Several months ago….we were traveling to the County offices
in Santa Ana and as we stopped by the Bush Street Post Office
we had passed about six power poles with several sets of tennis
shoes over the lines. We later found out that these were “sign”
of either drug activity or gang members intimidating non gang
members in the various neighborhoods.
We wrote a letter to Mayor Pulido and were surprised and rather
honored that he had responded to our concerns. He was even kind
enough to pass our concerned communication off to others in his
City government. A few months later we returned to the same
neighborhoods and found that the tennis shoe problem had been
abated and we could only find one set of tennis shoes in evidence.
This brought to our attention how personal conduct does very much
influence both property values and the safety of our neighborhoods.
Here in Newport Beach we have been stumping for “Underground
Utilities” since 1994. We brought it to the attention of the many
NB Gatekeepers since back in 1986! Along the way, a few developer
generated Council Members pushed the issue and got several areas
of Newport Beach into what they call Improvement Districts…which
set up the methodology to collect the money from the various home
owners that wanted to improve their property and get So. Cal Edison
to dig up the ground and replace infrastructure and get those ugly
telephone poles and power lines – under ground where they belong.
We are guessing that property values increase by approximately
$30 to $60 thousand dollars based on the surrounding comps!
So, why is it so difficult to “Underground Utilities” in older
neighborhoods? If any community needs “Underground Utilities”
in Orange County it is Santa Ana! Let’s face it…the Rental
Prices are still astronomical, whether you live in Santa Ana,
Costa Mesa, Huntington Beach or Newport Beach! Everyone is so
desperately afraid to improve their property because the County
Assessor may be standing their as they finish adding on that
new hot tub or add a garage door. As they say in the trade..
they are stepping on ants while the elephants are getting away.
Raising property values should be a mandate by any City
Government that wants to leave their neighborhoods better off
than they found them. No more tennis shoes over power or
telephone lines please!
So. Cal Edison offers a yearly fund for each community that
offers a free underground grant program. The problem has been
that most cities do not target or prioritize where this effort
should be targeted. By seeking sub set communities that do
want to create Improvement Districts to Underground they can
add the So. Cal Edison grant money to the mix. So. Cal Edison
is in no hurry to use that dedicated Grant Money, so they do
not get upset if city officials are lazy and don’t catch on to
the program.
We believe that law abiding residential areas of any city can
truly benefit from “Underground Utilities”. In fact, all “iffy”
crime associated areas can benefit greatly. Planned Communities
such as Irvine, Lake Forest and Mission Viejo…have all been
beneficiaries of the Irvine Company and their built-in “Underground
Utilities” and power stations!
We encourage our fellow bloggers here on the OC Juice to ply their
various abilities toward directing Mayor Pulido and the Santa Ana
bureaucracy Staff Members….to target this important issue and
design that five-year plan to greatly improve neighborhoods that
can benefit both in property values and reduction in crime stats!
Check out the shoes on the power lines on Parten next to Willard! (Maybe it’s Garnsey) Must be 15 pairs of white tennis shoes. I heard that if you see the shoes and when you are driving at night and a gang member flashes his lights at you it means they are going to shoot you in a drive by!:)
this article and the response #1 are urban myths. you are perpetuating a stereotype about communities you don’t know anything about.
http://urbanlegends.about.com/cs/factoids/a/sneakers.htm
Police: ‘This is another kind of urban myth’
More recently, an Associated Press story out of Tucson hoisted up the conventional wisdom that dangling sneakers are an emblem of gang activity and knocked it down with a quote from the police: “This is another kind of urban myth,” a spokesman said. Like law enforcement officials everywhere else, Tucson police have found no correlation between dangling sneakers and crime.
Doesn’t everyone check these things out on Snopes.com?
http://www.snopes.com/crime/gangs/sneakers.asp
OK that one might be false but that rummor that Illinois senator Barack Obama is a “radical, ideological Muslim.”…is TOTALLY true!!!
Come on, everyone knows that gang bangers and drug dealers spend hundreds of dollars of their hard earned cash on expensive Air Jordans, among other fancy varieties of “Athletic” shoes.
Who told them these shoes were “Gang Sign” and how could they tell?
gang or not, end the debate; subterranean the utility easements! Maybe residents will get fiber optics in the process instead of crummy copper from the incumbent exchange carrier. Or the cable franchise can be granted to another cable provider in the process! Maybe a metropolitan broadband solution for all residents coupled with a SAUSD home technology grant for low income households?
Hey RAW,
Perhaps if we(SA residents) were all rich white folk from Newport Beach like yourselves, we might actually get a response or comment from The Mayor.
Until pigs fly and chickens develop lips, I won’t be holding my breath for a response from The Mayor.
He seems to be “dollar deaf”. If your net worth is not over $1,000,000 Miguelito can’t hear you.
Oh, we get it….these Tennis Shoe
Myths only apply in Santa Ana…not
anywhere else. Like Costa Mesa,
Huntington Beach or Compton! Probably just idle Junior High School kids acting up..we suppose?
Call your local PD on the non
emergency line of course….and
ask the question rather than relying on your own “urban heft
of knowledge”!