Thomas Gordon sent me this post after attending last night’s Santa Ana City Council meeting:
The Santa Ana City Council approved the Quarterly report of all April to July contracts worth $25,000 or less at Monday night’s meeting.
As I browsed the 9 pages of expenditures I noticed many that were non essential to city business such as $3,400 to The Turnip Rose for an employee recognition meeting or $1,400 for a City Manager pancake breakfast (???) or $8,784 to La Casa Garcia for catering the Mother’s Day event at Eddie West Stadium or the $10,000 to All American Balloon for balloons and helium.
But the expense that really caught my eye was the $895 made out to The Gallery Collection for birthday cards.
That’s right…birthday cards!
It’s bad enough that we the taxpayer are footing a $3,400 bill for a public employee’s luncheon, but the $895 for birthday cards is non only a waste of taxpayer resources, but also a slap in the face to us all.
We all hear the excuses that are made as to why there are no recourses available for road repair or new police officers. But they always seem to find money for things like the large raises for the City Manager and his department heads or catered dinners or birthday cards.
If Santa Ana city staff spent more time working and less time taking tax payer paid balloons and birthday cards to the Turnip Rose, this might just become a safer, more solvent city.
Thanks Thomas! During the 1990’s the Santa Ana City Council, under the urging of former Councilmember Lisa Mills, voted to end the practice of providing meals for the city council at council meetings and it became part of the city charter. The current council and staff ignores those laws and gobbles down meals at taxpayers expense!!! How do we stop this wasteful practice? Can’t they all drive through In and Out Burger or Jack in the Box on Civic Center drive and pick something up on the way to city hall?
Thanks you Mr. Gordon! I think spending like this is a big F you to the residents of Santa Ana!
I believe the city manager sends birthday cards to each city employee. Don’t they all have e-mail? Aren’t those e-mail birthday cards free? We could use the $900 dollars saved for craft supplys at our local recreation center.
If the City Attorney will not enforce the laws against this type of spending then maybe the D.A. will!
My six year old is selling lemonade to raise money to help pay for his soccer uniform (Parks and Rec doesn’t provide squat!) and yet these fat cats from Cota De Caza and elsewhere pork out on free meals with my tax dollars! This must not stand!
I would like to see Michele Martinez and Sal Tinajero take a leadership role on this one and not eat any more city provide food and put an item on the agenda to stop the practice! The O.C. Register would back them. They wrote articles at the time Mills put the new law on the council agenda against city food for the council.
Not to promote any company but my wife buys cards on line from Current rather than the Hallmark store to save us quite a few dollars every year.
When will our local elected officials realize that these small, in your face, abuses can lead to a very angry electorate.
It’s the cap off the tooth paste that may lead to their downfall.
When we had the tobacco settlement we couldn’t wait to find a way to spend our share of the proceeds. So our council purchased several thousand calendars that contained a small anti smoking message and included the wrong dates or times for some of our city meetings. Beyond that they never mass distributed them to the citizens and probably threw out 90 percent of those printed.
As a former mayor once stated in a council meeting that “the purpose of having money is to spend it.” The only flaw with that statement is that it is our money, not hers, that she was referring to.
#4
WRONG!
You see, the city attorney is in bed with Ream since Ream was the one who hand picked him.
Also, if the OC DA’s office had any sense for the rule of law, Ream and Pulido would have been prosecuted over a decade ago. So don’t expect anyone to step in on these cases of “chump change”
The taxpayers of SA will continue to be screwed by this Ream/Pulido cabal until THEY decide to stop, which will be never, they are too greedy and owe too many “favors” to too many people
to ask a City Attorney to look into it is as funny as when I heard the Sheriff wanting to investigate a Murder in their Jail
What I want to know is where is my birthday card? lost in the mail? must be, I bet that my invite to the pancake breakfast was in the envelope with my birthday card….
They actually have a wonderful selection of very nice greeting cards at great prices at the Big Lots store on North Grand behind the Del Taco. I think the city could save a lot of money if they bought the cards at Big Lots and the food at Del Taco. If they moved the council meetings by one day they could take advantage of Taco Tuesdays and save a bundle of cash.
There are several free, online greeting card services. It might be prudent for Ream to access these services.
I’ve been told that the Councilmembers also eat for free in some pretty nice places when they meet with the City Manager or other city staff members which happens on a regular basis. Someone should do a public information request on the city credit cards being used by the Managers. Come to think of it, I bet they don’t use a city card so they can get the mileage for free airline travel but when they put in the claims to get paid, those must be public records right? A good place to start would be looking at all claims for payment made by all managers. I bet it’s a lot of money!
It is not just the city council, it is many, if not all, commissions, as well as other city sanctioned events.
Rita Corpin has for years gone to the city events and taken home all the leftovers. The taxpayers picked up the bill for all the food Rita has taken over the years.
Thanks Sean for your comment. Who is this Rita woman? Is she “one of the usual suspects”? What about the Strouds? Do they eat a lot of free food too?
#15
what a dumbass