Ward-specific council elections have been the talk of Santa Ana this week, and already the Pulido faction has trotted out their tired reasons for opposing this move. Here are their arguments, and my rebuttals (in italics):
- Council members would be fighting each other for every dollar to be spent in their Wards. What would happen to the major projects needed by the City, as a whole, that might only directly benefit one or two neighborhoods? (Currently many, if not most, of the major projects in Santa Ana benefit only developers. The Pulido faction is infatuated, for example, with skyscrapers that will make our already crowded streets impossible to navigate. Even Planning Commissioner Don Cribb, a major Pulido hack, admitted at the last Planning Commission meeting that “Main St. is too crowded.” Duh! Ward-specific elections will allow us to elect representatives who will stand up to developers instead of taking bribes from them – as was the case with Mike Harrah and his infamous Hawaiian condos).
- What would happen to the special projects that were neighborhood specific, but needed more than 1/6th. of the available money? (What available money? Our Mayor and City Council closed all of our libraries, save one, and cancelled our bookmobiles. And yet Pulido thought it was a grand idea to negotiate a new contract with the firefighter’s union a year and a half before their current deal was set to expire. Let’s face it – unless a council member is a slave to Pulido, projects in specific wards are not funded, period. In a ward-specific system, the council members would actually have to work together – instead of selling out to Pulido and his special interests. What a concept.)
- Would all the other Council members vote against those projects because they sucked up dollars they wanted for their Wards? (If we elect intellligent, educated and experienced council members who will listen to their constituents, good things will happen. Currently Pulido puts up carpetbagggers and empty suits, for the most part. And quite a bit of money is sucked up by City Manager Dave Ream’s dumb ideas, such as the medians we can’t afford and didn’t need).
- What would stop the Council from forming coalitions to keep money out of a Ward in an effort to make that Council member look bad and get them defeated in the next election? (Councilmembers who are Pulido hacks, like Carlos Bustamante, do a fine job of looking bad all on their own! You bet a lot of us will be looking to defeat him in the next election! Moreover, if an independent council member nominates a commissioner that Pulido does not like, you can bet that the Pulido majority will form a coalition to keep that nominee off any city commissions.)
- And it gives Council members another easy out. They can always blame other Council members for their failures. Oh, I forgot. That’s what they’re doing now. (Wrong again. Right now they are working on sweeping the last vestiges of Ream and Pulido out of City Hall. Good for them!)
- Vote trading would become an absolute necessity. Vote for my “this” and I’ll vote for your “that”. Talk about back room deals. Ward elections would elevate deal making to a new high! (Who are you kidding? Pulido and his hacks, Alberta Christy, Jose Solorio and Carlos Bustamante, just tried to circumvent the voters by cutting the new council members out of negotiations with the firefighter’s union! Talk about back room deals! Good thing Lisa Bist, Claudia Alvarez and Mike Garcia refused to play ball! The Pulido administration is the most corrupt one in the OC; ward-specific elections will break this machine once and for all.)
- Currently, Council members are free to speak out on every issue in the City because they represent the entire City. (Not so! Look what happened to Garcia when he tried to be independent – Pulido wrecked him. Once we clear out Ream and Pulido our city council members will finally be able to speak their minds. Until then we all have to watch our backs).
- And Voters would only have a say in their own Ward election. They could not influence the election of other Council members. If four Council members banded together to freeze out the other three, how do you change that? (That is exactly what has happened in Santa Ana throughout Pulido’s reign. Now at last our council members can make the best decisions for their constituents without having to bend knee to Pulido and Ream).
- You would be pitting neighborhoods against other neighborhoods. Watch how that changes the discussions at neighborhood meetings and ComLink. (Give me a break! Com Link does not represent the majority of residents in our city. Ward specific elections will truly empower residents by allowing them to vote for council representatives who will stand up for their interests.)
The truth about ward-specific elections is that they allow ANYBODY to make a reasonable run at the city council. That is what Ream and Pulido fear the most. Up until this year they have absolutely controlled most of the outcomes of our local elections by raising thousands of dollars from special interests and public employee unions and electing only those who agree to be Pulido hacks. This year we figured out, inadvertently, how to defeat the Pulido puppets by splitting the vote. Never again will Pulido be able to use his machine to keep us down. If we can pass a ward-specific ballot measure, we will be able to make sure that henceforth only those who are truly known in their wards, and in the city, will be able to prevail. Pulido won’t be able to elect carpetbaggers from Huntington Beach, and empty suits who do nothing to improve the city or their neighborhoods.
All we are asking is that the voters be allowed to decide for themselves if they want ward-specific city council elections. What are Pulido and Ream afraid of? They are afraid of losing power. And yet that is coming to pass anyway…
You put a lot of time into this post Art and it shows. Thanks for explaining in even more detail the pro ward election argument. Perhaps someone else will do the same for the anti side.
Ward-specific elections is about putting an Anglo on the council in ward #3. Or
It is about cutting off ward #3 massive influence over the other wards.
Your all consuming hatred of Pulido is robbing you of the ability to rationally discuss any issue that effects Santa Ana.
Any poster that disagrees with you or tries to raise another side of an issue is immediatly branded as “Pulido faction”.
No one is allowed to have a different opinion just because they do. No one is allowed to look at another side of an issue just because it needs to be looked at. It’s always because they support Pulido.
You condem the firefighters over their contract extension, but never question why the police or SEIU are getting the same exact thing on Monday night.You never ask how they got it first or why they got it.
You accuse Pulido of running Mike Garcia off of the Council, when the truth is, Mike decided not to run and everyone, including Pulido, tried to get him to stay.
You condem the SAUSD for their bad decisions and then applaude Tinajero’s win for City Council when he was a big part of those bad decisions.
You have every right to dislike anyone you want to. But to brand people as “Pulido supporters” just because they have an open mind and want to discuss all sides of an issue isn’t right.
Ward elections should go on the ballot. And the voters need to be informed of both the pro’s and the con’s of that issue so they can make an informed choice.
Look at your response to the discussion of Ward elections. You change it into “Pulido fears ward elections” headline, and then go on a rant about Pulido in response to every point that was raised.
Ward elections is not about Pulido. It’s about the future of the City. People need to understand both the pro’s and the con’s of the issue, so they can make an informed decision.
The question of ward-specific or general elections has been strategy to secure election control.In past years elections were ward specific.This was efficient because of the reasons Art P. outlines in this blog.With the majority demographics(Hispanic)change in the city some wards ensured INDEPENDENT Hispanic representation in the City Council. The change to general election was approved to avoid that from occuring.Now this strategy has backfired as seen in this year’s election results.The majority voter block is not the traditional block that was depended on in the past.The strategy in the past was to disinfranchise a community.This is not possible any longer.The new approach should be a holistic approach to governing.General elections or ward specific elections are no longer a tool in manipulating elections.The selection of which election method then should be based on which is a more balanced and efficient method of governing.Ward specific elections seems to be the most popular.
Prop A: Election by ward, 1983 lost by 2 to 1
This was the last year the City elections were stand alone & 10 percent voted.
As far as I can tell, Santa Ana always had city wide voting.
Los Angeles and Riverside both have
Mr. Lomeli,
Thank you for explaining how these things worked in the past. Now I understand a little better about the “why”.
Given the situation today where we now have(will have) a 100% Hispanic Council do we still need Ward elections?
You said Ward elections seems to be the most popular method of selecting leaders. But is it the best method?
This is a serious issue. Once we give up the right to vote for all Council members, we’ll be stuck with that method.
Like everyone else, I’m sick of all the stuff that goes on in D.C., Sacramento and even here on the Board of Supervisors.
Every elected rep. wants to bring home the “pork” to their District, at the expense of other Districts, so they can get re-elected. The same small group of “most powerful” prevail time after time.
Will we be fighting neighborhood against neighborhood for City dollars? That’s my big concern.
I don’t want some areas to be left out while others prosper at their expense.
At least now, we can connect with other neighborhoods to put the word out about Council members and ask neighborhoods to support those we think are good candidates for the entire City.
If we go to Ward elections, will each Ward judge good candidates only by what they bring home to their Ward?
This issue goes way beyond who is Mayor today or even tomorrow. It’s the difference between being able to vote for ALL Council members or just one.
And to be honest, although I don’t like what’s going on right now, I’m not sure if Ward elections is going to fix things or make them worse.
Anon #6,
Your questions and concerns are valid ones. This is always a concern we wish could have a simple answer, unfortunately, I dont believe it can be.
You mentioned the politicians looking to bring the “pork” home to their constituents possibly leaving out some other areas which need more attention, and only the stronger politicians would get what they want. I agree with you, we do not want that. However, take a look around your city right now. Are there certain areas where you feel more money is spent than other areas?
I would assume your answer is yes, and ward specific elections in any event, will at least give us an opportunity to equal the playing field of attention.
Imagine a a city where the Ward 3 residents, have one voice to represent them, instead of 6, as has been the case in the past. Imagine the Westend of town finally getting the attention they have missed for quite some time.
I live in Ward 5, and there are some areas within that ward which get great attention, such as Washington Square, but ask the Artesia Pilar neighborhood how much attention they got.
It took them almost 15 years to get speed bumps down King Street.
Ward specific elections will at the very least make the candidates agenda a little more transparent as they will have no choice but to represent their ward.
Ward specific elections are a bad idea. Although on paper, this type of system would appear to provide the public with a stronger voice for their representatives on the Council, it will only serve to pit neighborhoods against each other and will create a system whereby each council member has their own little fiefdom. Take a look at the City of Long Beach and what a mess ward-specific elections have caused there.
The idea is to have the entire council responsive to, and working for, the greater good of the entire City, not special interests that line their campaign coffers with legalized bribes. With ward-specific elections, you will have certain neighborhoods punished by other council members as retribution for real or imagined slights against them by that neighborhood’s representative. We all know how petty and vindictive politicians, especially at the local level can be. I guarantee most of the folks interested in serving on the Santa Ana City Council would have no problem withholding resources from neighborhoods and residents who elect representatives that fail to fall into lockstep with the political bosses that run this town.
We need a united Santa Ana – a city of diverse interests that work together to make this a better community for its residents. It’s time this City had honest representation and lose the reputation of being a third-rate banana republic dictatorship.
The system of exclusionary governing is the reason many are attracted to ward specific elections.This system places dependent candidates in office.The groups driving this system then take the lion’s share of the budget available and are the ones that actualy run the city ,not the elected officials.Many residents notice economic neglect and inavility to get candidates that have their best interest elected.The method many see available to counter act this is ward specific elections.The negatives mentioned in other posts become a wash when compared to the system in question.The attractiveness of ward specific elections is that it safegaurds the avility to elect independent candidates having the best interest of those ward nieghborhoods.The concern of dependent candidates from whatever source running the city is the driving force for ward specific elections.In this scenario the reality is that the leaders of the groups securing elections run the City.Ward specific elections in theory give the power to the voters.I believe the question to change becomes irrelevant if the residents unite for the common good and iliminate false differences that are nurtured and used so communities become suspecious of each other,then that is used as political fodder to secure political control.This has been the strategy in this city.A progressive council uniting the city for the common good will cause the end of political machines from whatever source,giving the city the opportunity to evolve to it’s potential.