For whatever reason Councilman Vince Sarmiento, a lawyer whose family owns and operates a number of somewhat seedy bars in the area, has submitted a proposal to the Santa Ana City Council to essentially use public funds to provide legal counsel to undocumented immigrants, as an 85B item:
85B. DIRECT STAFF, IN CONSULTATION WITH THE CITY ATTORNEYS’ OFFICE, TO COLLABORATE WITH STATE AND COUNTY GOVERNMENTS, AS WELL AS LEGAL SERVICE PROVIDERS, PRIVATE STAKEHOLDERS, INCLUDING ORGANIZATIONS SUCH AS RESILIENCE OC AND ORANGE COUNTY IMMIGRANT YOUTH UNITED, TO PREPARE TO LAUNCH A COORDINATED INITIATIVE TO PROVIDE ACCESS TO LEGAL REPRESENTATION TO SANTA ANA RESIDENTS CURRENTLY AT RISK OF REMOVAL AND WHO CANNOT AFFORD AN ATTORNEY AND FURTHER INSTRUCT STAFF TO PROVIDE AN ANALYSIS OF ALL LEGAL, FISCAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL ISSUES PRESENTED, AND REPORT BACK TO CITY COUNCIL WITH RECOMMENDATIONS – Councilmember Sarmiento
Sarmiento must think he is getting paid by the word? Aside from his inability to be brief I am not sure that it is fiscally sound to spend taxpayer money in this fashion. There are already plenty of legal non-profits and the ACLU that already help the undocumented.
One has to wonder if Sarmiento and his family are employing undocumented workers at their bars?
This proposal will be considered at the Santa Ana City Council meeting on Feb. 21, 2017.
Mr Sarmiento and his family’s businesses obviously benefit from the undocumented people. He was elected by US citizens so that he may serve their interests and not the interests of the undocumented. What is he doing about the rising crime in Santa Ana, the awful education system in the Santa Ana Unified District? The focus on the Santa Ana mayor and all council members should be on resolving the latter two for the benefit of legal and US citizens of Santa Ana.
Remember when you asked about suggestions on how to fix problems on our city and I said the first thing to do is not post hyperbolic posts? This is one of them.
…Not sure I can say that your posts are to improve Santa Ana but more so aimed at trying to improve what your vision of Santa Ana ought to be.
This is a pretty cut and dry issue. We don’t feel public funds should be used this way. And we feel Sarmiento may have a conflict of interest.
The top issue in our city is CRIME. The rest of this stuff is mostly nonsense and political posturing.
It’s not the issue it’s the wording. Look I’m not defending him in fact I didn’t even vote for him last round and I typically lean left.
What I am saying is this: you can’t expect people to be reasonable if you don’t act reasonably. Regardless of the issue your wording is hyperbolic and that is the problem. If all we do is argue, all we will do is argue.
I don’t expect this blog to change but I sure wish the news reporting wasn’t so hyperbolic.
Let’s just say that there is a whole lot I could say about Sarmiento that you would just not believe. He is unbelievably corrupt. We are very disappointed that he was reelected.
Disgusting! But did anyone expect him to do right by the people who voted him into office. What a brazenly arrorgent slap in the face of legal U.S. citizen’s..
We have roads that need help, homeless population is getting out of control, and gangs are major threat to the public with many shootings since last year but our ilegal imigrantes come before safety, and education but go right ahead please spend my tax paying dollars on people who have never paid any and while their kids get free education from our tax money and by the way sucks I can’t even walk to the mail box without almost going at it with the local gang garbage I hope you stop using our tax money and use your money out of pocket or is Mr. Sarmiento doing this to skeem off the top but we will soon find out like all the others in charge in Santa Ana that took some $ of the top
Don’t they get enough taxpayer money already, in federal benefits like SNAP food benefits, Welfare, free healthcare, education. The activist say they cannot get Gov. benefits, but they do because they obtain false documentation like false Soc. Sec. numbers and other stolen i.d. Info. Then the activist say they pay taxes, but many claim a false number of dependents, as well as including family member as dependents in other countries which is illegal. They work the system and receive help to do so by activist groups that don’t care they are receiving benefits illegally.
How many undocumented people do you know our of curiosity?
Vince Sarmiento is very nakedly transparent about his need for money. This public comment sent in regarding tonight’s approval of almost $9 million for former planning commissioner Mario Turner’s boondoggle of an affordable housing project on First st details his efforts to get Mario a $2 million developer fee payday. Unbelievable. Why doesn’t the City make developers compete for this funding? Hopefully the new City Council majority rejects this scheme
“Hello,
What a long strange trip it has been for the City’s efforts to fund the AMCAL Affordable Housing development at 1440 E. First St.
But before I give the history to the new Council members, let me just say that after 2 + years of dragging this tired carcass across
the finish line, the most professional thing the City could do would be to take the Inclusionary Funds, and the Successor Agency funds,
and issue a Request For Proposal (RFP) so that the City can get the best deal possible. $8.7 million for just 69 affordable units is irresponsible.
But first the history for the new Council members. This project originally came to the City’s attention at the end of 2014/beginning of 2015.
At the same time, at the January 27th FedTech Council Committee meeting, new Community Development Agency Executive Director Kelly
Reenders and new Housing Division Manager Sidney Stone received approval by the Council committee members to implementa process to RFP
the City’s new Inclusionary Funds to interested affordable developers. The new employees came from more professional agencies and were
used to negotiating with firms to get the best deals for taxpayers.
But Vince Sarmiento really did not want that. He wanted his former Planning Commissioner buddy Mario Turner to get a $2 million developer
fee payday. So in spite of the FedTech decision to institute an RFP process for Inclusionary Housing Funds, behind the scenes he ordered staff to
give the money to AMCAL. He strong armed Kelly in his office, after a Council Meeting, and on a Saturday after a Chamber evening function.
When staff attempted negotiating with AMCAL, AMCAL ignored staff and complained to Sarmiento. When Mr. Stone correctly observed in a
meeting that AMCAL had hijacked the system, after just 90 days in his position he was shown the door by Sarmiento and his lackey City Manager.
At the time, David was not going to upset his $500,000 a year payday especially since he was sleeping with employees. Kelly Reenders left a few months
later for the saner city of Dana Point.
However, since Sarmiento is not exactly the brightest tool in the shed, all of this came out on Social Media, particularly through the Orange Juice blog.
Since there were Federal Vouchers involved at the time, and not wanting to risk a Federal whistleblower lawsuit, the City backtracked and issued
an RFP which another developer, Meta Housing, ended up winning for a more needed artist development downtown.
But Sarmiento was not done yet trying to get his boy that $2 million developer fee payday. He helped lead the approval for the
massive Heritage Village housing development off of Dyer – underneath the John wayne flight path and against the Airport Board’s opposition – with the condition the Inclusionary Funds be given to AMCAL. Again, no RFP. No surprise either since they couldn’t compete successfully in 2015.
But Sarmiento does change with the winds. And he helped, not surprisingly, to get the Heritage Village developer to only pay the Inclusionary Funds in
installments. This put the AMCAL development in jeopardy but now the City is attempting to use Successor Agency funds to make sure
former Planning Commissioner Mario Turner finally gets his $2 million payday. And it only takes $8.7 million of City funds in order to do that.
So what is Sarmiento and Mario Turner afraid of? Why do they not want to see this project compete against other affordable housing projects? Why
does the City not want to get the best deal possible, leverage as much of this money as possible, maybe even pay a non profit a lower developer fee to
create more units? AMCAL is a for profit, why are they the beneficiary of a no compete $8.7 million? Well, Turner and Sarmiento were both on the planning commision together 😉 The other reason could be that if AMCAL had just worked with staff, if AMCAL hadn’t got an employee fired, if AMCAL had just
played by the rules, none of this would have come to light via the Orange Juice blog and AMCAL would have gotten City money plus vouchers in 2015.
Karma does have a way of biting back.
So what should the City do? It is already acknowledged as one of the most corrupt, if not the most corrupt, City in Orange County.
Situations like this, that force talented employees like Mrs. Reenders and Mr. Stone to leave their positions, further devalue the City
and cause talented employees to never consider working there unless you overpay them to the tune of $500,000 a year.
Also, think of the current Housing Division Manager Judson Brown, how scared is he of doing anything that upsets the Council?
Do you think he is negotiating a good deal with AMCAL? No, every time Mario Turner calls him he just reminds Mr. Brown of how his predecessor
was fired for standing up to Sarmiento. The City is most definitely getting a raw deal here at worst, an unfavorable deal at best.
The City must issue an RFP for all of the Inclusionary Funds and all of the Successor Agency funds. Temecula released an RFP in 2016 for $12 million plus
City land and got 30+ responses. City of LA recent RFP for multiple City sites got 30+ responses. Same thing for 2016 Pasadena RFP. Anaheim issues RFP for its affordable housing funds, Irvine does it for money and land, other cities do it statewide. It’s the proper thing to do if a city is truly interested in leveraging its funds and getting the best deal possible. Make developers compete for the money and offer truly innovative design and product.
The fact that after 2+ years, Sarmiento is still attempting to give money directly to AMCAL, and after AMCAL couldn’t win 2015 RFP, makes this a very
fishy, corrupt transaction and it means yet again the City of Santa Ana is not doing what is right for the residents of the City.
You are already wasting hundreds of thousands of dollars on that buffoon of a City Manager, don’t waste this money too without getting the best deal possible.
Finally, Sarmiento keeps harping about how this development is going to “revitalize” First St. This is completely unproven and in fact, study after study
shows that a bad neighborhood influences a development more than a development influences a neighborhood. In fact, growing up in a bad neighborhood has far worse effects than most people know. See the link below. Maybe if the City issues an RFP, a nonprofit just might build affordable housing in a decent area instead, with far more units.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/27/upshot/growing-up-in-a-bad-neighborhood-does-more-harm-than-we-thought.html
Also, the Kansas Federal Reserve argues differently regarding the so called “revitalizing” effects of affordable housing. In the abstract:
“However, extended analysis that separates LIHTC developments by type and size suggests that only small new construction developments and large rehab developments impact neighborhood property conditions. Further analysis reveals that when the model does not control for crime, the effect of proximity to LIHTC developments on property conditions is negative.”
https://www.kansascityfed.org/publicat/reswkpap/pdf/rwp11-10.pdf
I hope the City does the right thing for the residents and taxpayers of Santa Ana.”