Last night the woke majority of the Santa Ana City Council voted not to support a number of proposed amendments to strengthen the City of Santa Ana’s anti-camping laws. They voted to reconsider the item again at their next Council meeting. This means the SAPD won’t be able to crack down on homeless encampments right now!
The woke majority voted to continue the agenda item, which will come back for further discussion. They claim that the item submitted by Mayor Valerie Amezcua was “Why? Because the Mayor submitted an ordinance that was “poorly written and unclear.” It will be a major suprise if our woke City Council majority ever votes to do anything about the homeless encampments in our city!
What are our neighboring cities doing about the homeless camps? Garden Grove, Anaheim, Irvine and many other OC cities have already revamped their anti-camping laws to protect their residents. That is great news for their residents but guess where the transients will head for now?
That’s right. They will head to Santa Ana where our woke City Council refuses to do anything about fighting crime.
Council Members Phan and and Lopez both complianed about a section of the proposed ordinance that would have included people sleeping in their cars as unlawful camping, according to the O.C. Register. Does anyone in town want drugged out transients sleeping in their broken down cars in their neighborhoods?
Council Member Hernandez called the proposed ordinance “lazy, irresponsible and reckless,” and he said that city leaders should focus on strengthening housing, rather than criminalizing homelessness.
We don’t have a housing problem! We have a drug abuse problem! People on drugs don’t want to work so they cannot afford ANY housing. That is not a housing problem. Because they abuse drugs they contribute nothing to society and spend all day vandalizing neighborhoods and businesses and stealing whatever they can, to support their drug habits. This is why California voters passed Prop. 36 overwhelmingly. Yet our woke City Council Members would rather support the criminals, not our residents.
Santa Ana City Councilman Bacerra posted on Facebook pictures of a person passed out and laying in the median of Harbor Boulevard in Ward 1, which were taken on the day after the four woke Council Members expressed opposition to adopting an ordinance that would change various sections of the Santa Ana Municipal Code (SAMC) to prohibit conduct that interferes with our residents’ ability to access our city’s public spaces, such as parks, bus stops, and public restrooms.
According to Bacerra’s post, “Council Member Lopez expressed opposition specifically about prohibiting people in medians. Thankfully, the proposed changes will come back again to the City Council on December 17 and hopefully there will be four votes to adopt changes to the SAMC that will help make our public spaces safe for our residents to use.”
Mayor Amezcua responded to comments by Council Member Lopez on our Facebook page that “Just for clarification purposes the city attorney, city staff and others wrote the ordinance. Please don’t disrespect staff. Isn’t that what you always state from the dais??I am looking forward to the approval on December 17th when council members will have an opportunity to vote for this ordinance after removing the a few words and correcting a misspelled word. I am looking forward to hearing from staff and council that everyone read it before the meeting, had their questions answered and we can move forward to do what’s best for our city.”
The woke Santa Ana City Council Members who were just reelected on Nov. 5 include Jessie Lopez in Ward 3, Thai Viet Phan in Ward 1 and Johnathan Ryan Hernandez in Ward 5. The other City Council Member who also voted to do nothing about the homeless was Ben Vazquez, in Ward 2, who lost in this year’s Mayoral election to Valerie Amezcua.
The pro law enforcement Santa Ana City Council members include Mayor Amezcua and Council Members Phil Bacerra, in Ward 4, and David Penaloza, in Ward 6. They all voted to take action against the homeless encampments but the woke City Council majority pushed the item to a subsequent Council meeting. They kicked the can down the road…
