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.
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?
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.
Well, there she goes
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.
You will be taxed…sooner or later!
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.
Cry harder…
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.
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.
That shit’s expensive!
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.
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.
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.
Giving back to the community…
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 the year’s not even over!
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?
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.
Les Amis sans meubles…
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.
Off you go. We’ll hear nothing of the kind…
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.
Young Elijah pops up in the garden…
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.
Found another victim! Of me!
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.
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.
Time to come clean…..
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.
Yard sale in progress…
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 justifythe Montecristos not paying anything in rent for years, even at the old rates, and of squatting on public property without permits or agreements.
Giving truth the middle finger…
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:
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,
On Tuesday the Fullerton City Council killed a plan by Ahmad Zahra and Shana Charles to dole out $200,000 to the victims of Immigration and Custom Enforcement depredations.
The item was “tabled,” meaning it isn’t coming back. Fullerton does this because two councilmembers can keep bringing something back ad infinitum unless a majority makes a positive vote that it not come back. Fred Jung, Jamie Valencia and Nick Dunlap voted in the affirmative.
The idea itself, as with most squishy-feely liberal brainstorms, was based on the supposition that the people of Fullerton should pay for legal help and “basic necessities” i.e. food, rent, etc., for people harassed by ICE – even and especially undocumented immigrants, i.e. Illegal aliens.
Off we go, into the Wild Blue Yonder…
The idea was to toss the money into the caring hands of non-profit entities who would then distribute the largesse, somehow, somewhere, to somebody. Deduct administrative overhead all around. The opportunity for waste, even if the cause were just and appropriate, should be obvious to anybody with sense.
Sense. Therein lay a problem.
As usual with this sort of thing, the council chamber was packed with pro-government giveaway types, many from outside Fullerton – people who believe it is the taxpayers job to subsidize their charitable impulses. This attendance will be misrepresented by the Fullerton Observer Kennedy Sisters and other boohoos, of course, as “the People” want this or that; or “the People have spoken;” or “listen to the People;” or to be more precise “Fred Jung failed to listen to the People.”
Put the money in the hole…
What the majority of people in Fullerton really think about this Berkeleyesque scheme isn’t known, but I bet eight or nine in ten would be against jumping this issue up to first in line.
The discussion did give opportunity for a budget discussion that proved more cloudy that clear. Shana Charles seemed to think she had discovered a vein of gold somewhere in the give-and-take, but of course didn’t have a clue about what she had heard. To her and her playmate, Zahra, $200,000 is just a drop in the proverbial bucket and of no real concern.
Doc Z. gets Syrious…
The funnest part of the evening came when the serial liar Zahra told his own immigration tale of hardship getting a green card.
The one-time Mrs. Ahmad Zahra.
This is fabulously disingenuous because we all know now that he got his green card through marriage fraud with one Michele Salmon, an Arkansas woman whom he married, then quickly abandoned in Little Rock as he went to pursue his Hollywood Dream. FFFF will be sharing a video clip of this newest chapter in Zahra’s chameleon-like origin story, when the City puts it on online.
Organizing this is a full-time job!
The whole scenario was another one of those Zahra/Charles performative, made-for-effect gatherings to promote themselves, and no doubt to try to make the council majority look bad. That’s a poor political strategy. It’s going to backfire badly on Zahra, if he decides he still needs a councilman’s income after 2026; and just as disastrous for Shana Charles who has already announced her continuing “journey.”
“Charles Voted to give $200,000 to Illegal Aliens.” And so on.
At last night’s City Council meeting, “Doctor” Ahmad Zahra, the Dissimulator of Damascus, informed the packed audience the he had written an opinion piece in the Fullerton Observer. The thrust of the article he said, was to point out the disparity in park spending in south Fullerton when compared to the north.
I was curious to see what Zahra had written, knowing as I do his penchant for plagiarism in the Observer, and his special brand of hand-wringing. I wondered if it might be AI written as has appeared to be the case before. So I found the online copy of the print edition.
Don’t go there…
Naturally the first thing Zahra does to establish his position is to tell a bald-faced lie. People in the neighborhood have been waiting 20 years, he bemoaned, for the Union Pacific Park to “finally” be opened! One poor mom could become a grandmother waiting for the park to open! The shame! Zahra was peddling the same false history bullshit as his pal Skiaka Kennedy.
Of course Zahra’s implication is that the closed park symbolizes profound unfairness, proving bias against south Fullerton, presumably by white City Councils from north Fullerton (not so subtle racism and hideous classism would be the obvious cause, Zahra hoped, to the Latino-packed audience). That’s the official Fullerton Boohoo narrative.
The problem is that this weeping about Union Pacific Park is completely untrue, and the history of the park, while demonstrating gross incompetence by City staff and councils, in no way shows an anti-south Fullerton bias. Actually, just the opposite.
The park wasn’t closed. Not yet.
Here’s the truth: the park had been opened back in the early 2000s at a cost of several million bucks to the public – all of Fullerton’s public. In a year or two part of the park was fenced off due to soil contamination – but a small part of the western end. The balance of the park remained wide open to the public and stayed open for ten years or so. Then the park was closed by Fullerton’s City Manager, and former Parks and Rec Director, Joe Felz.
Why?
Because the Union Pacific Park had become a haven for borrachos, gang members and drug addicts. The City finally put up a fence around the whole damn thing. The small toilet building was a magnet for illicit activity; it was closed, then demolished. Homeless started to haunt the walkways and build wickiups against the fence. No City Council ever voted on this closure, by the way. A public explanation would be too damn damning. It has been painfully obvious that there never should have been a park there in the first place, and there wouldn’t have been except for the ego of the then Parks Director and lots of Redevelopment play money.
The sad truth is that nothing has changed to make the new version of the Union Pacific Park successful. All of the same socio-economic, criminal, and drug abuse issues still exist. Zahra will not be in office after next November’s election, but the legacy of his foolish, patronizing make-work projects – the Trail to Nowhere and the Union Pacific Park – will be notorious to anybody willing to look at the topic honestly.
Alas, honesty is not a commodity in high demand in the world of uber-liberal politics, made manifest locally in the precincts of Fullerton BooHoo. Here, governance, if you want to call it that, is based on seeking out, and appearing sensitive to the plight of some victim or other, some “underserved” person or class, whether they want that solicitude or not. The more you spend, the more you appear to care, even if the money is utterly wasted, as were the millions spent acquiring and building the first Union Pacific Park.
