Yes we CAN have open government in Santa Ana!

Tonight’s Santa Ana City Council meeting is the second of the month – usually the second meetings are held offsite, at the Police Station’s community room, and are not televised. But here we are in election season again and sure enough tonight’s meeting has returned, like the proverbial swallow, to the Council Chambers. What’s up with that?

Clearly the members of the Santa Ana City Council and our erstwhile Mayor, Miguel Pulido, want more face time with the voters so now suddenly all the Council meetings are back at City Hall and back on T.V. The strategy may backfire however as the City Council is set to vote tonight on greatly expanding public employee benefits – just in time for the public employee unions to donate to Pulido and his chosen candidates and to walk precincts for them.

The obvious question is why aren’t all the City Council meetings televised – and more importantly in this Age of the Internet, why isn’t the resulting video footage made available on the City’s website? Clearly someone doesn’t want you to know what is going on.

That someone is Santa Ana City Manager Dave Ream. He hearkens back to a simpler time, when City Councils and City administrations could do as they pleased – before the Brown Act forced them to make their meetings public. Today Santa Ana is the largest West Coast city without a PIO – public information officer. Hmmm, I wonder why?

It is beyond time to put aside such ridiculous tendencies and open up City Hall to the residents of Santa Ana. Here’s how we can make our local government in Santa Ana more open and transparent, for the betterment of our people and our City:

  • ALL our City Council meetings should be televised and they should all be held at Council Chambers.
  • All of our City Council meeting video footage should not only be streamed live online but also archived online for future viewing. Our neighbors in Garden Grove and Costa Mesa already do this!
  • All of our City Commission meetings should be moved to the evenings so members of the public may attend. And these meetings should also be videotaped, streamed and archived. Again, this is already happening in our neighboring cities.
  • Santa Ana residents and businesspeople ought to be able to sign up online at our City website to receive all manner of City announcements regarding events, meetings, etc. And they ought to be able to sign up to receive meeting agendas and minutes too!
  • Let’s also make it easier for residents to comment on City business – we ought to be able to email our comments regarding specific City Council agenda items to the City Clerk and have them presented to the City Council and added to the Council minutes. Many folks in our City are unable to attend meetings – but this way they could still add their two cent’s to the mix. Everyone deserves to be heard!

Santa Ana’s City government belongs to the people, not to Ream and his bureaucrats. It’s past time to put the people back at City Hall. In the stirring words of President Ronald Reagan, Mr. Ream – Tear down that Wall!

About Admin

"Admin" is just editors Vern Nelson, Greg Diamond, or Ryan Cantor sharing something that they mostly didn't write themselves, but think you should see. Before December 2010, "Admin" may have been former blog owner Art Pedroza.