The Santa Ana City Council majority voted last night to approve paid personal assistants for themselves that will be paid $60,000/year per council member. They even added this expenditure to the new City of Santa Ana budget.
What could go wrong?
These new personal assistants would report directly to the City Council Members, not to the City Manager. Moreover the City Manager said during last night’s City Council meeting that their hours and pay would be approved by the City Council Members.
Again, what could go wrong?
We are sure that placing seven people that report to politicians instead of to the city administrators won’t cause any problems even as these “personal assistants” begin to muck with the city departments and the public. And how do we know the “personal assistants” won’t end up helping to reelect the City Council members instead of doing actual work on behalf of our city?
How long before the first criminal charges are filed for bribery or fraud?
One of the City Council Members, Thai Viet Phan, said that she needed an assistant as she is spending too much time doing legal research as a City Council Member. She is an attorney but that research is not her job! She is a part-time City Council Member. It is the city administration’s job to do that research – assuming it is even warranted.
I am surprised the City Council Members did not, instead, just push to become full time City Council Members. Then again that would be a pay cut for Phan but likely would be a big raise for some of the other City Council Members.
Kudos by the way to Council Member David Penaloza for trying to derail this motion. Unfortunately the City Council majority tied it to the rest of the budget so it ended up passing.
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So you are not going to post why Phil Bacerra needs an assistant?
We already noted that the measure passed because it was attached to the overall city budget. That was a sneaky move on behalf of Mayor Sarmiento and his City Council majority.
What any of these Council Members will do with their assistants is anybody's guess but it cannot be good...
So instead of reinvesting into the community, they decided to put $420,000 in salary plus benefits for an assistant who they choose and oversee? This will likely cost the city close to if not more then $750,000 because you know they'll get a city paid vehicle, gas, phone, laptop, tablet and who knows what else.
Makes perfect sense, let's give a part time employee a full time assistant.
How does this help the city?
council members need to address the growing and out of control homeless populating the city of Santa ana or there won't be any council members because we are all going to get sick and possibly die from the bubonic plague aka. (Black death) if the city is allowing the homeless to stay in Santa ana where are all the out houses?
I'm not a Santa Ana resident but this worries me. Sounds like they are going in the direction of criminal organization if they aren't there yet. Is there anyone above them who can do something about this? This story needs more coverage. I hope you continue to report on this. Thank you.