The Leaders of the Santa Ana Coalition for Better Government PAC don’t live here

Have you heard of the Santa Ana Coalition for Better Government?  They are one of the organizations behind this week’s ridiculous Anaheim Los Amigos press conference that consisted of unfounded innuendo and slanderous attacks against Santa Ana Mayor Miguel Pulido, the Santa Ana City Council and Santa Ana Chief of Police Paul Walters.

I took a look today at the  website today and found these stated goals:

• Identify viable candidates for mayor and city council who are pro-business and encourage the development and growth of small businesses.
• Support identified candidates with finances, volunteers and in-kind resources.
• Create a pool of viable candidates by providing training and workshops to educate and enhance their capability for conducting successful campaigns.
• Support nonprofit groups that promote the city’s progress by continuously incrementing the profile of three sectors: business, arts and education.

It turns out this organization is not a community-based organization.  It is a political action committee.  It is headed up by Dr. Art Lomeli, a resident of wealthy Orange Park Acres, and John Acosta, a resident of Anaheim.  They are both allies of failed Santa Ana Mayoral candidate Alfredo Amezcua.

Now let’s dissect those goals.  The first one is silly.  Santa Ana Mayor Miguel Pulido and every single Council member is pro-business.  They all support development – it is ironic that this coalition even mentions development as Amezcua and his allies have repeatedly sued the City of Santa Ana to STOP developments, some of which have included affordable housing.

As for training political candidates, why would a candidate want to take advice from this bunch?  Amezcua spent a quarter million dollars last year and he lost badly to Pulido.  Lomeli got blown out of the water a few years ago when he ran for the Rancho Santiago Community College District.  Acosta has not won an election since before most residents of Santa Ana were born.  Please!  How silly.

What have any of these people done to support the arts, business or education?  I have yet to see any concrete proposals from ANY of them to that end.  In fact their website has NOTHING to contribute – no ideas, no proposals, nada.  In that, it reflects Amezcua’s campaign, which also failed to propose even one good idea.

So who are these non-residents of Santa Ana?

Lomeli owns a dental practice in Downtown Santa Ana.  He is also one of 35 business owners in the Downtown who has signed a petition to stop the Santa Ana PBID – an assessment that has done wonders to clean up, market and improve our Downtown area.  Lomeli is also a landlord as he rents space out in his building.

Acosta served on the Santa Ana City Council many years ago.  He retired recently, but worked in construction his whole life.

I think this coalition needs to change its name if its leaders are going to be non-residents of Santa Ana.  And residents of our city should think twice before contributing to them.  They have no ideas and are simply mad that their candidate, Amezcua, got blown out last November.

Art Pedroza Editor

Our Editor, Art Pedroza, worked at the O.C. Register and the OC Weekly and studied journalism at CSUF and UCI. He has lived in Santa Ana for over 30 years and has served on several city and county commissions. When he is not writing or editing Pedroza specializes in risk control and occupational safety. He also teaches part time at Cerritos College and CSUF. Pedroza has an MBA from Keller University.

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