Setting The Bar Low Archives - Page 2 of 111 - Friends For Fullerton's Future

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

Kennedy Sisters Have Cage Rattled

On Tuesday George A. Bushala returned to the Fullerton City Council Chambers to address the the issue of Ahmad Zahra’s Marriage Fraud to gain permanent residency status. That was entertaining as Zahra got into a huff, interrupted, cried, got up and left the room. Then Bushala expanded on his thesis, noting that Zahra gets away with his behavior thanks the connivance of the fake news Fullerton Observer, a self-styled newspaper that is incompetent, always prejudiced, and that has gone out of it’s way to insinuate libels against people just like him.

In a high state of pique the Kennedy Sisters published their usual blog recap of public comments; but they let their self-righteous hosannas get the better of them.

First they recount an entire dialog between Zahra, Fred Jung and the City Attorney – none of which actually occurred.

A sense of irony being nothing if not completely missed by the Kennedy Sisters, Bushala’s speech is followed by one of those obnoxious “Editor” notes that are the hallmark of the Observer. This one is so faint it’s almost impossible to read, but really it’s just a lame daisy chain of excuses, self-righteousness and pro-Zahra bullshit that ends with an accusation that Bushala spreads falsehoods and she (which ever sister scribbled this) won’t tolerate it!

The Observer is “news of the people by the people,” donchaknow, the activist Mother that begat all sorts of save this and thats. They strive to get the truth out, so long as “truth” is compatible with their own warped, worldview. We all saw how mightily the Kennedy Sisters avoided the the story of the fake Markowitz candidacy. In fact Sharon seemed to involve herself in the cover-up by coaching the hapless Diane Vena.

And thus the circle is closed as the Kennedys perform yet again the very thing of which George Bushala accused them.

The facts are clear. There are no falsehoods related about Zahra. Everything Bushala said was a matter of fact, and FFFF has copies of the documents to prove it. If one wishes to question Zahra’s motives for running down to Little Rock, Arkansas to marry a female citizen, one is not spreading falsehoods, but rather is positing the most likely scenario.

The Kennedys believe “Dr.” Zahra is honorable and transparent – despite all the evidence to the contrary. This utterly slavish devotion renders them incapable to see their own culpable participation in Zahra’s lies. From his assault and battery case, to his Observer-enabled plagiarism they’ve been in lockstep with this Middle Eastern miscreant.

April 6, 2025April 6, 2025About Us

City Nixes Publications on Property

by The Fullerton Harpoon11 Comments

Last Tuesday the Council voted 4-1 to deny access to any non government publications on City property.

This seems to be the result of our humble request to allow FFFF a presence thereon, however one never knows since our attorney, Kelly Aviles, never got a response over the past couple of months to our request for access. Oh, well.

The new policy will remove other publications that already have access, namely the Daily Titan, the school paper at CSUF and the yellowing Fullerton Observer, a dreadful compendium of political bias, untruths, innuendo, rumors and libel.

Naturally the Observer crowd began bleating about censorship although nobody is censoring any of their drivel. They are still free to disseminate their trash at George’s Burger and at Ralph’s and any other place that will have them.

The lone no vote came from that champion of free press, Ahmad Zahra, who (we now know) “ran away” from persecution in his homeland and now can revel in yet another layer of heroic victimhood – political refugee! He actually sent a out a press release reiterating his loyalty to our country – the one he snuck into.

I’m not even going to bother reproducing that noble-sounding riff. Just remember this: When this story started Zahra absolutely did not want FFFF in City Hall in any form. A few years back he also voted to legally harass FFFF and to keep suing FFFF over the shared files affair – even after the jig was up. How’s that for First Amendment championship? Paper thin.

March 31, 2025March 31, 2025Behind Closed Doors

Lego My Hero

by The Fullerton Harpoon45 Comments

Tomorrow night’s council meeting promises to be a big affair. Once again the Kennedy Sisters will be ringing the tocsin – calling all Boohoos – oppose a policy creating ban on free, non-governmental materials in City property. The inevitable crying and hand wringing will be amusing to watch.

And there may be some of our Fire Heroes, and their families there, too. How come?

Because the Fire Department is proposing to take over the driving, washing, and maintaining their new fleet of sole source “coaches” and figuring out how use their new fleet of gurneys,

Of course Giant Savings are forecast. But do you believe them?

The comparison “study” is at such a high level that no details are shared – big problem. The City knows the current private operators numbers because they gave them to Fullerton under the contract. How about those of the Fire Department. No.

One of many downsides is that the “in-house” option budgets have a high degree of speculation.

Are all of true costs known? One would have to be pretty well-convinced (or gullible) to believe that newly unionized and pensioned ambulance drivers could be cheaper, and cheaper by a lot.

If these drivers leave town after they are vested, who picks up the CalPERS check, for say, the next 30 years?

The City assumes full liability. Are insurance premiums for this new FFD scope expansion forecast in the budgets presented budgets? I wonder.

And finally I come to the biggest problem. Accountability. From soup to nuts. No accountability for the forecast budget’s accuracy, no accountability for anything else. There would be no contract with which to enforce performance and delivery – especially bad performance.

No doubt the heroes will proclaim a local control, budgetary and public safety victory. Will it be? I think the public should be made aware of the details that back up the simple chart in the agenda.

True, the current system is ridiculous. An FFD paramedic takes a trip to St, Judes with the ambulance. The an entire crew with a fire engine follows to the hospital. Not to look at the bad art on the lobby walls, but to pick up their compadre and return to the fire station.

However the correct response is not to take over the ambulance driving, but to follow the lead of Placentia and privatize the damn paramedic job! Their results in Placentia have been fine and they’re saving money.

March 28, 2025March 28, 2025About Us

Silence is Golden

by The Fullerton Harpoon56 Comments

A couple months ago FFFFs attorney, Kelly Aviles sent a letter to the Fullerton City Manager announcing our intention to begin a paper edition of our humble blog, and requesting that the City permit distribution of that publication on City property – places like the lobby of City Hall and the Community Center.

Dear Mr. Levitt:

I hope this finds you well. I am writing to you on behalf of my client, Fullerton’s Future, who’s in the process of launching a new newspaper publication to serve the residents of Fullerton. As part of the marketing and distribution efforts, my client seeks to place a newspaper rack in the lobby of City Hall, similar to the arrangements that have been made with other local newspapers.

We respectfully request the City Council grant approval for my Client to install a newspaper rack in the lobby of City Hall. My Client has secured a financial commitment from a local businessman for a significant amount of private financing to launch this new business endeavor committed to contributing to the local community by providing important local news, restaurant reviews, business advertisements, and information that reflects the diverse interests of our city’s residents and their needs for alternative news sources. In addition, an application to form a new 501-c4 will soon be filed with the IRS for this venture.

Please let me know if there are any specific procedures or requirements that need to be followed to facilitate this request or if the Council has any preferences regarding the placement of such a news rack at City Hall. We are eager to comply with any guidelines you may have.

Thank you for your time and consideration and we look forward to your response.

Sincerely,

Kelly Aviles

FFFF hasn’t been particularly forgiving of all the murder, mayhem, misbehaving, and costly mistakes our highly paid employees have made over the years with the blessings of boobish city council members; the City has even gone so far as to sue FFFF contributors for mistakes made by employees and our City Attorney; therefore we figured our chance of getting our voice heard in City Hall was nil.

We were right.

Of course we knew the City was just stalling us. Now the wait is over.

If you check out next Tuesday’s council agenda you’ll notice Item #14. It’s a Resolution establishing a policy that keeps FFFF off City property and limits the presence of non-governmental communications to the Main Library “community corkboard” – at the discretion of the Librarian.

Wow, there’s steaming pile of bureaucratic jargon – enough to satisfy anybody who admires that sort of gobbledygook. My favorite sentence is “The policy emphasizes that all City facilities remain non-public forums.” Wouldn’t want a public forum in City Hall, now would we? That space is reserved for government propaganda.

I don’t believe this would be on the agenda at all without previous agreement in closed session, hidden away from prying eyes under the deceitful cloak of “potential litigation.” I wonder if they can legally enforce this policy.

We may have to start printing selected copy from our greatest hits and push pin them onto that community corkboard!

March 24, 2025March 25, 2025Ahmad Zahra

Accessory to Commit Perjury

by The Fullerton Harpoon28 Comments

Last August supporters of Fullerton 4th District Council candidate, Democrat Vivian Jaramillo, created a fake “conservative” candidate to draw votes away from the person presumed to be Jaramillo’s principal opponent – Linda Whitaker. The candidate, Scott Markowitz, committed, and plead guilty to perjury.

It’s abundantly clear that at least one person helped phony candidate Scott Markowitz commit the perjury when he falsely swore that he collected his nominating signatures. How is it clear? Because at least one of his nominators told the District Attorney Todd Spitzer that it wasn’t Markowitz who got them to sign, it was someone else; either that or Markowitz himself volunteered the information, which isn’t likely since he was arrested and booked into the Santa Ana Jail.

Speculation is increasing and questions are still being asked, such as: what’s the name of the person or persons who suborned Marko’s perjury, and why hasn’t Spitzer prosecuted him/her/them? In fact, a Public Records Act request was recently made to Spitzer’s office to reveal the name of the person or persons involved in the Markowitz case.

Back in the fall, suspicion fell immediately on a guy named Ajay Mohan, a former Democrat operative who held Markowitz’s hand at the City Clerk’s office while picking up nominating materials. But could Mohan have known any of the nominators well enough to get them to sign the papers of a MAGA-sounding candidate?

The Usual Suspects are smiling. For now.

Some folks behind the scenes put early money on creepy and desperate Councilman Ahmad Zahra, the immigrant marriage fraudster and serial prevaricator. Then attention turned to the equally seedy Aruni Thakur, the guy who tried to get elected to the Fullerton City Council in 2020 in a district he didn’t live in. Both are well-known local Democrat office holders who would have been familiar to the Democrat nominators like our old friend Diane Vena. Hey, what about Jesus Quirk-Silva, the dim-witted ex-councilman and husband of wannabe king/queenmaker, Assemblycreature Sharon Quirk?

Recently a new front runner has emerged, a chap named Andre Charles. Charles revels in the lofty title of President of the North Orange County Democrats club. His wife, the self-important, wordy, and ingratiating gasbag, Shana Charles, is on the City Council. Charles had both the motive and the means to sucker local Dems to nominate Markowitz in absentia. Indeed, several nominators of the faux Trumpy Markowitz are members of Charles’ Democrat club. Hmm.

So what was the result of the PRA request? Predictably, the DA’s office isn’t answering, saying they don’t have to – the records are confidential even in closed cases. But if no other crimes were committed, then who cares, right? Yet the response from some guy named Wayne Philips in the DA’s office does include this tidbit:

Is this merely a boiler plate brush-off, or is some investigation really still underway? Personally, I doubt any investigation is going on, but if I were one of the perps involved I’d still be a little nervous. There are probably lots of weak links in the chain of this scandal, and even Spitzer may be induced to do his job if evidence he is now suppressing is published.

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.

March 19, 2025March 19, 2025Boohooism

Observer Sisters Sink to New Low

by Mr. Peabody48 Comments

Just when you think they couldn’t be more biased, vindictive and stupid, the Kennedy Sisters, Skaska and Sharon prove you were wrong. They not only lace their “stories” with prejudicial editorializing, now they have now taken to publish letters to their “newspaper” that give every appearance to be cooked up to cause mischief.

In the mid-March version of the Observer there is a very strange “letter” by someone calling themselves “M. Chapman.” It’s a weird missive alright, so odd and so badly written that you get the idea it was written by one of the sisters herself. I’ve seen walls at FJC covered in globs of pre-class gum that made more sense.

Our correspondent informs us of a house on Wilshire Avenue that nobody wants to talk about. It’s a Big Mystery to M. Chapman because no one wants to “save” it either. A conspiracy is afoot, make no mistake!

The house is an abandoned, dinky 400 square foot box that somebody tacked siding and a porch onto in the 1960s. It’s decrepit and looks like a fire hazard; but not to Chapman who sees a treasure.

For some reason Chapman thinks the “unsafe” City notices are “poorly written,” a claim I’ve never heard before, but obviously inserted here to suggest something untoward is going on.

Then the letter gets interesting. You see, the property next door is a “land grab” by “Bushala” and the insinuation is that he wants this derelict property for some reason.

The first statement is just defamatory. Bushala Brothers, Inc. bought the vacant lot next door from the North Orange County Community College District with the condition that they relocate a NOCCD bungalow from Chapman Ave., which has been accomplished – a fine upgrade to the neighborhood. (picture above). BBI was the highest bidder, responding to an open and fair public bid. The house is now owned and occupied by a family member who bought it at market rate from BBI. Naturally, Chapman provides zero evidence to support his insinuation that maybe “Bushala” (by now we have to ask “which one?”) wants to own the dilapidated property next door. That’s classic Observer Sister stuff, right there.

At this point, it seems pretty obvious that somebody is cooking up information and “M. Chapman” is regurgitating it. Now who could that be?

Chapman is real interested in his/her architectural discovery, it seems, so he/she turned to Fullerton Heritage for help, but they wouldn’t “touch it with a ten foot pole.” More sinister evidence of something, Chapman concludes. Chapman says he/she was referred to the Observer(!) for some inexplicable reason – the Kennedy Sisters know very little about anything.

Then Chapman reveals the stupidity of his/her own narrative by sharing that Fullerton Heritage did indeed touch the issue with a ten foot pole. In fact, somebody at FH went way out of their way to do Chapman’s homework for him and provide a bunch of information, alas, none of it evidentiary to suggest the derelict shack was historical.

In parentheses at the end of the quote, someone thinks the run down mess would make a great “juice and java shack” which, of course the lot is not zoned for. Was it Cheri? Was it Chapman? Was is Skania Kennedy? Whoever said it, they got the shack part right.

(I now have it on excellent authority that the last paragraph in quotation marks did NOT come from anybody at the City or Fullerton Heritage. In other words, the “editor” – Skasia Kennedy made a glaring editorial error that wouldn’t have been made in a high school news paper.)

This “letter,” doesn’t quite seem right. It’s a sort of patched together amalgamation of supposed innocence (just asking questions here!) while sharing both outright libel and concocted “guesses” that lead the reader to suspect that information was shared with M. Chapman (if there even is one) from a source that wants to publicly disparage “Bushala” over something nobody gives a damn about.

And that means that the Kennedy SIsters, Skasia and Sharon, who published this tripe are complicit in this cut-rate farce.

March 17, 2025March 17, 2025Bad Cops

Another Police Shooting Fatality

by Joe Sipowicz34 Comments

According to the Fullerton Police Department, their employees killed another person Saturday night.

Responding to a domestic dispute call in the 700 block of West Orangethorpe Avenue the cops arrived on the scene and discovered a 19 year old male “matching the description” on the sidewalk. Here’s the tale from the press release:

Despite repeated commands from officers, the suspect was noncompliant. In a sudden turn of events, he lifted his shirt and pulled what appeared to be a handgun from his waistband, prompting an officer-involved shooting.

Officers immediately began life-saving measures until paramedics arrived, but the suspect was pronounced dead at the scene. A pellet gun, closely resembling a Smith & Wesson handgun, was recovered near the suspect.

Oh, no. Another one of those dreary FPD press releases that always sound like an immediate exculpation rather than a simple statement of the bare facts

At the point of first contact the cops confronted a guy who may or may not have done anything wrong. We know he wasn’t juiced because if he had been the statement would have said so. There goes Excuse Option One.

We don’t know what those “commands” given by the police were, of course, or even if they were reasonable. It will be interesting to see and hear what sort of dialog ensued during this confrontation. Was it calming, or was it the sort of thing that might prompt escalation?

Then there was “…a sudden turn of events.” What is this a high school creative writing class? For some as yet unknown reason this young man decided on the ever popular Excuse Option Number Two: suicide by cop. The inevitable “waistband” is deployed by the cop writer, although the PR had earlier stated that the culprit had been waving a knife at Dad at the incident address. I’m not sure who wanders around with a pellet gun shoved in his pants but there was one, apparently that (closely!!) resembled a Smith and Wesson handgun.

We will be comforted to know that all will be revealed within 45 days via one of those Critical Incident Community Briefing Video.

March 6, 2025March 6, 2025About Us

And the Award for Worst Over Acting Goes to…

by The Fullerton Harpoon34 Comments

The other night City Councilperson Ahmad Zahra put on quite a display of self-righteous indignation. The topic was whether or not to look into the advantages of Fullerton becoming a charter city. That move might give the city some flexibilities our current status as a General Law city might not afford. The issue was about as dangerous as self-rising flour, but to hear Zahra go on about it you’d think a vast conspiracy was afoot to separate Fullerton citizens from their freedom.

His outraged and disjointed diatribe must have lasted five minutes. He went for the cheap seats. Anger. Sardonic smiles. Dramatic hand gestures. Putting on, taking off glasses. Goodness gracious. How he longs to be a Third World dictator.

Zahra’s indignance was theatrical, of course. He had to play out his part in front of the dozen people he could muster to attend the meeting and cry about impending doom. But his description of the charter city idea was phrased in language that denigrated the current Council majority whom “nobody trusts,” nobody being, presumably a few dozen Zahra puppets and the Observer Sisters.

Their goal, according to Zahra, was to create new “land use” rules that would benefit the person who put the majority in their Council chairs and who spends his time buying up properties left and right. The unnamed bogeyman of Fullerton Boohoo – Tony Bushala. Goodness gracious, Zahra went on, the City of Fullerton itself was at stake.

Zahra’s other claims were so stupid and impossible that they hardly need to repeated except to show how desperate he has become. A charter city he falsely exclaimed, could get rid of competitive bidding on projects leading to shoddy construction! A charter city he falsely claimed could evade California’s prevailing wage laws leading to shoddy construction!

And then: the roads fix the roads. The roads are as bad as ever. The priceless wrap up? Zahra said the Council majority would tell people what they want to hear. And it won’t be the truth. Wow. Coming from leaky, weepy, dedicated to his con of the boohoos, Zahra.

When Zahra had finished his histrionics he was immediately challenged by Councilman Nick Dunlap for his previous no votes on infrastructure spending. Zahra interrupted noisily, as he has been doing lately, but was shut down by Dunlap and Mayor Jung. Councilwoman Jamie Valencia told Zahra not to worry – his Academy Award will come someday. She was greeted with boohoo boos from Zahra’s pals in the audience.

One telling part of this episode was when Councilperson Shana Charles, who had just cheerfully stated her interest in the charter possibility, voted no on the motion simply to study the idea – right after Zahra’s melt down.

The motion carried 3-2 so we have not heard the last of this issue.

February 28, 2025February 28, 2025About Us

Fuck-ups For Fullerton’s Future

by The Fullerton Harpoon8 Comments

The City Council meeting agenda for March 4th has some interesting “Closed Session” items on it. For those who don’t know, Closed Session is a private meeting of the Council when legal, personnel or real estate issues are involved. The City Attorney attends the session, too, in our case the hapless buffoons of The I Can’t Believe It’s a Law Firm of Jones and Mayer.

Here’s the line up of issues.

Number 1 is about something up at the City Owned golf course – one of the too little scrutinized assets of the City of Fullerton. This has been a source of embarrassment for City staff and FFFF instruction in the past.

Our Friend David Curlee ran afoul of City Staff when he uncovered the rank incompetence of Alice Loya and Hugo Curiel as well as the misappropriation of Brea Dam Enterprise funds. And that’s likely the reason they dragged him into the FFFF/Joshua Ferguson lawsuit.

Number 2 is about the idiotic “boutique” hotel fiasco in which the City up-zoned the Hell out our property and then virtually gave it away to “Westpark/TA” an operation run by a couple crooks whose prior record was never disclosed to the City Council or the public. Well we found out all about it, even if our highly paid “professionals” in City Hall didn’t bother.

Any reasonable representatives of the people would have shit-canned this deal on Day 1. Not Fullerton, of course. What in the world could they be negotiating? TA hasn’t met any of its deadlines, got caught recording a phony deed, etc. TA should have been dumped a long, long time ago and their purchase amount forfeited. Interestingly the City seems to have brought in Best, Best and Krieger to do represent the City. At least it isn’t Jones and Mayer. Still, I wonder why.

Zahra Congratulates Marovic for his lawsuit…against us.

Number 3 is about our old friend Mario “Bump Out” Marovic, the scofflaw who took over from the Florentine Family in ripping off the public. He’s still illegally occupying the space he was supposed to have demolished two goddamn years ago.

He is obviously in default of that agreement – a deal that moronically permitted him to open up his businesses and profit off our building on our sidewalk. Our indifferent City staff and Council doesn’t seem to have the stomach to give this weasel notice that he has been trespassing and that they were going to demolish the building add-on and restore the sidewalk themselves.

Number 4 is one of those “anticipated litigation/significant exposure to litigation” items in which secrets can be withheld from potential litigants – like Friends for Fullerton Future – based on the squishy definition of the word “significant,” and self-serving public servant who happens to be defining it. Could this item be related to FFFF’s request for presence on City property? I don’t know, but I wouldn’t be surprised.