I received an email the other day from a city planner who does not live in Santa Ana. He was not happy about the Santa Ana City Council’s decision to ban hookah bars in our city. He was familiar with the staff report that the City Council relied on. He assessed it this way, “the staff report was full of sloppy fearmongering and hyperbole.”
It turns out that Anaheim regulates its hookah bars – Gustavo Arellano, over at the OC Weekly, just reviewed an Anaheim Hookah bar that sounds like a great place to check out. And Irvine allows them. So why not Santa Ana?
And we are not just talking about hookah bars. I found out recently that Santa Ana also banned tattoo parlors, a long time ago. And they banned massage parlors.
Why is a city run by Democratic Council Members so reactionary? The answer is city manager Dave Ream, a doddering increasingly feeble white Republican from Coto de Caza. He runs Santa Ana with an iron fist. When his staff issues a negative report about something, rest assured it is Ream who is steering the car.
Santa Ana reflects Ream’s values – you would never know that Democrats serve on our City Council. The Council Members all bend knee to him. It really is the tail wagging the dog! Ream works for them, but they answer to him.
Just look at what Ream does to outsiders who get elected. He destroyed Ted Moreno. And he bought off Sal Tinajero by putting him on the Sanitation board (that is a nice cha-ching for Sal’s bank account). I have a feeling he has put the squeeze on Michele Martinez too, as she is no longer interested in running for Mayor, from what I hear.
Ream always gets his way. And that will continue until we get rid of his lapdog, Miguel Pulido, and Pulido’s council allies. That is a Herculean task.
Pulido was a big win for Ream. Imagine Ream’s glee when he found a Mexican immigrant who hates his fellow immigrants? Pulido supported Prop. 187. He appointed a Minuteman to our Library Board. He regularly supports Mexican-hater Rosie Avila for the Santa Ana School Board. And yet when Pulido rode atop a fire engine in the last Fiestas Patrias parade he was roundly applauded by the immigrants at the event. Wherever Ream was, I am sure he was smiling – and maybe even drooling a bit. I’m sure Jill Arthur was there to wipe off the drool…
While other cities in the O.C. thrive, and two of them, Brea and Anaheim, relish their downtowns, Santa Ana continues to lag, as it wallows in Ream’s “vision.” Our only hope is that he will eventually succumb to age and get hauled off in a hearse. But then we will be stuck with Jill Arthur and Catherine Standiford, Ream acolytes ready to continue to ruin our city.
One last word. Our former blogger, Sean Mill, has been foaming at the mouth over at the Liberal OC about Ware Disposal’s continued malfeasance in the Logan neighborhood. But Mill knows that Ware is protected by Ream and Pulido. Ware gave thousands to the Measure D campaign. Does anyone really think that Ware did not buy some protection in the process?
If Mill is serious about taking out Ware, he and his council sponsor, Sal Tinajero, need to aim their guns at Ream – and Pulido. They won’t. The anti-Ware campaign is a smokescreen intended to take our attention away from everything else that Ream is up to. There is nothing we can do about Ware, short of complaining to the EPA. Remember that Pulido, as a board member of the South Coast AQMD, was able to get developer Mike Harrah off the hook when he got caught conducting illegal asbestos abatement related to his One Broadway Plaza project. Surely he and Ream will find a way to keep Ware out of trouble.
The bigger threat, by far, is developer Robert Bisno. He gave even more than Ware did, to Measure D. His proposed 27 story luxury condo tower will be voted on soon by the City Council. But they don’t want us to go after that project, so Mill continues to run interference by bleating about Ware. And Ream reigns over his empire as he smiles and drools. Santa Ana is not just his city. It is Ream, Inc.
I love it when Reeps, supposed lovers of “small government,” work so hard to increase government controls on things they don’t like.
DAVID REAM WAS HIRED FOR HIS CREATIVENESS IN RAISING TAXES,FEES AND OTHER REVENUES. PULIDO IS NOT IN OFFICE BECAUSE OF REAM. RESEARCH THE CAMPAIGN REPORTS AND SEE WHO FINANCED PULIDO’S CAMPAIGNS FOR THE LAST TEN YEARS. YOU WILL FIND CONTRIBUTORS FROM BEVERLY HILLS, CHICAGO, NEW YORK, ETC.
Poster 2,
That is also why they hired Standiford. Already she has found a way to squeeze money out of dog owners, via the ridiculous dog barking ordinance.
There were others who recruited Pulido. But Ream certainly has benefited from having Pulido on the Council. I have no doubt he has helped Pulido find some of that outside money.
The Reamer, even with his stroke diminishing his mental capacities, is still controlling the brown council in Santa Ana. What a bunch of retarded clowncil members. Santa Ana deserves what they elect. Felons, man-hating council women, crybaby space commanders, lawyers who can’t afford a real office and work from home, a mayor who is being investigated by the FBI. What an embarrasment! This is the best the brown people have to offer? No wonder the white devil is in charge.
Leave my man alone. He can’t defend himself. Attack me. I’m in charge.
Art is not a happy person and if he didn’t have Pulido or Ream or Tinajero or Mills to put down then it would be his neighbor, or the mailman or the school principal. We have all met people who are just plain unhappy and spend thier lives taking it out on others. The sad thing is that negative people like Art tend to live shorther lives. It’s not good for your ticker Art. Relax and thing positive thoughts for an hour or two. Hug somebody. Pet a dog. Try yoga. please.
I did hear that during the day, Dave Ream puts on a t-shirt in his office that says “Down with Brown”. He also refuses to eat at any mexican restaurants in the City and only eats at Jack in the Box. If you do look, all of his top officials are white. M. Lawrence, J. Arthur, his secretaries are all white, department heads are white…what’s going on here?
Luckily his business attraction plan to recruit 65 bridal shops to the downtown paid off, as most latinos like to get married, wear multi-colored dresses, and have 6 children each.
Our Council are “Clowns in Brown”. Viva la Raza!
Pedroza, you are also the whitest looking latino I’ve ever seen. Do you really think you represent the brown people?
Poster 7,
You should have seen my dad – he was even whiter. His family lived in Mexico City and Monterey. Apparently they were mainly of Spanish stock with little, if any, natives in their family tree.
My mom’s father, on the other hand, was sired by a Texan rancher and his Comanche wife. She took off and raised my grandfather in Mexico, in Pancho Villa’s camp, where she was a “curandera,” or healer.
My great grandmother is the only native ancestor I can lay claim to.
As for your last question, no I don’t think I am very representative of the majority of Santa Ana’s people. But I think I have more compassion for them than the clowns on the Council do.
Mark Lawrence might be fair skinned but he is a Mexican. One of the few people at city hall I trust.
Art,
I’m glad you have taken aim at Ream in your latest post. He above all, is the biggest impediment to progress in Santa Ana. Ream is one of the longest serving city managers in the County…at over 22 years; that is considered an eternity in local government management, considering the average city manager’s tenure is only 4 years.
How has he held on to his job for so long? It’s his absolute iron grip on city staff and management. He has most folks in city hall fooled that he is the messiah of local government. Every kookie idea, and the insuferable bureaucratic red tape Santa Ana is so well known for is a direct result of Ream’s edict. But Ream’s greatest gift is convincing 7 council members for the past 22 years that his direction is the only direction Santa Ana should move in. He’s got dirt on some of them, others he has been able to cajole and sweet talk. Ream does have an uncanny ability to make politicians feel warm and fuzzy inside, but at the end of the day, has he made Santa Ana a better place? Or has he made Santa Ana a better place for a select few?
Ream is a doddering old man who needs to relinquish the power he has amassed over the past 30 years. He is completely out of touch with the realities our community is faced with and he has outlived his usefullness. If the City Council truly wants to see Santa Ana march proudly into the future, they need to start with a city manager that can inject some youthful exuberance into the job instead of shuffling around the 8th floor like an alzheimers patient. I wish the city council would finally send the old man out to pasture and get serious about improving the lives of our neighbors.
Too bad all of Santa Ana’s City Council members are a bunch of weak jackasses who will not do anything to rock the boat and remove this fossil!
Have you looked at what the city council has to do to fire the city manager? Go read the actual text in the city codes, it’s unreal.
Who on earth passed a contract like that? They sure a hadies weren’t thinking of the tax payers!
Next time Ream’s contract is due to expire, the Clowncil should let it happen. His mind is already beginning to expire. It’s too bad he had a stroke, but really people, is Ream mentally competent to handle the City Manager job?
Art, you sound desperate! You are not only flogging council members, but city staff, local businesses, and your own diva, Michele. You want so badly to find some evil conspiracy that you will take on anyone that opposes your own wishes. You are are all over the map. No one can get credence unless they focus on an issue. You sound more and more like someone who is losing it, and is clutching at any and all straws to remain solvent in your arguments. It’s getting sad.