Repuglicanism Archives - Friends For Fullerton's Future

January 31, 2026February 1, 2026Ahmad Zahra

Doug “Bud” Chaffee Screws Liberal Supervisor; Fullerton Boohoo Ignores Story

The relentlessly corrupt Nguyen spots unattended cash…

A couple weeks ago the Voice of OC did a couple of stories about the succession of the new Chairman of the OC Board of Supervisors. The first story posited the appointment of the incomprehensively corrupt Janet Nguyen as the new chair, over the then current Vice Chair, Katrina Foley. Foley has been passed over several times. The Voice’s reasoning was that Republicans Nguyen and Don Wagner would vote for the former; Democrats Vicente Sarmiento and Foley would vote for the latter. And our own home-grown rodent, Democrat Doug Chaffee? He has already endorsed Foley’s re-election opponent – a Republican – he thinks so little of her.

Brothers in arms: Chaffee and his mentor, the recently imprisoned Andrew Do.

Not one to miss an opportunity to promote himself (and his wife, Pilferin’ Paulette), the octogenarian made a deal to keep the office for himself another year. The little drama was scripted to make it look like Foley was behind the idea, which is pure nonsense. She didn’t have a third vote and was obviously cajoled into voting for Chaffee so she could remain Vice Chair..

After the little Kabuki was done it was stamped by all five of the Supervisors.

Now here’s a fun snippet from the second Voice article:

Chaffee said he was “looking forward to a little more restful year,” but that he looked forward to using his last year in office effectively.

“I would accept the position if so elected.”

What predictably disingenuous bullshit from this decrepit, evil chipmunk.

But here’s the kicker: there has not been a single mention of Chaffee’s screw job of Foley by the Fullerton Observer that spends so much energy bemoaning the poor travails of “Dr.” Ahmad Zahra who also can’t scrape up that necessary third vote for elevation to the lofty title Mayor of Fullerton.

Personally, I couldn’t care less how the Chairman of the OC Board of Supervisors gets three votes; ditto for the Mayor of Fullerton. Three is three and that’s all that matters. Got your feelings hurt? Stay out of politics. But I have to admit my annoyance (not surprise) by the hypocrisy of the Kennedy Sisters’ refusal to even mention the story of how a liberal woman was kept from her “turn” in their precious uber-liberal rag.

January 17, 2026January 17, 2026Ahmad Zahra

The Marovic Sidewalk

by Mr. Peabody22 Comments

A new year, and for Fullerton, lingering problems remain a municipal embarrassment, except that the people in charge don’t seemed particularly inclined to terminate them.

The seven year-old boutique hotel has lots of current actors’ fingerprints on it. And then there’s the decades old case of the hijacked sidewalk on Commonwealth and Harbor, heisted by the Florentine Crime Family in 2002, who put a permanent structure on it, attached to a building they didn’t even own. It has never been returned.

Zahra Congratulates Marovic (in green cap) for his lawsuit…against us.

The current owner of the adjacent structure and the business in it, Mario Marovic, made a deal with the City in 2022 to remove the offending structure.

Marovic reneged on the agreement, and boy he reneged hard. The demotion was to start in March 2023 and be done by that July. Nothing started except that Marovic filed some sort of claim and lawsuit against the City for some made up reason, and the the whole mess disappeared into the usual mists of Closed Session.

In the meantime, Marovic has continued to benefit from the add-on as an integral part of his bar – Mickey’s Irish Pub for three years, and counting.

Meet the new proprietor, same as the old proprietor…

Although I can’t verify the rumor, Marovic finally got sick of paying legal bills last fall and decided to perform the scope of his original agreement. A status (secret) of the lawsuit popped up on the October 7th, 2025 City Council Closed Session agenda. This might have led to some new deal.

According to the deal rumor, Marovic was supposed to start removing the addition this month, January 2026. If there was a behind the scenes agreement, it should have been made public, although the City lawyers would proclaim the lawsuits pending until the removal is complete, and therefore not subject to public airing in public. Of course that would make no practical difference, but that’s the way it is – secrecy for secrecy’s sake.

I can’t see Marovic settling anything, stalling has been so fun; but maybe his legal bills are costing him more than revenue from the dozen chairs within the “bump out.” It would be nice to see Fullerton play hardball with this scofflaw, but it probably won’t happen. If the add-on actually does go away, I bet the taxpayers get stuck with the legal bill.

In the meantime the small contingent of “transparency” whiners at City Council meeting, the Fullerton Observer and their tender young investigative reporter Sweet Elijah Manassero don’t seem at all curious about this twenty four year-old scandal. I wonder why.

January 13, 2026January 16, 2026Ahmad Zahra

The Boutique Hotel to Nowhere, Part 2

by Mr. Peabody25 Comments

Warning: Conceptual only, not to be taken seriously!

The other day I described the history of the idiotic Boutique Hotel – a notion to build a high-end hotel on the site of the East Santa Fe parking lot at the Depot. The idea was, and is so stupid that it astounds any commonsensical thinker. And even worse, as the “unsolicited,” exclusive deal became less and less likely, the concept became bigger and dumber. The approved plan more than doubled the density allowed by the Transportation Center Specific Plan.

City projects are virtually immortal if they look like work for eager “economic development” bureaucrats or look like they can be sold as accomplishment by people like Ahmad Zahra and Shana Charles, who think (or pretend to think) that their gullible followers can be fooled into believing something good is happening.

Except that nothing good is happening. Our City officials increased the value of the property ten-fold through entitlements, but sold it for its original value – a staggering subsidy of at least ten million bucks. And that subsidy was handed to TA Partners, a flimflam operation fronted by a couple of con men, Johnny Lu and Larry Liu, at the end of 2022.

In the three intervening years nothing has happened so far as the public knows, even as TA Partners’ legal and financial woes have become public; woes that certainly should have been known by our economic development experts in City Hall prior to signing a contract, but weren’t. Why not? And why is the project at least two years behind schedule? Don’t ask. Fullerton being Fullerton.

The land was deeded over to Johnny and Larry without even an approved set of conceptual plans. But the deed was encumbered after a fashion with development and construction milestones.

And here’s the Schedule of Performance mentioned above:

I don’t know what sort of plans have been submitted, if any, but I know that grading should have started at least 20 months ago and hasn’t. And look at that project completion deadline – a Certificate of Occupancy by 10/21/26. That’s only nine months from now. As this fiasco looks worse and worse, not a peep from our friends at Fullerton Angry and Fullerton Transparency about the initial giveaway or the state of the schedule. They have more important if less expensive “scandals” to rant about.

Of course the paragraph tacked on to the Grant Deed, above, describes the covenants attached to the land, but that’s it. Other language talks about the City’s right to legal recourse if the conditions of the covenants are not met. That’s pretty toothless since lawsuits are always possible; there is no mention of Johnny and Larry surrendering their new asset, an asset whose entitlements could still make it worth a fortune. Why the City hasn’t already initiated legal action is a mystery worth speculating upon.

We all know that when it comes to Fullerton redevelopment boondoggles, nobody ever takes responsibility for failures. It’s just not good form to hold the masterminds accountable. Often it’s not enough to just keep quiet; sometimes staff actively tries to keep the boondoggle gasping for air so it can be reassigned to some new front man. That’s what I think must be happening now.

By the way, a majority of the current City Council has not voted for this hot mess. It’s a legacy mess.

It’s way past time to learn what’s going on, to find out what the status of the Boutique Hotel and Apartment monster and to find out why the City hasn’t pursued legal remedy to protect our interests.

January 6, 2026January 6, 2026Ahmad Zahra

The Boutique Hotel to Nowhere, Rehash, Part 1

by Mr. Peabody20 Comments

Domer-Decorations — Hitching to Desert Center

2026 is here, portending all sorts of fun for Fullerton. Some haunting spirits will have to be propitiated, among them is the so-called “boutique hotel” fiasco, one of the parting gifts of former incompetent City Manager, Ken Domer left for his ultimate successor, Eric Levitt.

You will recall the project: a small, high end hotel at the train station, that over the years morphed into a massive housing project attached to it.

Grab it and consume it as fast as you can…

Domer was the facilitator of the stupid concept cooked up by our former Mayor-for-Hire, the lobbyist Jennifer Fitzgerald. His sole reason for being City Manager, in fact, appeared to be his willingness to enable Fitzgerald’s wish lists into fruition.

And Domer was the fellow who let the project move along, during the gestation – recommending a non-bid, exclusive negotiating agreement with Westpark LLC, a company that couldn’t build a birdhouse. Domer was fired in the spring of 2021 but his boutique child, an infant that should have been strangled in its crib, lived on, proving that make-work ideas supported by staff never die.

The years passed and Levitt became godfather to Domer’s baby. In this time his staff had uncovered a new and willing partner – TA Partners. Enter Johnny Lu and Larry Liu, two con artists who were already getting deep into debt and fraud elsewhere in Southern California.

By the end of 2022 the real disaster struck: on December 20, 2022, the City voted to approve an agreement to deed over its property, the value increased tenfold, without an approved project even in place. The supporters? Ahmad Zahra, Shana Charles, and inexplicably, Bruce Whitaker, the latter ignoring any of the warning signs that his instincts should have been screaming to him.

Three years have passed. None of the milestones in the Development and Disposition Agreement have ben met. And nobody is talking about this fiasco, at least not in public. We have all learned that Larry and Johnny have pleaded guilty to fraud; that their project in Irvine collapsed, probably taken over by whatever investment bank was dumb enough to give them a construction loan.

Has the City even contemplated action? No closed session reporting has been forthcoming and no reasons given for why not. FFFF learned that the original Westpark guy, Craig Hostert’s family is suing Larry and Johnny for their hijacking of the project. They must see some sort of asset there. If so they are right.

Despite having failed to meet contractual deadlines, TA Partners owns this 1.7 acre parcel and is presumably paying their property taxes to keep it in the family. And the property has value thanks to a incompetent City Council majority.

The entitlements approved by Whitaker, Zahra and Charles are worth a fortune, and can, with the City’s approval, be assigned to somebody else, a tactic that City bureaucrats have pursued in the past to keep embarrassing projects alive and kicking. But that may not work because only Zahra and Charles will keep voting for this disaster.

This fiasco is now seven years old and if there’s an end in sight, it isn’t even on the horizon.

April 10, 2025April 11, 2025Ahmad Zahra

We Get Screwed. Again.

by Disillusioned Ex-Hippy22 Comments

You know when last week’s volunteer proposal to put public employees in ambulances popped up, I had to smile, just a little. The whole thing was so shaky, so duplicitous, so-ill conceived that you had to admire how the Heroes were able to so easily put up a hollow con job that a little kid, unlike our City Council, would question.

Of course the interests of the Fire Department and its employees jumped ahead of the interests of the citizenry.

And then it struck me. There are all sorts of ways our elected officials put others’ welfare ahead of the public, and nowhere is this better seen than in the way massive development projects that overwhelm Fullerton’s landscape. There is never any dissent. The councilpeople fall all over themselves to approve giant cliff dwellings for no discernable reason other than someone wants to do something to make a shitpile of money, and City staff gets to charge hours against fees and permits.

In short: no one is looking out for the interests of the people as the infrastructure gets taxed, neighborhoods get overwhelmed, and parking deficiencies are assumed by everybody – except the developer – who comes up with the best tale about why his project doesn’t need cars.

Which brings me, finally to the god-awful monstrosity going up on Chapman Avenue. I think it’s called “The Hub” a pathetic marketing tag that the developer hopes will generate buzz among the crowd that can afford a $3000 per month one bedroom apartment.

Just look at this hideous cliff-dwelling, which must now be the tallest residential building in Fullerton. Seven stories, eight stories? Forget about how this project was completely deficient in parking and how it’s going to impact traffic for everybody who uses the Chapman corridor. Think about the thousands of toilet flushes into the City’s sewers every day; think about the stress on Fullerton’s antique water transmission system needed to bathe these new residents and wash their clothes. Just think about the poor bastards who live across the street and will get to ponder this ponderous pile of overbearing, overbuilt, over-dense, under thought-out mess – for the rest of their lives.

Remember, Friends, this project, just like so many before it was a voluntary erection on the part of the City, rubber stamped by the people we elected. Nobody forced anyone to vote yes on this, but they all did, and they would all do so again. And they looked the other way as the burden of environmental impacts were shifted to the public. This project required General Plan Amendments and zone changes. These government entitlements are worth a fortune to a developer and that benefit reflects the shift of negative externalities to everybody else. What did the people of Fullerton get for the entitlements giveaways?

So take a drive along Chapman one of these days and see if you think our City Council is working for you…or somebody else.

March 24, 2025March 24, 2025About Us

Boutique Bungling Bears Bounty

by Mr. Peabody18 Comments

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

February 7, 2025February 7, 2025A Step in the Right Direction

Time for Fred Jung’s Iron Fist

by Mr. Peabody22 Comments

Yeah. It’s about time. For decades Fullerton’s citizenry have picked up the tab for one bad idea after another. So if Mayor Jung really did say he wanted the City run with an iron fist, let’s get going with the plug pulling.

It’s a total waste of money, but it sure is short…

The Trail to Nowhere

The abysmal Trail to Nowhere, a bad idea that was germinating for 14 years before the grant was finally approved at the end of 2023. City staff has never told the truth about this fiasco, and because of incurious and stupid councilmembers, they never had to. I can simply say that it would accomplish none of things its backers promise, mostly because the wishful thinking behind it was so untruthful from the start. No users, possible contamination, no linkage to anything, no destination at either end. Just a waste of 2.1 million bucks.

Oh, and yeah – the milestones for design submittal to the State and start of construction were blown past 9 months ago and still no status update from anybody.

The Boutique Hotel

The boutique hotel next to the train station started out as just a stupid idea by then Mayor-for-Hire Jennifer Fitzgerald. Then as the likelihood of failure increased, the City kept doubling down on dumb, adding density to density until an appended apartment block raised the density to at least 2.5 times the already dense limit in the Transportation Center Specific Plan. No one seemed to care, because those plans are only occasionally adhered to.

Nobody bothered to ask why useful City property had to be deemed “surplus.” Bruce Whitaker didn’t.

And last we looked the whole thing had been turned over to a couple of con men who paid 1.4 million for a property whose new entitlements made it worth ten times that much. Fullerton, being Fullerton. Those guys haven’t met any of their milestones and must certainly be in default. Not a peep out of City Hall, of course. I’ll bet my last dollar Sunayana Thomas is desperately looking for a new “developer” to assign the mess to, without a backward glance.

The Florentine/Marovic Sidewalk Heist

This 20 year+ scandal is still alive and kicking thanks to the stupid and cowardly attitude of staff/city council toward first, the Florentine Syndicate, and now, a new scofflaw, Mario Marovic. Somehow, the City let Marovic do remodeling construction work on our building on our sidewalk – an illegal trespass if ever there was one. Then the City let him open his newly remodeled place with promises to remove the “pop-out” as a condition of re-opening.

Zahra Congratulates Marovic for his lawsuit…against us.

Naturally, Marovic gave the City a big fuck you on that agreement, as he no doubt planned to do all along. He had six moths to start and nine months to finish. That was two fucking years ago, and Marovic is drawing income from our property the whole time. Nowadays this matter is safely hidden in closed session, where the painful subject of accountability for this quagmire can be safely discussed away from embarrassing public revelation.

Fortunately for the cast of characters involved there are so many culpable people in this story that blame can be diluted to the point where nobody feels the least bit compelled to explain what happened over two plus decades, just so long as the municipal humiliation goes away once and for all.

So, yes. Let the Fullerton Observer sisters and their ilk boohoo about iron fists and poor, intimidated staff. Fullerton has been in need of some accountability, even a tiny bit, for a long, long time.

February 4, 2025February 4, 2025A Step in the Right Direction

Fred Jung’s Iron Fist

by The Fullerton Harpoon57 Comments

The metaphor of the iron hand in the velvet glove has been attributed to many, including Friend of Fullerton, Napoleon Bonaparte.

Has Fullerton Mayor Fred Jung forgotten about the velvet glove?

Here’s a fun exchange harvested from the hysterical comments at the Fullerton Observer, home of the unbalanced Kennedy Sisters.

I have zero idea who Barbara Steeves is, or if there even is one; but the commenter wants people to believe he/she is privy to what goes on behind closed doors at City Hall. She is challenged by “M” who rightly questions the veracity of her information – if she was there. And naturally Sharon the elder Kennedy sister helpfully interjects, reminding M that Fullerton is a small town, and everybody knows everybody.

I don’t know Fred Jung so I don’t know if this is the kind of phrase he would even utter. But I sure hope it is, and that he said it.

For years Fullerton citizens and taxpayers have picked up the tab for incompetent staff decisions, including foolish lawsuits, lots of money wasted on useless projects all surrounded by unaccountability and complacency. It’s true that all of the disasters and fiascos have been rubber stamped by incurious, stupid, and supine city councils. Nevertheless, city staff is composed, allegedly, by competent professionals who ought to be able to guide the councils away from quagmires, and not create any of their own. But if they could, they obviously don’t want to and don’t care, failure being ignored and even rewarded.

It’s way past time that staff members tell the truth. Our Community Development Director Sunayana Thomas seems incapable of an honest answer to a council question. And then there’s our marble-mouthed lawyer Dick Jones, of the I Can’t Believe It’s A Law Firm, who has doled out the worst legal advice imaginable for 25 years or more.

Here are some random Fullerton issues where an iron fist attitude might have avoided the usual complacency and stupidity:

Laguna Lake leak

Boutique hotel fiasco

Trail to Nowhere

Florentine forgery case

Florentine/Marovic Sidewalk Heist

Walk on Wilshire money pit

Silly Roundabouts

Losing Lawsuit against FFFF

Fraudulent water rate scam

Unneeded elevators at depot bridge

Drunken City Manager cover up

Useless bridge in Hillcrest Park

Incompetent construction of wood stairs in Hillcrest Park

$ 1,000,000 Core and Corridors Specific Plan

Consistently misguided park priorities

Poison Park fiasco

University Heights disaster

The ridiculous Fox Block monster

The Downtown economic sinkhole & noise code violations

Monster apartment blocks without enough parking

Etc., etc., etc.

January 20, 2025January 20, 2025Ahmad Zahra

Jamie Valencia wants to Reduce Public Comment Time

by The Fullerton Harpoon30 Comments

At the last Fullerton City Council meeting, newly elected 4th District representative Jamie Valencia proposed reducing the time allotted to each general public commenter from three to two minutes. Her reasoning was to produce more efficient meetings. The motion failed 3-2 with Nick Dunlap, in what seems to be a trend, voting with Ahmad Zahra and Shana Charles – the Council’s two obnoxious moralistic pontificators.

The speakers present at the meeting objected, as well they might. That’s because many of them are constantly haranguing the Council majority about this or that, enjoying three minutes to blather away.

And of course the semi-literate Skaskia Kennedy at the Fullerton Observer couldn’t resist angry editorializing:

“In an apparent disregard for public engagement, newly elected District 4 councilmember Jamie Valencia made a motion to reduce the time allotted for each public commentor (sic) to speak at the start of city council meetings from three to two minutes.“

The general thrust of the opposition to the motion was that this proposal was an affront to public engagement, public participation, etc., etc.

Now, these are the same people who, if given three minutes will use it up, in pointless repetition, non sequitur, and in one recent case, a minute of silence just to annoy everybody.

On the face of it, Ms. Valencia’s proposal seemed like bad politics, and maybe it was.

What seems to be missing here on the part of Dunlap, Zahra and Charles is the understanding that these speakers are members of the public, but are not “the public.” They have been chosen by nobody but themselves, and represent nobody but themselves. Some of them are driven by some inner impulse to share their mental gyrations about something or other and, if given 180 seconds, will use them all.

But, hey, wait just a second. Why must all the other members of the public in attendance, or watching online be subjected to 180 seconds of the same nonsense over and over again? Why can’t everybody else enjoy shorter, better run meetings?

No one is claiming that the right to speak at a meeting be eliminated, or that “engagement” be ended. But why not make these folk distill their comments into something more concise, more relevant and more intelligent? My own attitude is that if you can’t express a general observation, complaint, or even irrelevant philosophizing into two minutes, then there’s something wrong with you.

December 30, 2024January 1, 2025Ahmad Zahra

Welcome to the No-tell Hotel

by The Desert Rat21 Comments

One thing you can always count on in Fullerton elections is that concrete, real issues will never be discussed. You’ll hear mostly generalities about this or that topic. Even roads and taxes melt away in general promises and vague hand-wringing. But, when it comes to specific projects with all sorts of facts and figures involved, you can forget it. A charming characteristic of all local elections, and especially in Fullerton, is that people aren’t elected on their knowledge of anything, but, rather on their acceptability as wise people who will do the right thing given the opportunity.

This is all nonsense, of course. The electeds, knowing nothing are in no intellectual position to push back on the lamest of lame ideas that percolate through the “experts” in the bureaucracy. Not knowing and not learning and not working are the natural siblings of the councilmember’s natural tendency to acquiesce to City Hall staff anyhow. It’s easier just to attend ribbon cuttings and golden shovel ceremonies, I suppose.

And so it is that zero attention has been given by anybody (except FFFF) to various nonsense projects, the worst of which is the so-called boutique hotel project that started out as an idiotic scheme and naturally morphed into the worst kind of Redevelopment boondoggle. It even has a stupid name: It’s called The Tracks at Fullerton Station.

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

You may recall that the hare-brained idea was hatched by your former Mayor-for-Hire, Jennifer Fitzgerald who pushed a non-competitive agreement with some local dude who couldn’t build a birdhouse. Because the City had to declare the land on which the thing was supposed to sit as “surplus property” a deadline had to met to dodge a State law requiring first right of refusal to low-income housing “developers.”

Rather than shit-canning the whole thing, boobs Bruce Whitaker, Ahmad Zahra and Shana Charles approved of the project and the City actually deeded over the land before any agreements were in place. Pretty amazing, huh? Their convoluted reasoning was so dumb it doesn’t even deserve a description. That was December 2022.

The even bigger problem was that by then the original guy (now deceased) had been pushed out and a whole new partnership had taken over. The new players were a pair of bums – Johnny Lu and Larry Liu who had a record of fraud, embezzlement, and bankruptcies in their wake, and creditors foreclosing on them. Why Fullerton’s crack economic development team and City Attorney failed to pursue even the slightest investigation of Lu/Liu’s record like FFFF did, has never been discussed. And it never will be, Fullerton being Fullerton.

I don’t know the current situation with this project. Two years have passed. Johnny Lu and Larry Liu had many milestones to accomplish certain actions per the agreement they finally signed. Did they? Who knows? Not the public, that’s for sure. Obviously, no one in City Hall wants to talk about this vast embarrassment, and an insecure council isn’t making them. And naturally, the Fullerton electoral process doesn’t discuss such things – bad form to discuss City failures, you see.

But the public has a right to know the whole story, because in the end, the entitlements granted to Lu and Liu are worth a fortune; even worse, the sales price of 1.4 million, less site clearance, is a tenth of the market value the City created with those entitlements. And the new density with hotel and with the new apartments Liu suckered the City into approving, just to keep the mess alive, is two and a half times the density the Transportation Center Specific Plan allows for housing. Go figure.

The mileage is terrible and the wheels are bald…

It’s also critical to remember that in Fullerton projects take on a life of their own through institutional inertia and the human instinct to dodge responsibility whenever possible. The Fullerton Clown Car has never had a rear-view mirror.