Fullerton Taxpayers for Reform has just introduced Vivian “Kitty” Jaramillo to 4th District voters, and it’s a pretty tough introduction. A kind Friend in Fullerton’s 4th District forwarded this mail piece.
Side one goes after Jaramillo’s supporters for creating the phony candidacy of Scott Markowitz, and notes the DA is investigating.
The backside informs D4 voters that Jaramillo has been a vocal advocate of marijuana dispensaries in Fullerton, supporting Zahra and Jan Flory’s MJ ordinance in 2020 that would have allowed dispensaries a mere 100 feet from residential zones.
If you were paying attention in 2022 you may recall that the City of Fullerton went through a redistricting process based on the results of the 2020 Census.
Jan Flory was here…
The legacy of Jan Flory’s “Bar Owner’s Map,” ostensibly created by Douchebag Supreme, Jeremy Popoff in 2016, was fresh in everybody’s mind. Three districts had been gerrymandered with tentacles to reach into downtown Fullerton – in violation of one of the basic tenets of district map making – compaction.
The train of thought was weak but it sure was short…
One consequence of the 2016 map was to give recently elected at-large Jesus Quirk-Silva a shot a running early for the first District 3 race in 2018 against Greg Sebourn, a race that Quirk-Silva won.
Why is this man clapping?
When 2022 rolled around and the Council created a redistricting committee Fullerton’s lefties squealed in displeasure that Sebourn was appointed to it. He’s going to make a district that he can run in, cutting out Quirk-Silva, so they said. How dastardly. Members of the committee must forswear not to run in a district they created, so they said.
Out with the old…
Well, the districts were cleaned up, Quirk-Silva who had been gerrymandered into D3 was removed from it, and Sebourn didn’t run again.
She wants what you have…
But one fact seems to have gone unnoticed by all the self-righteous libs clamoring against the Council, the new map and against Sebourn. And that fact is that current Council candidate, Vivian Jaramillo, the person who sued the City to make a district she could run in, was also on the Redistricting Committee.
Not only did she support new gerrymandered maps that would protect Quirk-Silva, she supported the district she is now running in. How’s that for ironic hypocrisy?
But it’s not surprising. In their sanctimonious world, the boohoos of Fullerton’s left can’t accept the possibility that their own interests and beliefs might be effected by any sort self-serving or let alone bad behavior, which is why no one mentions the unethical and possibly illegal effort by Team Jaramillo to work a phony candidate on the ballot, a sham candidate whose only job is to divert votes from candidate Linda Whitaker.
Well, she’s at it again. The old warhorse appears yet again to darken our collective doorstep with her presence. Janesse “Jan” M. Flory was on the Fullerton City Council from 1995 to 2003, then reappeared in 2012 like the Ghost of Christmas Past. And yet, she still wasn’t done, getting herself appointed to the Fullerton City Council in 2019, and continuing her history of incompetence, negligence and indifference to her constituents.
She’s running for the 2nd District council seat currently occupied by popular Mayor, Nick Dunlap. Her rationale? That’s not hard to figure out. She is running to protect Fullerton’s highly compensated and highly unresponsible public employees.
Flory must 80 years old if she’s a day, and Fullerton has changed a lot since 1994 – thirty long years ago, but Flory doesn’t seem to have changed at all. The sneer. The disdain for anyone not toeing the bureaucratic line, not accepting any bullshit emanating from City Hall.
Here’s a robotext recently received by a voter in Fullerton’s 2nd District.
Experience? We all know experiences can range from good to horrendous.
It’s nice to see Janesse let us know her campaign promises, because they remind students of Fullerton history that she was front and center of the disasters that she helped create. We can skip over the illiteracy of the writing and focus on the issues.
Fix our roads and streets? Who the Hell was running the City for 14 years while the pavement went to shit? That’s right, you, Janesse. “Saving” the ridiculous money pit called Walk on Wilshire? Really?
You want to hire more cops and firefighters? Who gave those guys the budget busting pay and pension increases? That’s right, you Janesse.
You want civility? Who treated her constituents like trash when they had the effrontery to stand up for themselves? That’s right, you Janesse.
And now for some fun history, yanked from FFFF headlines, a Flory of bill of indictment.
Too much scotch, not enough water…
In 1994 Jan Flory, supported the unnecessary utility tax and actually proclaimed she wished it were doubled.
In 1995 Flory directed the City Attorney to disclose confidential legal advice in order to build a low-income housing project.
Looking down at someone is best…
In 1998, and in years after Jan Flory cheerfully supported the illegal Water Fund diversion, a tax, to support her pals in City Hall.
In 2000 she supported the disastrous retroactive “public safety” pension giveaway, a breathtaking gift of public funds.
Don’t go there…
In 2000 she approved the $3,000,000 Poison Park, a Redevelopment acquisition of contaminated, gang-infested property on Truslow Avenue, an action she never acknowledged or demanded accountability for. The goddamn thing is still sitting there with a fence around it, 25 years later.
In 2012 she banded together with the cops to get herself elected, and then protected the Fullerton Police Department from reform. The Culture of Corruption continued unabated.
Well, it might have happened like this…
In 2016 she favored Police Chief Danny “C’mere, Big Boy” Hughes with a big, wet, goodbye kiss, three days after he tried to organize the cover-up of the drunken Wild Ride of City Manager, Joe Felz.
The hours are great. So is the pay!
To get appointed to the City Council in 2019, she bribed the unemployed Ahmad Zahra with a lucrative seat on the Orange County Water District.
On her way out the door (again) in 2016, she supported the dishonest “bar owners map” for Fullerton’s first redistricting effort, allegedly created by the miscreant scofflaw, Jeremy Popoff that gerrymandered Jesus Quirk-Silva into a free run for City Council.
The closer you look, the worse it gets.
During the years of the Flory, Fitzgerald, Quirk-Silva, Zahra budget deficits, Flory lied to the public, insisting that the budget was balanced, when in fact, the City was raiding reserve funds to pay for increased employee contracts. Or maybe she simply doesn’t understand what deficit spending means.
Don’t Reward the City’s Stupidity
In 2019 Flory embarked with Zahra, Quirk-Silva, and Fitzgerald on an idiotic, spiteful legal vendetta against this blog, Joshua Ferguson and David Curlee, that cost Fullerton upwards of a million dollars in settlement and legal fees.
In 2020, on her way out the door for the third time, she voted in favor of Measure S, the ill-fated sales tax increase for which she was put on the Council to support.
If there were time and temperament, I could examine even more closely Flory’s “experience,” but, really why bother? Why recall all the Redevelopment boondoggles she supported in the 1990s, or the Downtown booze culture that she helped create in the early 2000s?
Mu’u mu’us and wood beads: I have always hated you, and I always will…
Flory’s bile and animus, directed at anybody who challenges City Hall – citizens and taxpayers, has been going on since 1994 and is well documented.
She once proclaimed that the City department heads were “the heart of the City,” And that tells you all you need to know about Janesse “Jan” M. Flory.
You have to enjoy it. Even when the laugh is not so much heartfelt, but the reaction to a painful example of utter head-in-the-sand stupidity; or as in this case, breathtaking lack of self-awareness.
Why write about news when you can try to make your own! (Photo by Julie Leopo/Voice of OC)
A Friend alerted me to a post on the the Yellowing Fullerton Observer website, in which the “editor” thereof, one Skasia Kennedy wrote in high dudgeon about campaign signs posted by Fred Jung and Jamie Valencia on – wait for it – public property! Railing against these criminals, Kennedy admonishes all Fullertonions to “know their rights” and report the illegal signs to the City!
It’s odd that this worthy woman and crack journalist failed to identify other lawbreakers – like Sharon Quirk, and the supporters of the massive school bonds who are in violation of the letter of the law. It’s Jung they despise over there, and of course they are all in for Vivian Jaramillo, Ms. Valencia’s opponent. It’s also amusing that they never cared about this issue before, so we can surmise a level of desperation about Jaramillo’s candidacy chances.
Anyway, it’s not Kennedy hypocrisy that this post is about, well, not exactly. It’s about a fun exchange between a reader and Ms. Editor herself, when the former accuses the latter of subjective harassment of her political adversary, Mr. Jung. Then Kennedy goes sideways-funny. Check it out:
Fullerton Troll got a good laugh out of that as well he/she might. The Fullerton Observer is and always has been about emotional responses to civic issues, especially the ones that signal some sort of virtuous liberal high ground. Well, Hell that’s easier than actually finding out real facts and reporting, right?
It’s a total waste of money, but it sure is short…
And so Kennedy and the Observer not only beat the drum for nonsense like the Trail to Nowhere and the Wake on Wilshire, they refused to print a single fact that would undermine their glandularly-charged objectives. In fact, the Kennedy women, mere et fille, have actively participated in both of those boondoggles, throwing all inconvenient objectivity aside. Emotions? Check. Preferences? Double check.
This Skasia Kennedy is so damn stupid that I really think she believes her bullshit, Running free ads in that paper for “Walk on Wilshire?” Refusing to tell the public that it’s a money loser? Refusing to even address the dozen good reasons not to waste $2,000,000 of public money on the dismal Trail to Nowhere? Do those sound like the actions of someone who is free of bias and journalistic integrity?
Apparently, political campaign sign in Fullerton’s 4th District are disappearing. But not all signs. Just those of Jamie Valencia and Linda Whitaker. Now this behvaior has been going on since the first campaign slogan was scribbled on a cave wall, somewhere, but it took on epic proportions in 2022 when District 1 candidate, Ahmad Zahra, employed the services of marginal characters to remove the signs of his opponent, Oscar Valadez.
One of these individuals was caught and tagged: Raccoon Boy.
Raccoon Boy gets a job….
Fullerton Boohoo wants Vivian Jaramillo on the City Council, and no one more so than Ahmad Zahra, the egomaniacal miscreant who is desperate to become Mayor. And so I wonder whether Zahra and Dem Party Central hasn’t once again found work for Raccoon Boy and his ilk. We know it’s not a matter of scruples. Zahra, Jaramillo and Dem Central went so far as to create a fake candidate, Scotty Markowitz, whose only job was to get a pro-MAGA ballot rant on the sample ballot.
If any of the Friends espy these thieving creatures in the wild, please record their activities and send them on in. They often congregate at the water hole known as 7-ELEVEN. They are an invasive species and need to be relocated ASAP.
Today the OC Register Editorial Board endorsed Fred Jung and Nick Dunlap for re-election and newcomer Jamie Valencia in the 4th District against Vivian Jaramillo and Linda Whitaker.
The city of Fullerton has three City Council seats up for grabs and the choices – at least in two of them – are fairly clear cut. Issues there center on the same kind of major issues that confront many older north Orange County cities: housing development, homelessness, crime and budgets.
District 1 pits incumbent Fred Jung against IT consultant Matt Truxaw. District 2 in pits current Mayor Nicholas Dunlap against Jan Flory, who previously served on the council. District 4 in the city’s less-affluent southwest corner has a crowded field for an open seat vacated by Councilman Bruce Whitaker.
His wife, former campaign manager Linda Whitaker, is running against retired community preservation officer Vivian “Kitty” Jaramillo, registered nurse Jamie Valencia and data analyst, Scott Markowitz.
Fred Jung
We endorse Jung for the District 1 race. We endorsed him in the previous race because of his nuts-and-bolts approach. He’s been solid on key budget, development and public-service issues. Truxaw and Jung both offered reasonable answers to our survey questions, but we see no reason to change course.
That’s “Mayor Dunlap” to you…
We endorse Dunlap for District 2. We like his libertarian-leaning approach and have been impressed by his time on the council. Flory did not respond to our survey, but she has a long record in Democratic politics. This is an easy call.
“I will continue to fight for taxpayers and a fiscally conservative approach to governance, so I will oppose new taxes and any tax increases,” Dunlap told us. “During her 14 years on the council, my opponent voted for the 3% at 50 pension plan, to raise the city’s sales tax rate and also voted to maintain an illegal water tax. Poor decision making and failed leadership (like this) is part of the reason we have the issues we do today.”
In District 4, we quickly eliminated two candidates from consideration. Markowitz has no apparent campaign presence. His campaign statement calls on “America First patriots” to get involved, but he appears to be backed by some Democrats. We have no use for alleged ghost candidates. Jaramillo is the Democratic Party’s choice. As a self-described “advocate for city employees,” we suspect she won’t be the best person to negotiate local union contracts.
Whitaker would be a reliable and sensible conservative voice on budget issues, but in our survey she wrote that Fullerton is “almost built out” and opposed new affordable-housing projects.
Valencia also seems good on budget issues and called for expedited housing construction.
“I want to make building and plan check processes more efficient and streamline to save small business owners money and time,” Valencia told us. “Fullerton will be known as a business friendly city and encourage entrepreneurs to invest.”
Good for you…
Housing remains perhaps the top issue in our cities, so for that reason we endorse Valencia for District 4.
_______________________________________
There you have it, including a shout-out link to FFFF, detailing the phony candidate Scott Markowitz and the lying Democrat operatives who created him. What effect this endorsement will have remains speculative, but in North Fullerton it’s worth something; and in District 4 it may carry some weight with the minority Republican and independent voters.
Too much scotch, not enough water…
My favorite part of the story is Dunlap’s pithy takedown of the dreadful Jan Flory, who just can’t seem to go away once and for all.
Spencer Custudio of the Voice of OC has a dutiful write up of last week’s League of Women Voters’ Fullerton candidate forum. One of the statements caught my eye, attributed to the strange individual Matt Truxaw, who is being offered up as a sacrificial offering by Ahmad Zahra and Fullerton Boohoo.
Here’s what Truxaw had to say on the topic of municipal finance:
When asked how to reverse the city’s finances and generate more tax revenue, Truxaw said city officials should consider expanding things like Walk on Wilshire – a closed section of Wilshire Avenue in downtown where people can dine and shop in the street that started during the pandemic.
Gone but not forgotten…
Well, Matt, you can’t “shop” in the street, so there’s that. But seriously, no one seems to have informed this poor, uninformed boob, that the Wake on Wilshiredoesn’t generaterevenue for the City of Fullerton. It never has. The taxpayer’s “investment” on this boondoggle is so far in the red that it will never make a positive contribution to the City’s bank account. But let’s not let cooler heads consider this idiocy with any sort of objectivity.
No on bothered to tell Truxaw that you can’t lose your way back to fiscal heath.
No, the Wake on Wilshire is no longer an object that a few Fullertonions can consider dispassionately. The idea of closing a public road to cars has so bewitched the credulous that they will make up any sort of nonsensical lie to defend it. And lie #1 is that the thing is, or magically can become, a money maker – instead of what it is, another Fullerton financial sinkhole.
Like the Trail to Nowhere, the Wake on Wilshire has now assumed talismanic value to its adherents; and once again, it is symbolic of two City Councilmembers “not listening to the people.” In this case “the people” is a new set of half a dozen goobers dredged up by public health doctor, Shana Charles and few other Fullerton Observer nitwits.
The public health doctor is in…
City councilmember are supposed to be leaders. And you don’t lead by indulging the stupid make-work projects of your bureaucrats. You’re supposed to be able to ask honest questions and demand honest answers. But this is Fullerton, where no bad idea ever dies…so long as the public employees and their enablers want it.
Last Friday’s Small Business “Forum,” brought to Fullerton by the North Orange County Chamber of Commerce and featuring Councilperson Ahmad Zahra as “Master-of-Ceremonies,” didn’t attract a whole lot of turnout. Could it be that the NOCCC is seen for what it is – a useless toady for Fullerton City Hall, rather than an incubator for small business? Or maybe folks realize that the unemployed and unemployable “film director” Ahmad Zahra, is hardly the person to talk authoritatively on the subject of business, large or small.
In any case attendance was sparse.
Oh, no.
There seem to be about 20 people here, and half of them are wandering around, holding private conversations, or just walking away, even as Zahra, at the podium, is burnishing his credentials as an agent of economic development.
Maybe next time they’ll hold their “brilliant” and “dynamic” conference in a broom closet to enhance Zahra’s profile, and keep the City from further humiliation.
The audience will fit, but not the ego…
This forum is another wonderful metaphor for the City of Fullerton’s hapless “economic development” department, a function that can present no evidence that it actually pays for itself in new tax increment. In fact, if another metaphor, the ridiculous, money losing “Wake on Wilshire” is any indication, they never will.
And I still want to know: who approved the use of the City seal, and who paid for the hall.
That’s if you are Ahmad Zahra, the Fullerton City Councilmember who knows nothing about small business, but who does know a lot about self-promotion to people who don’t know better. Zahra likes to peddle his “economic development” wares, but is really just an unemployed parasite desperate for a paying government job. He doesn’t know anything about running a business large or small.
If you hurry you can make it to this morning’s “Small Business Forum” organized by Zahra, at the Fullerton Community Center.
This brilliant 2 hour event features the State Treasurer Fiona Ma who at one time was some sort of an accountant, but who has been a professional politician for a long, long time. She had to settle a sexual harassment lawsuit a while back that cost the State $350,000 but, like Zahra’s assault and battery plea, the details are consigned to secrecy.
Time to come clean…..
There are two panels optimistically labeled “dynamic” which seems pretty unlikely. One panel features a unionista and some stooge from the North OC Chamber of Commerce, an organization that stopped representing small businesses 25 years ago, instead currying favor with government agencies. What they could possibly discuss is anybody’s guess.
And I have a couple of questions. First, who authorized Zahra to use the City seal, and who is paying for the rental of the conference room at the Community Center?
According to a knowledgeable Friend I know, it is illegal to hold a political campaign event on City property. I don’t know for sure, but this certainly has the ring of truth. If so, Fullerton council candidate Matt Truxaw is about to break the law. He’s having a campaign event a week from today on City property.
The embarrassing, money-losing “Walk on Wilshire” is indeed public property and Mr. Truxaw is having an election party for himself October 3rd on that closed portion of Wilshire Avenue. Can’t get more public than that, even if it’s on a leasehold that grants no such right.
Uh, oh. Is Mr. Truxaw one of those limousine libs who doesn’t think the law applies to him?
Oh, right. He became an overnight Republican just to run for office and make Fred Jung spend some money.
It will be interesting to see who shows up to this event and who would be dumb enough to pony up any cash for Truxaw the Straw. Man.
