Shana Charles Archives - Friends For Fullerton's Future

September 30, 2024September 30, 2024Ahmad Zahra

Funny Truxaw

Spencer Custudio of the Voice of OC has a dutiful write up of last week’s League of Women Voters’ Fullerton candidate forum. One of the statements caught my eye, attributed to the strange individual Matt Truxaw, who is being offered up as a sacrificial offering by Ahmad Zahra and Fullerton Boohoo.

Here’s what Truxaw had to say on the topic of municipal finance:

When asked how to reverse the city’s finances and generate more tax revenue, Truxaw said city officials should consider expanding things like Walk on Wilshire – a closed section of Wilshire Avenue in downtown where people can dine and shop in the street that started during the pandemic.

Well, Matt, you can’t “shop” in the street, so there’s that. But seriously, no one seems to have informed this poor, uninformed boob, that the Wake on Wilshire doesn’t generate revenue for the City of Fullerton. It never has. The taxpayer’s “investment” on this boondoggle is so far in the red that it will never make a positive contribution to the City’s bank account. But let’s not let cooler heads consider this idiocy with any sort of objectivity.

No on bothered to tell Truxaw that you can’t lose your way back to fiscal heath.

No, the Wake on Wilshire is no longer an object that a few Fullertonions can consider dispassionately. The idea of closing a public road to cars has so bewitched the credulous that they will make up any sort of nonsensical lie to defend it. And lie #1 is that the thing is, or magically can become, a money maker – instead of what it is, another Fullerton financial sinkhole.

Like the Trail to Nowhere, the Wake on Wilshire has now assumed talismanic value to its adherents; and once again, it is symbolic of two City Councilmembers “not listening to the people.” In this case “the people” is a new set of half a dozen goobers dredged up by public health doctor, Shana Charles and few other Fullerton Observer nitwits.

City councilmember are supposed to be leaders. And you don’t lead by indulging the stupid make-work projects of your bureaucrats. You’re supposed to be able to ask honest questions and demand honest answers. But this is Fullerton, where no bad idea ever dies…so long as the public employees and their enablers want it.

August 28, 2024August 28, 2024Ahmad Zahra

Ad Hoc Tuah – Part Four-ah

by The Fullerton Harpoon26 Comments

Now that Shana Charles and Ahmad Zahra’s critical “Fiscal Sustainability (or something like that)” ad hoc committee has been created, and a quorum of that committee has been appointed by the City Council, I don’t see any reason why the three appointees can’t meet, appoint a chairman, and start on the all-important task at which our well-paid staff has dismally failed; to wit: figuring out how to stanch the red ink flow that our leaders and their professionals have created over the past decade or so.

Zahra and Charles couldn’t be bothered to find their own appointees. I guess it was too hard for them.

In my last post we already received some helpful comments about how to close the budget gap between revenue and expenses. In this in post I invite any other ideas that seem worth discussing, but that probably would never see the light of day in a city staff report. Here’s an outline of what we have so far.

Convert the paramedic function performed by the fire department into a privatized EMS job. Reorganize the “fire fighters” accordingly. Placentia has done this.
Levy a use fee on all downtown bars/clubs that serve booze after 10pm. The fee accompanies all CUPs. Those who create the mess pay to clean it up. No more subsidies for club owners. $5000 a month would generate almost a million bucks a year.
Alternatively, close all the downtown bars at midnight, and;
Get rid of the special downtown police force.
Eliminate the “economic development” division of the Community Development Department. No one knows what this function actually costs or what revenue it produces, but as one commenter put it, it doesn’t even pay for itself.
Start preserving commercial and industrial zones to generate business; stop handing out zone and General Plan changes in these zones for massive residential apartments blocks.
Get rid of the “I Can’t Believe It’s a Law Firm” of Jones and Meyer that inevitably makes more when they fuck something up, which is most of the time. To this day no one knows how much they billed the taxpayers of Fullerton by suing FFFF, Joshua Ferguson, David Curlee, on top of what the hundreds of thousands the City paid out in damages and attorney fees. Who knows how much the legal “advice” of this clown show has cost the City over the past 25 years.

dick-jones — Staying awake long enough to break the law…

Well, that’s just to get started. I hope the new committee will be open to these and other ideas. City staff has no incentive to propose anything except a new sales tax increase. I guess we need to help them.

August 26, 2024August 28, 2024Boohooism

Ad Hoc Tuah Part Three-ah.

by The Fullerton Harpoon19 Comments

A little late reporting this, but it appears that last week the Fullerton City Council appointed three members to the newly created Let’s Have A Sales Tax Committee, the brain child of Shana Charles and Fred Jung and Ahmad Zahra.

The item started out with a fizzle but got better as the hearing progressed. It appears that only three people applied. Charles and fellow committee-creator Ahmad Zahra couldn’t even find anybody to appoint. Charles who was in a big hurry to get this going only spoke to one person, who wisely declined. Zahra likewise failed find anybody and suggested the whole thing be re-advertised. It doesn’t seem to have occurred to these two worthies that 1) nobody applied because nobody cares; or, 2) people realize what a footling exercise this is.

But wait a minute. Maybe Charles’ genie is better off out of the bottle

Nick Dunlap said he was ready to go and appointed Jack Dean, a long-time anti-tax crusader who’s been around the Fullerton scene for a long time and knows the city. Apparently, he was active in the Great Recall of 1994. This makes sense since Dunlap correctly identified the whole process as a slow roll toward an inevitable tax proposal conclusion. Bruce Whitaker nominated a guy named Bill Brown who I don’t know anything about, but who I presume is another fiscal conservative.

Then came the real fun. Fred Jung, who was in zoom mode, nominated Tony Bushala, the founder of this blog in 2008, and who is well known for his huge roll in killing the last sales tax proposal, Measure S, in 2020, as well as the school bond attempts in the same year. It’s now pretty obvious that Jung’s role in this affair is to pull the plug out of the socket.

When the vote came, Zahra petulantly voted no to the three members appointment. He didn’t bother to say why. Charles simply said she’d be appointing her member later. The approval was 4-1 and we have three members to Ad Hoc Whatever It’s Called Committee.

So now the Committee exists and has a quorum. I wonder if they can’t start holding meetings as soon as they like. They can also start talking about ways to save money that the staff won’t touch, like a levy on all downtown bars/clubs open after ten P.M. to recoup something from the horrible 1.5 million annual red ink sink hole known as downtown Fullerton. Or they could discuss the elimination of the so-called downtown police Echo Unit that has caused as much trouble as it has prevented.

They might also discuss salary freezes, something all businesses do when times get tough.

Both Charles and Zahra know that if their chosen candidate, Vivian Jaramillo, is elected they can replace Whitaker’s appointment in December and get the tax train back on its predetermined rails. But if that doesn’t happen, this committee could surprise the employees in City Hall by coming up with some really inventive ideas.

August 13, 2024August 13, 2024Ahmad Zahra

Ad Hoc Tuah, Part Two-ah

by The Fullerton Harpoon18 Comments

If I knew what I was talking about this wouldn’t be Fullerton!

One week ago, true to form, the City created the “ad hoc” finance committee proposed by Councilperson Shana Charles to study Fullerton’s financial fiasco – an ocean of red ink.

The vote was 3-2.

Councilman Fred Jung who supported this proposal spoke of “resident input” as if that were something never tried before.

Ahmad Zahra pretended to be of two minds regarding this committee, citing earlier, phony push polls as proof of Fullerton’s thirst to be taxed more. But he was really all for it – gotta keep the sales tax idea on a burner. He virtually admitted that a tax was his goal.

Predictably in her comments, Charles gushed at Fullerton’s untapped well of civilian brainpower (why goodness, two actual professors showed up earlier in the meeting!) as a source of brilliant budget-closing ideas. Of course she misused the term “holistic” several times, but, whatever.

At first Bruce Whitaker offered that he had no objection to this committee, per se, but pointed out that previous fiscal ideas presented by the so-called INRAC citizen’s panel had been ignored by the City Council.

This idea was echoed by Mayor Nick Dunlap, who pointed out the obvious – that this committee had no other purpose than to keep the dream of a sales tax increase alive. He opined that it was City staff’s job to come up with ideas and plans for fiscal sustainability (a euphemism coughed up by Charles) presented to the City Council. This of course is the way it should be, although the irony that his staff failed miserably at this very task over the past year seemed to have escaped the notice of our mayor.

Dunlap’s statements convinced Whitaker to oppose creation of the committee.

Charles responded to her colleagues, by disingenuously acknowledging her recognition that a sales tax increase was not inevitable, a completely irrelevant observation intended to prove her “holistic” bona fides.

A lady named Maureen Milton called in, wanting some reassurance that the meetings of the committee would be open to the public.

The milquetoast was no longer even warm…

Our esteemed City Manager quickly muttered that the meetings would be noticed and public, but whether that half-hearted affirmation will be effected remains to be seen.

And so Fullerton has another of its footling and futile committees, five souls, one appointed by each councilmember. This is all being uber-rushed so that appointments will be made a week from today, on August 20th, so that the sales tax solution indoctrination can begin as soon as possible.

August 6, 2024August 6, 2024Ahmad Zahra

Ad Hoc Tuah Coming

by The Fullerton Harpoon13 Comments

You read that right. This evening the Fullerton City Council is being asked to create an “ad hoc” committee that would spend the next nine months considering our financial situations, and, presumably, making recommendations for next year’s budget hearings. The idea came from Councilmember Charles, supported by Councilman Fred Jung.

The fact that Charles initiated this process is telling. Her only observable skill on the City Council is to keep things the bureaucracy wants alive, alive.

And what they want is a recommendation to put a sales tax on the ballot at a 2025 special election.

The object here is simple. Keep talking about a 13% sales tax increase, a tax whose campaign the “public safety” unions will pay for and that might pass a 50% threshold in a low turn out special election.

When and where will this committee meet? Who knows? One thing is sure, meetings won’t be easy to find, and will likely take place midday somewhere – like a broom closet at the Fullerton Physical Plant.

According to our crack legal team of the I Can’t Believe It’s a Law Firm” of Jones and Meyer, “temporary” ad hoc committees are not subject to the Brown Act – California’s open meeting laws. Our City Manager, the hapless Eric Levitt, promises real hard to “notice” us peons, but wants to maintain “flexibility” to accomplish the “work” requested.

Of course that work is to work on the committee members to come to the right conclusion – a tax to fix the dire fiscal cliff years of pandering to the cops and the paramedics has created.

I sure hope that Nick Dunlap and Bruce Whitaker will see what’s going on; and that Fred Jung was just having some fun with pro-tax Charles. But then again, Fullerton, being Fullerton, has been known for this sort of thing: stalling, obfuscating, temporizing, hoodwinking, and generally doing the stupid thing in the end.

August 5, 2024August 5, 2024Ahmad Zahra

Walk on Wilshire Inspires Fraud

by Mr. Peabody29 Comments

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.

July 23, 2024July 24, 2024Ahmad Zahra

Walk on Wilshire Limps Along

by The Fullerton Harpoon20 Comments

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.

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.

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.

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.

July 10, 2024July 10, 2024Ahmad Zahra

Fall Elections Draw Few Contestants. So Far.

by Disillusioned Ex-Hippy29 Comments

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.

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.

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.

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.

July 3, 2024July 3, 2024Ahmad Zahra

Foes of Fullerton’s Future Fail

by Mr. Peabody6 Comments

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.

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.

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.

July 1, 2024July 1, 2024Ahmad Zahra

The Tax Meeting

by Mr. Peabody27 Comments

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.

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.

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.

The only question I have is whether District 4 candidate Vivian Kitty Jaramillo will stand up and support the tax.