Santa Ana Mayor Miguel Pulido will try again on Thursday to convene an “emergency” city council meeting in order to grant a new contract to the Santa Ana Firefighter’s union – even though their current contract runs through the year 2008.
Pulido was unable to convene a meeting earlier this week, when Council members Claudia Alvarez, Lisa Bist and Mike Garcia skipped the meeting, and outgoing Santa Ana councilman Jose Solorio was not allowed to participate via a phone call from Sacramento.
I am also hearing that Solorio can indeed resign from the council tomorrow without having to place that action on the agenda, in advance. The question then is can the rest of the council immediately move to replace him?
Apparently Tim Whitacre is off the short list and Solorio’s replacement will be troubled businessman Vince Sarmiento. It figures that Pulido would find an even worse candidate for Ward 1 than failed puppet Tino Rivera, who is now being touted for the SAUSD school board seat that is being vacated by new councilman Sal Tinajero.
Solorio told Red County/OC Blog’s Jubal/Matt Cunningham that he is “most likely” going to resign from the city council on Dec. 3. “Most likely?” What does that mean? It sounds like he is going to try to weasel out the council sooner – perhaps tomorrow.
Here is the OC Register’s latest update about the new “emergency meeting,” by Amy Taxin:
Santa Ana Mayor Miguel Pulido has called a special, closed-session meeting for Thursday to discuss firefighters
Art:
What’s up with the ad hominem attacks on Vince? What’s your beef with him and why do yo refer to him as a “troubled businessman”?
Mayor Pulido claims this meeting is needed so that there is parity
between the fire, police, service and management contracts.
If only he felt the same need to have parity between communities
such as Delhi or Santa Anita and Floral Park or Morrison Park.
If only he called special meetings to address the weekly gang murders,
spiraling crime rates or the out of control graffiti.
These contracts do not expire until June 30 2008 and Mayor Pulido
should let the newly elected incoming council members have a say on these contracts.
The contract of the firefighters could just be the smoke screen reason to convene a emergency meeting for the actual real inportant intention of selecting Solorio’s replacement.If both occur it is iceing on the cake,but I believe the calling of the emergency meeting is a means to an end-Appoint a new Council member.They could not call a meeting prior to the new Council seating for this reason.
Mr. Lomeli:
You are wrong. The council can only act on matters that are agendized. If they were to appoint a replacement to Mr. Solorio it would be invalid (and, I’m sure the City Attorney has informed them of this).
Let’s all get the facts straight.
There is no way Solorio can vote on his own replacement. There needs to be an opening before it can be filled. Once he resigns there will be an opening, but he can’t vote on the replacement because he will have already resigned.
If Solorio does indeed resign, we know just what kind of weasel we elected and I for one hope Art and the OJ crew follow Jose’s every move for the next two years.
Get a spine Jose and say no to Pulido.
Maybe Garcia will join the others and support their choice and Jose will give him a nice job running his field office. Maybe Mike will be the next Chris Leo! (minus the domestic issues)
Nearly 70% of Santa Ana voters supported our Mayor in this last election. I think we should let this all play out and see what happens. He has 20 years of experience leading our city and I’m with the 70% that trust him to do what’s best for me and my family. Whatever he decides, I’m sure will be for the good of Santa Ana and our future.
Some gutless anon said, “Get a spine Jose and say no to Pulido.”
It takes a lot more guts to stand up to the thugs on this blog and the handful of political gadflys than to give in to the pressure of this merry band of political failures. (Did you ever notice how many of the most vocal opponants of the mayor and council tried and couldn’t get their sorry backsides elected to anything?)
Did you ever notice how many of the most vocal opponants of the mayor and council tried and couldn’t get their sorry backsides elected to anything?
Wow-That’s rather harsh.
Too bad it was posted by another anon “thug” as they wrote in their own post.
Even some of the Mayor’s endorsed candidates, who had the support of police and fire and hundreds of thousands of dollars could not get elected.
I wish Sal and Michele would consider someone like Sean Mill for the planning or Redevl. commish. He’s really have the staff on their toes!
For the record, there has been some comments regarding the appointment and also the people involved who can vote.
According to a conversation I had with city staff while up on the 8th floor on Tuesday this is what I have.
Jose Solorio can not vote for a replacement as he first has to resign, and therefore no longer part of the council. Is Jose wishes to vote for anything, he can vote via telephone, but can not be the member forming the quorum. That is if we need four members to form a quorum, Jose via telephone, could not be the fourth. Now if he were to decide to be in attendance they can vote and decide to ratify any type of ordinance they would like.
Regarding an appointment. Assuming Mike Garcia, Claudia Alvarez, or Lisa Bist do not attend the meeting, and they choose to elect a council member, there will not be a quorum as Jose could not vote for this.
The questions lies whether or not the mayor can appoint a member during the meeting they are having today. I believe the answer is yes, if the council believes it requires an emergency vote. The Mayor can call an emergency meeting and justify cause in order to be able to vote for it.
The key then lies, in making sure, the three previously mentioned council members, do not show up, or simply vote no.
“Nearly 70% of Santa Ana voters supported our Mayor in this last election”
And in 2002 100% supported him and in 2004 80.6% supported him and this year 68.5% supported him.
His approval rating is going down not up.
The only things going up in Santa Ana are our crime rates, traffic delays and highrises.
If the City called a special meeting about the graffiti or the weekly gang murders, that would be appropriate.
Instead, a special meeting is called about enhanced retirement and pay.
This should be decided by the incoming council.
The agenda for tonight’s special meeting is posted on the city’s website. Since this is a special meeting the only item that may be discussed is that which is on the agenda. The agenda does not include the naming/appointing and/or replacement of the impending council vacancy in
Ward 1.
This is NOT an emergency meeting. That’s a different meeting and has different thresholds to qualify as such.
Mr. Gordon,
When you start looking at who got what % of votes in any election, you need to consider how many people were in that race and who they were.
In this election, had it just been Pulido and one other candidate, the %’s would have been different. Look at the Benevidas race.
Same in the Tinajero/Villasenor race. Had it just been the two of them, there would have been a very different outcome. You took votes from Pulido (24%) and Mr. Collins took votes from Villasenor ( 17%). If you or Mr. Collins had not been in those races, it would have changed the outcome or %’s in those races.
It’s the same premise that was used in the Correa race where Mr.Bade was “inserted” by the Dem’s to take Republican votes from Dautcher. If Correa wins, look at the number of votes Bade got…add them to the Dautcher total and see if there are enough to change the outcome. If so, their plan worked.
I sure hope George Collins will be there filming this meeting tonight for those of us who can’t get out at night anymore. God bless you George! If the council and staff are having dinner, like the last Togo’s feast, in violation of the city charter which says no meals are allowed to be paid for will you please get the vittles on camera too?
Thank you friend