Thomas Gordon told our readers some time ago about a new tax being considered by the City of Santa Ana. Today the OC Register covered this issue.
The article included a great Gordon quote, “Do you see any roads other than in Santa Ana that are as thrashed as they are in Santa Ana?” he said. “They find money for what they want.”
The Register reported that “Earlier this month, the city signed a $25,000 contract with Sacramento-based polling firm J. Moore Methods to find out whether residents would be willing to pay a parcel or a utility tax or another kind of assessment to pave up to 300 miles of local streets, according to city documents.”
This is nothing less than a declaration of war on the local taxpayers by the City of Santa Ana. We need to oppose this measure, for several reasons, including:
- We have NO IDEA how the city is spending our money to begin with. Our city budget needs to go on our city website BEFORE they even think of asking us for more money.
- Santa Ana City Manager Dave Ream forced the installation of expensive city medians that few people wanted – why didn’t that money go to fixing our roads instead? How much are we WASTING on maintenance of these medians, every year? Yes, we are stuck with them now, but shouldn’t we have thought about their maintenance cost before installing them?
- What about Assemblyman Jose Solorio, Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez and State Senator Lou Correa? Weren’t they supposed to bring back thousands of dollars to our city, for our streets?
- Why does Ream have SO MANY high-paid assistants? How much are they paid? Why have we kept Ream on the city payroll when he has so badly dropped the ball, re our streets? Shouldn’t he be fired for not doing his job?
- What about Measure M money?
- Has the city administration even thought of cutting expenditures before they ask us to give more? Is a committee studying the issue?
- What about the money the city continues to waste on stupid ideas, such as those overpriced TV screens that will be used for propaganda?
- What about the thousands of dollars we spend subsidizing institutions such as the Bowers Museum? They don’t appear to be ready to change their program so city taxpayers can go to their Museum when they want to. So cut them off!
- How do the huge raises given to our police and fire departments fitgure into this? Maybe we need to ourtsource these departments to the County of Orange, to save money?
- What about those on fixed incomes? Won’t this new tax be a real detriment to them? Won’t this hurt the elderly, the disabled, etc.?
We need to start lobbying our council members and the Mayor NOW. We are already paying for a school bond – and now the area school district, SAUSD, wants to pass yet another bond. Enough is enough! It is time to hold our elected officials accountable!
Hang on to your wallets folks, it’s going to get rough in the next few months…
UPDATE:
The O.C. Register published an editorial in Tuesday’s paper, in opposition to this latest Ream Assessment. Here are a few excerpts:
- The city’s motto is “Education First,” but more accurately might be something such as, “The Pothole City.”
- City officials should be able to handle this from a number of funding sources, first and foremost. But that would mean that it had to spend less money on maintaining their large and well-paid bureaucracy, or on redevelopment projects or on project labor agreements.
- Officials don’t like to stand up to special interest groups defending those spending items, be they public-employee unions or constituents of the Bowers Museum ($1.88 million in 2006-07). So officials spend the public’s money freely, then when it’s all used up, they claim that they don’t have enough money to do the most basic tasks that the public demands, such as paving the streets. Then they give residents a choice: continued wretched street conditions or higher taxes. Such a choice.
- Residents of “The Pothole City” ought to ignore the pollsters and tell the council the truth
Art, your post is right on! Here’s the kicker. The city claims it doesn’t have enough money to pave its streets, but they have plenty of money to grant city employees a 22% raise and give them the 2.7 at 55 retirement enhancement that is bankrupting local government. And yet they have the temerity to ask us to dip in our pockets to fix streets they should have been fixing all along. What a disgrace.
I have a city employee on the inside who feeds me information from time to time. She told me that Ream is probably earning around $250k a year in salary, with more in benefits and bonuses. Most of the department heads are earning in excess of $150k a year. The city wastes an incredible amount of money on far too many bureaucrats. Also, the city has to spend over $10 million a year paying back the bonds they used to build their Taj Majal police building. The city has the money to fix our roads, the council has other ideas. First and foremost, they have to serve their masters on the labor unions. Once they are taken care of, whatever money is left over actually goes into services for residents.
I hope this new outrage provides the tipping point for the ouster of Dave Ream and his merry band of idiots.
Why am I not surprised by this happening in Santa Ana? Poor roads, poor schools, horrible local politicians, illegal alien sanctuary…..why would anyone with half a brain want to live in Santa Ana? Forget trying to fix it. Maybe they should just start over.
Bartlett –
Did your mother drop you on your head when you were a baby or does Mater Dei teach the trash you’re peddling?
Hey Monarch, Barlett is right. Santa Ana is an absolute cesspool. I don’t know anyone who would want to live in such a dump. It’s a city with zero future. My niece is looking to relocate to Orange County. She told me that the only place she could afford to live is in Stanton or Santa Ana. I offered her one of my spare bedrooms so that she wouldn’t have to subject herself to either one of those ghettos.
Monarch,
You need to wake up! It is NO conicidence that Santa Ana is run like a Mexican fiefdom! favoritism, cronyism, and overpaid public “servants.” Add to that ZERO transparency, with a huge population of uneducated laborers and you see the similarity! Congrats!
Now, time to sit back and soak in the rants from the apologists! I can’t wait!
right on Art! I’ll live with dirt streets before I’ll pay one more tax dollar to those thieves!
They don’t want to stand up to the labor unions who keep asking for more pay and beni’s!!! Instead they think we will pay more taxes so they and keep the unions happy,so the unions will keep funding their election campaigns! Stop the madness!!! Make them cut jobs first! Cut pay! I will not pay one more red cent in taxes to these clowns!
Art. Fess up.
What did you and your city manager do with the $105,318,000 (million)dollars in Meausre M that we sent to your city in Measure M funds from 1991 through Aug 2006? One would hope that some of that money was used to fix potholes that did not surfavce in the past few months.
And let me add that repairing your city streets should not only be funded by Measure M. If should be part of the overall General Budget obligations along with police, fire, etc.
And there is some good news if you can believe the Measure M documents.The Fair Share/Turnback to the city of Santa Ana is projected to be $193,604,765 (million) over the next 30 years (in 2005 dollars).
Other than firing the individual(s) responsible for neglecting your city roads, and wearing out your cars shocks and tires, perhaps the OCTA will advance some of this projected revenues so that you can fix the roads now while they are falling apart and before costs continue to escalate.
Art et al Sorry for the typo’s.
Haste makes waste. We need to add a spellcheck feature to the comments or I need to slow down.
#5 Last time I checked there were no head staff positions occupied by Mexicans . Are you saying that the city has been in the past operated in this fashion because it is predominantly Latino ? Are you saying this was done in the past by those in power because the Latinos are comfortable in this enviornment? # 4 there are over 400k residents that choose to live here . You don’t know any one that would? You are a lonely person . If you don’t care for the City then why waste your time being concerned with it?
Hey Art, this is #4. Yes, I know many people, have many friends, and not a single one of them would want to call that toilet bowl known as SanTana home. We all went to school so we could get good jobs so we wouldn’t have to live in a town like SanTana. The kids who have to live there should aspire to do well in school so they can get out of that ghetto.
It’s time for the newly elected council to get off their butts, quit the drinking and partying,and get busy serving the people who live in Santana. Martinez, Tinajero and Benavides all made big promises and have delivered squat.
Lomelli – the way Santa Ana is run is very similar to the way cities in Mexico are run. Favoritism, cronyism, bloated municipal payroll, apathetic populace (could that be because half or more aren’t even citizens?), lack of transparency (love those mid-day “public” meetings), the list goes on and on and on.
Go ahead, keep apologizing. Pay the tax for a service that is supposed to be one of the bedrock services provided by a municipality! Next they’ll ask you to pay a tax to the fire department BEFORE they put out the fire!
Suckers…
So, what is wrong with an election on this issue? Can’t everyone’s emotions be communicated at the ballot box? (assuming that a reliable method for tallying votes has been found, that is).
Poster 14,
The last time I helped to stop a Ream Assessment, the city spent a half a million dollars advocating for a tax increase. Are you OK with the city wasting another half a million dollars in yet another tax raising scheme?
This latest assessment better be DOA. If it gets onto a ballot it will mean the END of Pulido, period.
BTW, when is Carlos Bustamante going to start attacking this in public? This is his golden chance to actually do something right, for once. Get on it Carlos!
LOL..Art..What about your golden girl Michele? And what about Sal??? Or Claudia???? Come on Art..these are “your folks” remember? Michele has been very quiet on this…
Poster 16,
My advice to ALL the council members is to ditch this tax raising scheme NOW and stop trying to ream the residents of Santa Ana! If they support this assessment they will DOOM their careers…
#2. You forgot to add that SanTana now has elected a former gang banger to city council.
-Although Martinez was also making $2,000 a week selling drugs-
http://www.ocmetro.com/NEW_SITE/current_issue/cover_story.php
The property owners need to pony up the money and pay for their infrastructure improvements.
It’s no wonder the local property values are less than the surrounding cities.
You get what you pay for.
Of course if some of the NA
Cook,
Put down the Kool Aid my friend. Don’t believe Ream! The third option is to stop this assessment and force the city to open up its books – and force Ream and his crooked cronies out.
We didn’t fire the first shot – Ream did. But clearly we are going to have to pull out all the stops to prevent Ream from raising our taxes. And then we will have to stop the SAUSD and the Rancho Santiago Community College District from also pilfering our wallets.
Enough! None of these agencies deserve any more of our money. All of them have much to answer for. It is time to pick sides Cook. I stand with the people of our city and I will not rest until Ream is defeated.
http://www.ci.santa-ana.ca.us/finance/FI-BudgetHome.asp
If you all are interested in the City budget, it is on the website. Mr. Pedroza asked about it. It was easy to find really. I went to the city website and then typed in the term budget in the search box.
On another note. I just don’t get the folks that say this city has been run like a Mexican fiefdom. The city leaders plus all the agency heads have been white. The elected officials until very recently have been predominantly white.
I lived in the City most of my life. I have seen the City improve from the 80’s. Back then Downtown was awful, I even remember a porn theater there. Now downtown is full of vibrant businesses. I love walking there. And it is only going to get better. Although it is predominantly full Latino businesses, the trend is going towards a good mix of businesses including a new italian restaurant.
As far as the streets, they do need to get fixed and the City leaders must address it.
Crime? I am not saying it is perfect but it is far better than the late eighties early nineties. I was young then and I saw how bad it was.
Compared to Denver Colorado in 2005, Santa Ana was a safer place to live
http://miamifl.areaconnect.com/crime/compare.htm?c1=santa+ana&s1=CA&c2=Denver&s2=CO
Carlos,
Well isn’t that interesting. How long has THAT been up? I swear the last time I looked, a few months ago, the budget was not up.
That aside, let’s have a look:
1. Since 2003, the money allocated to the Bowers has INCREASED from 1.3 million to almost $2 million.
2. The City Manager’s budget has also increased from $1.3 million to almost $2 million, since 2003.
3. Here’s a surprise – library spending has gone up, but outreach spending is now at 0. And youth materials loaned has DROPPED since 2003 from 427K to 296K. The cost per item loaned in the youth department has soared from $1.36 to $5.25. Cost per item in the adult department has doubled in price to over $14. Library employees’ salary and insurance has likewise ballooned from under half a million to over a million, since 2003 – with less libraries.
4. Parks and Rec: Administrative salaries are up from $1.3 million in 2003 to almost $2 million. Their retirement plan has grown from ZERO in 2003 to over $90K.
5. Police spending has grown from $87 million in 2003 to over $107 million. Time to outsource?
6. The City Attorney’s budget has jumped from $1.8 million to over $2.3 million.
7. The Clerk’s budget has almost doubled, to just shy of $800K.
8. Planning and Building is up from $8 million to over $10 million.
9. Fire jumped up by $10 million, to over $47 million.
10. Downtown maintenance has almost doubled to $436K.
11. Community Development has seen a huge increase, from over $5 million to over $11 million.
12. Finance and Management is up by almost $2 million.
13. Public Works is up to over $5 million.
14. The real laugher is the city manager’s goals. There you will read that the city wants to “Ensure an attractive and well-maintained city.” Oops! Blew that one. They also talk about appreciating diversity. Oops! Might want to have a look at Ream’s cronies. And the kicker – “Ensure a safe community.” Yeah, right. Might want to do something about those gangs…
Art P. who was in charge of the city from 2003 to last November ? It wasn’t Mexicans . The new attack weapon by some posters now is to blame the Mexicans for the poor state of the city’s infrastructure . Never mind this community has not had any control of city government . The poor state of the city’s infrastructure has occured over decades . The new council has been in office for four months and is getting critized for past poor management .Amazing logic . # 13 I am not apologizing , I don’t support the tax for street repairs . I agree with you about being suckers if the residents vote in a new tax . #11 are you not aware that there are many educated professionals living in SanTana .
Art L.,
Quite right. Ream is to blame – as is Pulido. However, it will be disappointing if all of the new council members end up supporting this assessment. I think that would be ill-advised.
Consider this – if this passes, elderly, retired home owners in Santa Ana will have to pay for the first SAUSD bond, this assessment, and perhaps another SAUSD bond and a Rancho Santiago Community College District bond. Wow! That really starts to add up…
The city pays it’s middle management an unholy amount of money. After looking through the budget, I would have to say that 95% of them earn in excess of $120k per year, not including their bonuses and fringe benefits. And yet the Council wants more money from me to fix the road they should have already fixed.
#5
I suggest you visit City Hall and take a peek at the photo wall of Santa Ana mayors. I only see one Mexican and ALL the others are non-Hispanic and/or Mexican.
Your hatred is clouding clear thinking.
Calm down!! Read those posts again.
I’m sure I could have found a similarly bad municipal example in Italy, Egypt, or New Orleans. But this is Southern California, and we have the Orange County seat sharing commonalities with Cudahy, Maywood, and South Gate.
I said it was RUN LIKE a Mexican fiefdom (not BY Mexicans – big difference). There are other Southland cities with large Latino populations that have non-representative and abusive municipal governments at least partly because they have a relatively apathetic and civicly undeducated populace.
Point is – the municipal government in SanTana is entirely self-serving and contemptuous of its populace.
The only “Mexican” aspect is, as Art L. points out – a lack of involvement by a large component of the population.
There goes the neighborhood. Reformed drug dealer/former gangbanger, mexican born Clownia, less than stellar ex school official, mentally challenged SanTana city council members all running their city into the ground while lining their pockets with freebies.
#27
Hatred? Read the posts again and grow up. I’m sick and tired of the misuse and abuse of that word. Your automatic assumption of racist motivation is pretty disgusting.
Fact is, SanTana IS 76% Latino/Hispanic, so calling it a Egyptian/Italian/Polish fiefdom would be pretty silly, wouldn’t it? And the fact that the leaders are white while the population is predominantly Latino/Hispanic only reinforces my point.
But I said “Mexican” so my motivation is “hatred” – nice.
Pathetic. Go on, brave soul, keep perpetuating the racist myth – see how far that gets you in life.
Several people are confused about the makeup of the previous council.
Lisa Bist and Alberta Christy were the only non hispanics.
Solorio, Garcia, Alvarez, Bustamante, and Pulido were the latino majority.
None of that has anything to do with potholes. Regardless of racial makeup, the city has been deferring more and more maintenence over the years that they are now way behind. The elected leaders had to know that eventually the bill would come due to fix the streets, and should have started working on a plan to catch up years ago.
Now the city is so far behind, it can’t practically catch up using existing available funds, so it’s looking for a windfall in the form of a new tax on the residents.
Why not increase the fees on new development to cover some of these deferred costs? The developers have reaped the benefits of newly surfaced arterials while right next to their properties neighborhood streets fall apart.
It might cause a short term slowdown on some development, but if Santa Ana is really the shining star downtown of the future the city hall hypemasters say it is, new developers will still flock to the city, and pay development fees to do business here.
# 29 , Point is , Bad municipalities are managed badly independant of a national discriptive label placed on them (i.e, Huntington Beach ). I agree with your other points . #30 what is wrong with a person being reformed, Mexican born or an ex school official . These council members mentally challenged ? The opposite is true , that is the reason for the violent opposition to them . They understand this council is too smart for them .
good post … in the last 5 years, souther calif transportation commissions including RCTC, SANBAG, OCTA, SANDAG, VCTC were able to convince their county voters to renew local 1/2 cent sales tax measures for an additional 30 years specifically for transportation projects … together, these renewed measures will bring tens of billions of dollars into Southern Califas … with all this cash coming in, local leaders and transportation commissions should be able to influence state and fed legislators to contribute more funds to further match these billions of dollars especially for pot holes … a priority for OC should be Standard Ave which is the main corridor for all those “Minnie Apartment” complexes which house thousands of gente … and a main crossing street for tens of thousand of students walking to school … que viva los state and fed funds to match Measure M funds … QUE VIVA!!!
“The new council has been in office for four months and is getting critized for past poor management”
Did Martinez, Tinajero, Alvarez, Sarmiento, Benavidez, Pulido or Bustamonte call Ream to answer the question of why this city is run as it is?
Are they not responsible to evaluate and then retain or dismiss Ream?
If they did not terminate Ream, it means that they all decided that Ream is doing a good job.
This council has been compromised.
# 35 . They , except Pulido , have been in office for three months or so . You and other residents should lobby them if you want this action taken . You the residents have some responsibility also . They work for you , place the demand .