So it looks as if the City of Fullerton has finally decided to quit playing pat-a-cake with Jinan and young Oliver Montecristo. The owners of the restaurant Les Amis who kept encroaching on public property without approval or permits, and who serially dodged paying tens of thousands of dollars to the City in rent, are having their “improvements” on public property removed by the City.
Les Amis and unpermitted stuff…
Here’s the notification to the City Council from acting City Manager, Eddie Manfro:
Mayor Jung and City Council Members,
I was informed this morning that Public Works crews have removed the outdoor dining encroachments at Les Amis restaurant this morning. This follows the 90 day extension that she was granted by City Manager Eric Levitt. Following her payment of $3,900 on July 23, 2025, no further payments have been received.
According to Director Bise, Les Amis was provided with a 48 hour notice prior to removal of the encroachments. Public Works will hold it for 30 days in case they wish to keep it for their future use (but not for installation in the public space).
A copy of Mr. Levitt’s 90 day extension is attached for reference. Thank you.
Eddie
A yard sale is a small business!!
No doubt the suddenly “pro-business” folks at the Fullerton Observer, and “doctors” Zahra and Charles will continue to spin this into a David and Goliath story: little David being the scofflaws who have paid almost nothing to the City in rent for 15 years and who blatantly refused to follow City rules about squatting on public premises.
Poor Oliver
The last City Manager, Eric Leavitt actually gave the Montecristo mob yet another 90 days to make good on their debts and encroachments. Les Amis got a two day notice and still refused to do anything. So Public Works did. And the City has generously volunteered to keep the Montecristo junk on hand for a month in case they want it for some reason.
Les Amis sans meubles…
I really hope Jinan and Oliver get a bill for cost of removing their junk from the public right-of-way, although I doubt if they’d pay it.
And speaking of ever so earnest Oliver, I look forward to his appearance at the next City Council meeting blaming Mayor Jung for his own mother’s failure to pay her bills and play by the rules.
At the last Fullerton City Council meeting a bunch of people showed up to promote taxpayer relief for illegal aliens (AKA undocumented immigrants) being abused by ICE thuggery. They were inspired by the usual Zahra-Charles altruism that manifests itself in government spending your money to do something you probably don’t want it to.
When the Boohoos were done boohooing, the final Zoom caller laid out a nice riposte to the nonsense. The call was disrupted by loud shouts from the Fullerton Observer Kennedy Sisters and their pals, eventually drawing rebuke by Mayor Fred Jung – who rightly pointed out the disgrace of a supposed newspaper publisher trying to censor public comment.
But, see, the voice was AI generated, prompting Kennedy Sister cries “AI is not a person! No AI.” Ah, yes. However, “AI” did didn’t pop up out of nowhere. Somebody wrote the text of that statement. Somebody used text to voice software to record it. Somebody replayed it on the Zoom call.
I find it hilarious, but not at all surprising that the self-righteous Kennedy Sisters took it upon themselves to judge the propriety of an AI voiced comment just because they didn’t like what was being said. As we observe – a human created that statement based on human input. Had the call been supportive of the public expenditure you can be sure “AI” would have been met with cheers and applause.
Gee it looks just like an ordinary van!
You’ve gotta see and hear what happened. Fortunately the Boys in the White Van have helped out with a video that records the event. Be sure to watch to end where the ever-obnoxious Yolanda Harrison has her “statement” read by somebody else. Why? Because her husband, the equally egregious Todd, claimed she had had some sort of medical procedure leaving her unable to speak. Who’s to say that the AI call was made by someone unable to speak? Here’s the video:
What a damn disgrace, and proof positive of these people demanding that their self-righteous voice be allowed to drown out anyone who disagrees with their left wing ideology.
Anyhow, the City Attorney responded to a question by the Mayor, saying, no, the City has no authority to censor AI, and in fact has no ability to even authenticate the voice.
Why write about news when you can try to make your own! (Photo by Julie Leopo/Voice of OC)
This situation does raise an interesting topic that is bound to become more prevalent. In the meantime somebody needs to convey to the Kennedy Sisters the importance of free speech. They already censor legitimate commentary on the Fullerton Observer blog; now it seems, they think they are entitled to do it in City Hall.
And when has a real journalist ever yelled out partisan comments at a public meeting?
On Tuesday the City Council was presented with an agenda item that opened discussion about a City response to the recent ICE operations and provide some sort of assistance to people being harassed by the masked bandits formally known as Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
How dare you question my origin narrative!
Naturally this bit of boohooing was agendized by Ahmad Zahra, who reminded us he is an immigrant without sharing the fact that he got a Green Card and ultimately citizenship, via immigration fraud, and his pal, Shana Charles who can’t find anything so stupid she won’t go for it. Plus we learned that she has an ex-husband, and this gentleman’s Guatemalan family is under some sort of duress.
What you see depends on where you stand
As usual, Fullerton Boohoo turned out in force to apply pressure to give public assistance to people without legal status in the country. Ahmad Zahra was clear: the broke City can find $200,000 in the municipal sofa cushions to do something for somebody: at least $100,000 for legal defense and at least $100,000 for some undefined daily living/rent assistance. There was no mention of who would administer such funds, who would get them, or any other practical detail. Rome wasn’t built in a day, you know.
I have no problem providing help for indigent citizens who have been wrongfully detained/legally harassed by the ICE goon squad. Citizens who can’t afford legal representation have recourse to public defense in the criminal justice system. But making local taxpayers pay for the legal cases of non-citizens is absurd. There is no question among the intelligent that everybody in America deserves due process. Why this should extend to Fullerton handing out monetary relief for illegal aliens escapes me.
The staff report on the matter, as usual, was equivocation personified, and useless. Halfway through, the staff report jumped ship completely and began describing a residential tenant registry to gather data about housing stability. What the everlasting fuck? It’s almost like somebody in the City Manager’s office cut and pasted something from a whole other agenda item.
Valencia is smiling on it…
In the end a Council majority voted 3-2 for the staff to cook up some sort of resolution to affirm (their) community values and prepare for the necessary budget actions. Zahra and Charles, of course voted to do so; and somehow Jamie Valencia was bamboozled into going along, although she later stated that her vote only meant that the City should act as a facilitatorto some extent, for non-profits, churches, and anybody else who wants to help the newly discovered clientele. Hopefully she directs the City Manager to dump the whole idea of public funding.
Says the 4 year old as he spins around and waves his arms frantically for attention.
Transparency, uber alles!
And so our new acquaintance, lively young fleur Elijah Manassero presented himself after the last city council meeting in another of those pre-written emails to the Fullerton City Council.
Earlier that evening the Council passed a new ordinance making bar owners responsible for the cacophony that emanates from their establishments. At the meeting, tender Elijah, pretending to be a big supporter of small businesses, claimed that the majority of the bar owners were already in non-compliance with the new regulations.
Of course they are are. They’re in non-compliance with the old regulations, too. That’s whole point of putting a stop to the amplified music free-for-all. Sweet Elijah’s conclusion to his “argument” is that bar owners shouldn’t be held responsible because of their…irresponsibility.
Think harder…
But back to the fragile sprig Manassero’s email. The comfy chair he was sitting in in the council chambers was still warm when he hit the send button for his missive to the council. Get a load of this:
Dear City Council,
What I witnessed tonight was deeply disheartening. The decision made by this Council Majority disregarded both the data presented and the overwhelming public opposition. For those who campaigned on transparency and accountability, this vote reflected neither.
Councilmember Valencia – I encourage you to review information before meetings, not during them. The claim that Los Angeles and Orange County maintain 45-55 dBA limits is demonstrably inaccurate. These are residential limits, not commercial. Fullerton’s own consultant, Dudek, explicitly found such limits incompatible with downtown conditions.
Mayor Jung – you dismissed data in favor of personal anecdotes about your visits downtown. The code enforcement logs, which I provided, contained the evidence you seemed to be missing. Instead of engaging with facts, you deferred all reasoning to a donor and then immediately adopted his requested carve-outs. That was not impartial governance.
You also stated that you wish to be “pro-resident” rather than “pro-business.” But when the vast majority of residents who spoke opposed these limits, that justification rings hollow. Outside of one of your donor’s former bloggers, no one living downtown spoke in support. If this vote was truly about residents, then which residents are being represented?
Councilmember Dunlap – I understand the pressures of coalition politics, but I also believe you know when something is wrong. If you continue to vote with those driven by donor loyalty rather than the public good, those distinctions won’t protect you in the court of public opinion.
To Mayor Pro Tem Charles and Councilmember Zahra, thank you for your thoughtfulness and consistency. You demonstrated what it means to listen to the community and think critically about policy rather than reflexively defending it.
For weeks I’ve raised awareness about this issue through my platform. That advocacy led to coverage by Voice of OC and then KTLA, which broadcasted your decision tonight. The public is paying attention, and what they see is a Council majority choosing special interests over small businesses, culture, and common sense.
I said this before and it remains true: there’s still time to change course, but that window is closing. This was the wrong decision, and I guarantee the majority of Fullertonians agree.
I’m disappointed in tonight’s vote, but encouraged that accountability is finally catching up. Please reconsider the path you’re on before it’s too late.
Respectfully, Elijah Manassero
Where to start picking apart this nonsense? You choose. But do linger over the part where the precious rosebud claims credit for media coverage of the issue thanks to his “platform,” whatever that may be.
Oliver has taken to insulting Mayor Jung and councilmembers Dunlap and Valencia for their persecution of “Les Amis” and perforce, their anti-small business bias.
At first I couldn’t figure out what the deal was. Fullerton Boohoo, led by the Kennedy Sisters certainly climbed on the bandwagon quickly shedding tears, so they said. The sweet young rosebud, Elijah Manassero thought he knew a good thing when he saw it, to attack Fred Jung in order to help out Connor Traut. The narrative was great: Jung beats down the little man. News at 11.
The tender sprig even came up with a fun graphic: Les Amis bound like Prometheus by red, well, yellow tape.
The problem for Jinan and her cub Oliver’s narrative is that they have been determinedly dodging rent due to the City for 15 years while they were also squatting on public property without agreements or permits in place.
Isn’t that a terrible look for anybody, let alone people who get up in public and attack their landlords? And why oh why had the City allowed these scofflaws to stay in business on our property and to continue to grab more public real estate without permission?
Questions.
Then a commenter suggested a cozy relationship between 5th District Councilman Ahmad Zahra and the restaurant located in his district. Hmm. A little checking revealed Zahra political fundraisers held at…Les Amis. What a coincidence. Here are a couple of images from a Zahra campaign fundraiser:
Bernard, did you know rent’s been due on this property? For 12 years?
Wanna take a sidewalk? That’s our specialty!
Les Amis provides a colorful backdrop…
Zahra once held a “Pride Celebration” fundraiser of some kind at Les Amis that featured Robert Garcia – another fellow grifter, just like himself.
I wonder where the money went…
It looks like Zahra may well have persuaded impressionable Oliver to start making a nuisance of himself. Doc Zahra has certainly pitched the “Les Amis as victims” to young Elijah who has taken up the cause with liveliness.
It appears that Les Amis has become a hub of local Democrat activity on misappropriated property. And look who the most recent beneficiary:
Makes you wonder about the integrity of all concerned.
Unfortunately, this ploy of Zahra/Traut, whose ultimate goal is to attack Jung, has backfired badly. The ugly truth about Les Amis is now out of the bag and the good folk of Fullerton are entitled to know exactly when they’re going to get paid for the property Les Amis is squatting on.
Friends can file this story under a number of different categories: political puppetry, gross hypocrisy, unmitigated gall, comical self-righteousness, offense is the best defense; pick any one you like.
Pay no attention to the overdue bills…
At last Tuesday’s Fullerton City Council meeting we were treated to another diatribe by a guy named Oliver Montecristo attacking Fred Jung, Nick Dunlap and Jamie Valencia. We have already met Oliver, here. Oliver wants everyone to believe that Jung and his colleagues are anti-small business, a new line of attack by Ahmad Zahra and Shana Charles, two muppets who have never run a business in their lives.
I sometimes fight for transparency!
It’s pretty clear that Oliver is one of the minions in Zahra’s stable of impressionable young fellas. His other protégé, lively young Elijah Manassero, has taken up the myth of the City’s persecution of Olly’s mom, and the family restaurant, Les Amis. The rents on City property are so darn high! The Kennedy Sisters at the Fullerton Observer have also taken up the Les Amis cause.
The only problem is that the Montecristo clan led by mom, Jinan, have a notorious record of not paying their bills, and encroaching on public property without authorization or permits. Check it out:
Feb 2011 Jinan Montecristo d.b.a. Les Amis Restaurant & Lounge (Jinan) applied for an outdoor dining encroachment agreement.
Aug 2011 After several reviews of the site plan, staff provided a draft encroachment agreement to Jinan for consideration
Sept 2011 Jinan issued a letter to staff challenging the lease rates. Les Amis installed fencing and started operating within the public right-of-way without executed agreement (south patio).
Dec 2011 Staff send revised encroachment agreement for consideration
June 2012 Jinan was issued an Administrative Restaurant Use Permit (ARUP), which included an ancillary outdoor patio. Among other things, the conditions of the ARUP required a valid encroachment agreement pursuant to the Outdoor Dining Guidelines established by the City Council.
July 2012 Staff send revised encroachment agreement for consideration
Dec 2015 Jinan submitted building permit to expand into the north portion of the building.
Feb 2016 Staff inform Jinan that she owed $28,659.60 for use of the public right-of-way of private benefit (9/2011 – 2/2016).
May 2016 Modification of an Amended ARUP was approved, expanding existing restaurant into adjacent tenant space. Jinan executed an encroachment agreement for outdoor dining (south patio only; $510/month; $6,120 annually). The agreement also required payment for 12-month prior occupancy ($6,120; negotiated down from $28,659.60).
Aug 2016 Jinan issues a letter to staff indicated they are “unable to fulfill financial obligations” due to “hardship”.
April 2017 Jinan was issued a letter from the City attorney to pay outstanding balance on account.
May 2017 Encroachment Agreement expired.
Aug 2017 Les Amis expanded into the north patio area without a permit/agreement for outdoor dining.
Nov 2018 Jinan was issued a letter from the City attorney, indicating they are in violation of their ARUP, failed to pay the lease outlined in the executed agreement, and are required to remove encroachments (north and south patio) by Dec. 14, 2018. Jinan subsequently expressed interest in continued use of both patios. Outstanding balance was $24,643.70 at the time.
Dec 2018 Jinan signed resolution of breach of outdoor dining encroachment agreement and FMC. Resolution waived outstanding balance on Patio 2 (north patio; $5,263.70), resulting in $19,380 of remaining account balance.
Jan 2019 Staff sent two encroachment agreement(s) for consideration. Jinan expressed interest in removing Patio 1 (south patio) and expanding Patio 2 (north patio)
March 2019 Jinan executed Encroachment Agreement for new north patio only. New Agreement was for $913.75/month ($510 for north patio; $403.75 for prior occupancy fee ($19,300 amortized over 48 months))
Permit was issued for removal of fencing around south patio and installation for north patio expansion per executed agreement.
May 2020 City Council paused collecting lease revenue from all outdoor dining encroachments due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Outstanding balance for all outdoor dining agreements was also waived. Les Amis waived balance was approximately $13,647.50.
June 2022 Council approved new lease rates for outdoor dining on public property.
Aug 2022 Les Amis reinstalled south patio without permits and/or an agreement.
Sept 2022 Jinan submitted application to reinstall south patio.
Aug 2023 Staff reinitiated collecting lease from all existing agreements.
Oct 2024 Jinan defaulted on payments from August 2023 to October 2024, accumulating a dept of $13,468.71. Jinan signed an agreement for a 12-month payment plan to pay the outstanding debt of $13,468.71.
NOTE: this did not include prior occupancy for the reinstalled south patio.
Nov 2024 Jinan executed two superseding encroachment agreements for outdoor dining with the new lease areas and rates.
April 2025 Jinan defaulted on payments, accumulating an outstanding balance of $26,650.96. Staff terminated the agreements, cancelled the payment plan, issued several notices of violations, and required removal of all encroachments. Jinan expressed financial hardship and requested the City revisit the lease rate. Jinan also paid $1,200 toward the payment plan and expressed interest in purchasing the property. The city paused removal to explore options.
July 2025 Jinan was once again requested to remove all unpermitted encroachments. Jinan paid $3,900 toward the payment plan. City Manager agree to extend the time for compliance or a change in the Outdoor Dining policy for 60 days. To date, Jinan has an outstanding balance of $31,185.10 ($5,494.06 payment plan; $25,691.04 encroachment agreements)
Yikes! What a history of screwing the taxpayers. Almost 15 years worth. Poor, small-businessman Oliver was in fourth grade when it started.
Not paying your debts to the public is the best way to become a Sharon Quirk Woman of the Year!
Over the years Jinan has deliberately dodged paying many tens of thousands of dollars in rent to the people of Fullerton. She has illegally encroached onto public property without agreements or permits in place on numerous occasions. The record is abundantly clear: the City has bent over backward for years and years to accommodate this woman; rather than evicting Janin from the City’s property and taking her to court for the rent due she has effectively stolen, they kept giving her more opportunities to rip us off. Pathetic, really.
Found another victim!
Well, Oliver may think the documentation of his family stiffing the public is all nonsense and that somehow he and mommy are victims, doncha know; however, no one except the inordinately stupid would believe it.
The cynical manipulators like Doc Zahra don’t believe it either, but Zahra won’t miss a chance to get some eager fool to stand up and harass the people who haven’t, and won’t make him Mayor.
It could be worse. It could be Speed Metal! Wait. It is!
Last night the Fullerton City Council, at long last, approved a noise-related addition to the Municipal Code. The vote was 3-2: Jung, Dunlap, and Valencia for, Charles and Zahra voting no.
This effort has been going on for over ten years, has been diddled with by more than ten City Councilpersons (Flory twice), and five City Managers, acting and permanent.
The ordinance is pretty tame really, with decibel levels I think are way too high, but at least gauged at the property line where the goofy and distracting issue of “ambient noise” can be better put to rest. Hours of outdoor music have been addressed with common sense and respect for neighboring inhabitants.
Fines for violators are in place, and about time, too.
For the business…
It was amusing to watch Zahra and Charles pretend to be “pro-business.” We know the performance was disingenuous because of their cavalier attitude to non-bar businesses on Wilshire Avenue that suffered when that pair closed the street for their absurd “Walk on Wilshire.” They ignored the fact that downtown Fullerton runs in the red and is subsidized by the rest of us. Really their act was about voting against what they characterized as the wishes of “one businessman” regardless of the need for reform.
In what surely must be the dumbest thing said in recent years at a council meeting, Ahmad Zahra claimed as a fact that the “downtown is dying,” a really weird and irresponsible thing to utter. The Dismal Damascus Doctor offered exactly zero facts to support his stupid utterance.
Transparency, uber alles!
Naturally, our friend sweet young Elijah Manassero popped up to inform the council that most of the bar owners were already non-compliant with the new rules. His logic led him to conclude that therefore the new regulations were ill-advised. It didn’t seem to occur to the tender sprout that the continual bar-owner abuse of existing law was precisely why the new ordinance was needed. I have no idea what they’re teaching the young folk these days, but thinking doesn’t seem to be in the bundle, although I’m sure callow Elijah has loads and loads of self esteem.
Now it will be time to see if the City Code Enforcement operation will employ the willingness and the competence to enforce the law. They have stubbornly refused to do so in the past, partly because councilmembers were running interference for the scofflaws. And part of the reason for staff’s reluctance might be because enforcement implies some sort of fault or failure, and in City Hall the decades long mess they made out of downtown Fullerton, has been characterized as a stunning and inarguable success.
I noticed this closed session item on this Tuesday’s Fullerton City Council meeting agenda.
Almost forgotten but not gone…
Commonwealth and Harbor LLC, AKA Mario Marovic has been in litigation with the City for a long time now claiming some sort of misfeasance on the City’s part in the ongoing saga of the Florentine stolen sidewalk.
Sit down and grab some sidewalk, brother…
Friends may remember that Marovic turned out to be just as big a scammer as the Florentine Mob. After they walked away from their lease, he took over and planned to open two new bars.
It’s there, just take it.
He actually remodeled the so-called pop out without permission as part of his redesign. Oops. The pop-out belonged (and still belongs) to the City.
In the fall of 2023 the City decided it wanted the sidewalk back; Marovic wanted to open his fake Irish pub. Yes it was a clusterfuck courtesy of the boneheadedness of a City bureaucrat named Paul Dudley over twenty years ago. He talked the Council into letting the Florentines put a new building on a public sidewalk, a building addition not owned by the guys who owned the main building to which it is still attached. Oops.
A deal was struck a deal under which Marovic could get opened and the City could finally get its sidewalk back. Marovic could open Mickey’s Irish Pub bars and had until March 2024 to begin demolition of the offending bump out. The remediation work had to be done by July 2024.
March 2024 came and went; March 2025 came and went. There was no work performed. Instead Marovic continued to use the public’s building and sued the City. I hope he was paying rent to us, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t.
Another stand up DTF bar owner…
Marovic has been in breech of his agreement for over a a year and a half. For some reason the City has been playing a protracted legal game with this individual instead of evicting him from our premises for being in default. Maybe the City-folk were trying to dodge personal embarrassment – just like their predecessors have done for the past two decades. Maybe they were still hoping that Marovic, somehow, would do what he was supposed to do – a hope so incredible as to be absurd.
My hope is that no settlement is made, at least not one where the City is not fully recompensed; that Marovic pays for the City to do the demolition work (he can repair his own building exterior), covers all our legal fees, and kicks back a portion of the profit he has made using our building.
Zahra Congratulates Marovic for his lawsuit…against us.
I am not hopeful about my hope. The City can’t even seem to get Les Amis to pay their years late rent. Playing hardball just isn’t in their repertoire. My guess is that the City will vote to give Good Ol’ Mario a second chance. Or maybe they’ll just drop the thing altogether and the sidewalk will remain as is.
Transparency, uber alles!
Incidentally, I wonder if Ahmad Zahra and his young sprout Elijah Manassero will give the stolen sidewalk item the scrutiny and transparency the public needs. Bet not.
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.
About a week and a half a go the Fullerton Observer ran an update on their earlier propaganda about the rebuilding of the Union Pacific Park. You may remember the slight-of-hand article that mischaracterized the history of the park. FFFF pointed out that it wasn’t the toxic soil issue that closed the park. Rather it was the derelict state of the majority of the park that hadn’t been closed at all.
Truslow residents will surely remember that the park had become a magnet for drunks, druggies, and FTT gang members who claimed it as their own turf. The City Manager, Joe “Wild Ride” Felz decided to put up a fence around the whole disaster, and forget about it. And it’s been that way ever since.
On September 13th a horde of volunteers showed up to install a “Kaboom Park” – prefab plastic kiddie equipment surrounded by what look like wood chips to cushion the fall of the young children. Three pitiable sycamore saplings were planted.
The whole thing was an exercise in political, public mobilization since a little crew could have done the job in a few hours, but that would have missed the point: a bountiful opportunity for speeches, selfless volunteering, photo ops, demonstrations, and of course the usual liberal hosannas about “public health” and “underserved communities.”
More pathos…
Two weeks later the Kaboom park sits there alone, still fenced off from the community who is said by the Kennedy Sisters to have longingly waited for the park’s re-opening. When is the fence coming down? I bet nobody has asked. Sometime in the near future the rest of the park is supposed to be worked on. Will it be after that? Was the Kaboom operation just an empty feel-good gesture to show that something, anything was happening?
It seems to me that this little playground assembly should have been the last thing to go in, not the first. But what do I know about parks? Surely not as much as City Hall does.
Public health advocates…
Anyway, several local politicians showed up to get their picture taken, including Ahmad Zahra of course, who never misses a self-promotional opportunity. He reportedly didn’t stay to actually do any work – not even to claw at the dirt with a rake or to give moral support. He supposedly left after the pictures were taken.
The future of the re-opened park, whenever the fence comes down, doesn’t look promising. Nobody has asked about the condition and influence of the social pathologies that caused the park to be closed by Felz in the first place. Everyone has decided to conveniently forget the true history of the park
The rundown “Trail Phase 1” hasn’t been cleaned up and is usually occupied by somebody selling drugs of some sort. The Harbor bridge leading to the park from the east is a disgusting mess of graffiti, trash and broken light fixtures. Fullerton Tokers Town is still around, still marking its territory with regularity.
