Friends For Fullerton's Future

November 26, 2025November 29, 2025Boohooism

Shana Charles Lies. And Cries.

At the last Fullerton City Council meeting Councilwoman Shana Charles put the Les Amis as victim narrative on display again. Here’s what she said:

First, Pilgrim Café was not on the now-mercifully defunct Walk on Wilshire. Neither was Les Amis, of course. Those were just a couple of casual lies to remind everyone of her great success – WoW – instead of what it really was: an expensive, stupid, feel good, boohoo urban intervention that impeded traffic and hurt small businesses on Wilshire Avenue.

That led her into the revelation of a “coming soon” restaurant sign on the building where Les Amis is housed! Poor, delicate Shana was devastated – almost near tears at any moment, it seemed – at the likelihood that Les Amis was suddenly going to be something else not run by the Noaccounts of Montecristo because of course “that food was (past tense!) their heart and their culture.” Oh! The humanity!

The unspoken theme of this little speech (and parroted constantly by the Kennedy Sisters) was that Fullerton’s City Council, and especially the evil Mayor Fred Jung, is intent on destroying all good things in Fullerton. No explanation given or needed.

Of course distraught Shana again felt no moral compulsion to relate the truth: that Les Amis‘ patio on public property was cleared out because they serially refused to pay rent to the City, and kept encroaching without legal permits. Really another lie by omission.

But let’s not not share our pseudo-intellectual windbag councilwoman’s lament. Jinan Montecristo, who owns the building, simply rented out the empty front part to some sort of Italo-something restaurant, and it is now open. If Charles had actually taken the time to trudge herself around the corner she might have learned that Les Amis was indeed, still open; and that a tenant was moving into the heretofore empty front of the building.

Not paying your bills is the best way to become a Sharon Quirk Woman of the Year!

But that would have spoiled the ongoing narrative that demands weeping for a downtrodden victim and a wicked council majority who was somehow personally responsible for the shameful and wanton destruction of the Les Amis rented patio.

You know, looking at that picture above, a couple questions spring to mind.

Is that new restaurant paying rent to the City for the area where their tables and chairs and umbrellas are now located? We know the Noaccounts of Montecristo were using it illegally for free; did poor, downtrodden Jinan relate to her new tenants that they needed a permit and a lease with the City? Hmm. I wonder.

And as a second thought, I wonder if anybody bothered to get construction permits for any new interior remodeling for stuff like plumbing, HVAC and electrical work.

November 23, 2025November 24, 2025About Us

The Great Disappearing Zahra and the 2026 Aftermath

by Grover Cleveland31 Comments

Five days have passed since “Dr.” Ahmad Zahra, the Syrian immigrant fraud announced he would not run for re-election to the Fullerton City Council.

Crickets from the Fullerton Observer, whose sisters Sanka and Sharon have republished every utterance of Zahra, and who published his plagiarized articles without apology, have said nothing.

They’ve published a dozen other articles – even one about some woman on Dorothy Lane who has become addicted to putting blow-up figures in her front yard. But not a solitary word about their Hero quitting in 2026.

How come?

Many people are saying it’s because Fullerton Boohoo doesn’t have a District 5 replacement plan yet, and the Observer crowd doesn’t want any surprise ordinary citizens running in next year’s election, so they’re keeping it quiet.

This doesn’t make a lot of sense since very few people in D5 read the Observer. However, common sense is a rare commodity in the precincts of Fullerton Boohoo.

Still, it could be true – that they are getting all the usual OC Dem endorsements in place for the first term school board member Vanessa Estrella, the candidate created for Sharon Quirk and her husband Jesus Quirk-Silva, and only plan to talk about Zahra leaving when she has a party central endorsed replacement in place. Then there’s the worthless politician endorsements to line up: you know, Lou Correa, Josh Newman, the Quirks, Tony Umberg (I forget his first name), the unions, etc., etc.; the ones that ushered Cannabis Kitty over the goal line – in second place. Oops.

In any case, there already is a candidate in running, a man who has already run a close campaign, and who would have won in 2022 except that the Usual Crowd of Dems created a fake Latino candidate by the name of Tony Castro, whom nobody has seen since 2022.

If they do run this Estrella person next year they might rerun the phony Latino dude scam of 2022; or, they might try the phony white guy candidate strategy they rolled out in 2024. They might do both. But 2026 isn’t 2024. Markowitz got pinched by the DA for perjury, and his handlers have cause for pause.

That includes Ajay Mojan the dirty little bastard involved in each earlier scam. And it certainly includes the Dems who collected Scott Markowitz’s signatures for him. Was that Aaruni Thakur? Was it Andre Charles, husband of the otiose windbag, Shana Charles? The self-righteous Diane Vena knows, and so does her confessor, Sharon Kennedy – of the Fullerton Observer.

There may be a reluctance for this rogues gallery to keep creating phony candidates to push their own ideologues, now that every candidate will be subjugated to a decency smell test.

November 22, 2025November 22, 2025Ahmad Zahra

We Get Mail. Fullerton Observer Ethics

by The Fullerton Harpoon67 Comments

FFFF received communication from an individual named Dr. Aaron Moore who had attempted to post a comment on the Fullerton Observer about the Les Amis Saga.

A couple days ago, I wanted to make a thoughtful yet truthful comment on the Les Amis stolen sidewalk that the city smartly put back together and reclaimed its own property, and I had a feeling that the Fullerton Observer sisters would not publish my comment…

Here’s what I said (Grey box). They did not post my comment which I thought was rather fair, and paints a more clear picture for everyone. Other comments made by the uninformed that castigated the City were published, of course.

P.S. my comment is still not published.

Here is Dr. Moore’s comment:

So here’s a comment absolutely following the supposed Observer rule of engaging in “civil discussion” that is refused publication. Why? Because the true story doesn’t fit the narrative woven by Ahmad Zahra, the Kennedy Sisters and Delicate Sprig Elijah Manassero that the owners of Les Amis were actually victims of something or other, instead of the reality: they were serial rent dodgers and squatters for years and years and years.

Off you go. We’ll hear nothing of the kind…

But the truth? Can’t have that. It gets in the way of the fictional story. It’s too awkward and so off to the corn field goes the truth.

Forget about unethical “journalism.” We’re talking about some serious mental and moral deficiency here.

November 20, 2025A Step in the Right Direction

Mission Accomplished Says Zahra. No Third Term Necessary

by The Fullerton Harpoon56 Comments

Is it true. When his lips are moving he’s generally lying, as the saying goes.

It was all about “serving,” mostly serving himself, of course. Never forget: his second big decision was to get himself appointed to the lucrative OCWD board in exchange for appointing Jan Flory to the City Council in 2019; his first big decision had been to call for a replacement election.

“Community-driven representation” means stirring up a handful of uninformed people to harangue honest council members and bully them into submission on a useless $2,300,000 trail through a blighted industrial area.

Is this a true statement or only a feint? Is it a mechanism to win sympathy for a mayoral appointment on December 16th? The latter certainly isn’t going to happen any way you slice it. Or is this a realization that his self-serving ego leap is over and that he landed in the sand some time ago?

November 17, 2025November 17, 2025Ahmad Zahra

Ad Hoc Tuah Part Five-ah. And No Laughing Matter

by Disillusioned Ex-Hippy32 Comments

Right after the City Council votes to ban nitrous oxide in Fullerton, they will discuss the creation of an ad hoc (that’s Latin, darlin’) committee of two councilmembers to work with staff to develop sales tax ballot measure language. It’s item #20 on your scorecard.

The tax idea was floated by an earlier ad hoc committee, the so-called Sustainable Budget Committee, or something suchlike. That committee ultimately decided to recommend to limit the parameters of the tax to two different special half-cent sales taxes, one for infrastructure and one for our old friend “public safety.” It was probably reasoned that they would get more support than a general sales tax, but they need a two-thirds vote of approval for a special tax – a tough nut to crack.

Of course, a General Tax increase only needs a 50%+1 threshold to pass. But you need a council super- majority – 4 votes – for that to get on a ballot, and that seems highly unlikely.

It’s been painful to watch this drawn out Kabuki and it seems as it if will go on at least until the deadline for getting on next year’s ballot. Fortunately there is little chance that Mayor Fred Jung will let the obnoxious and incompetent spendthrift “doctors” Ahmad Zahra and Shana Charles anywhere near this language-developing process.

We have all seen the way that these government-written ballot measures twist language and logic to try to fool the public to approve them. The examples are so plentiful they hardly need enumerating. Remember the ill-fated Measure S in Fullerton? Hoo Boy was that some seriously misleading bullshit. Hopefully, Jung can require a simple and honest text without the usual treacle.

My cynical side wonders how much of the infrastructure tax language will actually include funding for the cops and financial bailout for the idiotic firefighter-union-members-as-ambulance-drivers decision, or FEMA FFD expansion grant nonsense. Anyway you cut it you want those well-funded unions on board for the inevitable campaign PR campaign.

Fullerton Boohoo and the Kennedy Sisters will be crying out loudly that the fix is in by their new bogeyman – the evil Bushala Bloc – and that any ballot measure language will be crafted to fail without the steady guidance of our in-house council “intellectuals.” Tender young sprout Elijah will demand TRANSPARENCY. They may even still squawk about the need for a General Sales Tax increase, after all. But I think that Good Ship Lollipop has sailed.

Has that ship sailed? I wonder.

November 16, 2025November 16, 2025Behind Closed Doors

The High Cost of Rolling Stock

by Fullerton Engineer6 Comments

On Tuesday’s Fullerton City Council meeting staff is proposing to spend $1,400,000 million dollars on four vehicles. The items are all on the “consent calendar” meaning they’ll probably be approved unanimously and no questions asked. And that’s a shame.

The Item #9 is to spend $116,000 to fix a fire engine that was allegedly struck by a careless motorist as it left a station. The front end was damaged. While the staff report is very quick to absolve the FFD of any fault, there is also no mention of an insurance payout from the motorist. Was he or she insured? If there is a payout where will that money go?

One of the key things to understand about these firefighting machines is that they are effectively proprietary. The custom vehicle came turnkey to Fullerton from the Oshkosh Corporation of Appleton WI, who owns the builder – Pierce Manufacturing. But when you need a repair, where ya gonna go? To a Pierce approved repair shop, that’s where. In this case ReNewell Fleet Services, out Ontario way.

Item #10 is purchase of a new Compressed Natural Gas Crew truck from CTEC of Downey. Price tag? $425,000. It seems that poor old CNG Crew Truck Unit No. 551C is at the end of its service life. This truck is used for water system fixit and has a backhoe on the back – which seems like the place you would want to put it. The staff report is pretty odd, requesting the council to forgo a competitive bid process since CTEC was the only “informal” responder with a truck that fit the bill. No mention of a sole source documentation. Zip. The sales tax we pay on this item alone is a rather shocking $30,000. We may console ourselves that $5000 of that tax will go into our own General Fund.

One wonders if this acquisition isn’t akin to buying a custom fire engine in Wisconsin.

Why the Water Fund doesn’t pay for this directly points to an ongoing problem of the City comingling City expenses with those of the Water Fund, a fund that should be independent and transparent and hasn’t been for over 50 years I’m told.

Hey, that debris isn’t going to dump itself…

Item #12 is a whopper – $831,000 to buy a couple of 15′ dump trucks at $415,000 apiece, from the good folks at PB Loader Company in Fresno, via a middleman, Sourcewell, who gets government agencies a discount through a cooperative purchasing contract.

Alas, the two aged dump trucks proposed for replacement, Unit Number 562B and 565C, have also “reached the end of their reliable service life.” Of course these rigs are basically design-build vehicles which is why they are so damned expensive, and one wonders aloud if Fullerton couldn’t get 4 or 5 dump trucks ready-made for less.

Anyway, we are informed that “These trucks are critical to maintaining the City’s infrastructure and supporting rapid response during storm events, road failures, and water or sewer emergencies.” Hmm. And by the way, worry not. The money has already been budgeted in the Equipment Replacement Fund. There is no mention of what happens to the existing vehicles after they are replaced which is always a good question to ask.

Sales tax for our new super dumps? $60,000. So we get to keep about ten grand of that.

November 14, 2025November 14, 2025Ahmad Zahra

The Saga of Zahra’s Immigration

by Joe Sipowicz25 Comments

A week and a half ago Fullerton councilman Ahmad Zahra agendized an item to dole out $200,000 from the General Fund to immigrants hassled by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. He thought it was an excellent opportunity to burnish his own immigrant travails to the full house. He didn’t bother sharing any of the details of his own arduous trail to citizenship, of course – like his marriage fraud – a federal crime.

Fortunately, the distinguished ladies of FFFF’s Fine Arts, Cinema, and Book Club Division have recreated the elevation of the poor, Syrian immigrant to what he is now – a poor (targeted, don’t forget!) American citizen.

Enjoy the histrionics: the wistful smiles, the knowing head bobs, the empathetic tone.

I guess Zahra figures he can get away with telling only a small part of his heroic origin story, even if it changes a little now and then. The whole story, or most of it, was hidden for decades in order to create the Zahra brand he sells to the ignorant.

I guess we’ll see what the 4th District voters have to say.

November 13, 2025November 13, 2025About Us

Shouldn’t We Have Been Paying Them?

by The Fullerton Harpoon44 Comments

Yesterday my FFFF colleague Disillusioned Ex-Hippy wrote a post about some nonsense written in the Fullerton Observer by the young and lively Elijah Manassero. It was about the mean and corrupt City of Fullerton victimizing and abusing the restaurant, Les Amis. So I went to the website to see how ridiculous it really was. Tender bud Elijah didn’t disappoint. What a load of bullshit.

The best part really needs to be highlighted for its sheer stupidity. And by best, I mean funniest. Get this:

Outdoor dining is rarely a profit center. It brings extra costs for staff, heaters, maintenance, and, in Les Amis’ case, live musicians. Restaurants maintain patios to beautify downtown, attract foot traffic, and create a sense of community. “Our patio is our thank you to the community,” Montecristo said.

Why, Les Amis is a veritable charity! According to Mrs. Jinan Montecristo, proprietor, their patio didn’t make them any money. Really, it was there as a gift from her to us. And when someone makes you a present of something you don’t charge them rent for the space where their good and kindly philanthropy is going on. In fact, I’m surprised the saucy young stem Elijah didn’t suggest that the taxpayers should have been paying Les Amis all along for their sacrifices for the community!

And remember this: Sharon Quirk doesn’t hand out Woman of the Year trophies like party favors for party givers. Oh, wait.

All this thinking can give a youngster a headache.

We can forgive tender Elijah for misusing the term “profit center” because he is probably studying sociology and left wing political thought in some diploma mill, somewhere. Still, the idea that restaurants operate outdoor patios as a gift to their communities is so profoundly stupid as to make us suspect young sprout Manassero’s sincerity about any of this.

It’s hard to believe that even he really believes the nonsense he wrote, or even supposes he can sell this tripe to the readers of the Fullerton Observer. Still, he wrote it and they published it; so maybe they really are that oblivious to reality.

Anyhow, if you believe this crapola then you must also believe that the City actually did Les Amis a favor by removing their illegal squatting accoutrements. After all, if your thing is a money loser why be in business, big or small?

November 12, 2025November 12, 2025Ahmad Zahra

Young Elijah Misses Nap, Throws Tantrum

by Disillusioned Ex-Hippy11 Comments

Sweet flower Elijah Manassero has just lost his temper. Did he miss his midday nap? Does he have a full diaper? Who can say? What I do know is that he has scribbled another of his diatribes for the Fullerton Observer Sisters, piling on their desperate narrative that the owners of Les Amis are victims of some sort of conspiracy in City Hall.

The City finally removed Les Amis stuff from City property a few weeks ago after the aforesaid business spent a decade and a half dodging rent, stalling, trying to weasel out of signed agreements and of course, encroaching onto public space without permit or agreement on several occasions.

The defenders of the indefensible are trying to ignore all the facts of the Les Amis history of scofflawry, and pretend that the substantial 2022 rent increases by the City were insufferable, and hence non-payment justified. And anything that happened before this gossamer pretext is wished into Fullerton Boohoo’s collective cornfield.

Tender fleur Elijah calls his article a “history,” but conveniently omits most of Les Amis‘ real histoire, and like a typical Observer reporter shares unsubstantiated conversations related to him by Ms. Jinan Montecristo – the alleged victim in all this – as gospel. Young pup Elijah mentions nothing before 2022, of course, and even Les Amis recent spotty history of non-payment goes unmentioned.

Fragile and fresh Elijah has tried to speak with nobody inside of City Hall to get the true litany of Les Amis bad behavior. That would be uncomfortable. He accepts as true what he has been told by the noaccounts of Montecristo without reservation. Did he get any facts from Mayor Fred Jung about the removal of the Les Amis detritus? Nope. Might he have been told that the upcoming discussion of lease rates in the future has nothing to do with lease obligations in the past and due now? Of course. Did he he inquire about the fact that maybe the removal of the stuff happened at 6:30 am so as not to block the adjacent alleyway during business hours? No. That would interfere with the conspiracy narrative.

Since the young fleur Manassero visits and cites this blog all the time, he knows very well that his mentor and manipulator, Ahmad Zahra, voted to implement the 2022 rates; and he knows that the Montecristo clan said nothing about it at the June 21, 2022 public hearing. He has obviously decided that these facts aren’t necessary to convey his nonsensical narrative. Why clutter up your prosaic propaganda with embarrassing information?

And why should Fullerton expect anything resembling honesty, integrity, or basic journalistic ethics from The Fullerton Observers and its proprietors – the Kennedy Sister, Sharon and Sitka.

November 9, 2025November 9, 2025About Us

Zahra Voted To Double Les Amis Rent

by Mr. Peabody38 Comments

Back in June, 2022 the Fullerton City Council voted to raise rents on public property in downtown Fullerton. These spaces are used by adjacent restaurants as outdoor patios. One of the the “yes” votes was none other than “Doctor” Ahmad Zahra, the Damascene Dissimulator.

The rent increases were big, almost doubling the cost to restaurant tenants. Here’s the old and the approved rates, and the incremental difference, from the June 21, 2022 agenda item:

The resolution to establish the new rate structure passed on a 3-1 vote. And Zahra, one of the three votes is now the self-styled “pro-small business” councilman, and is regarded as one of the ringmasters of the Poor Les Amis Club.

Les Amis, you ask? Yes, the restaurant that went years without paying rent and illegally occupied public property, and that recently had its patio stuff removed from public property at public expense.

A cynic might argue that the big rent increase meant nothing to the rent dodgers at Les Amis since they weren’t going to pay their rent anyhow – just like they been stalling the City for years. Neither Jinan Montecristo, owner of Les Amis, nor her youthful cub, Oliver, even showed up to complain about the new fees.

Here’s the point of this story: this rent increase is now being used by Les Amis and its loyal amis to justify the Montecristos not paying anything in rent for years, even at the old rates, and of squatting on public property without permits or agreements.

I know! Let’s let the harpy-like elder Kennedy Sister, Sharon, another sudden small business sword and shield, share the strategy in a comment on the Fullerton Observer blog:

Sharon K

November 7, 2025 at 7:36 am

Why was Les Amis patio torn down by the city before the public meeting scheduled for Dec 2 at which the fairness of outdoor dining fees will be discussed? What was the urgency? Who directed that to happen?

Asking an unintelligent question is an excellent way of avoiding an intelligent answer, especially on a blog where rejection and censorship of truth-tellers eliminates the embarrassing predicament of honest correction.

I wonder how they’ll feel when they learn the that the huge amount of back rent incurred by The Noaccounts of Montecristo is based on the action of their hero, Ahmad Zahra,