An editorial in today’s O.C. Register was ostensibly about Columbia, and the improvements in its second biggest city, Medellin.
Apparently a pending free trade agreement between the U.S. and Columbia has been held up by U.S. labor unions and Democrat leaders in the U.S. Congress. That figures. You would think they would want to help Columbia escape from its drug lord past, but then you would be wrong.
Medellin used to be Columbia’s drug capital, but Alvaro Uribe, who was elected in 2002, “demobilized tens of thousands of gangsters, persuading them to hand in their guns, confess to crimes and gave them stipends to begin civilian lives.”
“Medellin contributed by choosing a reforming mayor, Sergio Fajardo, a mathematician with a doctorate from the University of Wisconsin. Fajardo worked hour by hour with police to recapture the city. He built libraries to show that gangs weren’t the only ones who could help communities.”
Take another look at the last sentence in the previous paragraph – the new Medellin Mayor built libraries…and they became part of the solution.
Why couldn’t we do that in Santa Ana? We have the worst crime figures in Orange County – with an explosion of gang violence this year that has led to more murders so far this year than we had all of last year. Take a look at the Register’s Santa Ana page tonight and you will see the following headlines:
- Santa Ana man shot to death in driveway
- Prostitute raped at knife point
- Santa Ana launches “most wanted” website
- Santa Ana police searching for two shooting suspects
- Authorities ID woman, 86, killed in Santa Ana
- Santa Ana boy stabbed in upper body
- Two men seriously injured in Santa Ana shooting
Why is there not a massive uprising against Santa Ana Mayor Miguel Pulido and our City Council? No other city in Orange County has as many murders, shootings, etc. Why has the media allowed Pulido and company to escape public scrutiny while so many people are dying?
I suggested several weeks ago that the City of Santa Ana sign up with the Orange County Library system, which allocates libraries according to the population of a member city. Do you think anyone on the Santa Ana City Council took a look at that proposal? Of course not! God forbid we do anything to help our people.
How embarrassing that Medellin now has a lower crime rate than Baltimore, while Santa Ana continues its downward slide!
I also found it interesting that U.S. unions are interfering with plans to open free trade with Columbia – something which would encourage locals to continue to pursue honest business instead of the drug trade.
Here in Santa Ana, our unions are similarly out of control. They forced PLA’s (project labor agreements) in the Santa Ana Unified School District and the Rancho Santiago Community College District. Sure enough, these unfair labor pacts INCREASED costs, slowed down projects and resulted in LESS new and remodeled schools.
The unions also compelled the Santa Ana City Council to stupidly reject any future Super-Size Wal-Marts, and they have similarly turned their backs on many other supermarkets because they are non-union. God forbid that our poor residents have a chance to buy quality supermarket merchandise at a lower price than what you find in the union supermarkets!
I am not anti-union per se, but elected officials need to do what is best for the public, instead of kowtowing to the unions who pad their campaign accounts.
The government officials in Medellin, Columbia get it. Too bad our own people here in Santa Ana don’t. Even the local unions in Columbia are in favor of free trade! Pigs will fly before that EVER happens here in the U.S.
Things won’t change in Santa Ana until the people wake up and realize that their local elected officials have not been serving them…for years and years.
The Mayor of Medellin also had this to say about corrupt local elected officials, “It’s remarkable how much money there is to spend when you don’t keep it for yourself and your friends.”
Wow! He could have said that about the Santa Ana City Council! In fact tomorrow night they will be considering giving the Santa Ana Chamber of Commerce $82,000 dollars of taxpayer money so that they can keep publishing their self-serving propaganda newsletter, the CityLine.
The upcoming bogus Santa Ana City Council term limits measure, which will be on the February ballot, will give us a chance to say “no” to the entrenched power brokers in our city. Voting “no” on that measure will put us on the path to ultimately tossing them out of office. Only then will we be able to start making the kind of changes that have wrought so much improvement in Medellin, Columbia.
That is funny Art,
I have clicked on “SAPD’s Most Wanted” link and to my surprise I have seen total 7 Hispanic faces which equals to 100%.
Based on the Santa Ana racial composition, I would expect to see 80% Hispanic faces and 20% non Hispanic faces.
However, I cannot express this fact because you will consider my discovery racist as you do with Costa Mesa Mayor Monsoor.
What do you want Art?
You can’t have it both ways.
Ohhh.. I forgot, we do not have enough libraries in Santa Ana so these 7 disadvantaged Hispanc had no chace to learn about Shakespeare’s four great tragedies Macbeth, Hamlet, King Lear and Othello.
Will someone please let me know when the crime rate in Santa Ana ever goes back down enough for me to go outside? For now it’s pizza delivered to my door, Netflix, and the internet. I’m scared to death of living in this city but I have no way to get out of here. Socoro!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!