Santa Ana City Manager David Cavazos was known for nickle and diming the residents of Phoenix when he worked in that city. We warned Santa Ana’s City Council that he would do the same thing here but they hired him and overpaid him anyway. Now our predictions are coming true, sad to say.
This time Cavazos wants to increase public parking fees in Downtown Santa Ana (DTSA). “He is working to convince city officials and merchants that higher rates would benefit the city,” according to the O.C. Register.
In downtown Santa Ana, meter rates are 75 cents an hour. Parking garages charge $1 per hour, $7 per day and $40 per month. To Cavazos, it’s mind-boggling that the nearby Health Care Agency parking structure charges $4 an hour while the city’s meters charge 75 cents and off-street parking facilities charge $1 per hour.
Huntington, Newport and San Clemente charge $1.50 an hour for metered parking. So of course Cavazos wants to double the hourly public parking fee in Santa Ana.
Cavazos has drafted what he calls a wish list of downtown amenities the city can fund by increasing downtown meter parking to $1.50 and parking garage rates to $2 per hour, $12 a day and $60 a month.
In return for screwing the local residents and consumers of DTSA’s services and entertainment, Cavazos is promising that the revenue would go toward “parking garage and alley improvements, additional police officers, a downtown map and guide, and a downtown and Civic Center shuttle.”
In our opinion this doubling of public parkings will keep locals out of DTSA and discourage out of town residents from visiting our Downtown. For comparison’s sake, Downtown Fullerton offers more than 2,500 free public parking spaces supporting more than 350,000 square feet of retail and more than 275,000 square feet of office space, and Downtown Orange offers plenty of free parking as well.
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I support free parking in DTSA. The City would make up the difference in lost parking fees through increased sales tax revenue.
Did the City of Santana burn through its 44 million dollar surplus buying food for Salvador Tinajero?
I saw Adam E. trolling for info recently. He had that same stench on his breath as Greg Diamond. We wondered if it was the scent of Noberto Santana’s ball sweat. Tounges that wag together smell together.
Now, all of a sudden, the ball lickers are supporting a streetcar. Make up your mind.
That’s insane..Where can we write to protest this?
Let your Council Members know by emailing them at citycouncil@santa-ana.org.
Wrong!
Post it here at NSA so the editor can delete it as it wood the Mexican city council and the Mexican Cavazos.
I see that the same guy that scammed Greg Diamond into baselessly attacking Sarmiento is now posting under another name “Martin Armies” on Voice Of OC.
I wonder what the over/under is on how long Greg decides to accuse me or Skallywag of being the fired SA employee who duped him?
That OJB post has been scrubbed of remarks critical of Diamond, which is ironic considering his recent “revisionist history” lecture at the Orange Juice Blog.
I can’t wait to ask Vince, what he thinks of that gasbag.
First, it is ridiculous that Santa Ana is raising parking fees. They say it will raise revenue but have they graphed this on a supply and demand chart with a price curve to show changes in revenue depending on rates? Or do they just assume parking rates are price inelastic so that the revenue will increase regardless of the rates set? Or did they just forget Econ 101 and pick a number that looked good? 😉 I’m guessing the latter
First, it is ridiculous that Santa Ana is raising parking fees. They say it will raise revenue but have they graphed this on a supply and demand chart with a price curve to show changes in revenue depending on rates? Or do they just assume parking rates are price inelastic so that the revenue will increase regardless of the rates set? Or did they just forget Econ 101 and pick a number that looked good? 😉 I’m guessing the latter
Regarding carpetbagger’s comment I’m not sure what he is referring to. Who was duped? As stated on the Orange Juice blog and other sources the AMCAL deal that Vince is attempting to bully through for a $2 million payday was discussed at a public hearing March 9th and scheduled for April 7th. Furthermore, all emails and documents highlighting every single department’s concerns regarding this transaction – high relocation fees, huge City risk and liability, expectation that developer will ask for more funds in future gutting housing program, substandard design, zoning incompatibility, land value tied to future zoning and that $2 million up front payday – are available via FIA requests for anyone to see. And that includes the stories of Vince buttonholing the CDA Executive Director at a Saturday night Chamber meeting, pulling her aside and accosting during a Council meeting, and other Vince attempts to railroad this through. Nope, this story is true. And if it wasn’t, if this was a clean deal, it would not have been pulled from the April 7th Council agenda meeting (due to the other Council members outraged at Vince’s heavy-handed treatment of staff and resulting collapse of already low employee morale. It certainly could not have been what was happening online). Also, if it was a clean deal, why be afraid of a competitive process for the housing funds? Multiple developers want to build affordable housing in Santa Ana. Why not let them compete so the City can get the best design and best financial terms possible? This is a terrible deal (as presently constructed) and all City departments hate it including the Planning and legal departments that previously fed me the information.
However, if the deal is substantially changed for the better when it finally appears before the Council; I guess the fired employee made a difference and the taxpayers of Santa Ana can thank him.
And no, I’m not the fired employee. He is a single dad, with a dying mother, who came from Nor Cal to spend more time with both until Vince kneecapped him. He doesn’t even know about most of my posts or his other friend’s posts. He doesn’t care and has no time for this online craziness now that trying to get the City a good deal caused him to be fired. At least when he talks to his son about integrity and honesty, it is not a punch line like it must be when Vince does it (unless Vince delegates that duty to his wife).
I care though when a so-called “progressive” Democrat shows mendacity and chicanery to this level with potential to harm the Party. Santa Ana has only 50% of its needed police force, hundreds of homeless living in the Civic Center, overcrowding issues, a populace woefully under-educated living in substantially aging and dilapidated residential buildings plus a perception that it is an unsafe community (which with raising the parking fees could derail the downtown renaissance). Yet what we hear from Santa Ana is raise parking fees, build a streetcar to nowhere, flood the community with Mary Jane and give a former planning commissioner a $2 million payday. Oh, and add even more residential high rise units to the 4th densest City in the US). What absolute lunacy…
Vince is one of those guys born on 3rd base who thinks he hit a triple. Well his 15 minutes are up and he is about to be thrown out at home 😉