Former Santa Ana Councilman Mike Garcia knew that shady Santa Ana developer Mike Harrah would try to move government offices into his proposed One Broadway Plaza building, so Garcia added a clause that forced Harrah to have to lease out half the building before the City of Santa Ana would allow him to build his monstrosity.
This week, Santa Ana Mayor Miguel Pulido told an audience at a fundraiser that “he may have found a way to meet the letter of that requirement, and quickly: Sign up the County of Orange as the tower’s major tenant. He said he had spoken with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger this week about using federal stimulus funds to move at least some county offices into the proposed tower,” according to the O.C. Register.
You read that correctly. Pulido wants to waste federal money to move County of Orange offices to One Broadway Plaza. Don’t forget that he has some allies over at the County. Former Santa Ana Councilman Rob Richardson, who Pulido helped to get reelected last year to the SAUSD School Board, is the Assistant County CEO, and current lame Santa Ana Councilman Carlos Bustamante works as some kind of middle manager in the County Planning Department.
What about the Supervisors themselves? Would they sign on to such a stupid waste of federal money? I could see Bill Campbell doing so. He is a idiot who is reminiscent of former Supervisor Jim Silva, who was an even bigger idiot. I can’t see John Moorlach or Chris Norby agreeing to this, but Janet Nguyen might if Pulido offers to back her against his longtime nemesis, State Senator Lou Correa, next year. Hard to say what Pat Bates would do.
Here’s how the OC Weekly’s Gustavo Arellano summed this up in a post on the Navel Gazing blog, “If Pulido gets his way, Harrah gets subsidized to move his current tenants to One Broadway Plaza, which would either mean more money from the same source or a good chunk of his buildings would then stand empty. Regardless, in this day where so many local businesses are failing, why the hell is Don Papi favoring Harrah? Oh yeah–because Harrah is a former donor, and no one in SanTana really gives a shit.
I have instructed my attorneys to negotiate 25 years leas for Penthouse accommodations in the B1 complex.
Sooner (hopefully) or later, all levels of government will be downsizing and creating their own additional office space. This will easily be measured if the Register or Weekly choose to follow the numbers, and the entertainment will then be in the quotes from the departments heads for justification of any move of their offices.
On the other hand, maybe the place could be turned into a holding facility for illegals waiting for the bus home.
Just what we need. The city is plagued with empty office buildings that will soon become a part of some major commercial foreclosure headlines. How long can these building owners hold onto and pay for empty buildings? The area around Harrah’s proposed phallic symbol is particularly empty. Ridiculous.
The arrogance of Mayor Pulido is astounding.
Or is the man just delusional?
The dude has the classic Napoleon complex…it must be hard to garner any type of respect….
This stinks…just like our city does.
To top off this outrage, Pulido wants to use stimulus funds. This jackass wants to throw some dough at millionaire Harrah (payback) to build more UNNEEDED OFFICE SPACE rather than spending these funds IMPROVING the city for its RESIDENTS.
How about some LIBRARIES, PARKS, RENOVATING SUB-STANDARD HOUSING or FIXING OUR CRAPPY INFRASTRUCTURE!
Just say NO to “MONEY for MILLIONAIRES!”
CALL and COMPLAIN:
city council; 714-647-6900
e-mail; council@santa-ana.org
Go ahead and use the stimulus to float this project, adjust the agreement so the voter approved project can get underway.
But if the agreement is amended, then the 3 ½ mitigation funds should be increased to 9 to 15 percent, and a 20,000 dollars cash payment to each resident who lives within a 100 feet of the project, to cover pain and suffering would only be fair.
And how much tax revenue will we get from Pulido’s new scheme to house government offices in 1 Broadway Plaza?
Nada. Zip. Zero.
I think it’s a great Idea that a wealthy, person with money is even looking to build a building in our downtown area and help the local economy. Especially the local mom and pop shops during the busn. lunch hours.
Mike jarrah just cover all the sxxx he does like in Honolulu he hire a lot of illegal people and then he just wash his hands he just want to buy them with his money, why the council cover all that, because of his money?