Just when you imagine that those purveyors of idiocy, The Fullerton Observer, can’t get any more entangled in making the news, they excel themselves. And by excel I mean fraud.
Saskia sez why write about news when you can try to make your own?! (Photo by Julie Leopo/Voice of OC)
A Friend sent in an image of the latest paper copy of the Observer showing an unattributed ad for the money pit known as the Walk on Wilshire.
It’s intentionally fraudulent.
The effort is intended to stir up support for the street closure that right now is on life support, having been given only a three month reprieve by the City Council in July, while the bureaucrats stumble around looking for plausible reasons besides self-interest to keep it going.
The scam here is to suggest that the businesses listed get some benefit from the Wilshire Avenue street closure that so far has only one dedicated participant after four years – Mulberry Street. That’s just an oblique lie. Some of these businesses aren’t even on Wilshire, or even close to it; and others inside the Villa del Sol have no practical proximity to the street even if they wanted to play along with this money-losing, make-work charade characterized as “business development.” There are even two salons listed, the connective tissue to WoW so tenuous as to be transparent.
And the worst part is, there are several business listed here who are actively opposed the the street closure. Their phone numbers are printed here, presumably so that Observers can call them up and harass them into supporting the continuation of this nonsense. Did the Observer obtain permission from these businesses to use as a prop in the propaganda campaign? Wanna bet on that?
Things never looked better for Fullerton.
This is the sort of behavior that has the hallmark of the Fullerton Observer over the years, amateurism blended with vitriol for anybody that doesn’t bend the knee to the bureaucrats in City Hall, and weird leftist ideology.
A week or so ago FFFF reported that Jan Flory, the elderly, humorless scold who has been on the Fullerton City Council three times had taken out nominating papers to run this fall in the 2nd District.
FFFF rejoiced.
Too much scotch, not enough water…
We didn’t necessarily think she’d go through with it, what with her pushing 80 years old, her historic constituency dying off, and running against the popular and well-financed Mayor, Nick Dunlap. Still the prospect of having Flory around gave hope for all sorts of blogging fun – once again reciting her horrendous pro-tax, pro-corruption record.
Provide Your Own Caption
And now we learn that Mrs. Flory has indeed returned her nominating papers and is in the process of creating a new campaign committee.
Better check the sell by date…
Well, done, Jan, say I. Your record of “public service” is in a class by itself.
You were the one who approved the budget busting 3@50 retroactive pension bonanza to cops and paramedics.
You were the one who enthusiastically supported the illegal water tax.
You were the one who supported Measure S, the foolish sales tax effort.
You were the one who supported the ill-conceived Utility Tax, and wished it had been double,
You were the one who approved years of red ink budgets and lied about them to the public.
You were the one who cut a slimy deal with Ahmad Zahra to deny the citizens of Fullerton a chance to vote on a replacement for Jesus Quirk Silva.
You were the one who refused to create a citizens commission to reform the Culture of Corruption in the Fullerton Police Department.
You were the one who defended the Three Bald Tires in the wake of the Kelly Thomas murder by the cops. You called them honorable men.
You were the one to sneer and deprecate your own constituents if they dared criticize or complain about the actions of your beloved “staff.”
You were the one to support every Redevelopment boondoggle and every massive, over-built apartment block.
Last Tuesday the Fullerton City Council considered extending the so-called Walk on Wilshire project, a staff-driven closure of Wilshire Avenue just west of Harbor to auto traffic and leasing the street to adjacent businesses to operate for outdoor dining. The “pilot” program term ended in June but “economic development” bureaucrats sure wanted to keep it going even though it’s over fifty grand in the hole so far, with little but wishful thinking promising success in the future.
Right off the bat, Mayor Nick Dunlap recused himself. Apparently his father is part owner of the adjacent the Villa del Sol building that has tenants who may or may not want the street closure ended. That left four councilmembers to deal with the item.
It turns out that the folks in City Hall commissioned another one of those surveys designed to arrive at a pre-determined conclusion that City Hall wants. We’ve seen that over and over and over again. Guess what? Everyone just loves them some Walk on Wilshire.
Public speakers included about five or six people nobody had ever heard of before, suggesting that they were planted by staff or a councilmember like Shana Charles to be there. Oh, they just oozed enthusiasm for the closure, rhapsodizing on the exclusion of cars, the walking and the bicycling and the ambiance, etc., all the touchy-feely stuff you would expect.
Why write about news when you can try to make your own! (Photo by Julie Leopo/Voice of OC)
Saskia Kennedy, editor of the yellowing Fullerton Observer got up to extol the virtues of the plan, proving that making the news is a lot more fun than responsibly reporting it.
Several adjacent business owners spoke, complaining about the unfairness of the closure that only benefitted three adjacent restaurants and that hurts their business. They included the owners of Pour Company, Les Amis, and The Back Alley Bar and Grill, and Tony Bushala who owns the historic building at 124 W. Wilshire.
Local hero…
Two other speakers, Joshua Ferguson and Jack Dean made excellent arguments against continuing the closure. Ferguson pointed out that the council was being asked to make a decision based on insufficient information, while Mr. Dean reminded the council that the business and property owners on Wilshire, many of whom were not even notified of the meeting, have a paramount interest in this endeavor.
When the chit-chat was all over it became clear that there was not a majority in favor of continuing the program until December. Zahra and Charles naturally wanted to prolong the boondoggle, Fred Jung and Bruce Whitaker didn’t. In a rambling discourse Whitaker went to great but unpersuasive lengths to explain his switcheroo, but did hit upon one truth. The Walk on Wilshire is completely driven by bureaucrats in City Hall, and nobody else. A motion for continuing the Walk on Wilshire until the end of the year failed on a 2-2 vote.
Cost analysis is hard…
But a waffling Whitaker was in favor of giving the participants three months to plan for the end of the program which wasn’t all that bad of an idea. However, Shana Charles thought she espied the eye of the needle and threaded herself though it, using all the arguments against the Walk on Wilshire to propose that staff review the mess, again, and come back, again.
The pirouettes were dizzying…
Waffling Whitaker agreed to a return of the item in three months to study up on the issue, as if there hadn’t been plenty of time to do that already. And so a council majority voted 3-1 to keep the patient on life support, and as usual nothing was decided and there was no specific direction. Staff is supposed to review something, anything, who knows what.
There never seems to be closure until it is approved by the bureaucrats who are the real profiteers on money losing schemes. It’s job security.
At last Tuesday night’s Fullerton City Council meeting the annual CDBG show took place.
CBDG stands for Community Development Block Grant – money that is doled out by the Department of Housing and Urban Development to local governments to fritter away with no accountability after slicing off the lion’s share for themselves to “administer” stuff.
The local do-gooder community surround this federal largesse like hungry koi wanting to be fed. Some get money, some don’t. Most of these applicants are centered in the homeless industrial complex, that cluster of NGOs that are the recipients of untold government paychecks who are never held accountable for anything.
One of the items that caught my eye was money – $350,000 for the abandoned Union Pacific Park – the municipal embarrassment that has created an eyesore on Truslow Avenue for two decades. It was described in two different documents. The first mention is in the staff PowerPoint presentation:
This laconic slide is most unhelpful since there are no details. We know it’s a 1.4 acre park, but we also know there is a plan for a new park; so why this cryptic reference? You can’t boil a government potato for $350,000, so what’s the plan, a partial rehabilitation?
New but not improved…
We know if the walkways are “damaged,” it was because the City damaged them last year – when pressure was put on staff by the City Council to reopen the park. Do they mean sandblasting the graffiti?
The term “sports courts” is unhelpful because there is only one – an old basketball slab. Some people wanted pickle ball courts but can you do them without the rest of the park? What gives?
The staff report is accompanied by a slightly more specific “action plan” that gives details about the various grant applications. Here we discover this:
There is no existing trail in UP Park, so what are they talking about? Who knows? Are they referring to the dilapidated Phase I of the dismal Trail to Nowhere? Do they want to fix the barrio’s equestrian trail railing? No, the public may not know, but one thing is certain: nobody in City Hall wants to discuss the failure of the UP Park and Phase I of the Trail to Nowhere; they just want to waste more money on them.
The presentation did elicit a few words from some staff guy who stood up saying the City wants to add new “courts” and ADA improvements at the little parking area, language implying that there is indeed some sort of concept to rebuild this park in pieces, an idea which makes sense in a perverted sort of way – everything about this park has been screwed up by City staff since the proverbial Day One.
Tellingly, not one councilmember bothered to question the idea of phasing construction of anything, and whether this is a good idea. It may be that some of them want to plant grass and then forget about the Big Plan. If that is the plan, no one wants to talk about it publicly, and the UP Park Committee has vanished, never to be heard from at all.
At this point the piecemealing pantomime is good for appearances, and the appearance seems to be to be seen doing something, no matter how futile the flailing.
I guess the otherwise laughable piecemealing means that this next inevitable failure will happen in less a less expensive manner.
What appeared to be a pretty tame fall City Council election may have just become a lot more fun.
The closer you look, the worse it gets.
Word on the street is that Jan Flory pulled nomination papers yesterday to run against Mayor Nick Dunlap in the 2nd District election in November.
Too much scotch, not enough water…
Who is Jan Flory? If you don’t know, take a spin through our files, here. You’ll find all sorts of entertaining stories about Ms. Flory and even about her creepy/pervy son Mike, who used to be a Deputy District Attorney and even tried to be a judge once.
How far did the apple fall from the tree?
Maybe not breast fed long enough…
Jan Flory was elected to the City Council in 1994 and voted off in 2002. In those eight years she happily allowed an illegal water tax, voted for the disastrous retroactive public safety pension spike and supported the culture of unaccountability that has helped us get where we are today.
In 2012 she hauled herself out of the stable to try another lap around the track.
See if you can find the old nag.
Her mission was to restore municipal authority to the Old Guard she represented, and to protect the Culture of Corruption at the Fullerton Police Department from any sort of reform. She informed us that the City Department heads were the “heart of the City.”
She put in her four years, patting her Chief of Police Danny Hughes on the fanny as they both walked out the door in 2016, a few days after the drunken City Manager, Joe Felz drove over a tree and tried to drive away. The ensuing cover up turned out to be expensive. Oops.
Poor Sappy. So young, so vibrant…
But Jan wasn’t done with us. Not by a long shot.
When an opening on the City Council occurred in 2019 guess who was there to snap up the job? After her appointment she rewarded the unemployed Ahmad Zahra for his vote with a paying gig at the Orange County Water District.
In this last stint Flory was happy to continue her love affair with unbalanced budgets and was one of the members of the Council, along with Jesus Quirk Silva, Ahmad Zahra, and Jennifer Fitzgerald who waged a legal vendetta against this blog and specifically against Joshua Ferguson and David Curlee. Of course that harpy-like mission cost the taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars, but didn’t cost the perpetrators anything.
Ferguson and Curlee. The easy winners…
Well, I sure hope Ms. Flory really does want to run. The entertainment value alone is worth it. Who her constituency might be is unclear. There aren’t that many elderly liberals left in Fullerton. She might get the support of the yellowing, and thinning Fullerton Observer crowd, but a humorless, stick-up-the-backside septuagenarian is not likely to appeal to anyone under seventy.
Next Tuesday our City Council will once again address the issue of Walk on Wilshire, the bureaucrat-driven “pilot program” that closed off the 100 block of West Wilshire Avenue to street traffic so that three restaurants could set up shop in the middle of the street. The issue is whether to approve an extension of the idea. Pretty soon they’re going to drop the word “pilot” altogether, and we’ll know that City Hall has permanently squatted on the street.
As usual, the staff report is so poorly written that it takes some forensic work to figure it out.
Off we go, into the Wild Blue Yonder…
So far the thing has cost ninety grand, but more “enhancements” are projected – another $80,000. Staff says lease revenue for the past 27 months is less than $36,000, but somehow will go up to $40K a year once two more users build their “parklets” – a silly phrase that has currency among urban “planners.” That remains to be seen, but any way you slice it, with ongoing maintenance costs it will be years before the City recoups its outlay – if it ever does. This concept seems to have eluded the crack minds of our “Economic Development” employees, and our City Council that steadfastly spends more to get less back. But that is the constant theme of Downtown Fullerton.
It’s funny how depriving the taxpaying citizens of their right to drive on a public street is seen as a good thing in some circles – cars bad, bad, bad; and the impact on other businesses on Wilshire Avenue isn’t taken into account at all. Some folks seem to think the experience is cosmopolitan, likening it to a veritable Parisian vacation, but failing to note the difference between a sidewalk café and putting tables out in the middle of a road closed for that purpose – something no Parisian citizen would tolerate for a second.
Even though the staff report says it awaits City Council guidance, it is replete with pro-street theft propaganda, including another one of those ginned up polls done by Kosmont whose previous efforts include this hot mess. And it gets even worse.
Staff is requesting an “Asssement” opportunity to locate other places in DTF to recreate the money loser on Wilshire, “vibrancy” sounding ever so much better than bureaucratic busywork and inconvenient street closings.
Well the die is already cast on this one. Zahra and Charles just ooze sanctimonious support for this hare-brained idea; and Bruce Whitaker is all in for it, too, for some nincompoop reason – maybe because his wife likes it. Nick Dunlap recused himself last time and may do so again. Or he may just go along with more staff-driven nonsense. Only Fred Jung seemed really opposed to this scheme, but he’s going to be in the minority.
In five days potential Fullerton City Council candidates for Districts 1,2, and 4 will be able to “pull” nomination papers. I don’t know why the phrase is “pull papers” but that’s what they call it.
At this point you can only tell who’s running by those who have created candidate committees. And that’s a short list, indeed. Committees are listed on the City Clerk’s webpage, here, under disclosures.
Anyone else?
In Districts 1 and 2 only the incumbents Fred Jung and Nick Dunlap have committees. This is not unusual as incumbents are hard to beat, but usually some brave souls sign up. Of course you don’t need to have a committee unless you plan on raising money above a certain threshold. I believe it’s a thousand bucks, but don’t quote me on that.
She wants what you have.
In District 4 there are two candidate committees on record. As previously noted one is for retired City employee Vivian Kitty Jaramillo who apparently used to write parking tickets back in the day.
Two Whitakers for the price of one…
The other candidate is Linda Whitaker, wife of outgoing councilman Bruce Whitaker. Neither of these candidates has any experience as an elected person, although Jaramillo has run previously and lost badly when council elections were held city-wide. She was subsequently party to a lawsuit to force district elections where she must have figured she has a chance of winning. She’s the Democrat anointed candidate and is supported by the Ahmad Zahra and Shana Charles, our megalomaniacal and dingbat councilpersons, respectively.
Jaramillo would be a very poor choice as a vocal tax proponent and the beneficiary of City CalPERS payments. A win by her would create a new council majority run by the manipulative Zahra. Ms. Whitaker would probably be better on some revenue raising issues, but some have suggested that she is the moving spirit behind her husband’s disastrous votes on closing Wilshire Avenue for the benefit of a few restaurants, and the support of the nonsensical “boutique” hotel. I don’t know if this story is responsible, but the votes are testament to exceedingly poor judgment. She might also be inclined to form a majority with Jung and Dunlap as her husband has done.
It remains to be seen if either Jaramillo or Whitaker intend to run vigorous campaigns and how much money they can raise to do it.
So far nobody else has shown interest publicly – yet. The deadline to return papers to the City Clerk is August 9th – only a month away unless an incumbent pulls out. Then the period is extended 5 calendar days.
It would be nice to see somebody else pop up to run in the 4th District, but time is running out fast.
I wasn’t able to watch the Fullerton City Council meeting last night to see If my predictions would take place. But I’ve heard about it. Some did, some didn’t.
If I knew what I was talking about this wouldn’t be Fullerton!
The item for consideration of a plebiscite 13% sales tax increase, placed on the agenda by Ahmad Zahra and Shana Charles, went nowhere as I supposed it would. In the end the staff report was “received and filed,” a polite way of saying sayonara and into the round file with you.
Hey, you down there…
As predicted Zahra and Charles pleaded ardently for putting the tax on the ballot – even cutting the amount and placing some sort of sunset term. No takers.
What didn’t happen was the appearance of Zahra’s Zanies, his coterie of cult followers, to harass and harangue the Council majority. A little gaggle of folks spoke, discussion was held, and then the proposal was sent to the dead letter office. In almost no time the meeting was adjourned and everybody went home very early.
I wonder if Zahra even tried to marshal his forces, or whether he couldn’t muster any support. Why else agendize the issue knowing failure was certain. Maybe just to check the box.
Put your money in the bucket over there!
It could be that Ahmad’s Aimless Army was busy elsewhere, maybe even pursuing recreation on his famous Trail to Nowhere.
I don’t know if District 4 candidate, Vivian Kitty Jaramillo even showed up.
When the video is available I may get details of who said what, but I’m not sure it matters.
The City is meeting tomorrow to to talk about putting a sales tax on the November ballot.
The staff report wrongly states that the City Council requested this item, which is an intentional lie. The matter was placed on the agenda by the minority of Ahmad Zahra and Shana Charles, two individuals I wouldn’t trust to run a lemonade stand.
Show me the money…
These two fought long and hard to discuss the issue on June 4th, even though no public notice of a tax was on the silly revenue-grab agenda.
Tomorrow we will see a small army of Fullerton Boohoos crying out for a 13% sales tax increase on the ballot. Obviously they want to go for a general use tax because that only takes 50%+1 to win, whereas a special use tax requires 66% – an almost impossible hurdle.
But there’s the rub. A general use tax requires a 4/5 council majority to put it on the ballot, and the pro-tax Zahra and Charles don’t seem to be able to manage the simple majority required to put a special use tax on the ballot.
So what’s the point of this charade? We’ve seen this Zahra act before: mobilize his coterie of “underserved” residents to harangue the Council, and thus embarrass Jung, Whitaker and Dunlap.
Put your money in the bucket over there!
But this is not the ludicrous Trail to Nowhere, and bullying won’t work. There’s only one meeting available to get this done, and tomorrow won’t be it.
“Appetisers” for all…
The only question I have is whether District 4 candidate Vivian Kitty Jaramillo will stand up and support the tax.
FFFF has already reported on some of the colorful financial background of Johnny Lu of TA Partners, our City’s stand-up partner on the so-called “boutique” hotel project at the railroad tracks. This hot mess even has a name: The Tracks at Fullerton Station. The development has morphed into a monstrous minotaur by adding approval for a massively dense apartment – an amalgamation which gives us a shocking 130 units per acre, overall.
Well, anyway, we previously shared the news that Johnny was in default on massive construction loans he somehow finagled for projects in Irvine a few years ago. The lender on those has foreclosed on those properties.
That can’t be good…
And here’s some even more recent news. It seems that Johnny has waded out into more legal problems over in LA, according to The Real Deal, a real estate news source. Here’s the thrust of the complaint by bamboozled investors on a “project” at Playa Vista:
“The investors — who form an entity called RUC14 Playa LLC — sued Lu, Liu and TA Partners, alleging commingling of funds, fraud and misrepresentation, court records show. Attorneys for TA Partners, which have requested for arbitration in the case, did not respond to a request for comment.“
Johnny and his partner, Larry Liu, declared their bankruptcy on the Playa Vista project. But let’s give the misunderstood boys a break. A little contrition goes a long way, right? Said Larry:
“We would like to offer our apology for the non-compliance during project execution,” Liu wrote in the letter. “Self-reflection is needed and I would like to apologize.”
Whatever any of this means to “TA Westpark LLC.,” the corporation that was awarded the Fullerton project entitlements (without any competition) remains to be seen. But now Johnny and Larry have equity – and boy have they got equity; see, Councilmembers Zahra, Charles and Whitaker handed them a bonanza – a plot of land available for hundreds of units – for a mere pittance: $1.4 million less associated costs.
Ms. Charles happened to mention at a council item about raising funds for Fullerton’s fiscal disaster, that the boutique hotel plan was moving along. But there was no mention of the fiscal disaster facing Johnny and Larry Enterprises. Does she even know? Does she understand what is happening? Does she care? Probably no on all three.
The plan here is crystal clear. At this point nobody is going to lend Lu and Liu a bent nickle. But these fine fellows will have entitlements worth tens of millions on this project; a project that never should have happened in the first place – an unsolicited proposal by a local guy who had no chance of building a birdhouse.
This project will be reassigned to a third party, someone the City “business development” expert bureaucrats will be sweet-talked into recommending. And then Johnny and Larry will quietly disappear from Fullerton with millions belonging to us.
