City Council members adopted a balanced, $228.9 million 2016-17 fiscal year budget on Tuesday with only one tweak – dedicating projected surplus funds to hiring more police officers, according to the O.C. Register.
The City Council voted to spend an extra $1.5 million and $2 million from the current fiscal year on more cops. Except for one Council Member – Roman Reyna.
You might recall that when Reyna ran for Mayor a couple years ago we came across a picture of him posing with active members of the Mexican Mafia. The SAPD police association asked Reyna to explain himself and he never did. They ended up sending mailers against his campaign and he ended up losing badly to the incumbent, Mayor Miguel Pulido.
Reyna’s brother died in prison. Reyna himself was once shot and wounded, when he was younger, while at a park.
Reyna told the Register that “recent violence is fallout from cuts to nonprofits and community programs.” He also said that “I definitely think there should be a balance of not only enforcement, but of opportunities for young people, keeping them engaged in activities.”
Reyna’s comments come at a time when the City of Santa Ana embroiled in a vicious gang war. The question we have to ponder is if he is too close to the gang members? Where do his sympathies lie?
Reyna is up for re-election this November. I am told that both the local police association and the firefighter’s union are going to oppose his re-election.
If you ask most residents of our city they will tell you that we need more police officers. Response time by the SAPD is awful. We just don’t have enough cops. As such Reyna’s position on the issue is ridiculous. I can’t imagine why anyone would vote for him again.
There are plenty of non-profits doing well in our city. The local school district is also doing a lot for our kids – even offering to feed all of them, for free, this summer. What we need more of in this city is police officers – and we need to bring back our gang strike force – that Reyna and his colleagues stupidly voted to disband.
We also should be looking at replacing SAPD Police Chief Carlos Rojas with someone else with more experience, who will lead the fight against our gangs and take back our streets for the families of Santa Ana.
Mr. Reyna is right about creating preventive programs so the youth do not fall in the hands of the gangs but at the same time there is a balance. A combination of more police officers with community programs to maintain our youth occupied. When we have a city that has a drop out rate of 40% from high school there is definitely a problem that is not being addressed.
Yes, the problem would be called “parenting.”
Lies…all lies…political witch hunt. If they were ACTIVE EME or even members they would not be taking pictures and posting them on social media.
So why didn’t Reyna respond that way when the police association asked him about the picture?
Because no matter what Mr. Reyna says, he will be pinned with ‘gang affiliation.’ People want him to say something just so that they can be angry at him some more. They don’t care what the reasoning is because they’ve already secured their views on him.
Oh now.
The way I see things here is that “GANGS” are more dangerous to our community than (RAPIST AND CHILD MOLESTERS ) . As sad as it sounds it’s true. This cops all they do is beat up little kids.
I wonder if Roman Reyna AKA EME Cholo Council tried to intimidate the editor for revealing his true character?
We don’t need more money allocated toward policing. We need money for education programs so that our youths don’t go down the wrong path. We can’t have everything so I’d rather spend our money on something that helps the long term rather than the more temporary solution of hiring officers who stop crime. Think about how much crime goes unreported, and how for every arrest there are like 5 more. The reason why they keep coming is because kids are constantly being pushed into gangs, so they need education. They don’t need to feel like they’re doing something wrong all the time by pushing officers on every street corner.
Perhaps there would be more money for youth programs if Reyna did not vote to first overpay our City Manager then give him and his top executives a huge bonus.