I am flying to Chicago on Sunday, as I will be speaking at the National Safety Council’s 2007 Safety Congress. So I am posting our Week in Review a day early (it normally appears here on Sundays).
The week started on a down note, as Rancho Santiago Community College District Trustee Al Amezcua’s mother passed away. Sean Mill eloquently expressed our condolences.
Our Santa Ana coverage was, as usual, extensive. We began the week with a look at a police shooting that appeared to needlessly endanger the public.
Next, Sean Mill struck again with a biting post about Santa Ana City Manager Dave Ream and his right hand, City Attorney Joe Fletcher.
Mill then explored “Does the Orange Juice Give Sal and Michele a Free Pass?” – and our readers responded with 23 comments.
The new Santa Ana Business Bank was also scrutinized this week. I asked the question “Does the Santa Ana Business Bank really want to “service the Hispanic community?” Then I attended a meeting of the South Santa Ana Merchant’s Association where the topic of the night was in fact…you guessed it, the Santa Ana Business Bank (SABB). And Carlos “Space Commander” Bustamante, a SABB Board Member, spoke about SABB. The results were memorable, to say the least.
But we weren’t quite done with SABB yet! A pajarito told us about an upcoming SABB Business Mixer, and we revealed that Santa Ana Mayor Miguel Pulido’s “friend”, Kris Kakkar, bought up many of the properties that eventually became the new Heroes Elementary School, driving up the cost of said land. And of course Heroes ended up $9 million over budget.
Speaking of land issues, Thomas Gordon wrote about the groundbreaking at the new Court of Appeals in Santa Ana…and he questioned whether or not it represents “leadership” on the part of Santa Ana Mayor Miguel Pulido.
Sean Mill struck again with “Chepa’s Park Update – Thank you Michele Martinez and City Staff.” Mill must have hit a sore spot, as the Usual Suspects jumped on his case…leading to 34 comments, which included contributions from Glen Stroud and Tish Leon.
Mill also wrote about a new development in the investigation of the murder of Alex Odeh, an Arab-American civil rights leader who was murdered in Santa Ana, many years ago. Incidentally, Larry Gilbert later wrote about the continued push for a Palestinian State.
We also reviewed the water crisis that is now looming in Orange County…and the curious way that Santa Ana city leaders are ignoring the problem. And Thomas Gordon found an O.C. Register article about how the City of Santa Ana has failed to keep vacant properties secure.
Later in the week I wrote about how Santa Ana City administrators are trying to take away our right to view all the City Council meetings.
And we closed out the week of Santa Ana coverage with an update on the candidates looking to run for Ward 3…against Carlos “Space Commander” Bustamante, and Sean Mill asked a few questions about vendor trucks and Bodegas.
But we didn’t just cover Santa Ana this week! Our newest blogger, former Costa Mesa Mayor Sandra Genis, made quite a splash with “When Beta Males Collide,” which took both Benito Acosta and Costa Mesa Mayor Allan Mansoor to task for their “embarrassing display.”
“Little Saigon Insider” popped up with a look at the Tran cabal and its unending hatred for O.C. Supervisor Janet Nguyen. And Aria Ghafari visited the sad story of the impending end of Irvine’s Wild Rivers.
Larry Gilbert wrote about “A section of Mission Viejo country club may soon be sold” and he also questioned the City of Mission Viejo’s massive proposed spending on a million dollar dog park. Gilbert also visited the grand opening of Mission Viejo’s new $437,000 outhouse.
And we also wrote about some of the emerging issues of the day. Larry Gilbert compared California property rights with China’s new property right law. Thomas Gordon pondered making smoking illegal…in your own apartment.
And Claudio Gallegos and I both wrote about the ongoing developments in the case of Monsignor John Urell – as his political buddies, led by RSCCD Board Chairman John Hanna and Red County/OC Blog Editor Matt Cunningham sided with the guy who covered up for molesters.
Claudio had some advice for Urell. And he wrote about the battle between Matt Cunningham, who defends Urell, and John Manly, who goes after the molesters people like Urell covered up for.
(As an aside, don’t forget to check out the latest scoop on the ridiculous “Friends of Urell” over at the OC Weekly’s Navelgazing Blog. Gustavo Arellano found out that they posted an unredacted version of Urell’s deposition…which included the names of victims who did not consent to have their names outed!)
And finally, Aria Ghafari wrote about efforts in the U.S. Congress to pass a resolution regarding the Armenian genocide. And Claudio Gallegos told us about Al Gore’s new Nobel Peace Prize.
We had a lot of other great posts this week, so take some time and scroll through this week’s posts. But if you are pressed for time, rest assured that you can depend on our weekend Week in Review to recap the weekly highlights here at the award-winning Orange Juice!
…as I will be speaking at the National Safety Council’s 2007 Safety Congress.
I’m so impressed! Will you be “adressing” the general session and all those multitude of NSC members?
Oh wait, here it is: Art’s the sole panelist on a panel on “Dealing with Infectious Diseases.”
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It’s this Tuesday afternoon and sounds scintillating! Do you think I have time to make a plane reservation and catch it?
Will Art deal with how to deal with infectious egomaniacitis? Or how to avoid contact with scurrilous rumor-mongers? Or the best way to treat an outbreak of blogitis mentirosas?
The week started on a down note, as Rancho Santiago Community College District Trustee Al Amezcua’s mother passed away. Sean Mill eloquently expressed our condolences.
So, any bets on how long Art will wait before Art’s stops shedding crocodile tears and resumes trashing Al Amezcua as a crappy dad and lousy human being?
Poster 2,
I never said those things about Al. In fact those exact words were not used by anyone, not even the commenters, who included his ex-wife.
Poster 1,
It is an honor to speak at the National Safety Council’s Safety Congress. I am making a technical presentation, not, as you noted, the keynote.
However, last year I was the lunch keynote speaker at a Joint Technical Symposium in Orange County, for the ASSE (American Society of Safety Engineers) and the AIHA (American Industrial Hygiene Association). So yes, I have had experience as a keynote speaker.
You must understand, blogging is something I do in my spare time. It is not my career. I am a safety professional. You may not respect me as a blogger, or as an activist, but that does not give you the right to belittle my profession, or my professional reputation.
Boo-hoo, Art. You belittle other people’s professions and reputations practically everyday, so put away the Kleenex.
Your a panelist. One of dozens and dozens. That may be an honor, but don’t inlfate it into “I’m speaking at the National Safety Council’s Safety Congress” in order to make readers think its much bigger than it is.
As for Al Amezcua, your parsing here. In your “Who Is Al Amezcua?” post you called him a hack, part of the greedy old guard and claimed innocent people are in jail because of his representation.
And now you shed crocodile tears because of him Mom dying. What happened? Too much blowback from your Democrat pals? You don’t want to lose them, cuz then you wouldn’t have any friends left.
Oh I forgot to post the link so readers can compare your dishonest parsing with your personal attacks on Amezcua:
http://www.theorangejuice.com/2007/09/who-is-al-amezcua.html
And no one’s belittling your profession, Art. Just you and your enormous ego.
And I notice your traffic is back down to normal. I guess all those people who read the LAT and AP articles actually read your rants once and haven’t come back. Hope you enjoyed your 15 minutes while they lasted!
Art,
This anonymous guy is realy upset.He is gong to have a heart attack if he doesn’t calm down.He is in 100% attack mode with nothing to say except show his anger towards you.Keep up the good work.
Art,
Thank you. He is wrong at any rate. We had a great week this week. Weekend blog traffic is always lighter. In fact one of our local competitors generally only puts up one post on Sundays.
I am encouraged by the increase in our readership. Everywhere I go in Santa Ana, people acknowledge this blog, and the changes we are helping to bring about.
You and other stalwarts, like John Acosta and John Palacio, now have help in our mutual efforts to bring change to Santa Ana. And we are not going away anytime soon!
These angry people that detest us fail to admit that they are amongst our most avid readers! That is the irony of it all…
It’s the Art and Art show!
Lomeli is like your own personal Igor:
art lomeli: You’re a genius, master! A genius!
Art Pedroza: That’s true, Art, It’s a shame the ignorant villagers don’t appreciate my genius.
BTW, ART, I look at your Sitemeter for the last 30 days. It shows you WEEKDAY traffic being about the same as it was before those articles. Your always bragging about yoru readership going up, but that Sitemeter you have here never backs that up.
#9,
Who’s “Igor” are you?The nature of you commentary reveals the fact that you have a master,who are they?
I am sure Art P. appreciates your posts in any case because you help his sitemeter readings that you like checking.Thanks for the help.