Friends For Fullerton's Future

Last month FFFF published a post about how sweet, fresh Elijah Manassero scribbled an article for the Fullerton Observer attacking Mayor Fred Jung for misusing Fullerton’s city seal. A little later we noted with some amusement that the young sapling Manassero posted his string of attacks on the council majority and the Bushala family on a subReddit that swiped…Fullerton’s city seal!

Well, it appears that somebody, somewhere took notice of the problem. Sometime in the past week the subReddit page quit using the city seal and replaced it with this image.

Hmm. Now that looks sort of familiar. Oops!

Turns out the newly adopted image of r/Fullerton is a protected trademark, registered by the City with the United State Patent and Trademark Office over 20 years ago! Ouch.

Now that’s not very good is it? More bad behavior by r/Fullerton and hypocrisy from their frequent contributor, youthful Elijah.

I don’t think that the dainty fleur Elijah cares much about the sort of legal niceties involved with intellectual property theft, and probably knows even less about this sort of thing than he does about commercial leases (BTW, has fresh young Elijah sought legal recourse about the Bushala depot lease like he said he would, or was that just the loud screeching of a baby paper tiger?).

The irony of a self-righteous purveyor of prevarication getting tangled up in this sort of embarrassment is palpable. However, Fullerton Boohoo characters are not known for the kind of self-introspection needed to understand irony. After all, they celebrate the deadbeat Ahmad Zahra’s brainy outpourings, despite his getting busted for plagiarism – another kind of intellectual theft.

Fullerton City Councilman and immigration fraud, “Dr.” Ahmad Zahra always has an interest in his own self-interest, clothing his own interest in verbiage that makes it seems he loves all mankind, especially the “underserved.”

But Zahra is often motivated by jealousy and vindictiveness, the main target being his nemesis – the Bushala family. Hence his sudden interest in leases of city-owned property. He got it all wrong, of course, but not for lack of trying to hurt the Bushala’s in their lease agreement at the Santa Fe Depot.

At the end of the last council’s discussion on the noise ordinance Zahra was heard to mutter loud enough to be overheard: “Bushala wins again.” What Bushala was supposed to have “won” is unclear, since a decent noise ordinance that would actually be enforced, is in everybody’s interest – except those scofflaw “clubs” orchestrating the decibel free-for-all to the detriment of genuine restaurants and nearby residents.

If the proper draft ordinance decided by the council majority had been prepared, it would have been approved that night.

Here in the hallowed halls of FFFF HQ, we’ve been wondering aloud how long it would be before Zahra, Ezekiel Manassero and the rest of the Fullerton Observer claque would begin to orchestrate a nuisance opposition when the item comes back to council, with draft ordinance, on October 7th. The over-under is tomorrow at noon.

Oraganizing this may be a tough row to hoe for the ever-delinquent damascene doctor.

Sure, the usual crowd of nincompoops and boobs will rail against the council majority like they always do. Who cares? Will any of the noise pollution makers show up to claim innocence, poverty, government overreach, or some other lamentation? They didn’t appear last time to support the “it’s not broke and we won’t fix it, anyhow” strategy of Community Development Director Sunaya Thomas. I’d love to attach some names and faces to the perpetrators of nuisance blasting noise.

Anyway, the over-under at FFFF about when we will first see the opposition is sometime tomorrow. Any takers?

Shana Charles, Fullerton D3’s councilperson and ceaseless gas bag is running for re-election. She threw a kickoff party a few days ago.

The usual suspects appeared. The same suspects, in fact, who tried real hard to get Cannabis Kitty Jaramillo elected and failed.

In fact some folks are speculating about the role of Dr. Shana’s husband, Andre, in recruiting the phony candidate and perjurer, Scott Markowitz last year. Mr. Charles got a nifty $4000 from the marijuana lobby to do something for them working on the failed Jaramillo effort.

When she was elected in 2022 she squeaked by in a three-way race with the help of the emergency services union. Will they help her again? They love front runners and incumbents although they did supported Jamie Valencia over the OCDEM darling Cannabis Kitty.

I have to wonder what her goal is, besides getting sycophants to call her “Dr. Charles.” Even if her pal Ahmad Zahra sticks around and somehow wins re-election, she’ll be a minority player – again – at least for 2 years, unless Mayor Fred Jung wins the County Supervisor election and a replacement is needed at the start of 2027. An appointment or election is not likely to provide a third vote.

I’ve gotten used to Charles’ endless bloviation, bragging and idiotic observations. But on the bright side she hasn’t been able to do any permanent damage – yet.

In 2018 Ahmad Zahra, the immigration fraud and woman batterer and plagiarist popped up out of nowhere, an unknown, and got himself elected the D5 councilman in a split race.

Is he returning to that anonymous swamp from whence he emerged?

His candidate committee for re-election in 2026 is now listed on the City Clerk’s inactive committee page. I don’t know how or why it is there instead of on the active committee page. Could it be that the Deadbeat Damascene Doctor is giving up on Fullerton politics? Maybe the Kennedy Sisters will let us know.

Zahra’s political departure, if true, is a pleasant thought.

For almost seven years we’ve been putting up with his lies, his manipulations, his machinations and his saccharine, high handed sanctimony. He has been so unpopular with a majority of his colleagues that they have continually denied him the mayorship, something he has obviously coveted so as to burnish his political reputation. Good job, too. He filed a false police report against one of them and has denigrated them in his frequent moods of high dudgeon.

It’s possible that Zahra sees no political future, given the gay man’s phony Green Card marriage to an Arkansas woman has been discovered and would obviously play a prominent part in a 2026 campaign. He spent well over $100,000 to keep his $800 per month gig in 2022 and only won because OC Dem Central created a fake Latino candidate to siphon votes away from Oscar Valadez. And this was before the marriage fraud was discovered. Thin ice, indeed.

Zahra also knows that his malevolence directed at the Bushala family is reciprocated, and that Tony Bushala has the means and the motive to finally get rid of this creep. The fact that Mr. Valadez says he is running again must be a problem for the Middle Eastern man of medicine.

Fullerton Boohoo has clasped the prevaricating fraud to its collective bosom, believing all the tripe he dishes out to them. This won’t help him stay elected.

Soon we will find out if Zahra is leaving, going back to his “day job” (whatever that job may be) full time. Or maybe we will learn that a clerical error by the “new crew” has been made, assigning his committee to the inactive list.

Obviously FFFF will remain interested.

Last night the Fullerton City Council was presented with a noise ordinance, the principal target being the bar-owning noise scofflaws in Downtown Fullerton. It was basically the same thing that was sent back to the Planning Commission due to its utter insufficiency. Fullerton. Being. Fullerton.

FFFF has documented ad nauseam the comical efforts of the City to address this issue over the past 15 years. I’m not even going to review the dance of death anymore. You can follow the entire history, here.

Here’s an example of what happens when a scofflaw “club” blasts noise from their establishment.

Now imagine three or four of these establishments doing the same thing at the same time.

But back to a brief synopsis. Basically, there have been two forces working hard in City Hall to continue this embarrassing, bungling misadventure in government activity.

First has been the gymnastic effort to protect the lawbreakers by refusing enforcement of the law because “changes are on the way” a cunning and never ending Dickensian dodge. We know that our former Mayor-for-Hire Jennifer Fitzgerald and her Planning Director Ted White were actively running interference for the scofflaw bar/club owners.

The second active force has been the continual effort to water down the code, making enforcement so difficult as to look impossible, thus relieving Code Enforcement and the cops from having to do their jobs. This is the shrug-it-off position of Community Development Director Sunaya Thomas and her predecessors, one and all.

Last night the a majority of the council chose a second option with changes, but an option that had no draft ordinance to accompany it. The only draft presented to the council and the public was to accept what was given to them as the favored staff recommendation.

But then, abracadabra, City Attorney Dick Jones produced an Option 2 draft ordinance from his back pocket almost like a magician summoning a rabbit from a top hat! Mr. Jones declared that the council could approve his newly minted draft, unread, and read up on it and modify it before the obligatory “second reading” in a couple weeks. Unpersuasive.

The council voted 5-0 to bring the damn thing back in two weeks to yak about all over again.

One unintentionally amusing observation during the discussion was made by Shana Charles, who wondered aloud if curtailing the amplified musical free-for-all might not end in the demise of outdoor dining in downtown Fullerton. I can’t really say I’m surprised that something so dumb was uttered by one of Fullerton’s professional know-it-alls.

Things must have really gotten bad for the scofflaws over at Les Amis. One might assume that they’ve resorted to selling their furniture in the public right of way in order to pay all the back rent they owe the City of Fullerton for their use of a closed off sidewalk but I’m at a loss for words here so help me caption these pictures.

The best I could come up with is “Les Amis in the Flea Market Business”, can you do better?

Ah, those pesky unintended consequences. When government is involved you can be sure of them, mostly because official activities are so often based on wishful thinking, and because no one is ever held accountable for adverse results.

Let’s consider the Trail to Nowhere, a stupid idea from the start whose in-city cost exploded from $170,000 to $630,000. There were no real identified users, just hopes an prayers that somebody might show up to use it.

Guess what? They will.

That’s because the Crossfit gym on Richman Ave. is located right next to it. The gym members will get to use the DG path to jog on, instead of the paved streets in the neighborhood.

The gym gets a free, taxpayer subsidized amenity which is great for them and good for their landlord, too, come lease renewal time.

The landlord? Why none other than Fullerton Boohoo Public enemy #1, Tony Bushala. Oops.

Just yesterday our old friend Aaruni Thakur sent out notice that he was quitting the Fullerton School District board after 7 years of “service.” It’s a strange communication. He recites his own success story and talks about his wonderful wifey and kids. He extolls the board’s accomplishments during his tenure, including higher property taxes. He thanks the educrats in the district; and the teachers and lunch ladies. But he doesn’t explain his reason for quitting with only a little more than a year left in his term; at least not in the snippet submitted electronically to FFFF.

Hmm. Very strange indeed.

Friends may remember Aaruni, and not with fondness. He ran against Bruce Whitaker for the Fullerton City Council in 2020 under a fake address. He was rightly tattooed as a carpetbagger, and a phony one at that. His phony address in Fullerton’s D4 wasn’t in FSD’s District 2 which he represented and didn’t quit. What an ethical model for the kiddies.

In the spring Thakur was identified as the moving force behind the fake and perjurious candidacy of Scott Markowitz by none other than Ajay Mohan, who allegedly said he had been recruited by Aaruni T. to guide Markowitz through the paperwork and cook up a phony MAGA ballot statement

Was the latter episode in anyway related to Thakur’s departure from the FSD board? I don’t know. Todd Spitzer, our cowardly DA, never pursued the co-conspirators who got Markowitz to commit perjury. I do know that Thakur’s political career seemed over. He never won a contested election for school board.

Of course the Markowitz scam ended up doing a lot more damage to Cannabis Kitty Jaramillo, than it helped, in getting her elected. Maybe the backfire is seen in Democrat political circles as Thakur’s signature failure.

Now the board will undoubtedly appoint a right-thinking successor with the backbone of a donut to represent the district. Look for someone whose job it may be to eventually replace Fred Jung on the City Council in 2026 or 2028.

I new it was coming. Following fast upon the proverbial heels of a deliberately misleading City press release, the Kennedy Sister named Sanka regurgitated the same bullshit about the Union Pacific Park.

The headline says it all:

“Union Pacific Park Project Makes Progress Toward Long-Awaited Opening After 22 Years”

No, Siaska, the Union Pacific Park was already built and open 20 years ago. True, the site was contaminated – purchased by the City without due diligence – and was remediated.

But hey, why stop the lies coming? The park had been a gathering ground for gangs, drunks, and junkies. The City, under City Manager Chris Meyers and his successors, demolished the toilets and kept the fence surrounding the park in place. Why? Because due to social pathologies the place was an embarrassing multi-million dollar fiasco. The less said the better, and nothing said, better yet, for the masterminds of the disaster.

According to Kennedy, the site was so disrupted by the remediation it became useless, a statement that is a false. When the toxic stuff was discovered it covered less than half the park. The rest was wide open. Siska intentionally fails to explain the real reasons the park was completely closed after remediation: misuse, abuse and law breaking. The neighbors across Truslow Avenue complained.

Sometime after 2011 a fence was put up around the whole park and it had nothing to do with soils remediation. It was a reaction to the dystopian park. There has been plenty of opportunity in the past 15 years to re-open the park. Nobody wanted it re-opened. No one, that is, until Fred Jung, Nick Dunlap, and Bruce Whitaker voted to do that a couple years ago. But of course no accountability for the decades long disaster needed to be pursued. That wouldn’t be the Fullerton Way.

The solution now at Parks and Rec and its Fullerton Observers, is to pretend that because of the toxic contamination there has never really been a park, and that this “beloved neighborhood space” is finally being opened to cries of enthusiasm from all. That’s another lie.

Skakia remembers an ad hoc UP Park committee but ignores the fact that it withered away without doing anything. No plans reviewed contemplated a Kaboom Park.

Then Skansia shares this jargon-filled gem: “These surveys (Ed. done by no one knows who, no one knows when, participated in by someone, somewhere) highlighted safety and engaging programming as primary concerns, aligning with the broader goal of enhancing neighborhood security through increased recreational opportunities.” Probably the same useless patter uttered by City Hall Parks Department bureaucrats in 1999, and identical to the same wishful thinking that supported the recent Trail to Nowhere boondoggle.

Ah, yes! Positivity springs eternal in the precincts of Fullerton City Hall, and Sanskia concludes her drivel with a pathos-meringue filled appeal to hope and glory: “…the upcoming renovations aim to transform it into a vibrant community hub that fosters pride and engagement among residents. The goal is to create a safe, inviting environment that enhances the overall quality of life in the neighborhood.“

Here’s the text of a recent City of Fullerton press release about upcoming activity at the dismal Union Pacific Park on Truslow Avenue. See if you can read it without gagging.

The City of Fullerton Parks & Recreation Department, Smile Generation®, and KABOOM! are teaming up to bring a new kid-designed, community-built playground to Union Pacific Park—revitalizing a beloved neighborhood space and ensuring local children have a safe, inspiring place to play.

On Saturday, September 13, volunteers come together to construct the playground in a single day, with a ribbon-cutting and photo opportunities at 2:30 pm. The build begins at 8:30 am at Union Pacific Park, 121 W. Truslow Ave., Fullerton, CA 92832. Media and community members are invited to attend and experience the transformation in real time.

“Union Pacific Park’s reopening represents a new chapter for this neighborhood,” says Edgar Rosales, Fullerton Parks & Recreation. “The new playground will be at the heart of the park—where children can play, and families can connect and grow.”

Union Pacific Park, which had been closed due to past soil contamination, has since been fully remediated and declared safe for public use—clearing the way for its exciting rebirth as a vibrant community hub.

This project also advances KABOOM!’s 25 in 5 Initiative to End Playspace Inequity, a nationwide effort to ensure every child—especially those in under-resourced communities—benefits from the physical, social, and mental health advantages of play. Smile Generation joins as a proud partner committed to community wellness.

Let’s just ignore the tsunami of silly bureaucrat-speak about under-resourced neighborhoods, new chapters, vibrant community hubs, families connecting and growing, inspiring places to play, and the like. That’s just the sort of hyped-up rhetorical nonsense you’d expect from any semi-literate municipal scribe. It’s actually pretty funny in an unintended way.

But what’s this nonsense about the park being closed for “remediation” of contaminated soil, but now having been declared safe? That’s just a damned lie. The remediation happened at least 15 long years ago. The fact is that City Hall kept the park closed due its attractive quality to borrachos, drug addicts, Fullerton Toker Towners, and homeless vagrants. It’s been sitting there, a ugly monument to the incompetence of Fullerton’s six-figure pensioners, and two generations of city councils that never bothered ask any questions.

This multi-million dollar disgrace is not a “beloved neighborhood space.” Nobody asked for it. Nobody wanted it outside City Hall employees with other people’s money to waste.

And now the current city council is poised to dump more millions into the beloved space even though there is nothing changed from the societal pathologies that kept it closed in the first place. And nothing has changed about the City’s inability to properly maintain the parks it already has.

Oh well, I guess this makes sense in a certain perverse way. The council just agreed to blow 2.5 million bucks on the Trail to Nowhere without a single backward glance to note the complete failure of the UP Park and the embarrassing “Phase I” of the so-called trail that doesn’t even connect to Phase II. The current council seems no more curious about past failures than their predecessors. In fact, they’re doubling down on the previous Union Park fiasco. The only difference is they seem to want to fail in smaller increments.