalk.
Can these two help bring some accountability to Fullerton?
It’s painfully obvious that Councilpersons Zahra and Silva will do whatever they’re told by the City Manager. Fortunately, Councilmen Dunlap and Jung know who they work for. And it isn’t the public employee unions. That leaves Mayor Bruce Whitaker who actually helped Jung get this item on the agenda for public discussion.
This Tuesday, at the request of the Fire Heroes Union, the Fullerton City Council will vote (likely 3-2) to light $68,000 dollars on fire to get a bid from the Orange County Fire Authority (OCFA).
What’s $68k between friends?
This is a scam and just a waste of your tax dollars.
Don’t believe the fiscal lies being told here, none of the disingenuous liars who will vote for this care about your tax dollars and they’re certainly not going to get rid of Fullerton’s Fire Department to jump to OCFA.
The entire point of this bullshit bid is leverage to justify a raise for the Fire Department. Nothing more, nothing less.
I’ll prove it by using Council’s own agenda from the exact same meeting this coming Tuesday:
When you join OCFA you typically lease all of your equipment to them at no cost and all of your fire facilities for $1/year (as Garden Grove did a few years ago).
To take this bid seriously, you would have to believe that council is SERIOUSLY considering a bid to change to OCFA and is simultaneously spending $1,546,683.30 to buy Fullerton Fire a new ladder truck that they’ll just gift to OCFA to use as they see fit.
If we went to OCFA, it is them and not us who would decide where trucks (apparatus) would be stationed in order to best serve the cities under their jurisdiction. Thus it makes zero sense for Fullerton to buy a new truck when it might not even stay in Fullerton.
These conflicting agenda items would make no logical sense if this bullshit OCFA bid was serious. But it’s not serious.
This is just the council Dems lighting your tax dollars on fire, well, because screw you, they need to help a union argue for more of your money later during negotiations. Silva, Jung and Zahra refuse to take their role as representatives of the residents seriously any time a union rears it’s ugly head and this is just another gross example.
If the Fire Heroes Union wants this bid so bad they can pay for it their damn selves considering they have no issues spending their own money to try and raise your taxes (Measure S campaigning) or to pick your City Council (campaign contributions).
Your roads suck, your services are getting more expensive and you’re constantly being asked to do more with less by City Hall and City Council. Hell, the City asked you to donate Christmas decorations this last season because they’re so broke.
Hitching to Needles…
But not broke enough to avoid spending $65k of your money to help a union at the negotiating table.
If this bid was serious then the council would be getting bids from LA Fire and Placentia as well as OCFA. That’s how you find out the best services with the most benefits fort he residents at the best price – by shopping around. So of course they don’t want to do any of that.
Later this year when the City is selling everything not nailed down, and a few things that are, remember this moment when these disingenuous liars spent your money on political theater to help out the unions who will always put their interests above your safety.
Trying to look passed all of the bullshit the city has thrown at me
If you check the agenda for a City Council meeting you’ll often see options on how to leave a comment and the purpose of those comments. Here’s an example from last night’s Fullerton City Council meeting regarding eComments (emphasis added);
“Alternatively, the public may submit written public comments electronically for City Council consideration by clicking on the eComment link accompanying the agenda posted online at https://fullerton.legistar.com until the close of the public comment period for the item. Staff will read or summarize public comments during the meeting. All eComments received become part of the official record of the meeting and posted online with the supplemental materials for that meeting.”
You’re reading that correctly. The point of public comments is to talk to the City Council and bring concerns to your elected officials.
Somehow word got out to the commie BooHoos in the area that this is an appropriate forum to comment to ME as though 1) I give a damn and 2) I’m on council. I was told that last night no less than 3 idiots opted to aim their public comments at me for some unknown reasons. Idiots gonna idiot I suppose.
Quite obviously I’m not on council. While I ran in 2016 on a lark, I came in 9th out of 12 candidates. Even if I HAD won that race the term expired and I clearly wasn’t on the ballot in 2020.
I’ve made it clear I have no interest in running again so council will NEVER be an appropriate forum to address me with penny-ante nonsense.
Secondarily I didn’t even hear the comments addressed to me because, as stated above, I don’t really give a shit what you say there because you’re speaking to council, not me. If I happen to be at a meeting I may respond to comments I think are wrongheaded but largely I don’t spend my days listening to public comments in the hopes that you say something profound – let alone that you say something TO ME. I’ll tune in for people I respect but otherwise, hard pass.
As I didn’t hear the comments (It was taco Tuesday and I have priorities) and only know they exist secondhand (they haven’t been posted to the city’s website yet), I cannot respond and frankly I don’t think I will even after they’re made public because, again, I don’t give a shit what you say about or to me through an eComment in a forum not directly meant for my consumption.
The good government boys and girls over at FTR and their padrone, Tony Bushala, have jumped into the 2020 District 1 council campaign with their standard attack sign with the inevitable Barfman.
First, here’s the sign:
Barf Man Returneth…
They have conflated candidate Andrew Cho with the pet project of his boss, Jennifer Fitzgerald – Measure S. Nobody seems to know where the guy stands on the proposed tax increase, but some reliable sources have heard him support it. And since it is the brain child of Fitzgerald (who hand-picked Cho out of a line up of anonymous Korean-Americans residents) we may assume, that he is for it.
Anyhow the sign seems to go after two birds with the same stone and that’s pretty smart.
Anti Measure K activist Tony Bushala has lodged a formal request to OC District Attorney Todd Spitzer to investigate whether Fullerton Joint Union High School personnel illegally campaigned for the March 3rd bond effort.
Okay, do something…we dare ya.
According to State law, it is impermissible to expend public resources on behalf of an election. It’s a crime. Public agencies do it all the time, of course, and generally do it with impunity. Sometimes it’s subtle, sometimes it’s flagrant. Yet rarely does anybody challenge the behavior. But Mr. Bushala has. Below is a facsimile of an e-mail he sent to Spitzer today.
FFFF has already noted the school district personnel intimately involved in the K scam, and the idea that no district resources were used in the campaign is laughable. The District has already been caught using graduation tickets to bribe kids into “volunteering” for the campaign. Likewise school fences were used for pro-K banners. It’s easily conceivable that the people listed in the campaign reports used District communication networks and even physical space to try to foist K on the taxpayers.
Well, good luck Tony in your endeavor. You’ve already helped save home owners hundreds of million on the K and J grabs.
