On Tuesday the City Council was presented with an agenda item that opened discussion about a City response to the recent ICE operations and provide some sort of assistance to people being harassed by the masked bandits formally known as Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
How dare you question my origin narrative!
Naturally this bit of boohooing was agendized by Ahmad Zahra, who reminded us he is an immigrant without sharing the fact that he got a Green Card and ultimately citizenship, via immigration fraud, and his pal, Shana Charles who can’t find anything so stupid she won’t go for it. Plus we learned that she has an ex-husband, and this gentleman’s Guatemalan family is under some sort of duress.
What you see depends on where you stand
As usual, Fullerton Boohoo turned out in force to apply pressure to give public assistance to people without legal status in the country. Ahmad Zahra was clear: the broke City can find $200,000 in the municipal sofa cushions to do something for somebody: at least $100,000 for legal defense and at least $100,000 for some undefined daily living/rent assistance. There was no mention of who would administer such funds, who would get them, or any other practical detail. Rome wasn’t built in a day, you know.
I have no problem providing help for indigent citizens who have been wrongfully detained/legally harassed by the ICE goon squad. Citizens who can’t afford legal representation have recourse to public defense in the criminal justice system. But making local taxpayers pay for the legal cases of non-citizens is absurd. There is no question among the intelligent that everybody in America deserves due process. Why this should extend to Fullerton handing out monetary relief for illegal aliens escapes me.
The staff report on the matter, as usual, was equivocation personified, and useless. Halfway through, the staff report jumped ship completely and began describing a residential tenant registry to gather data about housing stability. What the everlasting fuck? It’s almost like somebody in the City Manager’s office cut and pasted something from a whole other agenda item.
Valencia is smiling on it…
In the end a Council majority voted 3-2 for the staff to cook up some sort of resolution to affirm (their) community values and prepare for the necessary budget actions. Zahra and Charles, of course voted to do so; and somehow Jamie Valencia was bamboozled into going along, although she later stated that her vote only meant that the City should act as a facilitatorto some extent, for non-profits, churches, and anybody else who wants to help the newly discovered clientele. Hopefully she directs the City Manager to dump the whole idea of public funding.
Friends can file this story under a number of different categories: political puppetry, gross hypocrisy, unmitigated gall, comical self-righteousness, offense is the best defense; pick any one you like.
Pay no attention to the overdue bills…
At last Tuesday’s Fullerton City Council meeting we were treated to another diatribe by a guy named Oliver Montecristo attacking Fred Jung, Nick Dunlap and Jamie Valencia. We have already met Oliver, here. Oliver wants everyone to believe that Jung and his colleagues are anti-small business, a new line of attack by Ahmad Zahra and Shana Charles, two muppets who have never run a business in their lives.
I sometimes fight for transparency!
It’s pretty clear that Oliver is one of the minions in Zahra’s stable of impressionable young fellas. His other protégé, lively young Elijah Manassero, has taken up the myth of the City’s persecution of Olly’s mom, and the family restaurant, Les Amis. The rents on City property are so darn high! The Kennedy Sisters at the Fullerton Observer have also taken up the Les Amis cause.
The only problem is that the Montecristo clan led by mom, Jinan, have a notorious record of not paying their bills, and encroaching on public property without authorization or permits. Check it out:
Feb 2011 Jinan Montecristo d.b.a. Les Amis Restaurant & Lounge (Jinan) applied for an outdoor dining encroachment agreement.
Aug 2011 After several reviews of the site plan, staff provided a draft encroachment agreement to Jinan for consideration
Sept 2011 Jinan issued a letter to staff challenging the lease rates. Les Amis installed fencing and started operating within the public right-of-way without executed agreement (south patio).
Dec 2011 Staff send revised encroachment agreement for consideration
June 2012 Jinan was issued an Administrative Restaurant Use Permit (ARUP), which included an ancillary outdoor patio. Among other things, the conditions of the ARUP required a valid encroachment agreement pursuant to the Outdoor Dining Guidelines established by the City Council.
July 2012 Staff send revised encroachment agreement for consideration
Dec 2015 Jinan submitted building permit to expand into the north portion of the building.
Feb 2016 Staff inform Jinan that she owed $28,659.60 for use of the public right-of-way of private benefit (9/2011 – 2/2016).
May 2016 Modification of an Amended ARUP was approved, expanding existing restaurant into adjacent tenant space. Jinan executed an encroachment agreement for outdoor dining (south patio only; $510/month; $6,120 annually). The agreement also required payment for 12-month prior occupancy ($6,120; negotiated down from $28,659.60).
Aug 2016 Jinan issues a letter to staff indicated they are “unable to fulfill financial obligations” due to “hardship”.
April 2017 Jinan was issued a letter from the City attorney to pay outstanding balance on account.
May 2017 Encroachment Agreement expired.
Aug 2017 Les Amis expanded into the north patio area without a permit/agreement for outdoor dining.
Nov 2018 Jinan was issued a letter from the City attorney, indicating they are in violation of their ARUP, failed to pay the lease outlined in the executed agreement, and are required to remove encroachments (north and south patio) by Dec. 14, 2018. Jinan subsequently expressed interest in continued use of both patios. Outstanding balance was $24,643.70 at the time.
Dec 2018 Jinan signed resolution of breach of outdoor dining encroachment agreement and FMC. Resolution waived outstanding balance on Patio 2 (north patio; $5,263.70), resulting in $19,380 of remaining account balance.
Jan 2019 Staff sent two encroachment agreement(s) for consideration. Jinan expressed interest in removing Patio 1 (south patio) and expanding Patio 2 (north patio)
March 2019 Jinan executed Encroachment Agreement for new north patio only. New Agreement was for $913.75/month ($510 for north patio; $403.75 for prior occupancy fee ($19,300 amortized over 48 months))
Permit was issued for removal of fencing around south patio and installation for north patio expansion per executed agreement.
May 2020 City Council paused collecting lease revenue from all outdoor dining encroachments due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Outstanding balance for all outdoor dining agreements was also waived. Les Amis waived balance was approximately $13,647.50.
June 2022 Council approved new lease rates for outdoor dining on public property.
Aug 2022 Les Amis reinstalled south patio without permits and/or an agreement.
Sept 2022 Jinan submitted application to reinstall south patio.
Aug 2023 Staff reinitiated collecting lease from all existing agreements.
Oct 2024 Jinan defaulted on payments from August 2023 to October 2024, accumulating a dept of $13,468.71. Jinan signed an agreement for a 12-month payment plan to pay the outstanding debt of $13,468.71.
NOTE: this did not include prior occupancy for the reinstalled south patio.
Nov 2024 Jinan executed two superseding encroachment agreements for outdoor dining with the new lease areas and rates.
April 2025 Jinan defaulted on payments, accumulating an outstanding balance of $26,650.96. Staff terminated the agreements, cancelled the payment plan, issued several notices of violations, and required removal of all encroachments. Jinan expressed financial hardship and requested the City revisit the lease rate. Jinan also paid $1,200 toward the payment plan and expressed interest in purchasing the property. The city paused removal to explore options.
July 2025 Jinan was once again requested to remove all unpermitted encroachments. Jinan paid $3,900 toward the payment plan. City Manager agree to extend the time for compliance or a change in the Outdoor Dining policy for 60 days. To date, Jinan has an outstanding balance of $31,185.10 ($5,494.06 payment plan; $25,691.04 encroachment agreements)
Yikes! What a history of screwing the taxpayers. Almost 15 years worth. Poor, small-businessman Oliver was in fourth grade when it started.
Not paying your debts to the public is the best way to become a Sharon Quirk Woman of the Year!
Over the years Jinan has deliberately dodged paying many tens of thousands of dollars in rent to the people of Fullerton. She has illegally encroached onto public property without agreements or permits in place on numerous occasions. The record is abundantly clear: the City has bent over backward for years and years to accommodate this woman; rather than evicting Janin from the City’s property and taking her to court for the rent due she has effectively stolen, they kept giving her more opportunities to rip us off. Pathetic, really.
Found another victim!
Well, Oliver may think the documentation of his family stiffing the public is all nonsense and that somehow he and mommy are victims, doncha know; however, no one except the inordinately stupid would believe it.
The cynical manipulators like Doc Zahra don’t believe it either, but Zahra won’t miss a chance to get some eager fool to stand up and harass the people who haven’t, and won’t make him Mayor.
It could be worse. It could be Speed Metal! Wait. It is!
Last night the Fullerton City Council, at long last, approved a noise-related addition to the Municipal Code. The vote was 3-2: Jung, Dunlap, and Valencia for, Charles and Zahra voting no.
This effort has been going on for over ten years, has been diddled with by more than ten City Councilpersons (Flory twice), and five City Managers, acting and permanent.
The ordinance is pretty tame really, with decibel levels I think are way too high, but at least gauged at the property line where the goofy and distracting issue of “ambient noise” can be better put to rest. Hours of outdoor music have been addressed with common sense and respect for neighboring inhabitants.
Fines for violators are in place, and about time, too.
For the business…
It was amusing to watch Zahra and Charles pretend to be “pro-business.” We know the performance was disingenuous because of their cavalier attitude to non-bar businesses on Wilshire Avenue that suffered when that pair closed the street for their absurd “Walk on Wilshire.” They ignored the fact that downtown Fullerton runs in the red and is subsidized by the rest of us. Really their act was about voting against what they characterized as the wishes of “one businessman” regardless of the need for reform.
In what surely must be the dumbest thing said in recent years at a council meeting, Ahmad Zahra claimed as a fact that the “downtown is dying,” a really weird and irresponsible thing to utter. The Dismal Damascus Doctor offered exactly zero facts to support his stupid utterance.
Transparency, uber alles!
Naturally, our friend sweet young Elijah Manassero popped up to inform the council that most of the bar owners were already non-compliant with the new rules. His logic led him to conclude that therefore the new regulations were ill-advised. It didn’t seem to occur to the tender sprout that the continual bar-owner abuse of existing law was precisely why the new ordinance was needed. I have no idea what they’re teaching the young folk these days, but thinking doesn’t seem to be in the bundle, although I’m sure callow Elijah has loads and loads of self esteem.
Now it will be time to see if the City Code Enforcement operation will employ the willingness and the competence to enforce the law. They have stubbornly refused to do so in the past, partly because councilmembers were running interference for the scofflaws. And part of the reason for staff’s reluctance might be because enforcement implies some sort of fault or failure, and in City Hall the decades long mess they made out of downtown Fullerton, has been characterized as a stunning and inarguable success.
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.
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.
And last year we were number 29, among Orange County’s 34 cities based on per capita unrestricted net positions (UNP).
FFFF’s Bureau of Data & Statistics (FFFFBDS) was presented the following chart produced by the California Policy Center, a conservative think tank who tracks such things.
Keep going to toward the bottom…
Ouch. Fullerton is way down there at the bottom – each citizen being in the red for $1050 – based on 2023 numbers from the Annual Comprehensive Financial Report. We are better off than Orange, Costa Mesa, Anaheim and Santa Ana.
Pretty soon Fullerton is going to have to pay the piper and we will be presented, once again, with a Measure S-type sales tax increase in the 13% range. The question is whether such a tax can pass at an election. A General Tax only needs 50%+1 but may be a tough sell; a special tax – for infrastructure, say – requires 67% a harder nut, but one where people can see what they’re getting.
Accountability? It was never on the agenda.
An infrastructures tax does noting to alleviate Fullerton’s chronic financial mismanagement under Fitzgerald, Flory, Zahra, Quirk-Silva and Charles. It’s very clear that the liberals on the Council want the tax that eluded them in 2020.
Ideas, anyone? Anyone else?
But what about Jung and Dunlap? They are no longer able to distance themselves from Fullerton’s fiscal cliff having now been around for over four years. What have they done to ameliorate the chronic shortfall? The answer is nothing. For years the sleepy Bruce Whitaker voted no on annual budgets and he never bothered to put much thought into solving the problem.
Then there’s newcomer Jamie Valencia who’s not responsible for any part of the problem – yet. Will she go for a tax on the ballot? Her public safety union supporters will push her. Does she even understand the magnitude of Fullerton’s mismanagement? I wonder.
In defeat, malice…
Of course we may be grateful that Valencia’s opponent didn’t win. Then a sales tax would have been inevitable.
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.
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.
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.
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.
“Follow the Money” is their headline. But wait. Isn’t something missing?
Indeed, yes. They decided to publish information about the three winning candidates whom the really don’t like. And of course Fullerton Taxpayers for Reform has been the bane of big spending bureaucrats and politicians for years. But where is the information on Vivian Jaramillo?
Missing in action, I’d say.
But I checked all the right boxes!
Jaramillo got lots of campaign contributions from local unions, public employees, and lot from Fullerton’s public pension retiree gaggle. Not too much surprise there, so why not publish it? It’s still relevant.
But what really stood out was the omission of the massive Independent Expenditure Committee created to get Jaramillo elected. “Working Families for Kitty Jaramillo” was the recipient of $60,000 up front from the national HQ of the grocery store workers union. The local union “sponsored” the IE, but the dough came from Washington DC and the smart money was on its origin being none other than the Southern California dope dispensary cartel.
The marijuana money would be real hard for the Kennedy Sisters to explain without reminding folks that Jaramillo earned the nickname “Cannabis Kitty” due to her prior staunch support of Ahmad Zahra’s push for the broadest marijuana ordinance – the one he, Silva, and Flory voted on at the end of 2020.
The look of vacant self-satisfaction…
More even handed “reporting,” right? I don’t suppose anything is going to change from these darlings. The sniping, innuendo and criticism of Valencia, Jung, and Dunlap will continue unabated, with the usual conflation of news and editorial – in violation of any journalistic standards.
