A new website of people who are against finishing the Santiago Creek bike trail, called the “Save Santiago Creek Alliance,” is purporting to represent resident’s of Santa Ana’s Casa de Santiago, Fisher Park, Floral Park, Morrison Park, Riverview, and West Floral Park neighborhoods – but not one name appears anywhere on the website. It is completely anonymous.
I did get an email today from a fellow named Ronald E Salem. He claims to be the “interim director” of this mysterious anonymous organization, but his name is not to be found on their website. I did find his Facebook page. This guy is definitely part of the 1%. His profile picture (see above) shows him piloting a yacht. Nice. He appears to be a psychologist with a family counseling practice based in Glendora.
It is terribly dishonest for these people to use the word “Alliance” in their name, given that the major proponents of finishing the Santiago Creek bike trail are the Santiago Creek Greenway Alliance.
The mess Salem and his pals have allowed to happen in the Fisher Park portion of Santiago Creek
Salem and his pals are clearly trying to confuse Santa Ana residents. The subterfuge serves to undermine their message as we clearly cannot trust them, and they utterly lack transparency given their anonymous nature. I believe these people are elitists – they don’t want the trail to be finished because they want to keep the people of Santa Ana out of their neighborhood, but the reality is that this strategy has backfired. Today their portion of the Santiago Creek is replete with graffiti. It is a scary place to go – but that could change if we ever finish the bike trail.
Their website claims that finishing the Santiago Creek bike trail will destroy the environment – never mind that the finished trail in Santiago Park is part of a Nature Reserve. The claims of course are lies – the Greenway Alliance is all about nature and I have not met anyone in that organization who wants to destroy plants or trees.
Salem’s group also shows pictures of stretches of the current bike trail in Orange that don’t have much in the way of trees – but those areas never did! Again, these people are resorting to blatant lies and are doing so behind a veil of anonymity. They are cowards.
And check out the Greenway Alliance’s Mission Statement:
Greenway (gren’ -wa) n. 1. A linear open space established along either a natural corridor, such as a riverfront, stream valley, or ridgeline, or overland along a railroad right-of-way converted to recreational use, a canal, a scenic road, or other route. 2. Any natural or landscaped course for pedestrian or bicycle passage. 3. An open-space connector linking parks, nature reserves, cultural features, or historic sites with each other and with populated areas. 4. Locally certain strip or linear parks designated as a parkway or greenbelt.
To create a greenway along the entire length of Santiago Creek and to preserve, restore, and enhance its ecological, scenic, historical and recreational resource.
You can quickly see who is involved in the Santiago Creek Greenway Alliance by visiting their Facebook page. Again, not so with Salem’s group.
Salem says that he and his anonymous allies are going to be turning in signed petitions and letters from their neighborhoods to since “23 politicos in Orange County” indicating that they “are ardently against the construction of a bike trail down the Santiago Creek.”
Good luck with that Salem. I was at the Santiago Creek Greenway Alliance holiday dinner – and I saw with my own eyes the depth of political support they have. Orange County Sheriff Sandra Hutchens was their speaker. O.C. Supervisor Bill Campbell was there as was Orange Mayor Carolyn Cavecche and her fellow Council Members Fred Whitaker and Denis Bilodeau, who is also the Chief of Staff to O.C. Supervisor Shawn Nelson. There were a lot of other current and retired elected officials there too, as well as City Commissioners.
Santiago Creek Greeway Alliance board member Shirley Grindle, a very well known Orange County political activist, is also a friend of Santa Ana Mayor Miguel Pulido. I cannot imagine that the Santa Ana City Council majority will allow Salem and his fellow elitists to prevail. Wake up Salem – the days of the Usual Suspects controlling this city are long gone!
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The byline says "The 1% source for news..." and you rail against the 1% in this editorial! That is rich! (no pun intended).
Clean your glasses. It says #1.
I understand that opponents to completing the Santiago Creek bike trail to the Santa Ana River trail are implying that the trail between Flower St and the Santa Ana River would be along the creek. That is not the planned route due to the constraints of the creek just west of Flower and the existence of the golf course. Instead, the Santiago Creek Greenway Alliance is supporting the trail on Flower to Memory Lane and thence to the river, a portion of this trail has already been striped on Memory Lane (by the city of Santa Ana; striping is soon to follow on Flower St).
To see the official Santiago Creek Greenway Alliance map showing the planned bicycle route, go to http://www.santiagogreenway.org. To reiterate: THERE IS NO TRAIL PLANNED IN THE CREEK OR ON ITS BANKS FROM FLOWER STREET TO THE SANTA ANA RIVER.
I understand that the part that needs to be completed is from essentially Main Place to Jack Fisher park. Perhaps someone can explain to me :
1. Is the area that needs to be completed on private property?
2. Will trees need to be cut down in order to accomplish the proposal?
3. Since a greenway does not necessarily mean a paved path, is the goal a bike path or just a greenway?
4. Why not go along the creek all the way to the SA River instead of the bike paths along Flower and Memory?
The "inclusive needs of the many" to be connected as communities outweighs the "exclusive desires of a priviged few" to create a wedge/divide between the communities and keep this section of the creek private to themselves.
The City owns a 15 ft wide section of the creek between the 5 and Flower. The rest of the creek in this section is owned by the homeowners who were able to get the city to sell them parcels years ago. We do not need to go any further as their is an awesome Class 2 Bikepath on Memory to Bristol. Plus, the section in West Floral Park is very narrow which is not the case in Floral Park and Jack Fisher Park.
Orange just opened up their new section in December which creates a 8+ mile trail which everyone is enjoying. Lets finish this last 0.25 mile section and connect our neighboorhoods together for now and future generations to enjoy.
“Save Santiago Creek Alliance,” People were at the council meeting tonight and had some words to say.
The only thing of importance was that they would come up with a alternative to having the trail go from the 5 freeway to Fisher park along the creek.
Alternatives proposed in the past was for Bicyclists and Hikers to travel around Main Place Mall over LaVeta/Bristol which is 2 miles instead of 0.25 miles with Fwy On Ramps and Off Ramps and lots of traffic.
The other alternative was to travel over Broadway over the 5 Fwy which has Fwy Off Ramps (high speed exiting) and travel against traffic on Santa Clara which is narrow.
Neither alternative is safe,courtesous, or efficent.
According to the OCTA, Santa Ana reported 600 Bicyclist accidents in the last reporting period. There has also been Pedestrian accidents. Lets have families be safe and healthy. Is 0.25 miles too much to ask for the greater good?
I love biking and hiking...although, I also love private property rights more.
Mark, thanks for the info. Perhaps you can provide info on whether any trees would need to be cut down for the bike path (sounds like it must be paved??). I also love trees, so that seems important to me also.
I am struggling what the ultimate goal of the path is. If it is for nature, seems like paving and cutting trees is opposite that. If it is to make it easier to travel, from Bristol to Main Place area...well, again I don't know that it is worth the trees and private property. Maybe it is to connect to the SA River trail, but that really does not seem like much of a "greenway" more of a concrete way from what I have seen (granted...I have not riden the entire path). Additionally, the memory bike lane puts us right in the area of dealing with the Bristol traffic which is pretty dangerous in of itself.
I guess for me, a local SA resident in that area, I love seeing the trees in the creek area. I can walk up and down it like I was truly in nature...some grafiti and trash everyone once in a while of which a trashbag helps.
I am torn, but I think that individual property rights have to come into play at some point.
Some of the trees have become overgrown and there are limbs that protude into the current dirt path.
Hi TJlocalSA,
There are portions that are overgrown with fallen limbs and trunks lying across the unofficial path and some rocky section. If the homeowners allowed the current path which does run on portions of their undeveloped/unmaintained creek bed/bank parcels to be improved there would be minimal removal of plants. If not, then the City Owned 15 ft wide portion is where a new safe official trail would be created which would require the removal of some trees. Plus, some homeowners have extended their backyard fences over/beyond the city owned portion so they would need to move their fences back.
Either option is better than requring downstream and upstream neighboors to travel via the busy surface streets on bicyle or foot. I think the life of a child or parent outwieghs the life of a few trees. The majority of the greenway would still remain.
Admin- I am sure that you can agree that there is a pretty large difference between trimming of trees and removing them altogether. However, a purist would say that no tree is "overgrown" because it will just grow according to its environment. Overgrown is in the eye of the beholder...
Until a poor pedestrian or a bike rider breaks his head open on a limb. Since some of the home owners claim their property extends to the dirt path, they own the liability...
Private property rights come with the rights and burdens of ownership...take care of your stuff or bear the consequences. Since you indicate that they "claim" that their property extends to a certain point, is there actually a question of the property line? Is it defined somewhere?
Mark- Thank you for the info. I will have to go walk it again this weekend as it has been a while. I am having a hard time imagining how a 15 foot wide path would come into play. If it is the 15 foot in the middle, is it destroying the stream bed? Where will the water go when it comes? I am confused, but it is late, so maybe that is to be expected. Home owners should not be building on property that is not there own obviously so they should move their improvements back.