On Tuesday the Fullerton City Council is going to address the topic of selecting the next solid waste hauler. This is a big deal, with a lot of money involved.
And so they did. I won’t bore the Friends with the various details of proposals because in the end each is offering different rates, services, and feel good community involvement, the last item a useless PR gesture that somebody in City Hall thought merited points in their selection calculations.
But two RFP respondents offered something else. Big loans to the City’s General Fund that would be recovered over many years via augmented rates.
EDCO has sweetened the pot by offering a $15,000,000 one time payment to the City to be recovered by a differential in the annual Consumer Price Index that is applied to fees.
Republic, the current hauler, is offering a $10,000,000 one time payment they are charmingly calling a “Community Enhancing Payment” which sounds better than “City of Fullerton Bailout.”
Obviously these two cash offer proposals would present the City Council immediate, if only very temporary, relief from the impending budget reserve liquidation, and will attract attention for that. The other positive political result could be the elimination of a November 2026 ballot tax question – a problem in getting on the ballot, and passage by the voters. However, the underlying structural budget deficit would remain and would need to be addressed, anyway, and immediately.
The formulas increasing the CPI scales would really be amount to a hidden tax on waste producing customers in Fullerton, and the City would be in the effective position of incurring debt leveraged on hauling fee increases. I presume the offerors and the City have investigated the legality of this.
Of the two proposers, EDCO was previously ranked first by a narrow margin, while Republic was in last place. The City’s relationship with Republic really soured during negotiations for SB 1383 when Republic did the old bait-and-switcheroo so there’s that to consider.
Is the upfront payment concept viable? I think so. It would buy some time for the City. But somebody would have to pay the piper, and somebody is still going to have to make the budget cuts required to balance a budget and no one has shown any appetite for this bitter menu. Appointing a useless committee to study things has been a waste of time. Almost.
One of the committee members did suggest the very thing that EDCO and Republic are offering demonstrating that at least somebody was thinking of alternatives.
My guess is that “Dr.” Ahmad Zahra and Shana Charles will not support this big payment option, seeing great liberal virtue in imposing a 13% sales tax increase like the ill-fated measure M of 2020. On the other hand, that passage is a risky business and they need 4 votes to make it even get on the ballot. Nick Dunlap probably would not vote for putting a tax on the ballot, or going with the upfront payment plan. But his vote might not be needed. The waste contract only needs 3 votes. Where are Jung and Valencia? I guess we’ll find out Tuesday.
Why write about news when you can try to make your own! (Photo by Julie Leopo/Voice of OC)
Yes, indeed. In an editorial masquerading as some sort of news, Fullerton Observer sister Sikita Kennedy explained the failure of government and the ways in which that failure is dressed up to look like victory. This article appears to be an AI generated creation since the estimable Satskia has never shown this sort of perspicuity in the past, but, whatever. After you weed out the jargon some fundamental management truths emerge.
The topic of course is something almost nobody gives a rat’s ass about: getting rid of bike lockers at the train station, the reason given that they are underused. The awkward title shouts out “Fullerton’s Bicycle Lockers Spark Controversy Among Cyclists” as if an inanimate object has such puissance. Naturally, it’s the removal of said lockers that is causing Siska herself grief; not a solitary cyclist is interviewed or quoted in her essay.
But I digress. The topic is inconsequential, but the analysis of failure is quite remarkable and completely uncharacteristic. Kennedy seems to have finally discovered the cultural behavior of government bureaucracies that we have known all along. Let’s enjoy some of the fruits of her editorial labors:
Organizations in crisis rarely announce themselves as such.More often, they produce charts, reports, and performance metrics that tell a reassuring story — one that, on closer inspection, was shaped by the same decisions it purports to evaluate. This is one of the quieter dangers of institutional mismanagement: it doesn’t just damage an organization, it can generate the evidence that justifies its own continuation.
How perfectly true, and so descriptive of almost every staff and study report ever produced in Fullerton. The classic dodge is to answer a question that nobody asked.
“…a dispute over bicycle lockers is offering a textbook example of how low performance, manufactured by neglect, gets cited as the reason to eliminate the very thing being neglected.
Yes, indeed. Sort of sounds like the death-march noise ordinance fiasco, doesn’t it, wherein City failure to enforce codes results in the push to abandon the process of code enforcement altogether.
When managers make poor decisions, they typically face two options: change course or defend the course they’re on. Defense, in institutional settings, almost always involves data. The problem is that those same managers often control what data gets collected, how it gets measured, and how it gets reported.
Good Lord, Satkia, has had her come to Jesus revelation! The truth may yet set her free! How often have we seen a circling of the wagons, the manipulation of information to reinforce the error? Mostly data collection, crooked or otherwise, isn’t even necessary. Convoluted rhetoric often does the trick. Option number one never takes place.
A leader who has misallocated resources will tend to measure success in ways that don’t reveal the misallocation. A department head who has pursued the wrong strategy will frame performance indicators around the metrics where progress is easiest to show. Over time, the organization’s entire information infrastructure bends toward confirming decisions already made.
This is something we’ve seen time and time again. Throw out the jargon and it means this: “look over there.” The misdirection is so common as to be commonplace. This is what will happen when the City’s disastrous “fire fighter” ambulance driver chickens come home to the proverbial roost.
This is the classic mismanagement data trap: measuring outputs rather than outcomes, and then using those outputs to validate the decisions that produced them.
Amen, Sister, testify!
The “data trap” of measuring outputs was nowhere better seen than on the horrendously useless Trail to Nowhere, where the efforts were all about building something expensive and then patting yourself on the back for…building something expensive. But that wasn’t about a few piddling bike lockers, no, but the waste of $2,500,000, an irony lost on the Fullerton Observer editorial staff of two. The Observer Sisters will never expend a moment’s time worrying about actual users (or complete lack of same) on the “trail.”
One of the most common tools in this playbook is selective periodization — choosing a start date for measurement that makes current numbers look favorable by comparison. Applied to civic infrastructure, this often means measuring usage after a program has already been allowed to deteriorate, rather than tracking the arc from functional to neglected.
How funny. Siskia has had her epiphany, alright, but it sure is a selective enlightenment. Remember when staff tried to keep the ridiculous Waste on Wilshire going by citing low traffic on Wilshire after the street had been closed!
Organizations under poor leadership often commission external reviews that appear to provide independent accountability but are structured to confirm decisions already made. The questions given to reviewers shape the findings, and the questions come from the people who need favorable findings. The result carries the authority of objectivity while functioning as a mirror.
Let’s consider the very recent Grant Thornton report whose results were meant to cauterize a huge embarrassment without naming a single culprit or a single systemic failure. No outcries from the Observers, of course.
Cities do this too — with traffic studies, usage audits, and infrastructure assessments that are framed around the conclusion leadership has already reached. Whether that’s what’s happening with Fullerton’s active transportation data is a question advocates would do well to press publicly.
They sure do, Sitka. Who are you supposed to believe, your commonsense or the experts we have hired to back us up? Ahem, remember the “experts” hired to produce pro tax findings, pro development findings, pro this or pro that findings? In fact data supporting everything that the City Manager who hired them wants. The latest examples is that “traffic study” for the overbuilt Harbor/Hermosa project that will never in a million years stop the project as designed, from being built.
The antidote to data shaped by mismanagement is not more data — it’s differently sourced data, with different incentive structures attached to it. Independent audits are conducted by parties with no relationship to the decisions being evaluated. Performance metrics set before interventions begin, not after. Usage data is examined in the context of program accessibility, not in isolation.
Great Caesar’s Ghost! What a splendid statement of objective accountability and something that should be happening, at least occasionally, and not on some silly bike lockers, but on real issues where millions are spent, from hiring ambulance drivers to deciding if anybody is now going to use a new but previously failed park; on weather there is a chance in hell that anybody would patronize a “boutique” hotel at the Transportation Center.
There is a vast irony in the Observer’s new-found demand for objective standards to promote accountability – exactly the thing government employees dread. See, it’s the squalid world of professional management, and such accountability is not to be applied to government bureaucrats who are made of a finer material. They are working for us, see, and have a noble calling not to be subjected to accountability.
And it’s deliciously ironic that the new Observer spirit has been discovered due to some footling bike lockers, and not the decades long history of Fullerton disasters that nobody but FFFF has chronicled.
Might Sciatica Kennedy’s observations and suggestions be applied to future Fullerton mishaps? Bet not. But let’s enjoy them while we can.
Fullerton is supposed to have its budgets wrapped up by the end of June. That’s when fiscal years end and new ones begin. It’s in the Municipal Code.
But not this year. So a resolution was needed to keep the gears of government grinding in Fullerton at current levels so that “essential services” be maintained. At the June 16th meeting the City Council passed the appropriate resolution authorizing the continuation of the process into July. Here’s the casual explanation of what’s going on::
“Staff continues to evaluate revenue projections, expenditure estimates including cost containment and deficit reduction strategies, capital improvement requirements, reserve levels, organizational needs and other fiscal considerations as part of the FY 2026-27 budget development process.”
Permit me to translate the double talk: “a complete absence of leadership has stalled the process and nobody in City Hall has the remotest idea how to deal with the massive, impending budget shortfall except by taxation.”
Where there’s smoke…
We have seen over the past year the revitalization of the footling Budget Sustainability Committee that accomplished exactly nothing. Zero. Zip. Well, not quite nothing, because its members reflected the positions of those that appointed them. Dunlap’s appointee voted against all tax proposals offered up. Jung and Valencia’s appointees supported a half-cent special infrastructure tax, but not a general sales tax. Zahra and Charles’ appointees rejected a special sales tax and pushed for the one cent general sales tax.
One committee member suggested privatizing the Water Utility; another suggested borrowing from the deep pockets of the new (or old) waste hauler. Another idea was creating a business district to pay for the Downtown Fullerton deficit. Innovative concepts for a City on the edge of insolvency that got no traction. T he committee how disastrous budget cuts would be to the public, especially to the hallowed halls of “public safety” that sucks up the lion’s share of the budget. Service levels, donchaknow.
I don’t recall anybody discussing mandatory salary reductions. Maybe I missed it.
Which leaves the City with no viable tax path forward even getting one on the November ballot. Other revenue generating ideas went nowhere, including selling off real estate, particularly that where Water Fund activities are going on. Other ideas, such as selling the boutique hotel site aren’t practical because Council and staff and City Attorney have led to humiliation and fraud on the property and has seen it tied up in dispute.
Even as Fullerton’s “leaders” fiddled away their time, new information about huge accounting errors revealed the situation was even more dire than previously imagined.
It would be dereliction not to remind Friends that our illustrious City Council actually agreed to hire a bunch of ambulance drivers on credit and a dozen new “firefighters” at the behest of the their union even as the budget crisis loomed on the near horizon.
A couple months ago the City of Fullerton hired Grant Thornton to investigate a handful of financial transactions that resulted in an vast overstatement of the city’s General Fund.
Last night they reported on Task 1: investigating the awkward General Fund balance fuck up.
As expected was the conclusion that no nefarious intent was involved. Just some good old fashioned negligence and/or incompetence (these were not used by Grant Thornton who was completely diplomatic).
But all you had to do was read between the lines and the conclusions were, and are, damning.
According to the consultants these few transactions were the only thing they looked into; they were not hired to perform a full forensic audit. Well, okay. But the conclusions that they drew, and that informed their recommendations should have been perceived as a serious indictment of how the City’s finances operate, were accepted by a clueless city council without a whimper.
One transaction alone, the $2.9 million from redevelopment, should have sufficed to alarm all involved. The funds were moved without a concomitant debit to at least a temporary holding account – a basic principle of accounting called double entry book keeping, a fundamental concept of Accounting 101. It’s only been around for 600 years.
The big recommendation was to hire a competent Chief Financial Officer – a CPA knowledgeable in government accounting. There’s another $300,000 per annum. It seems like the budget and reporting reforms recommended by our consultant may not be able to be applied to the upcoming budget due to lack of time, which just seems so typical of Fullerton Futility.
The little that Grant Thornton did delve into suggests a fundamental failure of practices and procedures that is the result of years, if not decades of organization entropy because of lack of managerial leadership. When we consider the completely unqualified City Managers like Chris Myers, Joe Felz, Ken Domer, and Eric Levitt – appointed for reasons of political maneuvering or convenience – things start to make more sense. Combine that with the fiscal and budget responsibilities being rolled up to Administration Directors whose professional accounting abilities were (and are) dubious, you get a process running on inertia.
Naturally, nobody at the meeting had the courage to say any of that, although the Grant Thornton folks sure must have spent a lot of time trying to figure out how not to say it.
Grant Thornton has decided that someone else should perform Task 2 – the generation of revenue to bail the City out of its fiscal embarrassment. They say it will save the City money to hire somebody else with a better “wheelhouse” to perform this task, a generosity foolishly lauded by one councilmember, but that begs the question of why Grant Thornton was hired to perform the task in the first place, a question whose answer will not be forthcoming.
My guess is that GT doesn’t want to have anything to do with talking about new taxes and there’s an end to it.
Warning: Conceptual only, not to be taken seriously!
The self-professed experts…
The City of Fullerton’s foray into boutique hostelry remains a big mystery to the public, partly because the public doesn’t know much, if anything about it; but mostly because the City staff doesn’t know what to do with their boondoggle and the people who voted for it – business experts Shana Charles and “Dr.” Ahmad Zahra certainly aren’t talking. Come to think of it, neither are the two councilmembers who voted against it – Fred Jung and Nick Dunlap.
Zahra’s Fullerton Transparency claque and the Fullerton Sisters are silent as the proverbial tomb.
Why is Johnny smiling?
The facts of this disaster hardly require another distasteful regurgitation, so I won’t do it, except to remind Friends that the City deeded over part of the Transportation Center parking facility to TA/Westpark for a pittance, given that they also change the entitlements making it worth 10 times what they sold it for. TA Partners is Johnny Lu and Larry Liu a couple of Chinese con men who had already pleaded guilty to fraud in LA County and who were in the process of going belly up on a huge loan in Irvine.
You may remember that the original grant deed that was recorded by Johnny and Larry was different than the one they recorded later, and the property description in the second recorded deed fraudulently includes the east end of the Depot loading dock now under leasehold by the Bushala Brothers, Inc., whose clock is ticking on their agreement. What a fiasco.
And it may be getting worse. That seems hard to imagine since the property was handed over three and a half years ago and nothing has happened. The hotel and attached mega apartment is supposed to be complete by October 21, 2026. My recollection is that the hotel and the attached mega apartment was supposed to be done only a few months from now. How many legally required milestones have been missed remains a part of the Big Sleep.
Meanwhile Johnny and Larry are said to have taken out a loan against their Fullerton real estate. I guess someone was willing to bet on the come, or just as likely, wasn’t – ahem – fully informed. Which deed was used to describe the lender’s collateral? Must have been the most recent one that includes the loading dock.
If some new loan fraud took place we can add that to the legal entanglements between TA Partners and the family of the original brainstormer, Craig Hostert, now unfortunately deceased. The agreement with the City should have excluded TA from creating debt on the property with permission from the City. But Fullerton, being Fullerton.
This comical boondoggle is now well over 7 years old and still there are no signs of official communication about the state of this mess, let alone resolution. Is staff trying to find a replacement to keep the embarrassment alive and save face for the disaster? Who knows?
Fullerton Boohoo comes in all shapes and sizes, but its members share one thing in common: a desperate drive to support Democrat Party candidates. Fullerton Forward, the brain child of someone called Steven Sherry is no exception. “Building a Better Future for All Fullertonians” is Sherry’s slogan #1. Slogan #2 is about “values”:
We met Fullerton Forward a few weeks ago as Sherry orchestrated a comical People’s Council meeting with limited pizza. The Fullerton Observer wouldn’t say who was behind the get together that attracted the cream of Fullerton Crazy’s crop, and that appointed immigration fraud “Dr.” Ahmad Zahra as the People’s Mayor.
According to the Fullerton Forward website, an individual named Linda Gardner is on the group’s 3 person “advisory council” whatever that title may mean. Here’s her bio:
Linda “…has been active in local and state politics for many years, serving as President of Democrats of North Orange County for six years and continuing to be an active member. Linda has actively worked on campaigns for California Governor, Senate and Assembly as well as Fullerton City Council and major propositions and recalls.
Linda is currently a Delegate for the California Democratic Party. She is passionate about positive change for the future of Fullerton.”
Sherry a former Democrat lobbyist, boasts about himself:
For over a decade, he has also worked in political campaigns, founding his own consulting firm, NewWave Strategies, in 2020. Through his firm, Steven has raised millions for clients nationwide and built highly effective, resourceful advertising campaigns.
Most of this is undoubtedly made up, and after you finish this post you may think the same thing.
Andre, all smiles for cannabis…
This guy looks an awful lot like the under-employed Andre Charles, husband of the insufferable hot air bag Shana whose employment history is sketchy, at best.
Anyhow, Fullerton Forward has finally submitted the necessary Form 460 required of political action committees after the June primary. This document is instructive for lots of reasons.
Cannabis Kitty Jaramillo
First, we can see several of Fullerton’s cyphers who contributed – like the failed Cannabis Kitty Jaramillo, who sued the City so she could get elected; and our old friend, the pathetic election fraud participant,Diane Vena,who endorsed Jaramillo then signed the nominating papers of the phony candidate/confessed perjurer Scott Markowitz.We see you angry liitle eye doctor Anjali Tapadia; and you too, developer shake down artist Elizabeth Hansberg; Aha, over there, indignant front parlor antique, Karen Lloreda, recalled from the Dana Point City Council, and come to Fullerton to roost in the municipal rafters.
Sherry raised almost $17K, which looks okay. But wait. There are only two main contributors:
As we will see, one is frequent Council irritant Helen Higgins, and the other is some dude named Joel Maus, which means “mouse” in English. I have no idea what his motivation is. Maybe he’ll drop by to tell us. He’s the $5K “small business” moneybags.
Like Andre Charles, Mr. Sherry seems to believe that personally doing well by doing good is his life’s path. How’s that? you ask.
Because according to the Form 460 Schedule E, Sherry paid himself almost $6000 for the campaign he ran against Fred Jung in the primary, a campaign that only lasted a couple months. I won’t even share the percentages of Sherry’s cost versus the totals he spent and raised, because the Form 460 Schedule E totals don’t add up to the total expenditures listed on the Form 460 top summary.
The best part of Sherry’s activities, with his name almost obscured, was this remarkable payment he made to himself: $4560.80 for “fundraising.” WTF?
I love the amount this honest and transparent political action committee paid to scofflaw Mario Marovic for holding their fundraiser at “Madero 1899,” even as his fake Irish pub across the street still illegally squats on the Commonwealth sidewalk. Did the dummy Sherry list the cost of the Big Fundraising Party twice, somehow? If so, the numbers still wouldn’t add up to the summary page, so it hardly matters.
Naturally, Sherry paid his tribute to the Democrat Party of OC – $500 on April 27th – confirming the purely partisan nature of his new plaything.
By the way, I’m informed that Sherry’s self-serve creation is also now the object of an FPPC complaint, dealing with illegal campaign sign disclosure rules.
Finally, we are we really to believe somebody who spent a lot to raise a little, and who, as treasurer and “Executive Director” of a PAC can’t seem to add, has “raised millions for nationwide clients?” Yeah, sure, Steve, whatever you say.
Almost half the money raised came from only two donors. If I were on that “Advisory Council” I’d be asking some serious questions of Mr. Sherry. Of course that won’t happen.
Anyone But Connor. Connor Traut, that is, the nebbish, desperate political carpetbagger, hack and descendant/acolyte of the corrupt Anaheim Cabal gang.
His mentor was the unspeakable Jordan Brandman, another young political climber who never held a job in his life that wasn’t handed to him.
Here’s the thing: vote for Jung, Espinosa or Shaw, if you vote at all. North Orange County has the ability today to be rid of the Connor Traut Experience once and for all. If by some chance this “establishment” Democrat gets elected we won’t be rid of his incessant political adventures for another 40 years as he bobs back and forth between Sacramento and the County Hall of Administration – making sure there is no government accountability every slimy step of the way.
Traut, on the right.
Here’s a thought, Connor: get out of politics, get a real job that you earned, if you can, and support your family making a contribution to society. Don’t end up like your mentor, Jordan Brandman.
Fullerton’s so-called Ad Hoc Fiscal Sustainability Committee met again, and probably for the last time last Thursday. Like its predecessor, the meeting expended hours of lots of peoples’ time and accomplished nothing. Not very little. Nothing.
Hours and hours of already familiar Power Point readings.
Three things worth mentioning happened.
Miss Daisey was driven…
First, Daisy Perez, the Assistant City Manager reminded the committee that if the City were to get a dedicated “infrastructure” half-cent sales tax increase, that money could be diverted to pay for “maintenance” of police and fire department facilities. She said nothing about a commensurate reduction in the “public safety” budgets and naturally nobody on the committee asked her.
Later, when pressed, the City Manger had to explain that he needed some sort of City Attorney blessing before he could share polling questions asked by the City’s quality of life/pro tax consultant. Huh? The only people who get to know the questions are the ones who got phone solicitations? What bullshit is this? Fortunately, Joshua Ferguson was on hand to share the nature of the questions his wife got; of course they were directed to promoting a sales tax increase of some kind.
You will be taxed…sooner or later!
Later still, when everyone was fatigued, Perez tried to get the committee to vote on a laundry list of options, all of which would be passed on to the council. This is the precise swindle that occurred during the redistricting process courtesy of City Clerk Lucinda Williams – when Fullerton Booohoo was trying real hard to keep Jesus Quirk-Silva in a political job.
Chris Norby, our former City Councilman, County Supervisor and Assemblyman showed up to save the day. He shared the value of vacant properties the City owns, and threw in the airport. These collectively are worth half a billion he asserted. He didn’t remind committee members that these properties would be declared surplus, and that “affordable” housing developers would get first shot at them. He reminded the committee that sales taxes are inherently regressive, perhaps thinking anybody cared about that.
In the end a completely improper process of trying to vote on something, anything, occurred. Without following any order except prompting by staff, the committee voted 3-2 against a Tony Bushala suggestion of a 1/2 cent sales tax dedicate to infrastructure, and keeping in place an existing ordinance guaranteeing a certain percentage of funding for infrastructure.
Peace. No, piece. Another piece of your money. You have it. We want it.
Then the appointees of the liberals Shana Charles and Ahamad Zahra, Derek Smith and Jennifer Duong proposed their own idea: a one cent general sales tax. This failed 3-2, also with Bushala, Wehn and Wozab voting no.
Finally a legitimate motion was made by Eric Wehn and seconded by Bushala: investigate the possible sale of the water function to an independent water company. That proposal was finally passed 3-2 again with the liberal appointees voting no. This idea really has no place to go, except that an exploration of the Water Department’s vacant property should be definitely considered for offloading.
There seemed to be confusion about whether the committee could meet again to keep kicking the can around. No decision was made on that as far as I can tell, but I’ve seen so many Fullerton meetings dissolve into incoherence at their end that I really can’t say.
Now, finally in his last year of public preening and pontificating on our dime, Fullerton Councilmember Ahmad Zahra deserves an appropriate retrospective from FFFF. And this backwards look is colored by Zahra’s own continual critique of his colleagues for their lack of transparency. His claque, in particular the lonely old Kennedy Sisters of the Fullerton Observer, are willing to pass along these accusations without a shred of curiosity about their own hero.
Transparency.
Mug shot of the one-time Mrs. Ahmad Zahra.
Back in mid 1990s the immigrant Zahra came to America with a dream in his heart. That dream was stay here. To that end he quickly married a woman in Arkansas named Michelle Salmon in order to jump the green card line. In Zahra’s case the marriage fraud takes on a pungent charm since Zahra is proudly gay and has said in print that he has always known he was gay.
The newly minted husband left right away for the sunshine and beaches of California, leaving his unheartbroken and probably a little wealthier bride in Little Rock. When the statutory time obligation passed he divorced his abandoned wife, and here he remained. Zahra has never bothered to share his brief sojourn in Arkansas in any of various biographies, and why would he? That would be transparent.
Zahra claims he is a medical doctor although he certainly didn’t attend any medical school in the First World. Maybe in the Third World? There is no record of his practicing medicine anywhere, and he has never even bothered to share his medical school diploma. That would be transparent.
Sometime in the 2000s he says, Zahra, claiming to be a “film maker,” washed up on Fullerton’s shores. Zahra still claims film making as his job, even though no one can find any recent cinematic work to his credit. How he makes ends meet is a mystery and the wherewithal for his trips abroad (he says they are) is a matter of conjecture. Zahra never explains where he gets his income. It certainly isn’t from making movies. The public has the right to know how he supports himself. That would be transparent.
Not the people’s choice…
Zahra’s first action on the City Council was a cheap flip-flop that you never read about in the Observer. Despite his call for an election to replace Jesus Quirk Silva’s citywide seat, he soon voted to disenfranchise Fullerton voters and appoint the old retread Jan Flory; in return he got a great paying seat on the Orange County Water District Board where he pulled in $70,000 over a couple years. Zahra never talks about his decision reversal, nor do his followers. That would be transparent.
While on the Water Board, Zahra published three articles under his own name in the Fullerton Observer about water-related issues. It was later discovered that the articles weren’t written by Zahra at all, but rather by an OCWD PR hack. Zahra didn’t care and neither did the Observer Sisters, who tried to explain the plagiarism as some sort of amateur error by somebody, probably Jesse Latour. Transparency?
Read. Weep.
In the middle of Zahra’s first term on the City Council, he was busted and charged by the District Attorney for battery and vandalism. The case vanished as happens when somebody pleads guilty, pays a fine and does some community service. That gave Zahra the chance to falsely claim that he had been “exonerated” and offered to show evidence of that claim. But he never did. That would be transparent.
Not looking so good…
Zahra has been a cheerleader for legalized marijuana dispensaries in Fullerton. He had recommended the services of the later-convicted dope lobbyist Melahat Rafiei. He appointed Derek Smith, an MJ union lobbyist and peripheral character in the Anaheim Cabal crew to be his representative on the Budget Sustainability Committee. Zahra has never revealed his ties to the legalized marijuana cartel and what was in it for him. That would be transparent.
Ferguson and Curlee. The easy winners…
In Zahra’s worst offense against the people of Fullerton, he voted over and over again to sue David Curlee, Joshua Ferguson and FFFF. That flagrant abuse of power cost the public hundreds of thousands of dollars in a settlement. Zahra was aided and abetted by the Fullerton Observer’s Sharon Kennedy who actually employed an “expert” family member to assist City Hall’s reckless lawsuit. Zahra lied to the Voice of OC, claiming he was a “fan” of settling the lawsuit from the beginning, even though he voted against the final settlement. No explanation for this disaster was ever forthcoming from Zahra or his accomplice, Sharon Kennedy. That would be transparent.
In 2021 Zahra tried to privatize the UP Park and turn it into a commercial events center masquerading as a non-profit fish farm. The move was illegal as hell, but none of his friends cared so why should he? Zahra never reminds anyone of that harebrained scheme, but loves to talk about how his district is park poor. Transparency?
Tony Castro. Staying out of jail long enough to be of use to the Democrat Party of OC.
In his 2022 reelection campaign, Zahra spent $120,000 to keep a job that pays a thousand bucks a month. Part of this campaign involved the Democratic Party’s creation of a patsy candidate with a shady past but with a Latino name, Tony Castro, to beat his real opponent, Oscar Valadez. How much did Zahra know about this phony candidacy? Come to think of it, how much did Zahra know about the perjury of another fake candidate in 2024, Scott Markowitz, recruited by north county Dems in order to elect Cannabis Kitty Jaramillo. Once again Sharon Kennedy of the Observer not only ignored the story but ran interference. More transparency.
In October of 2021 Zahra filed a false police report against his colleague, Fred Jung. The cops interviewed other councilmembers who denied Zahra’s tall tale. End of story. Except that the story has never been reported by Zahra’s Observer friends and of course never discussed by Zahra. That would be transparent.
Zahra’s campaign finance reporting has been the subject of an FPPC investigation. First reported in August of 2025, it still seems not to have been resolved. A credit card payee, not vendors was routinely reported, leaving an unclear record of who was the beneficiary of these payments, payments that might have benefitted Zahra personally. Zahra has said nothing about this complaint. His friends at the Observer don’t seem interested, either. So why would he? That would be transparent.
That’s quite a list of misfeasance and malfeasance. Transparency? Not so much. Zahra has had the good fortune of having bamboozled the simpletons at the Fullerton Observer. And he has groomed a stable of eager young fellows who appear to be interested in political upward mobility and are happy to parrot the transparency schtick. To these followers and acolytes there is no reason to delve into their hero’s own extensive catalog of lies, secrets, hypocrisy and plagiarism.
