Santa Ana Mayor Pro Tem Claudia Alvarez
I finally got an update about last night’s Santa Ana City Council meeting, specifically about the 85a item that Mayor Pro Tem Claudia Alvarez put on the agenda regarding the proposed Metropolitan Water District pension spike. It turns out she led the charge AGAINST the pension spike!
Apparently Mayor Pro Tem Alvarez felt the same way that I do – that now is the wrong time to give more pension benefits to MWD employees. This could result in higher water rates and our residents already pay the highest water rates in Orange County.
Kudos to Mayor Pro Tem Alvarez for her leadership! All of the City Council Members voted with her. Now that vote will be forwarded to Dan Griset, the former Santa Ana Councilman who represents the residents of our city on the MWD Board of Directors.
Click here to send a “thank you” email to Mayor Pro Tem Alvarez. She really stuck her neck out on this issue.
Santa Ana’s MWD board representative Dan Griset
The bad news is that Griset could still end up voting for the pension spike.
Griset’s record isn’t exactly spotless. He was fined in 1975 for voter fraud, after serving as a campaign manager for the Jerry Patterson congressional campaign. You can read about that by clicking here. And click here to learn more about this scandal.
I would hope that Grsiset would vote in the manner that he has been directed to by the Santa Ana City Council. If he doesn’t, I would think it would be time to find someone else to represent us on the MWD board.
Click here to contact Griset and let him know how you feel about the proposed MWD pension spike.
Griset and Dan Young both changed registration from Dem to Rep when they thought it would help them in politics. Dan Griset is a failed insurance salesman who wrecked his family and now wants to wreck the taxpayers of S.A. !
So Claudia leads the charge against MWD’s pension spike, but she voted enthusiastically for a pension spike for Santa Ana employees….at a time when the city is running record deficits. Could it be she decided to take a principaled stand against MWD because she doesn’t receive campaign contributions from them like she does from SEIU? What a hypocrite she is. She didn’t stick her neck out. She’s a craven political opportunist.
Hector,
I suppose that is one way to look at this. However, the record will show that all the Council Members voted for that SEIU package.
And perhaps Alvarez has learned since then about the danger of voting for too many of these pension spikes.
I think we ought to thank her for THIS vote and hope that in the future all of the Council Members will think twice before supporting any pension spikes.
Way to go Claudia. You’ll make a might fine Assemblywoman for the 69th!