The City of Santa Ana has had a closed culture during the entire reign of City Manager Dave Ream and his little buddy, Santa Ana Mayor Miguel Pulido. Were it not for the Brown Act we would not know a thing about what is going on in our city.
In fact, the Pulido hacks USED to televise only ONE City Council meeting each month. The other one would be held at the police station community room and would not be televised. That was the meeting where they would “git’r done” if you know what I mean.
But then along came Santa Ana activist resident George Collins. A man with a video camera…and a background as a renowned travel documentary filmmaker. Collins decided to start filming the City Council meetings at the police community station. And he put them up on his website.
Sure enough, Pulido and company realized the gig was up and they at last began to hold ALL their Council meetings at City Hall. And they began to televise them all. They even put them on the Internet. But of course there was a catch.
The City of Santa Ana does NOT archive City Council meetings online. Other cities do. Costa Mesa does…and that came in handy during the Benito Acosta trial. And now the Register is reporting that the City of Garden Grove will be streaming their City Council meetings online…and archiving them too.
When will Santa Ana, our County Seat, follow suit? We may have to wait for Ream to retire, pass away, or get fired before that happens! Which of course begs the question…who will replace him? Will it be his longtime babysitter, Jill Arthur? Or the aggressive newcomer, Catherine Standiford? Maybe one of THEM will finally archive our City Council meetings online? It might be a long wait…
UPDATE:
A pajarito just chirped in with an interesting chisme. Apparently Arthur and Standiford are advising Pulido and Ream to move the second City Council meeting each month from Council Chambers to a conference room in the Housing department. That room will only accommodate 40 people and the meeting will NOT be televised. Here we go again…when will these people learn???
Don’t know Jill, but Catherine Standiford would be an incredible mistake! She has been the source of ideas behind some of the stupid policy that has been coming out the 8th floor lately. She’s a fine staffer when she’s not called on to make a decisive decision but god help SA if she ever becomes #1.
If you thought you had it bad with Ream, you will be begging for his return if you go with Standiford.
Art:
You can change all this when you get on the Council by beating Carlos.
Remember, you are the guy who said the filing deadline to run was yesterday even though the race is more than a year away. Way to go, Sherlock.
You’re an idiot – why not just ask in the bog – “Can Santa Ana put their council meetings in an archived format”? Why all the dramatics instead, Peter Pan?
Poster 3,
Why all the dramatics? Because – they’re fun to read! I would hate to bore the folks on the eighth floor!
Poster 2,
Don’t be silly. That was MY deadline. No one materialized, but there are chismes floating around in abundance. Read the story I just put up for the details.
Art,
They will archive the CC meetings right after they start making the crime stats available, to the public online….or sign up to participate in: http://www.occrimecalls.org/
ya, ya….that’s the ticket!
Right along with audits of how the money around here actually gets spent!
Or when we finally get to see how a guy who had a muffler shop, made so much money speculating on real estate that would be redeveloped.
Jill Arthur has a snowball’s chance in hell in replacing Ream. She is hated by most people in the organization and most of the council can’t stand her either. Standiford is more of a crusader – she wants to help the poor latinos that can’t help themselves. A little condescending, but she would be out of her league in trying to manage Santa Ana.
The reason they don’t want the meetings televised is because they want to keep the public in the dark and to silence their opponents. The reason they went to one televised meeting in the past was to shut up Ted Moreno.
They should need to have a council majority to agree upon moving the meeting. Can they get the four votes necessary?
Whenever a controversial topic is to be discussed by the city council, they prefer to schedule those topics on the nights they hold the meeting at the police department. This is common knowledge amongst those at city hall. There have been many items on the agenda that have been pulled and rescheduled to the meeting that will not be televised.
You ask, “When will these people learn?”. They’re too: stupid, mentally-challenged, pendejos, brain-dead, dufusses, dumbasses, etc., take your pick of any of these words to describe Pulido and Ream. So what now, are Jill and Catherine the new political advisors to No Berries Pudrido & Reamer Schemer? What happened to Vince? I saw Jill and Catherine at Borders Bookstore the other day and they were wearing these cute necklaces with a pair of walnut charms attached. I guess those charms used to belong to Pulido & Ream.
The way I see it is that we do not need to televise anything.
For now, I trust Miguel and in the November 2008, I will replace him.
Furthermore, too many fat people on the council and too many fat complainers sends bad message to Mexican children that being fat is cool.
Besides the OJ is doing better job than any TV could.
It is the NUMERO UNO BLOG… No?
-Stan
Don’t forget Anaheim broadcasts and archives their meeting videos online too!
We most definitely shouldn’t forget that the Orange County Board of Supervisors also broadcasts and archives their meeting videos online. Let’s not forget the Board meets in the Orange County Hall of Administration which is ACROSS THE STREET from Santa Ana City Hall and Santa Ana City Council Chambers.