You knew it was coming sooner or later. Santa Ana City Manager Dave Ream has been angling for a raise for himself and his fellow city administrators for some time. Now it is on the agenda for Monday night’s Santa Ana City Council meeting.
How much moolah are these folks already hauling in?
- The City Manager makes 20,038 per pay period (Dave Ream)
- The Assistant City Manager makes 15,270 per pay period (Catherine Standiford)
- The Director of Public Works make 13,833 per pay period (Jim Ross)
- The Director of Planning and Building makes 12,533 per pay period (Jay Trevino)
- The Executive Director-External Affairs makes 10,544 per pay period (Jill Arthur)
Plus many other highly paid Executive Management Team employees are slated to receive large raises, after failing to provide even minimal levels of basic city services.
How do you feel about that? If you would like to voice your opinion about these outrageous pending pay raises, for ineffectual overpaid city administrators, go to George Collins’ website and vote now! See the image below for a representation of his poll regarding the raises. If you click on the image you will be sent right to the poll site.
Here’s the rub – the City Council is on the verge of handing out raises as if they were snacks, while at the same time they are getting ready to raise our taxes! (More on that later in this post).
Here are a few more highlights from the agenda for Monday Night’s City Council meeting:
- Apparently the city has a new citywide slurry project. They are looking to spend a total of $1,252,800 on this item. Their notes indicate that they intend to slurry coat 30 miles of roads to “prevent further deterioration.” Might be too late for most of our really bad streets.
- Their notes also inform us that there are over $31 million dollars headed our way for street repairs, and yet they still want to float a $50 to $60 million bond for street repairs. How is that debt going to be repaid? Ream and his allies will be long gone and our kids will still be paying off their debts!
- They are changing the name of Logan Park to “Chepa’s Park.” I’m sure there is a fascinating story there, waiting to be told.
- The city is also going to be holding a public hearing on next year’s proposed city budget.
- And the City Council will vote to establish a “City Council Finance Ad Hoc Committee” so that Council Members Vince Sarmiento and Claudia Alvarez can serve on it. Sounds like a way to get more stipends.
The City Council will also be considering a new “Anti-Gang Plan.” The City staff who prepared the report admit that gang crime in Santa Ana has increased 12% since 2006. Moreover, according to the report, the police department is asking for a new sergeant and ten new police gang detectives.
The city also reports that more than 75 % of homicides and more than 70% of the shootings are instigated by gangs.
So why has the city dropped the ball repeatedly over the years? They have closed libraries, not kept up parks, taken forever to hire more cops, and they routinely take too long to show up when you call to report graffiti taggers. They have also not done enough to keep kids busy during the summer.
You can compare what has happened in Santa Ana to the water crisis in Garden Grove, where the City Council, acting as the water agency, ignored maintenance on their pipelines until they now are looking at raising water rates to pay for the necessary repairs.
However, in Santa Ana instead of raising water rates, our city leaders want to raise our taxes. The O.C. Register reported yesterday that “the city is studying measures taken by other cities to enhance their police budgets, including a sales tax increase.”
As one would expect, Councilman David Benavides thinks that is a great idea. “In order to be able to have more public safety personnel out there, we need to be able to have the funds to get them out there,” he said.
Hey David – why don’t we stop overpaying the Reamers instead? The city rakes in plenty of tax money – the problem is wasteful spending, not insufficient tax revenue.
For once I agree with Councilman Carlos Bustamante, who said in part that, “Education fixes the problem.” Yes – that is part of the solution – but our local school district, Santa Ana Unified, is run by a corrupt administration and an inept school board – headed by Santa Ana Mayor Miguel Pulido’s longtime allies, Rob Richardson and Rosie Avila. They both need to go if we are to improve our schools.
Councilwoman Claudia Alvarez, who serves alongside Bustamante and Benavides on the city’s Public Safety Committee, piped in with this remark,”If we were going to go out there with a tax, I’d rather go with a safety tax.” Great strategy Claudia – vote to raise our taxes then announce your campaign for the First Supervisorial District. Sounds like a train wreck in progress.
City Commission meetings are now easy to find on the City of Santa Ana’s website. A few upcoming meetings to keep an eye on:
- The Housing & Redevelopment Commission meets on Tuesday, June 5, at Council Chambers, at 5 p.m. We normally meet at 6 p.m., but we have a few study sessions to deal with on Monday. Read the agenda at this link.
- The next Planning Commission meeting will be on June 11, at 5 p.m., at Council Chambers. Read their latest update at this link.
- The next meeting of the Environmental and Transportation Advisory Committee is on June 14, at 7: 30 a.m., at the City Yard, located at 220 South Daisy. Why does this committee meet at such a ridiculous time? All the city committees and commissions ought to meet in the evenings so city residents may attend and participate.
There is a new McCormick & Schmick’s Restaurant opening on June 11, at the new Santa Ana City Place development on Main St., across from the Main Place Mall, just north of the 5 Freeway. I am really looking forward to this restaurant. Their original location in Irvine is a great place to hang out at Happy Hour. You can read more about this and other businesses in the City Place center at this link.
The O.C. Register also published an article about the new City Place businesses at this link. “Mother’s Market, Geisha House, Corner Bakery and Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf” are all coming to this new shopping center.
The United Mexican American Veterans Association (UMAVA) is holding its Second Annual Picnic and Social at Santiago Park on Saturday, June 9, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. This will be a potluck style event. To RSVP, call Fred at (714) 973-4771 or Anthony at (714) 336-2470.
On June 11 there will be a “Walk for Peace and Unity,” starting at 7 p.m. at Madison Park, which is on the corner of Edinger Ave. and Standard. The walk will end at 7:30 p.m. at St. Anne’s Catholic Church. Councilwoman Michele Martinez will speak at this event. The goal of the walk is to end neighborhood violence. There will also be a candlelight prayer for peace service at 8 p.m. inside the church. For more information contact this email.
UPDATE:
The Santa Ana City Council blinked at tonight’s meeting. They will table the city manager raises for thirty days. That of course gives us a month to let them know what a bad idea those raises are…
Great articla Art! When you say per pay period do you mean that is how much they make per MONTH? Why don’t you do tha math for us an publish all those saleries in annual form…it’s more dramatic and is easier for peolple to grasp in terms of how richly they are being paid. AND don’t for get to aski what they get in Medical, retirement, Auto allowence, use of the police gym, and all the rest of the goodies. And now theys say they want to tax us to pay to make the gangs go away? Does anyone REALLY believe they will see more cops or a decrease in crime with higher taxes? This is a way to keep saying yes to the unions for more pay and get them to help the Politicos keep getting elected. Vote no on ANY new local TAXES!
Dave Ream make over $ 240,000 a year, drives a new white Chevy Tahoe paid for with our tax maoney, gets free gas for that Tahoe, has generous medical, dental and retirement benefits, over 5 weeks of vacation and ask for 13 % more? If this was a private company, Dave and his special friend Jim Ross would have been fired long ago. No new taxes.
Thanks Catherine! Can you also figure out what the others listed for an increase make annually and other benny’s? NO new taxes!
Heh, I make about $200 every payday and live in West Floral. I’m content.
If I can do that, so can they. :-p
No offense, El Trabuco, but I’m not sure I’d want you(or me either) behind the City managers desk. Cities have to be competitive in benefits to attract the top talent but Dave’s increase seems more a retirement spike. But beyond that, right when they’re going out on a city tax hike…..bad timing even if he deserves it.
Bladerunner, cities have to be competitive. You’re right.
However, I’m not sure of your top talent comment. We have some star players working for the city, but the people at the top are far from A-list people.
If we’re going to be effectively competitive and garner A-list managers, then let’s start attracting some new people instead of increasing the pay for those we have.
As far as me being beind the city manager’s desk… heh, you’ve heard some news haven’t you 😉
Bladerunner,
Good point. It shows you how out of touch the 8th floor is. How very brazen of them to seek a pay hike while also talking about raising our taxes and floating a street repair bond.
The other consideration is that in the world of business you rarely reward failure with a raise. When you consider the many problems we face in Santa Ana, and the fact that many of those problems are due to inaction by our city administration, it seems insane to give them pay raises. What most of them deserve is a pink slip.
The five listed above Ream,Standiford,Ross,Trevino and Arthur should be fired, not given raises.Ream screwed up the city, while Ross and Trevino allowed the roads and any decent sense of planning to go into the tank.Arthur arranged the giveaway of a large chunck of city owned land to the Catholic Church.At least her kid and Bustamantos kid get cheap tuition in return.
Why isn’t Sean weighing in on all this 8th floor trash talk?
Was he sent to his room without his computer
Catherine, When you say give away of land to the Catholic Church are you talking about the land along Bristol by Mater Dei that was supposed to be landscaped but instead was give to them as a parking lot? or are you talking about the land at the Armstrong ranch given for a temple, or are you talking about the old Kona HI site give for another Catholic temple? How do you know they get discounted tuition! This is very surprising news to me.
Anon 9:14, wrong land. It was just south of First St. on the Tustin and Santa Ana border, but on the Santa Ana side. The land was intended to be part of the Metro East development, but instead became a huge state of the art Soccer Field for St. Jeanne de Lestonnac. That is where Carlos’ son goes and word is he and Miguel made sure the variance skipped Planning Commission for special treatment.
Jill Arthur’s husband is also the Principal of St. Jeanne de Lestonnac.
I have an idea, lets just giveaway the whole damn city to the Catholic Church. I bet child molestation will rise as a result.
On the Mission Viejo city council Agenda for this evening is Closed Session item #4 dealing with the performance evaluation of our city manager.
If our roads were in need of $100 million dollars of repairs, as is the case in Santa Ana, we surely would not be granting him a contract renewal or a COLA increase in wages.
If the Santa Ana city council grants this increase, let me suggest a trip to visit the Wizard of Oz and request some courage.
You hit the nail on the head, this is just a way of upping Ream’s retirement package.
Standiford and others are hanging on to reap the benefits of stepped increases. A trick city management has been pushing on councils for a long time.
If Council wants to give Ream a raise, do it. But they should not just give blanket raise to all others. Standiford has not even been on the job a year! And she already got a double-digit raise when she joined the city! And she’s done nothing but piss off public works and other departments. She’s a paper pusher who like cities to look good on paper and doesn’t care about the people who live in her cess pool.
Thanks for the information! I see the beautiful lighted PRIVATE soccer field as I drive north on the 5 Freeway and wondered how the Catholic church managed to buy such a choice piece of land with freeway frontage for a sports field but now you have explained it! Did Bustamonte vote on the item or abstain because of his conflict? So he doesn’t believe in the public schools for his ninos? What does Ms. Arthur do for that kind of money? How many employees does she have working for her? Is anyone familiar with what she does to make that kind of money? THanks for your quick responses and Art..thanks for anther great post!
Bladerunner is right..this is about a retirement SPIKE for some of these guys who are on the way out the door!
These raises are on top of what the city already gave all employees….over 20% in salary raises, and the grand daddy of them all – a massive increase to their retirement benefits. It sounds like the city is trying to get rid of a lot of useless old timers and the only way they can do it is to pay them off. What a joke. Look for massive turnover in city hall in 2009 when the new retirement benefit kicks in. Sounds to me like the ‘ol Reamer is looking to spike his bennies before he retires…or before he dies in his office, whichever comes first. Our roads are in terrible condition, the city claims it needs to raise my taxes to fix them, and then the city administrators have their sweaty palms out asking for even more money!?!?! How is it that more people aren’t outraged at this outright theft of our funds? I for one will be speaking to the city council tonight. If they agree to these raises, they should all be recalled as accessories to grand theft.
Anon 14 – no one is sure what Jill Arthur does at city hall…I think she is simply the mayor’s pet or babysitter as she travels everywhere with him. She has a handful of people working for her, but if you ask around city hall, no one seems to know what her role up there is.
Honestly, I think her job is to keep Miguel happy and feed him inside information as to what’s going on in city hall. She’s a glorified intern, but because of her stellar butt-kissing, got herself a huge raise and new title to make herself seem more important.
Wasn’t Jill Arthur behind Lorraine getting kicked off the 8th Floor?
It would nice to see Michele, Vince, Claudia, and Sal take a stand against these raises and that would put pressure on Bustamonte..he has to run for re-election soon. If they don’t debate it strongly then they give BUstamonte and others a free ride on the issue..if they go though each one…person by person…aske lots of questions…talk about the amount of money each makes already..then maybe the Register or others will pick up on it and write a story that can be used against them when the council runs for office…but that takes councilmember REALLY making something out of this and residents going down and speaking!
What do managers make in nearby cities like Irvine, Tustin and Orange?
RE #11 & #14
I, also, have always wondered about that nice field off the 5 freeway. Thanks for the insight. AND if SA did give away this land to the Diocese of Orange, why was no joint use agreement put in place to relieve the over-use of current City/SAUSD fields? It seems that this Jill Arthur hack was able to stroke Pulido and Ream enough times to make this giveaway happen.
The City always insists there is no land left for park development. This case in point just proves the Parks and Rec. Dept. is just a bunch of liars with no concern for the City residents. Their only concern is for their paychecks!
http://www.topix.net/city/santa-ana-ca/2007/06/eye-on-santa-ana-city-managers-want-more-money
Santa Ana officials are again trying to pull a fast one on city taxpayers. several years ago the city spent over $250,000 to place a property tax increase measure on the ballot, arguing city street maintenance would suffer if voters did not pass the tax increase measure. The measure failed. A phone survey to ask a small number of residents was conducted to ask residents if they would support a tax increase to fund street improvements.The answer was again ‘no’.
Now the city is manipulating the survey, claiming the survey supports a tax increase to fund gang prevention programs! Councilmember Claudia Alvarez who has consistently supported tax increases has indicated she would go along with what she calls a ‘safety tax’.Councilmember Michele Martinez also advocates spending more tax money on so-called ‘gang prevention programs. How about making parents taking responsibility in keeping tghier children out of gangs?The city’s tax revenues for this fiscal year will total 1/2 billion dollars. one-half of the general revenue funds are budgeted for the police department. The city is not short of revenues. Richard Reyes, Irvine
# 20 is sort of on the right track.
It’s fine to whine about what we pay our city officials, but where is the info Art should have given us on what these positions pay in cities comparable in size and population with a similar budget. Art says these folks are paid too much, but are they really? Without comparable data from similar cities, we don’t know that.
As for the alleged land giveway to the church, what city is St Jean’s in? It’s in Tustin.
St Jean Delestonnac is in Tustin, not Santa Ana.
Poster 20,
Try this link: http://www.ocregister.com/ocr/sections/news/news/article_494756.php
Art,
How do I get
http://www.ci.santa-ana.ca.us/coc/documents/Items/xxxx.pdf
from the SA website?
Art,
Thanks for the link. I guess you have to figure if you feel like you are getting your money’s worth. Irvine has the advantage of being masterplanned, but they also get a city manager who gets a fairly reasonable pay.
Whoever is in charge of the streets in Santa Ana, should get a pay cut, imo.
per the link:
Stanton’s Jake Wager is the lowest-paid city manager in the county at $144,771 a year. The managers of 10 cities smaller than Stanton earn more than Wager.
“I don’t necessarily need to compare my situation with somebody else,” Wager said. “Am I satisfied with my relationship with the city and the council? Am I able to provide for my family and live the life that I’m comfortable with? And the answer is yes.”
On the other side is Laguna Hills City Manager Bruce Channing, who commands the seventh-smallest city and is the seventh-highest paid city manager in the county, with a total compensation of $224,817.
Channing said there are other factors to consider, such as experience, performance and how much councilsare willing to pay to keep their chief executives from taking other jobs.
Channing has been in Laguna Hills since 1991.
“Performance is the key factor,” he said. “If the City Council didn’t think I was providing a valuable service, they would have decided long ago I wasn’t worth the compensation I receive.”
Some city managers refuse pay raises, including Costa Mesa’s Roeder, who has turned down at least $18,554 since 1987.
“Where I’ve had situations where we had to ask employees to do belt-tightening or laying people off, I’m sorry, I can’t take a pay increase when we are having those kinds of actions,” Roeder said. “First and foremost, as a city manager, we need to be setting the examples.”
Nice try #23..the old, “we have to pay our people a lot because the other cities pay a lot and it’s SO hard to find good people to take these jobs” That’s such a load of Horse #$%&! That’s how the unions and gov. workers try to get politicos to keep paying them more. Nice try Government worker #23!
Re: #20
Are you joking? You are really trying to compare Santa Ana to Orange, Tustin and Irvine? The problem is not how much an employee is paid, but how much they produce. And thats the problem in Santa Ana! The streets and infrastructure sucks! Ream and Standiford could not get hired in any of the above mentioned cities. So poor Santa Ana has to suffer this baggage. Cities should not reward underperforming organizations or managers.
More managers should display the Class of Roeder from Costa Mesa. Fix your streets, protect your residents, spend the taxpayers money wisely!
# 23 & 24
The land in question is indeed in Santa Ana.
Its where 1st Street meet’s Golden Circle Drive, just south of the Cabrillo Park area.
Tustin city limits do not begin until a little further east on 1st, just east of the 55 Freeway.
This blog is great btw!
With low inflation and bla bla bla, raises should be limited to 50 cents to a dollar an hour.
example:
The governor’s salary, at $206,500, will be highest in the nation. (2 1/2 million employees in a state of over 30 million citizens)
Santa Ana, 1700 plus employees and close to 400 thousand citizens.
Comparatively speaking, the governor is grossly underpaid or the local administrators are way over paid.
How did the foxes get in charge of the hen house?
Oh ya that great American nightmare called
Art, your spreadsheet is incorrect. The salaries you have listed are monthly, not bi-weekly. There is no way in the world that Dave Ream makes over $40k a month. He’s making around $20k a month.
Once again, Claudia Alvarez rises to the top and displays reason and diplomacy on an important issue.
While the new council members sat silently, Claudia parsed the issue and made 2 motions, one in support of the confidential employees, and a separate one holding off on the executive management raises.
This was a good move. It supports the staff who they have to work with daily, and puts the executive team on notice.
As a resident, I appreciate Claudia’s approach, and look forward to the council discussion when this item comes back.
#23 & #24, You are correct that the school is in Tustin, BUT… the sports fields that were given to them as a gift of public funds are adjacent to the school property and are indeed located in Santa Ana. #11 has it absolutely correct as to who and how the whole thing went down. I believe Alvarez and Bist were the only NO votes. The council did a similar thing not long ago allowing soccer fields in an industrial zone in SA for Calvary in the So Co Metro area, a church where Alberty Christy attends. Plenty of land to give away in SA evidently.
Perhaps it is time for one or both of our major newspapers to do an in depth story on the total compensation (not just salary, but all compensation that is part of the retirement base pay) of top government officials in cities, counties, school districts and other government agencies such as OCTA, the Sanitation District, etc.
Should not be limited to O.C., but more of a So. Calif. perspective, thus including the new salary of the empowered County of LA CEO which the press has reported is near $ 400k per year. Such a story should show the movement/growth of compensation of given positions over the last 5 years. Doing such a story would be a big job, but the result would be quite informative.
#11 said-“Jill Arthur’s husband is also the Principal of St. Jeanne de Lestonnac.” Not true. Jill Arthur’s husband was an attorney. A few years ago, he became a Judge at Juvenile Court.
Dear Community:
I urge you to attend our upcoming proposed budget community meeting on Tuesday, June 12, 2007. Our staff should be sending out a flier shortly and posting it online.
Proposed FY 2007-08 Budget Community Meeting
Tuesday, June 12, 2007 at 6:30 PM
Southwest Senior Center(McFadden/Center)
For more information please contact 714-647-6900.
Please pass the word along.
http://www.ci.santa-ana.ca.us/finance/budget/0708_budget.asp
Thanks
—
Michele Martinez
Council Member
City of Santa Ana
714-647-6900
Cook.
Just before hisretirment a former mission Viejo city Council was about to give that outgoing manager a wage increase. I contacted the office of the governor to make an apples to apples comparrison. ie. the size and scope of the respective government agencies vs their comp. At that time our governor took a pay cut which had his wages lower than our city manager was about to get. After my public comments the city manager pulled the item off the agenda and never did see that bonus.
Tip: Get the Greenlipped mussels for an appetizer at McCormick & Schmick’s.
MmmmmmmMmmmmm
Well well, seems Dave Ream has exactly the right name for the job!
If you want to see how Irvine residents get reamed, come on over for a visit, and stay a spell!
We’ve got the salaries scrolling on our website 24/7…
David Harvey
Save Irvine .com
Main Entry: Ream
Function: transitive verb
Etymology: perhaps from Middle English *remen to open up, from Old English rEman; akin to Old English ryman to open up, rum space — more at ROOM
1 a : to widen the opening of (a hole) :
COUNTERSINK b (1) : to enlarge, shape, or smooth out (a hole) with a reamer (2) : to enlarge the bore of (as a gun) in this way c : to remove by reaming
2 a : to press out with a reamer b : to press out the juice of (as an orange) with a reamer
3 : CHEAT, VICTIMIZE
4 : REPRIMAND — often used with out reams out his players so severely — Alexander Wolff