Friends For Fullerton's Future

Last night the City Council voted 3-2 to move ahead with a study of a Charter City status for Fullerton. Jung, Dunlap and Valencia voted to look into it. Zahra and Charles voted no.

It was painful to sit through comments, most of which were obviously scripted to attack the motives of Mayor Fred Jung, and were all full of nonsensical misinformation about staggering financial costs, legal entanglements, and of course the old standby cliché: if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

These Fullerton Boohoo worthies were obviously coached- and coached sloppily – by Zahra and Charles, and maybe even by reading the opinions of Sanskia Kennedy in the reliable Fullerton Observer – reliable to make stuff up if it helps the narrative. All of the excuses had been debunked, but that doesn’t matter. Commonsense is a not a common commodity among these folks.

Old grievances were aired of course, mostly the money pit Waste on Wilshire, and the Trail to Nowhere© redux in which “the people” have spoken – a few dozen out of a City of 160,000.

My favorite line of attack that was parroted by several speakers was that Fullerton has bigger problems – a fiscal precipice, and horrible roads. The fact that these disasters developed under General Law City status made their “argument” comically ironic. Is it or ain’t it broke?

Joshua Ferguson was on hand to deliver a hard, cold slap to the commentary by pointing out that the citizenry can become more involved in Fullerton affairs in the Charter process, not less. He was interrupted by boos from the faithful.

A Mr. Matt Leslie called in to support a study, and to admonish the speakers who had said (insultingly) that it would be too complicated to figure out and people would just vote yes (because they are so dumb), the typical top-down patronization of ordinary people by liberals. “The people want (fill in the blank)” doesn’t apply to a possible majority regular voters – only the claque of 12 or so who show up to harangue the council majority on a regular basis.

Another zoom caller expressed astonishment that so many adults, especially old ones, were so scared of the monster under the bed.

Which brings me (at last) to the real issue of charter status, expressed without bias. The proverbial devil is in the details. A charter can be as simple or as complex as people want. True the final charter version will be put on the ballot by the City Council, but lots of smart people will be able to scrutinize the text long before an election to approve or reject it. Don’t like it? Mount an anti-charter campaign. Zahra and Charles must have lots of campaign money lying around. Put it to work and get voters to just vote no.

I would be remiss if I failed to point out the noxious presence at the meeting of our old friend, Vivian Jaramillo, still very bitter about losing in last fall’s election, and then being rejected as a planning commissioner. Her “argument” was that a charter would make “Little Dictator” Fred Jung able to give all the City’s construction jobs to the Bushala Brothers, a claim based on her own long standing vendetta with the Bushalas, not any facts in evidence.

MY APOLOGIES FOR IDENTIFYING THE WRONG HOUSE IN THIS POST. GABRIEL SAN ROMAN IS CORRECT. THE HOUSE IN QUESTION IS ON HILLCREST DRIVE.

Historic preservation, to my inexpert understanding, is about recognizing the significance of buildings that are associated with historic figures and with significant architecture. Enter the home of one Louis E. Plummer, longtime Superintendent of Fullerton Schools in the 1920s, 30s, and 40s. He wrote a useful history of the Fullerton Schools in the early days, I am informed.

Fullerton Heritage nominated Mr. Plummer’s house as a candidate for recognition as a Fullerton City Landmark. It’s (not) at 104 Park View Road – an attractive red tile roofed house from the 1920s. The item came up at last week’s City Council meeting.

Things got challenging.

You see, Mr. Plummer was a member of the Ku Klux Klan back in the 20s, according to someone’s doctoral dissertation 46 years ago. I no have idea if the assertion is even accurate, but it presented real problems for the two self-righteously woke members of the City Council, namely the Good “Drs.” Ahmad Zahra and Shana Charles, who can’t be seen as associating themselves with the Klan, no matter how ridiculously remote.

The same issue confronted the Fullerton Joint Unified High School five years ago and they took Plummer’s name off the FHS auditorium that bore it for 60 years, folding under WoW-style pressure from similar ignoramuses.

Apparently, nuanced conversation isn’t useful when you’re out to score what you think is an easy political layup.

Forget the fact that Plummer was significant leader in Fullerton and contributed to the development of the public education system in Fullerton – the soi-disant “Education Community.” And forget the fact that the house wouldn’t be a damn shrine for White Nationals. And forget the fact that the house is 100 years old and designed by the guy that did a lot of those historical WPA Spanishy buildings at FJC – the old concrete ones – not the new overbearing monstrosities. Forget that the dedicatory plaque will be on private property and will offend nobody. No. KKK.

In the end Jung, Valencia and Dunlap voted to approve the inclusion of the house into the Landmark Register (or whatever they call it). Zahra and Charles voted no. Charles and Zahra both claim intellectual attainment, being “Drs” and all. But if they have any they didn’t dare show it.

Right on cue the Fullerton Observer kraken Skania Kennedy released herself with a headline that blares out:

“Council Majority Approves Controversial Landmark Designation for Ku Klux Klan Collaborator Louis Plummer’s Residence“

Suddenly a public conversation requiring some sophisticated thinking becomes an attack on Sasksa’s favorite villain – Fred Jung and Co. In weaselly fashion Sansika labels Plummer a KKK “collaborator,” but of course there’s no more proof of that than there is of his being a full-fledged member, based on who knows what evidence collected by the dissertation writer without fear of a defamation lawsuit from a dead man.

It’s pretty clear that this effort is nothing more than a way to blackguard three decent people, and maybe someday supply a theme for a political hit piece.

Anyway, I’ll let Fran J, the Observers new reality fact checker take us home by responding to Saksia and her sister, Sharon on the Fullerton Observer blog:

As for decisions like the WoW program or the Plummer home designation, these are nuanced matters being flattened into soundbites. The Plummer home, what you refer to as KKK house is historic building that tells a story—good, bad, and ugly. Pretending that preserving it is an endorsement of racism ignores the value of reckoning with our history rather than erasing it. The city isn’t honoring the man; it’s preserving a piece of our past so we can learn from it. The LA Times also reported about the Louis Plummer house that actually better reflects the complexity of that issue which I encourage residents to read if they really cared.

It’s fine to disagree on policy, but let’s do so with the full picture in mind. Mayor Jung isn’t perfect—no leader is—but he’s showing up, making hard decisions, and putting Fullerton on the map in ways we haven’t seen in years. That deserves a fair evaluation, not a list of half-contextualized talking points.

Well said, Fran.

An interesting post popped up on the Fullerton Observer blog yesterday. It isn’t interesting because of content. It’s interesting because it was actually advertised as an opinion piece for a change; and it has an named author: Skasia, one half of the intellectually challenged Kennedy Sisters who publish the Observer. Because of this latter fact, the post is chock full of misinformation, weak generalizations, and double talk. Of course it is completely unpersuasive.

The topic? The awfulness of charter cities in California, and a list of supposed reasons to fear and loathe them.

Somebody called “Fran J” responded with a comment methodically dismembering all of Snakia’s talking points. Here’s what Fran J had to say, and please note the final two paragraphs of Fran J’s comment:

Fran J

May 11, 2025 at 12:36 pm

The opposition to Fullerton becoming a charter city isn’t rooted in facts or public interest—it’s rooted in political bias and a reflexive rejection of anything introduced by Mayor Fred Jung. The arguments raised against charter status collapse under scrutiny, and publications like the Fullerton Observer, which should be advocating for local empowerment, have instead chosen to stoke fear and misinformation.

Sacramento is not slowing down. From housing mandates to labor laws, the state continues to erode the power of cities to govern themselves. Charter status is the most effective legal tool we have to protect our autonomy. It doesn’t mean we ignore state law—it means we have the power to decide when and how to apply it in local matters.

Fullerton deserves better than to be handcuffed by outdated state mandates. We are a city of educators, entrepreneurs, artists, and families who care deeply about where we live. We have the intelligence, the creativity, and the civic pride to shape our own future—and the charter is the legal framework that lets us do just that.

Claim: Charter cities reduce accountability and invite corruption.
Reality: Charter cities still operate under California’s transparency laws, including the Brown Act, the Public Records Act, and the Political Reform Act. Nothing about becoming a charter city removes oversight or ethics requirements. In fact, a city charter gives residents the power to implement even stricter ethics rules, term limits, or transparency standards than state law requires. Suggesting otherwise ignores both the law and reality.

Claim: Charter cities concentrate power in the hands of a few elected officials.
Reality: This is a talking point, not a truth. Charter cities are governed by documents written with public input and approved by the voters themselves. That’s democracy—not consolidation. It’s ironic that the people making this argument seem far more concerned with who proposed the idea (Mayor Jung) than with the content of the proposal itself. The fear of power concentration is a distraction from the real issue: whether Fullerton should control its own local affairs or remain bound to Sacramento’s one-size-fits-all mandates.

Claim: Charter cities face more lawsuits and cost taxpayers more money.
Reality: Any city—charter or general law—can face legal challenges. The legal risks are not higher simply because a city adopts a charter; they only rise if a city writes a sloppy or reckless charter, which Fullerton has every opportunity to avoid through proper public process and expert input. More importantly, charter cities have more flexibility to reduce costs in public contracting, land use, and local services, often saving taxpayers money long term.

Claim: It will silence public voices.
Reality: This argument couldn’t be more backwards. Charter adoption requires public engagement, input, hearings, and a vote. If residents don’t support a specific provision, they can vote it down or demand it be changed. The process invites deeper civic participation—far more than passively following distant state mandates.

Claim: Charter cities can raise taxes more easily.
Reality: False. Charter cities are still bound by Prop 13, Prop 218, and Prop 26—meaning no new local taxes can be imposed without voter approval. The only thing charter status allows is greater efficiency in how cities spend public money—not how they raise it.

Claim: It isolates Fullerton from state or county support.
Reality: There is no evidence whatsoever to support this. Charter cities still receive state funding, participate in county programs, and are eligible for grants. Nearly 125 cities in California are charter cities—including Anaheim, Santa Ana, Irvine, and Huntington Beach. None of them have been “cut off” from support. This is fear-based rhetoric, not grounded in fact.

Let’s be honest—the real reason groups like the Fullerton Observer are opposing charter status has nothing to do with policy and everything to do with politics. If this proposal had come from anyone other than Mayor Fred Jung, many of these same critics would likely be praising it as a progressive step toward local empowerment. Instead, they’ve allowed pettiness to dictate their stance, opposing a good idea simply because of who introduced it.

Fullerton deserves better than performative outrage and knee-jerk contrarianism. This isn’t a small town that needs to be told what to do by Sacramento. This is a proud, capable community that can write its own rules, shape its own future, and trust its own residents. Becoming a charter city is a powerful step in that direction—and it’s time to stop letting political grudges get in the way of progress.

ED Response: Wow Fran J – you seem to know a lot about this subject though not everyone agrees. We do have a lot of problems to pay attention to and spend our limited funding on. This seems – to many – to be something that will not be helpful. I agree with you that a study session presenting all sides would be useful. In the past Fred Jung and the council majority have terminated the contract of an excellent City Manager for no reason at great expense and hired an unemployed friend who was not up to the job, tried to privatize the public library, end the UP Trail, and did end Walk on Wilshire – and more – so are not trusted by many who live here and want those things.

Unfortunately “ED” felt constrained to exercise a nasty, unprofessional habit that still plagues Siskyu. “Wow” she says, sarcastically trying to denigrate the commenter. Of course she may just be that surprised that someone actually bothered to read her tripe. She slips up and says she’s for a “study session” but that’s a lie, of course. Then Sakia trails off into a litany of Fullerton Boohoo grievances against Fred Jung and the council majority for:

1. firing an “excellent” City Manager (ED Note: Ken Domer was an incompetent boob)
2. trying to privatize the library (ED Note: and when did this happen?)
3. end the UP Trail (ED Note: the UP trail has always been an absurd boondoggle, but the majority did approve it.
4. end the Walk on Wilshire (ED Note: yes – an idea so damn stupid, and so bad for Wilshire Avenue businesses only a dunce couldn’t see it)
5. “and more” (ED Note: what’s the matter Sanka, too busy soliciting mortuary ads to spin more mythology?)
6. not trusted by many who want those things (ED Note: many people want many things, and many people can be manipulated into believing falsehoods about things they say they want. That’s just demagoguery, and that’s we have representative democracy.

My own favorite part of the editorial was this hilarious hypocritical line from Saksia:

– Charter cities can impose local taxes with significantly fewer restrictions, placing the financial burden squarely on the community.

Since when have the Kennedy Sisters or any of their tribe given a rat’s ass about the ease of raising taxes, except to make it easier. I wonder if Sanka even pays any taxes at all.

A close second for unintentional hilarity was Skiana’s assertion that a charter city would be more expensive in legal costs, another topic that Fullerton Observers have never shown interest in the past as Dick Jones racked up billing based on his own legal misjudgment. More self-unawareness: Sharon Kennedy actually tried to help the City in its absurd and losing legal harassment of Joshua Ferguson, David Curlee, and FFFF. That lawsuit cost the taxpayers plenty.

And even more, later yesterday. Enjoy.

Fran J

May 11, 2025 at 3:38 pm

Yes, I am very familiar with this subject. As a former municipal attorney, I have experience with local governance and legal frameworks. You’re welcome to disagree, but there is a difference between opinion and fact—I’ve provided the latter for readers to consider.

That said, you’re actually reinforcing my point. Your response appears heavily influenced by personal grievances with the Mayor—many of which are either inaccurate or irrelevant to the issue at hand. It’s important for your readers to understand that, as the editor of this publication, you’re approaching this topic with a strong and evident bias.

Readers deserve transparency, not personal vendettas disguised as civic concern.

ED Response: I have no personal grievance with anyone on our council. I was merely listing some of the reasons many in our town do not trust the current majority to make good decisions on our city’s behalf. For instance at the most recent council meeting the majority allowed a memorial plaque for a historic building in honor of a KKK member and at the same meeting banned our university newspaper Daily Titan and the 46-year-old all local volunteer community newspaper Fullerton Observer from continuing to have a rack in the lobby of city hall. You may have read about that in the OC Register, LA Times, Voice of OC, the LAist, or heard about it on NPR or other news agencies or from various Free Speech agencies. These, and other decisions have made residents suspicious of our council majority.

Saska has no personal grievance with anyone on our council. Now that’s hilarious.

As we’ve just seen the idiotic half-mile Trail to Nowhere© now requires almost twice as much City money as it did when the City Council approved it 16 months ago. As the project languished in bureaucratic limbo for that time the City cost has gone up from $330,000 to $600,00 – with no explanation from the City Manager or the City Engineer – just the feeble “increased scope” excuse.

Lest you think this is a one off, you’d do well to think again.

I went back to the original grant application submittal. You may remember the document – the one so full of bullshit you need wings to stay above it.

Here’s the heading of page one:

Please note that when the City Council approved the grant application the City cost was a mere $170,720. By the time the Council approved the project, the contribution from the Park Dwelling Fund (derived from a fee from development, restricted to new park facilities) jumped to the $330,000 amount seen above. So before it was finally approved, nobody bothered to tell the City Council that Fullerton’s contribution to the senseless project had jumped a whopping 94%.

And now the City’s responsibility has metastasized to $630,000, an unbelievable increase of almost half a million bucks over the original cost used to pitch the project. If you like math, the overall increase is 290% from Day One. The Council wasn’t told, public wasn’t told, and I’m pretty sure the State wasn’t told.

Just think about it, Friends. An almost 300% increase and not a single person in City Hall raised the issue of an arithmatic cost escalation. And there’s no reason to suspect there won’t be more increases, courtesy of change orders, and that those will be approved behind closed doors by the City Manager, with no scrutiny by the public or by Councilpersons Dunlap, Jung or Valencia. Zero Zahra and Shameless Charles showed they don’t give a damn about taxpayer money.

Here’s an example of just one item of new work: we already know there is no line item in the bid for reworking access to the 10 toxic plume testing wells on the trail site. How much will that cost? Who knows? Does anybody even care?

The City Council would be very wise to explore not only the reason for the alleged “increase in scope,” but also to inquire about future budget increases due to unforeseen conditions – the low bidders best friend.

On Tuesday the seemingly inevitable rubber stamp of the Trail to Nowhere© contract award didn’t happen. That’s thanks to the presentation of facts that were deliberately being obscured by City Staff in an incompetent agenda report.

Public speaker Joshua Ferguson raised the issue of the increased City cost that FFFF raised, here; and noted that the phrase “increase in scope” was marvelously uninformative.

When the “Consent Calendar” finally rolled around, Councilman Nick Dunlap, to his credit, pulled the item for discussion. Once again Mr. Ferguson unloaded on the lack of transparency, and the failure to describe why the City cost had doubled. He also correctly observed the likelihood of more and more costs as the project was being built. Fullerton Engineer has already expertly shared the likelihood of that, here, when he predicted an eventual City borne cost increase of $800,000. At $630,000 we’re getting there real fast, and a shovel hasn’t even broken the contaminated soil yet.

Then Dunlap took over.

He was demonstrably upset that the item was on the Consent Calendar in the first place, and noted, correctly, that the additional money had to come from somewhere else. Dunlap referred to a transfer from the General Fund; that’s not what the staff report said. The staff report referred to a Park Dwelling Fund transfer, as FFFF has noted. It really doesn’t matter. We already saw that next years CIP only identified a few Park Dwelling Fund projects for a total of $250,000. So where is the additional $300,000 coming from, and what is it displacing? Excellent questions.

City Manager Eric Levitt volunteered to answer Dunlap’s questions in “two minutes,” a promise that would almost certainly never have happened in two minutes or with coherency. To his credit, Dunlap smelled a wagon load of bullshit coming down the road, and demanded a continuance.

A few of the usual suspects popped up to demand immediate approval of the Trail to Nowhere© construction contract. Poor Egleth Nuncio, claimed her health had been impaired advocating for the trail and picking up broken glass on the right-of-way, the latter a claim so preposterous that I’m surprised nobody burst out laughing. But maybe it happened during the infamous Skaksia Kennedy photo op.

But trees, right? Before waddling off in a huff, she promised a vast turn out on May 20th, which should be a fun rehash of uninformed nonsense as her overlord Ahmad Zahra mobilizes another cry-and-cry session from Fullerton Boohoo.

Finally the Council voted 3-2 to continue the item until May 20th meeting. Once again staff misled the Council by implying that a May 20th meeting was needed to secure the bid within the required 60 day window to hold a public bid. No one thought to inquire about that, because the bid took place on April 22, meaning that there’s another whole month after May 20th in which the contractor has to honor his bid. Zahra and Charles voted no, neither giving a rat’s ass about the escalating cost of this boondoggle.

Of course the Friends know that the real reason for the desperation of the May 20th date; it’s because the City is already so far behind in its Trail to Nowhere© project milestone obligations that the completion date is already impossible to make, and that not even the State of California can look the other way forever.

Last night the Fullerton City Council voted down a desperate attempt by “Drs.” Charles and Zahra to rescind a recently approved policy that excludes non-government publications on City premises – except for a spot in the Library.

As FFFF noted the other day the whole thing was a ginned-up reason to force another vote and to mobilize Fullerton Boohoo. The transparent pretext of “new information” fooled nobody, since it was obviously just cover for Shameless Charles to get right with her constituency and at the same time to subject the council majority to another round of uninformed harangues by Zahra’s mindless minions.

Somehow a content neutral policy of excluding news outlets from the City Hall lobby was construed as an all-out assault on the free press and freedom of speech, yadda yadda. The Fullerton Observers were outraged, of course.

At the end, the inevitable wind-up speeches were completely predictable. Charles went into a long and winding circumlocution meant to separate her from her previous voice in support of the policy.

Zahra, as usual, outdid himself in his insufferable, twattish way, nattering about freedom and admonishing staff and the City Attorney that they are paid by all Fullerton, not just the council majority, and that being legal doesn’t make something right. The irony of this bullshit was lost on Fullerton Boohoo, but not on me. This is the same little miscreant who voted time and time again to pursue a lawsuit by the City against FFFF, Joshua Ferguson, and David Curlee. Zahra’s lawsuit against FFFF was an attempt to punish people expressing a First Amendment protected right. The City lost that lawsuit, costing the people of Fullerton, the folks Zahra pretends to care so much about, upwards of a million dollars. That’s a lot of asphalt repair for your district, “Dr.” Zahra.

Zahra blamed FFFF for being behind an intricate plot to get the Observer out of City Hall, a compliment really, although whether deserved remains to be seen. The new paper FFFF publication, the Fullerton Tribune (I’ve seen the gallery proof), can’t be dispensed there, either.

The vote to rescind the policy failed 2-3 with Valencia, Jung, and Dunlap voting no.

At the end of the interminable yakking, Jung moved to “table” the issue, a parliamentary tactic of using a positive majority vote that makes it impossible for Charles and Zahra to resurrect the thing through some fabricated “new information” in two weeks or beyond. Hopefully, on future votes Jung will remember to do this the first time around, or better yet, make it clear that 2 council people can only agendize new items, not something they lost.

The motion to table passed 3-2, Charles and Zahra dissenting, evidence that still want to bring it up again.

In the Kennedy Sisters’ early May print edition the failing Fullerton Observer, there appeared another story about a City ban on non-government publications in City facilities. The article was supposedly written by somebody calling him/herself Matthew Ali.

The tale included a new explanation for Shana Charles flip-flop on the issue, to wit, the City Attorney previously asserted that the City of Irvine had banned this sort of stuff from their City Hall, when in fact they hadn’t. Ms. Charles and her apologists seem to feel okay hanging their hat on this flimsiest of hat racks.

In reality, Charles was pressured by Ahmad Zahra, Fullerton Boohoo, the Kennedy Sisters, and her pals at the Daily Titan to change her mind. And because Fullerton’s nonsensical “2 councilmembers can re-agendize anything they already lost” policy, it will get another hearing. And presumably another, and another, and another as “Drs.” Zahra and Charles discover ever “new” information that was denied them at the most recent hearing.

Anyhow, back to Matthew Ali, the typically incompetent Observer scribe. In the article he/she includes this completely and demonstrably false statement:

“The issue was instigated by a blog that sent a letter to the City of Fullerton threatening legal action if rack for a (currently non-existent) newspaper it said it was planning to publish was not made available for public display.”

FFFF’s attorney Kelly Aviles did send a letter to the City Manger requesting an opportunity to display a publication on City premises, and asking for guidelines, placement procedures, etc. But the correspondence requested a response only. There was no threat of legal action at all. That is a deliberate lie cooked up in the feeble and febrile noggins of “Matthew Ali” and the Kennedy Sisters.

I also add that Matthew Ali has absolutely no idea whether a publication exists or not.

Anyway, here is the actual language of the letter sent by Kelly Aviles to the City of Fullerton:

Dear Mr. Levitt:

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

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

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

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

Sincerely,

Kelly Aviles

Well, it looks like another letter from our other attorney may be in order to make the Kennedy Sisters correct more of their deliberate misinformation.

After several months of radio silence, the UP Trail has finally emerged from its bureaucratic cocoon. The City Council is scheduled to vote on approving the construction contract at Tuesday’s meeting. Contradictory to Edgar Rosales promise to the Parks Commission, the City Council never approved the final plans before the bid, and never authorized a public bid, either. Just ran out of time. They’re approving the plans and specifications the same time as the contract award. How’s that for ass backery?

And the Council is being asked to “invest” another $300,000 of Fullerton money into The Lost Trail, as predicted by FFFF over the past few years. That’s now $630,000 of City dough, a sum never previously agreed to by anybody. Seriously, is anybody in charge?

The staff report casually informs us: “The City requires additional funds to complete the project due to a change in the project scope in which Park Dwelling Fund (Fund 39) has available funds.” Conveniently there is no description of the change in scope. Not a single word to justify plowing another 300 grand into this disaster. Not a single damn word. More transparency.

Speaking of costs, here’s the project budget and bid results:

Please note that the low bidder’s bid is exactly the “Engineer’s Estimate” for construction, a likelihood so remote without serious massaging that we have to wonder about KASA Construction. Also, if we toss out the low and high bids, the median bid amount is $2,286,000, $440,000 over the years-old City estimate – more cause for concern. There is a cluster of bids between $2,246,000 and $2,500,000. Even with the KASA bid.

Even with the new transfer of yet another $300,000 from the Park Dwelling Fund to cover costs that were not given the council in 2023, can anyone seriously believe it will be the last request for this?

Tellingly, no one from the City staff has ever bothered to share ongoing annual maintenance costs for this debacle, either. They don’t know and don’t care.

Who knows why The Trail to Nowhere was not included in the 2025-2026 CIP because most of it will be done (hopefully) during that fiscal year. Oh, well. There is still no explanation of why there is nothing in the CIP plan for the UP Park renovation previously promised by Jung, Whitaker, and Dunlap in August 2023, and which was supposed to precede the trail, a fact now conveniently forgotten by everybody except FFFF. 20 month ago is ancient history in Fullerton. Hindsight is 20/20.

FFFF has diligently followed the Trail of Tears since its Astroturf cheerleaders started braying about “nice things” for south Fullerton. Where will these people be when the trail is unused, unsafe and falls into the same disrepair as so much of Fullerton’s infrastructure? Not on the trail itself, of course.

If you want to see how our crack Parks Department handles landscape maintenance check out the abysmal plantings around the wood stairs in Hillcrest Park sometime.

The Trail to Nowhere begins at Highland Avenue since it doesn’t connect to Phase 1. There is no public accommodation except people walking or riding a bike on the Highland sidewalk. It dies in the virtually abandoned back corner parking lot at Independence Park where nobody wants to go. There is no connectivity to anything else. There never will be. The thing runs through an area of junkyards, used tire stores, an asphalt plant, auto repair places and a coating plant. Homeless call it home. So do the junkies.

For a quarter mile it runs alongside the Santa Fe Main Line.

FFFF has already noted the complete failure to meet the State’s milestones in the agreement. That contract called for plant establishment to be included in the October 2025 completion. That won’t happen. The bid sheet for the project includes a 90 day plant establishment requirement, meaning the landscaping would have to be done by the end of July to meet the deadline. Fortunately for the City, nobody at the State seems to care about its agreement.

Worst of all, maybe is the fact that the City minions and their Council bosses can’t seem to understand the idea of a wider, comprehensive plan for this strip of industrially zoned land and that maybe this right-of-way could have used for something useful. Their narrative is that somehow this trail all by itself will turn the area into something other than it is. That’s just moronic.

But the guiding principle here is not effectiveness, efficiency, stewardship, or even basic common sense. No, it’s about spending other people’s money and who gives a damn if it fails? Will any City staff members be around to accept their roles in this fiasco? Of course not. Will the people who wore down a weak Council into approving this mess be around to claim responsibility for their role?

Of course not. This Fullerton rolling contraption has no rear view mirror.

Fullerton’s garbage collection may seem like a pedestrian subject to you and me, but it’s a lucrative franchise for guys in the business of picking up our “solid waste” and hauling it to the land fill, or to the nearest materials recycling facilities (MRF).

The history of garbage collection is pretty dull, but it’s informative. A local family-owned company, MG Disposal, had the contract for decades under “evergreen” terms, apparently.

They got the gig when Eisenhower was President, in 1955. MG was eventually bought out, successively by Taormina Industries and then Republic Services, a mammoth solid waste collection company traded on the New York Stock Exchange. The latter took place around 2009 when a new agreement was created with the City. Still, the relationship lineage was still there. In essence the City has been doing business with related, successive entities for 70 years.

Anyhow, the existing contract was signed 16 years ago if you’re counting. There have been three amendments to the agreement, but the service itself hasn’t been put out to bid to see if anybody else can do it better, cheaper, more effectively, etc. It seems unlikely that Republic can be underbid, but why not see?

Government agencies have the unfortunate habit of extending contracts in the out years because putting things out to bid takes effort, and the incumbent contractor is familiar, comfortable, and has likely developed a symbiotic relationship with both government employees and their political overlords. And the one thing you don’t want to screw up is garbage collection. That’s ruined promising careers in municipal government and in politics.

What is the right amount of time to keep evergreen deal going? I don’t know. But 70 years seems like an awfully long time; even the past 16 seems like a long time if you feel like giving Republic a brand new start in 2009.

I think it’s about time to rattle this franchise cage and see who out there might be willing to respond to a bid solicitation. It may nor result in a change, but it’s just due diligence toward the people of Fullerton who pay for the service.

An alert Friend directed my attention to the online version of the Fullerton Observer in which Sanskia, the younger Kennedy sister, is informing people that they will have a second chance to weight in on the City Council’s April 1st decision to severely restrict where non-governmental publications can be disseminated on City property.

A second chance? How come? Let’s let Skasia tell us in her own words:

“During a council meeting on April 15, Mayor Protem (sic) Dr. Shana Charles and Councilmember Dr. Ahmad Zahra expressed their discontent with the decision, asserting that the council had not been presented with all necessary information before making such a significant ruling. Both officials indicated their intention to rescind the policy at the upcoming meeting scheduled for May 6.“

Hmm. The implication here is that these two have decided to re-agendize the matter on May 6th. A person with a little bit of common sense might well wonder how a council minority could resurrect an issue previously decided by a majority of the council. Well, of course they shouldn’t be able to; the policy of permitting two members to agendize an issue presupposes that it is a new item, not one previously decided by the City Council. Otherwise a minority could keep dredging up decided issues, ad infintum. A baboon could grasp this.

But no. You see “necessary information” of some sort has popped up, according to Zahra and Charles, not previously presented by the staff or the City Attorney. This alleged insufficiency is their pretext for stirring the whole thing up again.

Why does this seem familiar?

Because Zahra and Charles pulled the same horseshit on the Trail to Nowhere at the end of 2023 when they claimed that new revelations by the State required more public hearings. The City Manager, Eric Levitt, with the blessing of City Attorney Dick Jones permitted the issue to be put on the agenda. At the end of 2024 Charles trotted out the “new information” schtick to keep the Wank on Wilshire on life support until Vivian Jaramillo (hopefully) could get on the council and keep it going.

The main point seems to be about about giving Charles an excuse to change her vote. She will have to try to explain what “new information” has caused her to change her vote, and that might be unintentionally funny. But that wouldn’t be the only outcome.

If the issue is agendized for the meeting on May 6th by Levitt, the Council majority will be subjected to the usual hours long harangues from Fullerton Boohoo and the Kennedy Sisters. They, finally, may even be caused to wonder about the future of CM Eric Levitt and Dick Jones of the “I Can’t Believe It’s a Law Firm.”

But probably not, Fullerton being Fullerton.

Anyhow, we’ll know for sure May 1st when the May 6th meeting agenda is published,