Search Results for “Fullerton Boohoo” – Page 10

August 1, 2025August 3, 2025About Us

The True Tale of Les Amis

A while back the Fullerton Observer ran an article about supporting businesses and addressing the damned unfairness of rents on City-owned property. The restaurant Les Amis was cited as a particular case. The older Kennedy Sister – Sharon – opined in one of her frequent comments on her younger sister’s posts:

“…I love Les Amis – I thought the Montechristo’s (sic) message at the July 15 council meeting was heartbreaking.”

The No Account of Montecristo breaks hearts…

Maybe Les Amis should be renamed The House of Blues.

But wait a minute. Before we all start singing boohoo hosannas about how unfairly Les Amis is treated, let’s consider their 15 year record of scofflawry, trespass, and ignoring rent payments. The rap sheet is long and demonstrates bad faith at every turn. Naturally, neither Siskya or Sharon Kennedy bothered to find out if Les Amis has ever been an honest tenant of the taxpayers.

But we’ll take trip down memory lane, courtesy of a Public Records Act request about Les Amis:

Feb 2011         Jinan Montecristo d.b.a. Les Amis Restaurant & Lounge (Jinan) applied for an outdoor dining encroachment agreement.

Aug 2011         After several reviews of the site plan, staff provided a draft encroachment agreement to Jinan for consideration

Sept 2011        Jinan issued a letter to staff challenging the lease rates. Les Amis installed fencing and started operating within the public right-of-way without executed agreement (south patio).

Dec 2011         Staff send revised encroachment agreement for consideration

June 2012       Jinan was issued an Administrative Restaurant Use Permit (ARUP), which included an ancillary outdoor patio. Among other things, the conditions of the ARUP required a valid encroachment agreement pursuant to the Outdoor Dining Guidelines established by the City Council.

July 2012         Staff send revised encroachment agreement for consideration

Dec 2015         Jinan submitted building permit to expand into the north portion of the building.

Feb 2016         Staff inform Jinan that she owed $28,659.60 for use of the public right-of-way of private benefit (9/2011 – 2/2016).

May 2016        Modification of an Amended ARUP was approved, expanding existing restaurant into adjacent tenant space. Jinan executed an encroachment agreement for outdoor dining (south patio only; $510/month; $6,120 annually). The agreement also required payment for 12-month prior occupancy ($6,120; negotiated down from $28,659.60).

Aug 2016         Jinan issues a letter to staff indicated they are “unable to fulfill financial obligations” due to “hardship”.

April 2017        Jinan was issued a letter from the City attorney to pay outstanding balance on account.

May 2017        Encroachment Agreement expired.

Aug 2017         Les Amis expanded into the north patio area without a permit/agreement for outdoor dining.

Nov 2018         Jinan was issued a letter from the City attorney, indicating they are in violation of their ARUP, failed to pay the lease outlined in the executed agreement, and are required to remove encroachments (north and south patio) by Dec. 14, 2018. Jinan subsequently expressed interest in continued use of both patios. Outstanding balance was $24,643.70 at the time.

Dec 2018         Jinan signed resolution of breach of outdoor dining encroachment agreement and FMC. Resolution waived outstanding balance on Patio 2 (north patio; $5,263.70), resulting in $19,380 of remaining account balance.

Jan 2019         Staff sent two encroachment agreement(s) for consideration. Jinan expressed interest in removing Patio 1 (south patio) and expanding Patio 2 (north patio)

March 2019     Jinan executed Encroachment Agreement for new north patio only. New Agreement was for $913.75/month ($510 for north patio; $403.75 for prior occupancy fee ($19,300 amortized over 48 months))

Permit was issued for removal of fencing around south patio and installation for north patio expansion per executed agreement.

May 2020        City Council paused collecting lease revenue from all outdoor dining encroachments due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Outstanding balance for all outdoor dining agreements was also waived. Les Amis waived balance was approximately $13,647.50.

June 2022       Council approved new lease rates for outdoor dining on public property.

Aug 2022         Les Amis reinstalled south patio without permits and/or an agreement.

Sept 2022        Jinan submitted application to reinstall south patio.

Aug 2023         Staff reinitiated collecting lease from all existing agreements.

Oct 2024         Jinan defaulted on payments from August 2023 to October 2024, accumulating a dept of $13,468.71. Jinan signed an agreement for a 12-month payment plan to pay the outstanding debt of $13,468.71.

NOTE: this did not include prior occupancy for the reinstalled south patio.

Nov 2024         Jinan executed two superseding encroachment agreements for outdoor dining with the new lease areas and rates.

April 2025        Jinan defaulted on payments, accumulating an outstanding balance of $26,650.96. Staff terminated the agreements, cancelled the payment plan, issued several notices of violations, and required removal of all encroachments. Jinan expressed financial hardship and requested the City revisit the lease rate. Jinan also paid $1,200 toward the payment plan and expressed interest in purchasing the property. The city paused removal to explore options.

July 2025         Jinan was once again requested to remove all unpermitted encroachments. Jinan paid $3,900 toward the payment plan. City Manager agree to extend the time for compliance or a change in the Outdoor Dining policy for 60 days. To date, Jinan has an outstanding balance of $31,185.10 ($5,494.06 payment plan; $25,691.04 encroachment agreements)

Okay, so what’s the deal? At one point Les Amis went five years ignoring their rent obligation to the City. Remember these were mostly the years that Mayor-for-Hire Jennifer Fitzgerald, who ran cover for almost every misbehaving restaurant and bar owner in Downtown Fullerton. Work without permits? Expansion without approval? City employees dismissing massive amounts of money due to the people of Fullerton? Check.

And these people have the damn nerve to get up in public and harangue the City Council about fairness?

June 5, 2025June 5, 2025About Us

The Know-it-alls

by Joe Sipowicz16 Comments

Ever ask yourself how America got stuck with not one but two Trump presidencies? There are lots of reasons, including the fact that a great many Americans are generally stupid, incurious, nativist, fearful of this or that, and of course, did I mention really stupid?

But there’s something else going on here too, and that’s the phenomenon of ordinary folk who are just sick and tired of liberal academic preachers preaching to them about how to live, what to believe. This is precisely why there is so little outcry among the masses about Trump’s war on academic elites.

They had it coming.

For decades the problem of an impractical and ideological driven agenda telling everybody how to talk and how to behave and what to think has gotten worse and worse. There was bound to be a reaction.

What does this have to do with Fullerton? Well, I’ll tell you. Fullerton is an academic backwater – with a third-tier university and a junior college; and that means that these institutions and their camp followers are going to try extra hard to polish the produce of their politically correct world-view. In some circles this passes for enlightenment – just like accepting at face value any idiot who checks the right boxes.

Let’s take Fullerton’s leading liberal politicians, two individuals who revel in the tile of “Doctor” and who, like the conscientious patent medicine peddler, love to dispense their dubious wares.

They believe they are smarter than you are…

First exhibit for the prosecution. Shana Charles, a CSUF teacher whose specialty is “public health” a silly academic field of activity ginned up to fill the ranks of graduate schools. Ms. Charles is naturally a barely contained wind bag whose supercilious and lengthy lectures are truly annoying. But despite the smiles there is no doubt that Charles considers herself a superior intellect, perfectly suited to the role of moral preacher.

My second exhibit is none other than the good Doctor from Damascus, the self-righteous Ahmad Zahra, whose pontifications on moral probity and the defects thereof practiced by his colleagues are common fare at council meetings. Like his ally Charles, Zahra’s lectures run on for a long time and are characterized by hand-wringing and finger pointing. Yeah, Zahra looks down on you and me, and why not? He’s a member of the cosmopolitan intelligentsia, see?

Naturally Zahra and Charles have no experience that would actually help them understand their constituents. Who needs experience when ideology is so potent? Their playground is the unaccountable arena of feeling good about their liberal thoughts, and of course in telling everybody else what to do. This is exactly the high-handed moral bossiness that pisses off so many people.

In Fullerton we also know that our liberal moral and truthy exemplars have proverbial feet of clay.

The idea of the adipose Shana Charles lecturing anybody on any sort of health, is preposterous; wasting millions just to pay heed to the all-important concept, efficacy be damned – bike trails that nobody will use – is especially painful.

And then there’s “Dr.” Zahra, an unemployed parasite with no income (read his Form 700 for fun) whose speechifying on morality, the spirit of the law, and so forth is remarkably hypocritical even for a low-grade politician. We’ve seen his record: a phony marriage to a woman in Arkansas to stay in the country; claiming exoneration for an assault and battery case where there wasn’t any; plagiarizing articles to appear like an expert on water issue; and filing a false police report against one of his colleagues. What a guy.

These people need fuel to keep their fire going and that sustenance is provided by the various academic flotsam who think that Zahra and Charles represent everybody – instead of just themselves. In fact these folk are the ones who are always nattering about “the people” who want this or that (expensive) nonsense; and largely because “they” are “underserved” the classic liberal/bureaucratic label that patronizing boohoos stick on Latinos, and blacks and anybody else who needs a financial or bureaucratic middleman to give them something “nice.”

And I would be remiss if I didn’t mention those other purveyors of liberal tripe, the Fullerton Observer Sisters, Sharon and Skaskia, whose censored blog and twice monthly screed is dedicated to supporting whatever nonsense is ladled out by their heroes, too dumb to understand the extent of how they are being manipulated.

May 29, 2025June 4, 2025About Us

Preservation or Possession? When Watchdogs Become Gatekeepers

by Emily Roe7 Comments

Part IV of an essay sent in to FFFF.

At present, Fullerton Heritage is applying to place historic preservation layers over four neighborhoods. While we heartily dislike SB 330 and SB 9, our experience with the local players has been negative. There are enough unpleasant memories that we wish we could assign to the scrap bin. But Fullerton Heritage members have been intrusive and confrontational in Skyline Park over things they don’t like. It is hard to shake when you are attacked at your own house. Especially when the neighborhood has never had a historic preservation layer over it, and where all the neighbors have done their best.

FOR A BAR, THE DRINKS COULD BE STRONGER: BOOHOOISM AMONG THE SELF-APPOINTED TASTE ARBITERS

Homeowners without HOAʻs assume they will make their own choices and not hassle with those who think they know better. While Fullerton Heritage isn’t an HOA, some of its members mimic one even if a neighborhood doesn’t fall within their scope.

Heritage proponents have given unsolicited opinions on everything from windows, gardens, and house colors. But their opinions aren’t necessarily rooted in the rules set forth by the city. They like to make stuff up, inferring there are rules in areas where there are none. A Fullerton Heritage board member, even made up a rule about painted bricks and unsuccessfully tried to use it against her neighbor. That this was a neighborhood without a preservation layer, and that the house was built in the mid-1960’s made no difference to her. She just wanted the power to stop her elderly neighbor from painting his fake brick facade. Fortunately, she failed (the house looks great). But it was not her first grab for authority. Many years ago, she took photos of neighborhood homes without the owner’s consent and ran away when people tried to ask who she was. They found she’d had free reign of the FH website and posted rando things about many of the homes. (They were later taken down). But make no mistake: Their lack of boundaries will be your problem, too.

At their worst, a call was made to city planning to complain about new windows, already installed in a house that was in the process of remodeling. Never mind that the city approved the work a year earlier. The city issued a stop-work anyway. The Boohoo-Who didn’t want to accept that the city allows for new energy-efficient double pane windows, and no one (except for someone applying for the Mill’s Act -but that’s another tangled story) is beholden to single-pane wood windows. Replacement metal, vinyl, aluminum clad or composite double-pane windows, with or without grids are allowed. These have all been approved, installed, and scarcely noticed by neighbors already. It’s an environmentally mindful push past the battle cry for wood windows by Fullerton Heritage members with a personal preference.

But we also got the impression of a too-close relationship between the City and Fullerton Heritage. When asked why the stop order work was issued, the city couldn’t say why. But that a Boohoo-Who had the power to bring an approved project to a halt is a forewarning that with this group, there is no discussion.

Just recently, their president tried to shut down dissent at an informational meeting. It was next level assholery, but it was on par with the scolding from another FH member who admonished anyone who disagreed with her. Is this a bar or a high school? Did they really think they could have a meeting about other people’s homes without push back? This seems like a group from an era where people were expected to get along by going along. If they’ve spent any time listening or talking with the younger generations, they’d know that the world doesn’t work that way anymore.

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 5, 2025March 5, 2025A Step in the Right Direction

Bitter Jaramillo Bites Dust. Again.

by The Fullerton Harpoon20 Comments

At last night’s Fullerton City Council meeting, Ahmad Zahra revealed his second nomination for the city’s Planning Commission. You may recall that his first nomination, Adrian Meza, doesn’t live in Fullerton and couldn’t take the job. Zahra’s new nominee? Vivian “Kitty” Jaramillo. Friends may well remember Jaramillo from the fall city council campaign, where she finished behind Jamie Valencia.

Jaramillo’s nomination went down like the Hindenburg. Zahra and Charles voted yes, of course; Valencia, Dunlap, and Jung voted no. Unequivocally. How come? These appointments are usually rubber stamped by the Council.

Well, Friends may also recall Jaramillo’s political valediction, presented in the Fullerton Observer: a bitter lamentation how dirty tricks sank her little boat:

Rule number one in politics must be that if you want somebody to vote for you, try to refrain from calling them knuckleheads and puppets. During the campaign Jaramillo questioned Valencia’s credentials and commitment; not a big deal in an election, but not helpful later on when you want something from your former rival.

Then there’s the marijuana dispensary problem. Jaramillo has been a big supporter of the now reversed ordinance that would have permitted the greatest latitude for future permits. Dunlap and Jung had already votes to repeal that law. The thought that the dope lobby contributed $60,000 to get Jaramillo elected certainly must have caused pause for the council majority.

And then there’s the problem of Zahra’s own recent vote against nominations made by Jung and Valencia, most noticeably the choice of Arif Mansuri to the Traffic and Circulation Commission. If you’re going to start voting no on qualified nominees you should expect reciprocation for your unqualified ones.

My guess is that Zahra was on the phone after the meeting to boohoo like a little girl to one of the Kennedy Sisters, and they’ll be crying in print real soon about the usual outrage.

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.

January 22, 2025January 22, 2025Ahmad Zahra

Walk on Wilshire Dead. For Now.

by Mr. Peabody74 Comments

I say for now because in Fullerton nothing truly goes away if staff wants something. And boy did they want the wasteful, little-used, annoying road blockage.

Still, for the present, staff has been directed to open the street.

At last night’s City Council meeting, no majority was present to keep the embarrassing WoW on life support, let alone expand it to Malden. On a 2-2 vote no positive action could be taken. Now businesses and residents who used to use Wilshire to get to and from Harbor Boulevard will be able to do it again.

But oh Sweet Baby Jebus, how the crowd gave it a go. Dozens of speakers cheered for the dumb idea, almost none of whom had any skin in the game, as they say. The nonsense went way over the top, including some who actually said businesses were going to be hurt if the street was opened! The only businesses supporting this were not even located on Wilshire.

My God, their descriptions of this 200ft kiddie chalk surface were rhapsodic. The Garden of Eden. Central Park. Golden Gate Park, doncha know. Cars are frightening. So fun to get off the sidewalk. Peaceful and serene. Back to nature, even!

Naturally a few of the speakers were vitriolic. One, a ill-tempered shrew named Karen Lloreda questioned the integrity of Jamie Valencia for taking campaign money from bad people. Lloreda didn’t bother share with the public that she was an endorser of Kitty Jaramillo, the woman Valencia defeated to become a councilmember, so I’ll do it here.

Diane Vena, proud Scott Markowitz supporter…

Diane Vena, another Jaramillo supporter (and supporter of the felonious Republican candidate Scott Markowitz) showed up to take the usual moral high ground, too, adding some unintended irony to the goings on.

Then there was this acolyte of Ahmad Zahra, a perpetually angry little person spilling her overflow of venom at council meetings in a rapid-fire succession of aspersions. She claimed to be a business owner (of course no details forthcoming) and asserted that opening Wilshire would be detrimental to business! It seems that if your heart is in the right place you can make any claim you want.

The train of thought short, but it sure was slow…

Of course the younger Kennedy sister, Skasia showed up to support the stupid, and yammer about something so far above her head she might as well have been discoursing on astrophysics.

Dancing on the grave of Walk on Wilshire…

We learned three things last night. Jamie Valencia and Fred Jung can demonstrate commonsense in the face of angry, histrionic boohoodom. We also learned that Councilmember Shana Charles appears to be the mastermind behind keeping Wilshire blocked off. Her closing statement was a litany of her special academic qualifications as an urban planner and a public heath expert of some sort. And in retrospect one gets the idea that it was she who rounded up speakers to attend the meetings last year, too. Her completely callous attitude toward Wilshire businesses may come back to haunt her. If Charles thinks she gets to tell businesses whether they are doing well enough to satisfy her, and expects them to buy it, she’s got another think coming.

We also learned that Sunaya Thomas, Fullerton’s was willing to let the Council believe that $50,000 to $250,000 was a price range for closing the block, when in reality it was just the possible cost of the design side of stuff. Zahra jumped at the chance to waste $50K up front and let staff come back for more, a typical, incompetent attitude.

And finally let’s give another nod to Fred Jung, whose suggestion to close down the whole block gummed up the works, but good.

And let’s celebrate for ourselves. At least for now the taxpayers of Fullerton dodged another losing lawsuit that was surely headed our way.

December 21, 2024December 22, 2024Ahmad Zahra

Because YOU Asked for it

by The Fullerton Harpoon47 Comments

One of our frequent commenters, a loopy lefty and Ahmad Zahra fan complained of a post that included a picture of a kid holding a no Zahra sign, intimating that we were using kids as props.

Yeah precious. Little kid with no agency used a prop for some adult’s fucked point of view.

Kinda gross. No one’s winning anything for that.

I felt constrained to point out that the object of his affection, Zahra, uses little kids as props (and by the way others like Pam Keller, liked to do it too).

Our commenter replied:

I’m sure there’s no comparison to a kid being used as a prop for rank Bushala political schemes.

Hmm. Rank political schemes. Does getting elected and endless self-promotion count as “rank.”

Our boy Zahra created a fake family for a mailer when running for office in 2022, using four Latino looking kids as props in an effort to come off as a family man with a wife and kids. Oops! Hopefully “mom” got paid something for her smile and maybe passed down a few bucks to the dragooned kiddos. More likely none of them were even related, just trawled out of central casting.

And let’s not forget the Zahra photo-op of posing with Maple area kids in 2023 to explain their Latino culture to them.

Oh, well, these BooHoos seem incapable of seeing what rational, honest people see, which explains how a Middle Eastern miscreant who stayed in the USA via Marriage Fraud can yak it up about how we welcomed him to our shores, and in some circles, get away with it.

December 5, 2024December 5, 2024Fullerton BooHoo

Dumb, Dishonest, or Just Delusional?

by Mr. Peabody23 Comments

Sometimes you just have to ask yourself whether somebody is just plain stupid, a liar, or truly untethered to reality. No where is this better seen than in the case of failed City Council candidate Vivian Jaramillo and her followers. We have already seen Jaramillo’s pitiful valediction, full of spite, and of course bemoaning “dirty tricks” of an undisclosed nature as cause of her (heroic) downfall. It was a twilight struggle of good versus evil, see, in a Manichean battle for the soul of Fullerton. Light versus darkness.

One might find this whole thing ludicrous in a way, and write it off as sound and fury, signifying nothing.

But there seems to be more going on here than a self-entitled Karen of a candidate crying about how the kids got into the HOA swimming pool. The holier-than-thou delusion of self-righteousness still seems to run deep in Fullerton. And it matters when the waste of public money, and a lot of it is wasted on stupid, empty gestures, is defended by people like Jaramillo and her supporters.

FFFF has observed how the Observer Kennedy Sisters did their level best to ignore the Scott Markowitz candidacy, a perjurious fraud perpetrated on the voters of the 4th District by Jaramillo’s Team. Sharon Kennedy, the elder sister and self-styled journalist even went so far as to contact key persons in the scandal, Diane Vena, ostensibly to aid in disseminating a plausible backstory – one that made no sense. And no printed story about the true Markowitz tale was ever forthcoming. The story was dirty tricks against Jaramillo.

Apparently, Jaramillo’s friends on Facebook are now lamenting her loss, and many are blindly following the dirty tricks narrative even though none of them seem to be able to articulate just what those may have been.

We all know that social media provides no barrier for people who don’t know what they’re talking about to opine freely, but this is pretty ridiculous. Jaramillo’s friends either don’t know or don’t care about:

the self-sabotage the Jaramillo Team inflicted on itself
the fraudulent Markowitz scam, created by Jaramillo’s supporters to harm the candidacy of Linda Whitaker
that Jaramillo publicly supported the establishment and the later re-enactment of the MJ ordinance that could have allowed a dispensary 100ft from a house
the fact that out-of-town dope dispensary lobby pumped $60,000 to support Jaramillo
that the dope money was laundered through the national HQ of the grocery store workers union
that the marijuana loot was used pay people to hector and harass voters multiple times
that precinct walkers for Jaramillo slandered her opponents, Whitaker and Valencia
that Jaramillo used City personnel to have her opponents signs removed
that Jaramillo’s signs were illegally placed on public and private property

Et cetera, et cetera.

The election is over, but I get the sense that for the near future, at least, the boohooing and hand-wringing of Fullerton’s self-righteous left-leaners will continue – the self-pity, the blissful ignorance, and the high-horseyness competing for dominance.

July 11, 2023July 11, 2023Ahmad Zahra

Zahra Shoots Wad

by Disillusioned Ex-Hippy14 Comments

And not in any sort of good way.

In 2022 D5 Councilman Ahmad Zahra raised, and spent a small fortune hanging on to his low-pay gig as a Fullerton councilmember. Check it out:

At the end of 2021 Zahra had almost $33K in the bank, the product of furious, rabbit-fornicating fundraising from all sorts of strange people and places. In the next year – an election year – he really went to town putting the screws to donors.

During 2022, Zahra raised an enormous $83K from a wide assortment of unions, boohoos and lots of out-of-towners. And guess what? He spent it all! Plus $26K more. At the end of the year he had only $6.5K to his politcal name. This may be a record for Fullerton elections, certainly in the new district set up. And that leads to some fun math.

Looking at the election results we can discern two undeniable facts. First, Zahra spent an astonishing $42 per vote, and still won by only 300 votes. And, second, without the nearly 600 votes that went to Zahra’s stooge Latino-named candidate, Tony Castro (who has since disappeared), he would have lost to Oscar Valadez by 300 votes.

These numbers really make you wonder why it was so necessary for Zahra to raise and spend all this loot just to stay on our City Council. The inescapable conclusion is that his political career, such as it is, is the only thing this miscreant has going for himself. He’s not a doctor and he’s not a film maker. He’s an unemployed flim-flam artist. He did use his campaign credit card to pay for personal expenses in 2022, but that sort of self-indulgence can only go so far.

Another conclusion is that he has and will use his position of limited authority to continue fundraising and influence peddling, including and perhaps most of all with the legal marijuana cartel. The end game for Zahra must be for higher office – an elected job like State Assembly where he can continue peddling his brand to a wider audience and get paid a real salary to do it.

But as with most grifters, the end game becomes more remote as the lies pile up; and in politics the less bread you have to cast upon your own waters, the harder things are going to get for you.