The Fullerton City Council voted on July 15 to extend a lease at the historic Fullerton Train Station to Bushala Brothers, Inc., a company now at the center of a $400 million family lawsuit alleging fraud, elder financial abuse, and the looting of jointly held assets.

That lawsuit, filed by Albert C. Bushala on October 4, 2024, names his siblings, George Jr., Anthony, and Salma Bushala, as defendants. Albert claims there was a longstanding oral agreement in which all assets were owned collectively by the brothers and their father, George Sr., to be split equally upon their father’s death. He alleges his siblings manipulated their father into transferring ownership to them alone, effectively cutting him out of the family’s holdings.

Details of those allegations can be found in Part 1 (click here to read) of this series. The defendants’ responses are summarized in Part 2 (click here to read).

One of the assets at the heart of the dispute is the lease to the Fullerton Train Station.

In 1992, the Fullerton Redevelopment Agency granted a long-term lease for the station to Bushala Brothers, Inc. That lease was formally assigned, jointly and severally, to George K. Bushala Jr., Anthony N. Bushala, and Albert C. Bushala as individuals, according to the original Assignment and Assumption Agreement.

The City didn’t just approve the original 1992 assignment. In 1996, it signed a settlement agreement with George Jr., Anthony, and Albert Bushala jointly. At no point in these public transactions did the City ever treat Albert as anything less than a full leaseholder. Albert didn’t buy into the lease. He didn’t inherit it. He was on it from the start.

Yet he was not included in the City’s 2025 lease extension. There’s no record of his removal, no indication that he relinquished his stake and, based on the lawsuit, Albert asserts he was unlawfully excluded without consent.
During the July 17 City Council meeting, Mayor Fred Jung asked City Attorney Dick Jones whether the City had any liability in relation to the lawsuit. Jones replied:

“We have no direct information regarding the nature of that lawsuit. But at arm’s length, we [the City] have no liability. We did research on the status of the tenant, the LLC is in good standing, and reflects the two partners, the two brothers, as the owners. That’s our direct relationship.”

In other words, the City did not investigate whether Albert Bushala, one of the original leaseholders, still holds a legal stake. Instead, it relied solely on the surface appearance of the LLC now occupying the lease, without confirming whether that structure is in dispute.

This may constitute a failure of legal diligence. By extending a lease to a business whose underlying ownership is actively being disputed in court, including allegations of fraud and exclusion of a listed leaseholder, the City may have exposed itself to avoidable legal risk.

Jones’ comments also suggest that no serious legal risk analysis was conducted. That’s troubling. The City Attorney’s duty is to provide independent legal advice and minimize liability for the City, not merely to affirm the will of a political majority. But in California cities, attorneys often serve “at the pleasure” of elected officials, creating tension between political expedience and legal prudence. That’s why transparency matters.

The public deserves to know: What was reviewed? What wasn’t? And why?

But there was little appetite for scrutiny that night.

Councilmember Nick Dunlap called the lawsuit “nasty” and dismissed public concern as “political attacks.” Councilmember Jamie Valencia, who received more than $60,000 in campaign support from Tony Bushala’s PAC last year, accused Councilmember Zahra of having “biases” against the family. Mayor Jung mocked Zahra’s line of questioning with a sarcastic, “Councilman Zahra, you are on fire today,” after he raised concerns about the tenant being involved in an active lawsuit.

Meanwhile, evidence of lease violations continues to mount.

The City confirmed it had paid the tenant to perform maintenance, despite the lease designating those responsibilities to the tenant under a net lease structure. George Jr. also admitted during the meeting that part of the property is currently being subleased to an engineering firm, yet City staff stated they had no record of any such authorization, as required under Section 5.1 of the lease.

This matters not just because it breaches the terms, but because a tenant in default is ineligible for lease extensions.
Dunlap claimed the lease runs through 2047, citing two built-in 10-year extensions. But that’s only true if the tenant is not in default at the time of extension or negotiation. According to the agreement, the lease currently runs through 2027, and violations may void those extensions.

In other words, the City still has time to act.

If Albert prevails in court, the ownership of the lease could be invalidated. If the tenant is in breach, the extension can be revoked. If the Council ignored these red flags, the public deserves to know whether it did so out of negligence or political loyalty.

This isn’t a minor vendor contract. This is a long-term public land lease entangled in an active lawsuit alleging fraud, forgery, and financial manipulation.

And through it all, no one at City Hall ever asked the most basic question: Where is Albert Bushala?