The Santa Ana City Council majority has about had it with City Manager Dave Ream and his staff. One Council Member I spoke to this week said that it was time for Ream to move on.
What set this off?
Santa Ana Mayor Pro Tem Claudia Alvarez complained at a recent Santa Ana City Council meeting that city staff was hiding information from the City Council regarding spending.
Alvarez requested memos, which lay out contracts and loan programs worth more than the city’s $25,000 limit. She declined to comment further; other council members either did not return phone calls or said they were still reviewing the memos and could not comment, according to the O.C. Register.
It is highly ironic that failed Santa Ana Mayoral candidate Alfredo Amezcua and his Anaheim Amigos held a press conference this month demanding transparency when that is exactly what Alvarez and her Council majority are about to deliver. They surely won’t get any credit from Amezcua and his band of malcontents.
This could all be bad news for Santa Ana City Manager Dave Ream, whose staff has been involved in under-informing the City Council about spending.
Community Redevelopment Director Cynthia Nelson in particular has come under fire for spending hundreds of thousands of city dollars without letting the City Council know who was getting the money.
Alvarez said millions may have been spent by Nelson – much of it for facade improvement in the City’s downtown, according to the Voice of OC.
One of Ream’s assistants told me this week that there were no problems with city spending – and she was not too happy with Alvarez’s questions. But other Council Members have about had it and I think they mean it. If I were a betting man I would wager that heads may be rolling soon…
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Uh-hum. Who is really the responsible party for this murky mess? I strongly suspect that the blame can go around. There will certainly be a scapegoat, but there are many eyes that see and then look away, pretending all is well. That's the way it usually works.
booper,
Is it really that hard to give the current Council majority credit for moving to clean up the mistakes of past City Councils?
Kudos to Alvarez and the others in the Council majority who are giving us the transparency that so many of us have been asking for.
Alvarez is as phony as is twenty dollar bill.
Actually she speaks her mind and is not phony at all. You ought to be thanking her for cleaning up City Hall, not maligning her.
I think the biggest problem the council has,
Is that their assistants and staff work for the city manager and not for the council.
It must be hard to do a supervisory job, when the “majority” or “all” the information they use to base their decisions comes from the people they are over seeing.
Exactly. But the times they are a changing. This Council is asserting itself. I like what I am seeing so far!
"You ought to be thanking her for cleaning up City Hall, not maligning her."...... Hmmmmm
Letting Alvarez cleaning up City Hall, is like letting Goat to be a gardener.
That is an apt analogy as goats excel at weeding. Alvarez is weeding the city staff...
"That is an apt analogy as goats excel at weeding"...... wrong!
The goats are known for destroying the garden!..... that is why the old cliché exists.
You have to use them tactically. They do quite well under the right circumstances, such as in an open field or a hillside.
"They do quite well under the right circumstances, such as in an open field or a hillside.".... Hmmmm
I wouldn't mind if Alvarez does her "cleaning up" in an open field or a hillside