The train of thought was weak but it sure was short…
We have all seen how Ahmad Zahra has endorsed the the idea of a cannabis dispensary on almost any commercial corner in Fullerton; how the sad mental train wreck of Jesus Quirk-Silva was eager to spread the pain to all of Fullerton’s representative districts. That’s old news, from 2020.
Cannabis Kitty Jaramillo
News of more recent vintage is that in 2024 the dope lobby, fronted by the grocery store workers union pitched in to elect Cannabis Kitty Jaramillo with an astounding $60,000, dumped into a pro Jaramillo political action committee.
How come? Because this union also represents the cannabis dispensary works in Orange County. I note that the origin and intent of this contribution was never discussed in the pages of the Fullerton Observer.
Andre finds a pearl in an oyster…
Of that $60,000, $4000 was shuffled to Andre Charles, who styles himself a political consultant. What he does between elections remains a mystery, as does the service he provided Team Jaramillo for that $4000. But Andre’s sketchy employment history is of little concern, except that the source of his conjugal bliss is none other than Mrs. Shana Charles, a Fullerton City Council member and a vociferous advocate for public health.
Ms. Shana, as FFFF has noted, is running for re-election in Fullerton’s District 3 this fall. She has kicked off a re-election campaign and has begun the task of fundraising. Her second biggest contribution was $1500, and came from came from the very same dope workers union that fronted the Cannabis Kitty PAC. A coincidence? I doubt it.
Mrs. Flory’s education was complete. The designated driver was on the way.
The marijuana dispensary lobby needs three votes to revive the ill-formed dope ordinance of 2020 approved just before the election of that year by Ahmad Zahra, Jesus Quirk-Silva, and the possibly sober Jan Flory (pictured above). That ordinance was revoked a few months later and the lobby determined that it was worth a huge monetary investment in Fullerton politics.
Money is the mother’s milk of politics – the famous phrase shamelessly coined by Jesse Unruh, former California politician and fixer.
And nowhere is this more true than in Orange County, where Supervisorial districts include 600,000 residents and getting people out to vote (for you) requires lots of investment in media of one kind or another. Setting aside independent political action committees, the politician’s own expenditure is critical.
Since our own District 4 Supervisorial job is up for election in 2026 (the senile and corrupt Doug “Bud” Chaffee being termed out) it is timely, on the verge of a primary campaign, to see how much money the various candidates have raised, and how much they have on hand.
The second half of 2025 finance statements for the D4 candidates are now viewable on line. The results of July-December fundraising are interesting.
That’s Mayor Jung to you…
The big cash leader is Fullerton’s own Mayor, Fred Jung. He raised a whopping $145,000 bucks in the second half of 2025, and had a cash balance of $354,000. He’d have more but spent almost 50K in 2025 mostly on campaign consultants. That’s a lot of money.
Little fish, big pond…
Connor Traut the eager office hopper from Buena Park; the carpetbagger who lusts after politcal office, raised $64,000 and has $225,000 in the bank. Of course $100,000 of that was shifted from his existing campaign account, a move he sleazily pretended was a real 24 hour fundraising effort.
Tim Shaw
Tim Shaw, the only Republican in the race raised $60,000 and has $69,000 on hand.
Rosie addresses the Boys in the Back (of the) Room; Will they hear her?
The final candidate who I am aware of is Rose Espinosa from La Habra. She raised a paltry $14K, but thanks to one of those personal loans politicians make to themselves, in this case $150,000, she’s got a $160,000 total.
The primary election is June 2nd, so a tsunami of political outreach will probably be starting in a month or so. What are the prospects for these free spenders?
Won’t look you in the eye while you’re trashing him…
Fullerton is in the 4th Supervisorial District, in fact, it is the largest city completely within the boundary of the district. Three of the last four D4 Supervisors have been on the Fullerton City Council. This gives Fred Jung a natural edge over candidates from Fullerton’s much smaller neighbors like Buena Park and La Habra. Jung, however has no help from a political party, if in fact that means much anymore. He is now registered NPP – no political party preference. His record of defying the kooks in Fullerton will help, not hurt him with conservatives and independents.
Catch and release?
Connor Traut is the nebbish candidate of the Democrat establishment and has all the usual endorsement from the same people endorsing the thief Paulette Chaffee for NOCCCD board. He has a lot of money on hand, but only 63% of what Jung has stockpiled. Being an elected in Buena Park isn’t much of a help since it is historically apathetic in politics and he moved there just to get into a municipal office.
The Village People just called…
Tim Shaw, the only Republican running, has zero hope of being elected. He came close seven years ago, but the district has become even more Democrat and less Republican. He is a member of the whackadoodle and opaque OC Board of Education. That will get him some charter school lobby money as a sop. He might do well enough to make a run-off in November by coming in second, but he can’t win in a general election. In 2022 two Democrats made the runoff. Shaw has no path to victory.
Her garage door won’t open…
Rose Espinoza, another Democrat, has no foreseeable path, either. All the Dems are behind Traut, for what that’s worth, and Espinosa has no name ID outside of small La Habra, where getting elected doesn’t seem all that difficult. Still, as the only woman in the election she’s got that going for her. But she hasn’t raised much money. But she is willing to risk her own dough, apparently, and that says something. Something sort of Paulette Chaffee-esque. She has run for Supervisor two or three time previously way out of the money.
Anaheim Flatlands
The OC 4th District Supervisor election is likely going to be won in the flatlands of Anaheim where none of the above candidates is very well known. There are lots of Latino voters in these precincts and that might help Espinosa. There could be the better part of 25,000 to 30,000 votes there. Large, but not enough to help an Anaheimer do well. At this late date I can’t think of any who could or would try to run.
Yesterday our young and lively friend, sweet Elijah Manaserro published an article on the Fullerton Observer blog. I call it an article because it isn’t a news story – almost devoid of journalistic content – it is really an opinion essay.
Out of the blue our tender sprout decided to elevate an issue completely off the radar – illicit cannabis dispensaries. And he shares the turmoil caused by these unlicensed, unregulated stores. “Whack-a-mole” he calls it, and dramatically claims the cost of enforcement is “staggering.” Of course the cost isn’t staggering at all, but when you are acting on behalf of a huge, monied interest, hyperbole is okay, I guess.
Green means green. One way or another…
Where the green shoot Elijah is going with this is clear. It’s same logic and language used by the Fullerton Observer and by “Dr.” Ahmad Zahra in the past to promote legal dispensaries. Since Fullerton can’t control the illegal activity, we might as well make it okay.
The good folks behind the legal dispensary push – the Dope Lobby – have been trying for years to get this use legalized in Fullerton, and it looks like they’re still hard at work – through the Observer and the green sprig Manaserro, the Zahra acolyte and possibly closed session confidante.
Always look for the union label…
This issue is not peanuts to the Dope Lobby, which consists of two elements: the lobbyists for actual dispensary companies, and the local grocery store workers union who represent dues paying cannabis store workers.
Smoke it down, Kitty…
A year ago the grocery workers local union UFCW 324, no doubt supported by the lobbyists behind the scenes, pumped a staggering $60,000 via the national HQ into a political action committee to get “Cannabis Kitty” Jaramillo elected to represent Fullerton’s 4th District. That effort failed, but the cash motivation endures.
The UFCW PAC paid $4000 to Andre Charles, husband of councilperson Shana Charles, to do some sort of work for the Team Jaramillo campaign; we can assume, I think, that Charles is certain to support a new cannabis ordinance, given her personal economic connection. This means that the Dope Lobby is still just one vote away from getting their majority in 2026 and a revitalized dope zone map.
Still don’t see connections? Guess who Zahra picked to be his representative on the so-called Sustainable Budget Committee?
Not a lobbyist, I tells ya…
Zahra chose Derek Smith, that’s who. He’s The government lobbyist for the cannabis workers a fact that has never excited young Elijah’s curiosity.
But now back to our fragile fleur of an “investigative reporter,” Manassero. He claims (dramatically, of course) that the illegal dispensaries have been “near schools” but conveniently doesn’t say which ones. The few addresses he cites to bolster his essay are no where near any schools. Of course in his dissertation he fails to mention that the previous dope ordinance, passed in the last hours of 2020, before a new council was sworn in, permitted dispensaries within 101 feet of our homes.
Finally, and inevitably, callow young Manaserro directs attention to the real issue: the budgetary benefits of cannabis sales taxes. This has always been a big motivator for MJ support in City Hall, given the fact that general sales tax increases, like 2020s Measure S, are difficult to pass. The proposed special sales taxes discussed last year need a two thirds majority to pass.
I don’t spark up doobs any more, but back in the day…hey that explains a lot about my life’s trajectory.
Here’s my prediction: as spring 2026 advances, we will see Fullerton Boohoo, Fullerton Angry, Fullerton Childish, and Fullerton Fun begin to advocate for legal cannabis stores, and harass the council majority to implement a new ordinance. As the August ballot deadline approaches we’ll hear even more racket from these people.
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.
Who says “nobody” reads the FFFF blog? Well, they do in City Hall, obviously.
It turns out that “Dr.” Ahmad Zahra’s campaign committee maybe wasn’t terminated after all. It’s now back on the active list on the City Clerk’s website! Looks like the “new crew” did another oopsy.
And that’s terrific news for those of us who were looking forward to next year’s Fullerton City Council election in District 5.
Zahra rap sheet
See, Mr. Zahra faces all sorts of challenges of his own creation, and he has voluntarily made enemies where he ought not to have. Here’s a partial list of Zahra’s transgressions – stuff that his blind followers love to ignore, but issues that may resonate with the electorate at large.
In the 1990s gay immigrant Zahra committed marriage fraud by marrying an American woman (a federal felony), so he could stay in the United States and pave the way for eventual citizenship.
In 2020 and 2021 Zahra committed plagiarism by taking articles written by somebody else and having them published in the Fullerton Observer under his own name.
In October of 2022 Zahra filed a false police report to the FPD claiming that his colleague, Fred Jung assaulted him (or some such thing). The report was rejected.
If he stays in the race, Zahra would go up against Oscar Valadez, the guy who would have beat him last time around, except for Castro, and who’s returning to the fray in 2026. Then there’s his biggest antagonist, Tony Bushala, who seems to want to make it his business to rid the city of this con artist. Mr. Bushala has the means and the motive to do so.
In 2022 Zahra spent well over $100,000 to squeak out a tainted victory. Right now he has less than six grand in his committee account. While we may expect the OC Dems to enlist another candidate to draw votes from Zahra opponents (the Scott Marowitz Experience may frighten them off), it’s hard to see a path forward for the disingenuous doctor from Damascus.
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.
How dare you question my story!
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.
Bushala says stop!
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.
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”
Success, Fullerton-style…
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.
Don’t go there…
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 nothingto 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.
Pickleball for la Communidad…and no Kaboom Park.
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.“
Things are not looking so good. Credit: JULIE LEOPO, Voice of OC.
Yesterday U.S. District Judge Fernando Aelle-Rocha hit cannabis lobbyist Melahat Rafiei with a six month jail sentence and a $10,000 fine for fraud. In reality she had already pleaded guilty to trying to bribe two Irvine councilmembers to help her client – somebody in the local marijuana cartel. This seems like a light penalty for what she admitted.
Her adherents (she has some thanks to her years of disingenuous self-promotion in Democrat politics) claim that her ratting out some of Anaheim’s crooks should have meant no jail time at all.
What will this mean for the dope lobby in Fullerton? Hard to say. We know that the business has insinuated itself into Fullerton. Ahmad Zahra appointed one of its political spokesholes, Derek Smith to the Fiscal Sustainability Ad Hoc Committee. And the Dutiful Doctor from Damascus has been an active and open drum-beater for the marijuana dispensary cause for years. He actually recommended Rafiei as a lobbyist to at least one commercial property owner that I know. How many others have there been?
We also know that Zahra and the dope lobby worked real hard to elect Cannabis Kitty Jaramillo (above) last fall. Had Jaramillo won we would have MJ stores in Fullerton, possibly 100 feet from your house.
Ask my husband…
People have been speculating about Zahra’s ties to the local Marijuana Trust. How beholden is he? Ditto Sheena Charles, whose husband, Andre, got a tidy $4,000 from the marijuana worker union’s PAC, “Working Families for Jaramillo.”
The Fullerton Observer and their followers have been vocal about the political influence of Tony Bushala, but have been completely silent about the long reach of the MJ cartel into Fullerton politics. I don’t wonder why.
As the saying goes about the sooner or later discovery by the blind pig.
In this instance the issue was the lack of the actual solid waste RFP document in Tuesday’s presentation to the Fullerton City Council. Tender Elijah popped up during public comments to note this omission, and he was right to do so.
Maybe innocent Elijah came across this on his own – it’s pretty blatant. Or maybe he got it from my FFFF colleague Disillusioned Ex-hippy, who wrote this on Monday:
“Item 21 is the start of something big. Fullerton’s trash service contract is coming up in June, 2027 and staff wants to issue a Request for Proposal (RFP). The RFP solicitation document itself remains a mystery to the public because it isn’t attached to the agenda. Sorry.“
This sort of thing makes everybody look bad. The City staffer who got up to explain how come the actual document was not attached to the staff report gave the lamest of lame explanations: the ad hoc committee looked at it.
Decisions, decisions…
The bare fact that this actually happened bespeaks a culture in which the bureaucracy assumes the council won’t read anything more complicated than a Denny’s menu and will rely on staff to tell them what to do. This doesn’t happen in a vacuum. The sad fact is that most electeds are more interested in photo ops than in doing any real work. And reading documents you are voting on takes effort.
Then there’s the FU to the public, deliberate opacity through design or indifference. I think it’s the culture issue, again; a culture that is created by inertia, where sort of okay is good enough. Hopefully we will get a new City Manager who understands this. But don’t hold your breath.
Apparently the Union Pacific Trail disaster-in-the-making has lost another month – groundbreaking on July 2nd, as reported by Sanka Kennedy of the Fullerton Observer Kennedy Sisters. She fails to remind her followers that the project completion, including plant establishment is the end of October per the agreement with the bankrollers of the project, the incurious and somnolent State Natural Resources Agency. This bureaucracy is much better at handing out free money than they are securing its efficacious expenditure.
Congratulations all around.
Maybe the less said, the better…
In another Union Pacific story, Siaska tells about a workshop of some sort to gin up ideas for renovating Union Pacific park, the dismal space purchased by the City in 2000 without benefit of environmental testing. The first park was a drug addled, gang infested disaster and closed even after soils remediation and a cost of $3,000,000. Since nothing has changed there is no reason to suspect a new park will succeed any better than the old. But pickleball courts are in high demand in the barrio!
Skasia misinforms readers that the remediation issue took place in 2014, probably so as to cushion the shock of the real truth: the park was built, closed because of contamination, remediated in the 2000s and not opened again because nobody wanted it reopened – especially the people who wasted all that money in the first place.
Sankia reminds us that a committee was formed to review this park four years ago, but not that it dissolved into nothingness as these committees always do. Start over, says the City, the land is your canvas,and toy hardhats for everybody, and whatever happens, don’t look in the rear-view mirror. Here’s my favorite line:
“The initiative, which seeks to reinvigorate the family-oriented neighborhood, has been in the works since discussions about the park’s redesign began in 2019.”
A family oriented neighborhood? As opposed to what? The truth is that discussion of reopening the park came from Fred Jung who was disgusted by the whole disaster of the “Poison Park.”
Digging back to 2023 Kennedy found the ever quotable “Dr.” Ahmad Zahra to lend HIS vast knowledge of his district:
District 5 representative, Council Member Dr. Ahmad Zahra expressed his support at the City Council Meeting in October 2023, highlighting the project’s importance: “Many residents in that area have seen an entire generation of children grow up without access to a park.”
Go play on the tracks for all I care!
What a load of utter bullshit. The residents of “that area” have free and unfettered access to Independence Park, Richman Park and Lemon Park. If you believed Zahra you’d have to conclude the kids in the ‘hood were living in plywood crates in a Tijuana slum.
Naturally, Skaisa omits reference to Zahra’s 2021 vote to turn the park space into a private event center, a bone-headed and illegal move. But, again, Fullertonions, we don’t dwell on the past here. Forward to the Future.
