Tonight’s City of Santa Ana budget meeting was historic – it was the first time the city ever held a public meeting of this nature outside the confines of the City Council chambers.
The meeting was held at 6:30 p.m., at the Southwest Senior Citizen Center, which is located off of McFadden and Center, in Santa Ana. The meeting was attended by perhaps 40 or so community residents, including four Orange Juice bloggers.
Several community leaders were also present, including Tish Leon, Joe and Nelida Yanez, Laura Morfin, Ava Steaffens (of KidWorks), Dr. Ana Jimenez-Hami (of the O.C. Children’s Therapeutic Arts Center), and Santa Ana City Councilwoman Michele Martinez, who spearheaded the event. None of the other Council Members were there. Santa Ana Mayor Miguel Pulido was also MIA.
Capital Improvement Program
Santa Ana Deputy City Engineer Souri Amirani handled the first part of the presentation, regarding the City’s Capital Improvement Program (CIP). She began by explaining that the city is expecting some $40 million in CIP revenues next year.
The CIP revenues are coming from various sources, including Measure M; OCTA Gas Tax funds; Proposition 1B; Proposition 42 (prior year); and the Regional Surface Transportation Program.
Amirani also said that additional revenues were expected to come in from the Southern California Edison Rule 20A funds; Federal Transportation Enhancement Activities Funds; the State Habitat Conservation Program; the State Recreation Trails Program; the Civic Center Fund, and the Friends of the Santa Ana Zoo.
After talking about specific neighborhood road improvement projects, Amirani discussed arterial improvements. The Bristol street widening project alone will be allocated a budget of $32 million. That sum includes $404K for planning related to Grand Ave. widening, between 1st and 4th Streets.
One resident asked why Raitt St. was not included in the reconstruction plans. The explanation was that the city uses a software program called the “Pavement Management System” to decide which streets need to be repaired first. However, they do this every five years for neighborhood streets and ever two years for arterial improvements. A lot can happen in five years!
Some of the residents got upset when Amirani discussed improvements at the Civic Center Plaza, which include reactivating a fountain that has been turned off for twenty years, at a cost of over $600K and improvements to two pedestrian bridges, at a cost of $289K. Amirani explained that the money for these projects comes from something called the Civic Center Authority, which takes in money from area parking lots, etc., and has to use them specifically for such improvements.
My fellow blogger, Sean Mill and I had to chuckle when Amirani talked about Park Facility Improvements. The two parks receiving allocations for improvements are both in North Santa Ana – Fisher Park and the Santiago Creek Bike Trail. The total budgeted funds for those improvements are over $2 million.
Standiford takes the podium
The next speaker after Amirani was Assistant City Manager Catherine Standiford. I must admit, she kept her cool under some very intense questioning from the audience!
The crowd was about as animated by this point as I have ever seen in Santa Ana.
Not enough money for street repair?
Standiford started out by bragging about the $100 million that Public Works Director Jim Ross says he is going to spend over the next five years. But my fellow blogger Thomas Gordon pointed out that Ross has admitted that he really needs to spend about $400 million over the same term. Oopsie!
Standiford also said that the budget “reflects the priorities and values of residents.” She then explained that the City Council went on a retreat on St. Valentine’s Day to come up with the budget. Weird timing. I wonder if they passed out boxes of chocolates during the retreat?
SAUSD rips off Santa Ana residents!
When Standiford began to discuss our parks, she mentioned possible joint use projects with the Santa Ana Unified School District (SAUSD). However, the SAUSD School Board met tonight to vote on putting up a fence around their new high school at Centennial Park – which would result in a massive net loss of park space for Santa Ana residents!
I mentioned that to Standiford and asker her if such a vote would be actionable. She said that the City had an agreement with SAUSD and that said fence might be in violation of the agreement. She also said the City Attorney would be looking into it. Take that Rob Richardson (SAUSD Board President)!
Do I believe that the City of Santa Ana would actually sue the SAUSD over this fence matter? No. Pulido won’t likely move against his buddy Richardson. And we will remind residents about that when Pulido comes up for reelection.
You can read more about the SAUSD vote at this link.
Anteater coming to the Santa Ana Zoo
Standiford did note that the UCI Class of 2007 will be donating to the Santa Ana Zoo’s new anteater exhibit, which I thought was a neat idea, given that the UCI mascot is an anteater.
New tax for public safety?
When we got to the part of the presentation regarding development and transportation, I asked Standiford if she was involved in a tax measure in the City of La Palma, when she worked there, ostensibly to raise money for public safety. She said that the voters decided to retain a utility tax and that is how the money was spent. I wonder how much the City of La Palma spent to convince voters to vote that way?
3,000 new housing units + no new parks = crowded parks
I also asked Standiford if it was true that even though some 3,000 new housing units are on the way, the city is not planning to open any more parks. Sad to say, it is true. The other day when we met at Madison Park, for the Walk for Peace, I noticed three liquor stores within easy reach of the park. How sad is that?
What Internet?
Standiford was not
well-briefed on matters regarding the Internet. One young man asked her what sort of Internet system the city had. She had no idea. That’s because we don’t have a citywide wi-fi system in place! Thomas Gordon asked her how the wi-fi trail was going on. Standiford thought he was referring to a judicial matter. Once he explained otherwise, she still had no clue.
That does worry me a bit. Installing a citywide wi-fi system ought to be a massive priority for the City of Santa Ana. We have only one library. Our neighbors, Irvine and Costa Mesa, have three libraries each. Even Bakersfield has six libraries! If we aren’t going to have any more libraries, and Standiford admitted as much, we at least need to make a citywide wi-fi network a priority. That way residents will have access to all of the information that is available online. I know my kids rely quite heavily on the Internet for their school reports.
Bowers to get over $2 million a year through 2026; residents get the shaft
Things got ugly when the subject of the Bowers Museum came up. Standiford admitted that the new agreement with the Bowers Board of Governors goes all the way to the year 2026. The budget item for next year is over $2 million!
Just for kicks, I took a look at the list of Board of Governors members. Pulido appears to be the only Latino on the Board. What a surprise. The Bowers President’s Advisory Council also includes Pulido, along with his acolyte, Councilman Bustamante. They too appear to be the only Latinos on that body.
The City of Santa Ana owns the Bowers and the land it sits on. We pay for the operation of the museum. For that, residents get to go to the Bowers for free just twice a month, on the second
and fourth Tuesdays of each month. And according to the Bowers website, the free visits are courtesy of donations by “the Lockhart Family,” and the dearly departed “Dorothy Goerl.” So really, the city gets nothing out of the Bowers.
How much does the Bowers charge the rest of the time? How about $17 to $19 for adults and $12 to $14 for students. Yikes!
Residents at the budget meeting were outraged by the amount of money going to the Bowers, which co-blogger Sean Mill referred to as a “playground for the rich.” He is quite right about that!
Pay them more? Why?
Mill also asked Standiford about the proposed 13% raise for city managers. She said that the raise would be equal to that which the union city employees received, and it would be spread over two years. The entire audience appeared to be sickened at the thought of rewarding managers who have, for the most part, failed the city’s residents.
City pays to distribute Chamber newspaper that promotes their candidates
The audience also erupted when Gordon, Mills and I mentioned that the City is giving the Santa Ana Chamber of Commerce $85K a year to distribute their CityLine propaganda newspaper.
The problem with that is that every election year they use that paper to advertise the candidate’s that the Chamber’s Political Action Committee (PAC) has endorsed. What a scam! They are using city money to distribute a paper with ads touting their buddies! Unbelievable. And probably illegal.
Standiford said she would have the city attorney look into it. We may have to ask the State Attorney General to do the same.
A resident asked why the city spends $25K on annual membership in the Chamber. Good question! What in the world do we get for that pile of cash? Not enough, I would warrant. The same resident wondered why the City needed to advertise itself in the CityLine. Why not spend that money on more youth programs? Standiford had no answer for that.
I wonder if the Chamber would sell me an ad in their CityLine newspaper, with a headline like, “Find out how the Chamber is wasting our tax money!”
Shopping carts and graffiti
There were also lively discussions regarding shopping carts and graffiti. Residents were not happy with how the City is handling either of these problems. Thomas Gordon mentioned that he called the police the other day when he saw a tagger in action. The police never showed. And yet Standiford told us that graffiti is a priority for the city. Sure it is.
Sean Mill mentioned that it would be great to force tagger’s parents to cover up graffiti as public service. Those taggers will finally get the spankings they deserve!
Standiford did admit that it currently costs $1.7 million a year for the City to deal with graffiti.
As the meeting was drawing to a close, Councilwoman Martinez thanked the City staff for participating in the meeting – and she asked them to follow up on the resident’s concerns. But residents noted that the City staff did not take minutes. Oh well, they can always read this post.
Be there Monday night!
Standiford did ask us to attend Monday night’s City Council meeting. It will be a chance for us to speak up and ask the City Council to take action on our concerns – including not raising our taxes and not doling out more money to the city managers who have put us in the mess we are in.
UPDATE:
I checked out both the Times and the Register today and could not find any coverage of this meeting. That is too bad. I wish their reporters could have seen how animated the residents became as they realized what a mess the City is in and how misplaced many of the City’s priorities are.
Sounds like the same ol Standiford. Style but no substance. The fact that she doesn’t understand any real information about the city that pays her so much is expected. She’s a numbers slasher, and doesn’t really care what the numbers actually do, or for that matter what employee’s really do. Does she look good in her pantsuit, is her hair trimmed, is her Lexus shiny? Thats all she really cares about.
These meetings should be recorded and presented to the rest of the council, so they would see just how pathetic their highly paid adminstrators perform before citizens.
Of course Standiford wants to get everyone to a council meeting. This controlled environment stops debate and limits comments. God forbid someone had a pertinent comment or an original idea. Poor Santa Ana, you deserve better!
just.asking
Cathy S is not paid to know all about technology. She is there to assist in developing priorities for leading the city into the future. Do you really think this should be left up to the residents of Santa Ana? Have you seen the City lately? Do you really think the crime is due to the City having a lack of resources or the residents having a lack of parental guidance? Michele Martinez wants to help the youth. But do you really think all these programs are the answer? Quit throwing money away. Why not look at the source of all the abuse and neglect to children – their parents. Focus on finding them better jobs. Focus on teaching them to actually care about their child so he/she doesn’t grow up into a gang.
Many of you “citizens” think you can run a City but in reality, you can’t. It’s unfortunately that these blogs are always used to discuss the negative and never the positive…unless its tooting michele martinez’s horn. But who wants to read a blog that is all happy with sunshine being blown up one’s backside.
“Quit throwing money away.”
#2 you are correct. We can start by getting rid of the subsidies for the Bowers Museum and the Chamber of Commerce.
“these blogs are always used to discuss the negative and never the positive”
#2 your post wasn’t exactly a ray of sunshine. Perhaps you could serve as a role model for us “nattering nabobs of negativity” and say something nice yourself.
I’d like to know why the city spend $25k a year for Chamber membership and pay $$ for their newsletter….I seem to remember membership for organizations being a lot less than that.No way should the managers get a raise, they waste our money by the barrel.
Andree
great post Art—good insight into what City staff is thinking. Glad people were there to challenge some of the moves of the City–Bowers money, lack of road repair and the geographic distribution of park improvement money.
Another example of how MSM fails to get the Santa Ana story right. Thanks for blogging on this.
Bladerunner,
Thank you! That means a lot to me. This article took me several hours to write, on top of the time spent at the meeting.
I only wish the local media had covered the meeting as well. I wonder why they didn’t?
Art, Unfortunately your take on wi-fi is outdated. See below:
Kim Kimbrough, executive director of the Houston Downtown Improvement Board, said the board is actively exploring a plan to provide free Wi-Fi access downtown.
But Kimbrough said Wi-Fi technology has been out paced by other tech advances, and is fraught with security, cost and maintenance problems.
“Wi-Fi is fading fast,” Kimbrough said. “The most promising technology we’re looking at is a Verizon Wireless system that offers broadband wireless data and voice. It’s extremely fast and extremely reliable. I was just blown away with how technologically advanced it is.”