Santa Ana Mayor Miguel Pulido spoke to the members of Com Link, which is an organization of all the Santa Ana Neighborhood Associations, last night, at the Police Station Community Room.
Most of his mayoral opponents were there, including George Collins, Alfredo Amezcua and Charles Hart. You can see them in the pictures above. Collins also videotaped Pulido’s comments.
The meeting was well-attended as most of the chairs were filled. Pulido received a loud ovation at the end of the meeting.
Pulido was there to talk about the City of Santa Ana’s budget. He discussed the current status of the budget and talked about upcoming development, which will boost our economy and create thousands of local jobs.
Pulido also talked about Prop. 22, which will prevent the State Legislature from raiding city coffers further.
Pulido appeared comfortable and spoke without the use of notes. None of his opponents asked any questions, although past mayoral candidate Staley Fiala did make several comments.
Ousted City Commissioner Glen Stroud did ask about the City’s reserves, which are depleted. Pulido is working hard to resolve the budget crisis, including negotiating with our public employees’ unions.
Pulido was also asked how many hours he spends working as our part-time Mayor. He said he works over forty hours a week on city business.
Art, as you know I attended the meeting. Thanks for the photo. I asked the question about the reserve and you asked the final question as to how many hours the Mayor worked just before you walked out with him. I left the meeting with no clear idea as to how the city was overcoming this financial crisis except that union members and top city staff did not get raises or bonuses. He did not mention pay cuts and did say it was still on the table to reinstate income losses in the future. He falsely put all the blame on the State for our situation because of their lowered funding and left me feeling that Santa Ana has no control of its future. The only plan for future revenue generation that I have seen is the increase in red light cameras in my neighborhood.
Joe,
Sorry about the bad focus in the picture. My camera gets the job done but it is not a fancy camera by any means.
For the record I walked out before the Mayor and spent a lot of time catching up with folks outside. I then had a long talk with a Rancho Santiago Community College District Trustee about the need for a safety engineering program at Santa Ana College.
You are not the only one lacking a clear idea about how the city will overcome the fiscal crisis. Amezcua showed up and had nothing to say, again. He too appears to lack ideas.
Pulido, on the other hand, is supporting numerous developments that will create thousands of jobs and inject new vitality into our local economy.
The City also recently conducted a tax amnesty to allow businesses to catch up on their taxes without penalties, which helped also to bring new funds into our city coffers. This was an idea I passed on to City Hall.
The State of California has indeed sucked us dry as their own coffers wither. The folks in Sacramento need to reform our prison system – getting rid of the death penalty, the drug war and reforming Three Strikes would save us millions.
The State also needs to cut taxes in order to encourage folks to invest in their businesses.
As for our city, I have several ideas I am going to be sharing with Pulido that I think will help us greatly in our economic recovery. I am still waiting to see if Amezcua has any ideas at all. Perhaps you can ask him to let us know his thoughts, since he never speaks out at city meetings.
During 2010 the City has been in the legal journals a lot, named as losing party in cases involving the red light cameras, including four appeal decisions. (The 2010 appeal losses are P. v. Park and P. v. Khaled – the decisions in which are “published” – and P. v. Mustapha B. and P. v. Romero.)
A review of the files at the courthouse reveals that the City made voluminous filings in these appeal cases – only to lose. It had to cost the City a great deal of money to prepare those filings. Should the City continue to throw good money after a bad program?