Have Benavides and Sarmiento been secretly coordinating their attack on Walters?
Apparently Council Member David Benavides called the Santa Ana City Clerk, Maria Huizar, this Friday, in the morning at about 10 am, to instruct her to add an item to the agenda for the Council meeting set for this coming Tuesday, regarding the review of Santa Ana’s City Manager Paul Walters. Click here to contact Huizar if you would like to confirm this. You may also call her at 714.647.6520.
About a half hour later his colleague, according to my sources, Council Member Vince Sarmiento, made the same call, using the same language, to Huizar.
Later that day, at about 3 pm, Mayor Pro Tem Sal Tinajero reportedly called with the same message but he also instructed the Huizar to revise the agenda item to include the possible dismissal of Walters.
Then Benavides and Sarmiento each supposedly called Huizar again to also ask her to include the exact same language regarding Walter’s possible dismissal.
Finally, at 4:58, Council Member Michele Martinez is purported to have called Huizar too – with the very same language and agenda item request.
So here is the question – how did all of these Council Members arrive at the same action and end up using the same language, with regard to the agenda item in question, if they weren’t secretly – and illegally – coordinating their actions?
The Brown Act allows for limited interactions between the Council Members – but the Council majority appears to be acting in clear violation of the Brown Act.
I am told that the lot of them, and then Council candidate Roman Reyna, also gathered at Sarmiento’s home last year, right before the Council election filing deadline, to has out who was going to be their chosen candidate to run against Mayor Miguel Pulido. You may recall that at the time both Tinajero and Benavides had pulled papers to run for Mayor.
Supposedly the President of the Santa Ana Police Officers Association (SAPOA), John Franks, was at that meeting and he reportedly pledged to back the consensus mayoral challenger – who turned out to be Benavides. I am told that Martinez then promised the sun, moon and the starts to Franks and his union. Franks was true to his word – but Benavides got his butt kicked by Pulido on Nov. 6.
I am shocked that Sarmiento would risk losing his law license by allegedly engaging in these blatant Brown Act violations. In fact I am told that many letters are on the way to the FPPC and the O.C.D.A., requesting an immediate investigation of this crew.
In the end this is what it probably all boils down to. The Council majority seems to have gotten in bed with the police union and now that union’s contract is up for consideration. The City of Santa Ana is broke but remember that Tinajero, at a campaign debate two years ago, said then that we would eventually have to think about raising our taxes, via a citywide assessment, to pay for the cops.
Walters is standing in the way of the Council majority. They allegedly promised a big, irresponsible raise to the police union and Walters is not going to let them bankrupt our city. So he has to go – even if doing this results in a Council recall election.
Santa Ana Spring? No. Just a bunch of witless, greedy politicians who want more power and will wreck anyone who stands in their way. It might however be time for a REAL Santa Ana Spring. These ridiculous Council members clearly must go! The revolution starts at Tuesday’s Council meeting…
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Does P. Walters go back as police chief if he gets fired? i believe it is in his contract? anyone
Yes. However the new City Manager can then fire him as our Chief of Police. My sources tell me that we can expect the City Council to choose an interim City Manager who will be their patsy and who will as such do their bidding.
if that happens, then the police commioner will call on Batman to do some ass-kicking.
This leads t believe me that the PD Union might be behind all this and that in fact there is a division among the ranks in the police in Santa Ana. But, if they turn against their own what could the citizens expect. This is becoming an interest group that serves only a certain people and not the interests of us the citizens
The police union boss, John Franks, was barely elected with a slim majority. He is definitely angering many of his members with this attack on Walters!
Hola Arturo,
Michele and David want puppets in the two top spots--City Manager and Police Chief. They have found through dealing with him that Walters will let no one pull his strings. Their choices and the ones they have been pushing down everyone's throat like scatological dumplings are Gerardo Mouet and Carlos Rojas. Gerardo is running around like a newly pinned Sorority girl, telling everyone who will listen that he has 4 votes. Carlos, the Cabbage Patch cop, is handing out favors and promotions like a Costco cheese dip vendor, setting up his kingdom even though everyone knows his 4 stars have an expiration date and the stink from them is rapidly reaching garbage-pile standards.
The large majority of police are standing firmly and proudly behind their Chief. The others, Rojas' group, are showing just how badly people act in times of trouble.
And Rojas is already in hot water. The Vietnamese community is up in arms over the SAPD shooting of Binh Van Nguyen.
You have no idea, Art! Had the chief not stopped some of Rojas' commands, there would be a lot more dead in Santa Ana--including officers.
interesting show in Santa Ana..... 600 Police men vs. 350,000 residents and another 200,000 not accounted for. What Circus.... The Ringlin' Bros should and come to hire a few of these clowns and include some security along with it. There is no more sense of public servant service but, me, me, me....
What a joke. The police union backed up Benavides in the mayor's election. They donated a few $$$$$, and free time for cold calling (I meant overtime), and Pulido bust theirs. They turn on their own and now Walters is trying to stop them before giving the house or else they will break this City (BANCARROTA).
Yankee, there are about 300,000 resident in Santa Ana now, legal and the other kind.
The recession has taken a big toll on the working population, and those working foreigners have moved on to jobs elsewhere or gone back home until better times return.
Cook.
The number is closer to 400K.
The transient community which is Santa Ana is ALWAYS discounted and under realizied by most.
100 people on 11 buses pass through DAILY.
My math tells me that's mor than a thousand a day. Some stay a week, some a month........
Get the picture?? Go to a dounut shop near the train station. Not for an hour. but for two hours per day per week.
Then head three blocks North to th shopping plaza.
You are counting visitors as residents?
Then the count for cities like Anaheim with Disneyland, and Buena Park with Knott’s Berry farm, have been grossly under counted.
The official count is defined by the census bureau. The other unofficial counts are done by people with an agenda playing liar’s poker.
These people are not here to visit theme parks. I think we both understand that.
While last census was perhaps the most accuate yet (in modern times) the census counters themselves have alluded and admitted to being "WILDLY" undercounted.
And you are right tough economic times have affected transition. but many have simply shifted from places like Moreno Valley and Victorville to the family centric community they knew as newcomers: Santa Ana.
This is a difinative trend as well. I think it was january 2010 when the LA TIMES did a three part story on this. I will try and find it.
Simply put, there are a lot of uncounted folks here. And while the city manager does not work for "Visitors" he responsible for the population at any given time within the scope of his duties.
Santa Ana (city), California
Population, 2010 324,528
Population, 2011 estimate 329,427
1.5 percent increase applied (5 percent drop ignored)
SAUSD has had a drop in enrollment during the same time period. That is another element of a decreasing population.
Anbd if you did not know, Santa Ana has been replacing worn out low income housing with hifger end housing.
The only population demo that is increasing is the homeless.
Many students have been asking what they can do for service projects to honer Martin Luther King. I have told them that I can think of no finer way to show pay tribute to MLK than to attend the Council meeting on Tuesday and speak up against the tyrany of the Gang of 5 Councilmembers and in support of Paul Walters.
MLK hated the "Group Think" of people like the Gang of 5 Councilmembers and loved the quiet leadership of men like Paul Walters.
All students who attend will have the opportunity if desired to take a photo with Cheif Walters (Looks good on those Facebook pages or when applying to colleges) and with Mayor Pulido as well.
Remember MLK.
Come serve your neighbors by speaking up for Paul.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DV7RqizoqJA
MLK would speak to save Paul Walters?
Now you are just being completely absurd.
and exploiting.
We all saw the "Group think" that occurred at the last council meeting with the loyalist fear.
"The Gang of 5" didn't demonstrate much of a think at all. They were silent and that was there sin.
And I don't find it likely that MLK would approve of police departments that manufacture crack cocaine to reverse sting and incarcerate the poorer populace.
MLK rest in peace. Sorry that you were disturbed by such nonsense.
So MLK was pro crack and against arresting crack dealers and users? Pretty Libertarian of him...
No, he was probably, totally all for arresting Crack Dealers!
So he would have arrested Chief Walters for manufacturing Crack Cocaine and dealing it to the people had he the authority.
But then he would have forgave Walters and made it very clear that the Corrupt Prison Industry did not have the right to continuously profit from the prolonged detainment of Walters.
Maybe I am not understanding something here but the aim of what Walters' department did was to essentially entrap dealers and hard core users. They arrested a lot of bad seeds. Please tell me how this hurt any innocents? It sounds like all it did was take a lot of a-holes off the streets.
"Entrap hard core users" HAAAAA HAAAAAAA!
350 people all around one elementary school that purchased Crack Cocaine from a "Reverse Sting" operation?
Wow, thats a whole lot of hard core users roaming around some elementary school like some Zombie Crack Apocalypse.
I would have just called in the tank and just neutralized the whole damn square mile.
But no incarceration profits to be made off that.
Well wouldn't these folks have been better advised not to buy the crack in the first place? Didn't they put themselves in this position by buying these drugs?
Look, I'm all for treatment, but back when this happened it was pretty much how things were done.
And you can't argue with the fact that Walters seriously reduced crime in our city.