As we close out this year, I would like to set a better tone going forward. We think our readers value our political coverage, but we also feel that we can accomplish those means in a better way – by not resorting to more snarkiness than is required.
To that end, we are going to end the use of the phrase “Usual Suspects.” We have often used the phrase “Usual Suspects” to refer to a group of community leaders here in Santa Ana who have consistently used City Hall to attack our immigrant community. Over the years they have used our local government, consistently, to make life hard for the many Mexicans and Central Americans who live here in town. Their actions have included:
- Erecting barricades in French Park, to keep the Mexicans out
- Making it illegal to dry laundry outside
- Greatly limiting the number of garage sales our residents can conduct
- Trying to make human signs illegal
- Trying to make it illegal to deliver flyers to our doorsteps
- Putting bear locks on trash cans in one particular neighborhood, to keep the poor from gaining access to recyclables
- Getting rid of the nets on certain basketball courts so as to prevent their use
- Trying to make it illegal to play soccer on certain park fields
- Suing the city to stop developments that include affordable housing
- Celebrating Halloween on a different night and turning off the lights on Halloween. I will let you figure that one out.
I think you get the point. Over the past few years however there has been a real change at City Hall as we now have an all-Latino City Council that does not support such actions. As such I no longer see a need to use the phrase “Usual Suspects.” There are less of them now than ever – and by January they will all be gone from our City Commissions. Moreover, none of them have even a remote chance of being elected to our City Council. We are free at last.
I urge these people to now put aside their past hatreds and learn to work with the City Council and with the community at large for the betterment of our city. It is time to move on folks.
We will do our part by ending the use of the phrase “Usual Suspects.” And we will endeavor to cover our political scene in a kinder fashion. Let us all then work to make things better here in Santa Ana. Don’t just complain – please let us know what YOU think our city leaders should do to foster positive improvements at City Hall.
Our suggestions for making Santa Ana a better place for our working families include:
- Making the Santa Ana Zoo free on all Sundays, not just one Sunday per month, for our city residents
- Opening the public libraries later during the week, at 12 noon, so that they can be open on Sundays too
- Adding more garage sale days so our poorer residents can make some money getting rid of stuff they no longer need
- Offering a Planning Holiday – so our residents can improve their homes without paying planning fees. The caveat would be that they would have to buy all their supplies at stores located in Santa Ana and would have to use contractors based here in Santa Ana. This will add to our tax base and help create more jobs
- Using vacant retail spaces in town to house micro-libraries that would offer desks and computers with Internet access, and a way to order books from the main library by using a daily courier. We could also offer our local police a desk at each micro-library, so they can stop by to do paperwork and interact with local children.
Your turn. What would you do to improve Santa Ana?
Great ideas! Please let everyone know that the Bowers Museum through the sponsorship of Target and the Nicholas Endowment offers free admission and a free cultural festival every first Sunday of the month. The present exhibit is Benjamin Franklin, In Search of a Better World. More than 1,500 guests attend these events, and many of the guests are from the Latino neighborhood surrounding the museum. The Bowers also offers a free after school program for grades 1-12. The middle and high school programs are presently recruiting new students for the Teen Arts and Bridges Programs (sponsored by the Mead Foundation and Rockwell). Both of these programs center around digital photography and communicating with students in other countries. To register a student in any of these programs call (714) 567-3694.
I hope that Santa Ana’s mayor pro-tem has been advised of this new policy.
The most powerful Hispanic family value — the tight-knit extended family — facilitates unwed child rearing. Relatives often step in to make up for the absence of the baby’s father. I asked Mona, a 19-year-old parishioner at St. Joseph’s Church in Santa Ana, Calif., if she knew any single mothers.
She laughed: “There are so many I can’t even name them.” Two of her cousins, 25 and 19, have children without having husbands. The situation didn’t seem to trouble this churchgoer too much. “They’ll be strong enough to raise them. It’s totally OK with us,” she said. “We’re very close; we’re there to support them. They’ll do just fine.”
As Mona’s family suggests, out-of-wedlock child rearing among Hispanics is by no means confined to the underclass. The St. Joseph’s parishioners are precisely the churchgoing, blue-collar workers whom open-borders conservatives celebrate. Yet they are as susceptible as others to illegitimacy.
Mq says:
You tackle this one first! Do you really think that single mother’s bring their kids to zoo’s and read to them daily! No, they neglect their kids and the kids end up in gangs and in jail!
Hense all the kids in orange county jails!
Actually, some single mothers go to the zoo. Some single mothers do not. Some go there to read their bibles in the company of all of God’s creatures, and some go there to to vent their repressed lesbian rage.
Mrs. Quinn’s post is both interesting and ironic.
The St. Joseph community FOR 50 years has dealt with these issues….Sometimes directly, sometimes privately, at times publicly.
It might surprise Michelle (and Gustavo) that Floral Park is within the diocease boundries of St. Joseph Church.
While many of the well off (not just white people) folks in North Santa Ana send their kids to Orange and Tustin (Holy Family, Orange Lutheran and St. Jeans), these are the families that also contribute a LARGE part of the financing to the community surrounding St. Joseph.
I think it was the Mayor of Orange’s little brother, the Pastor there in the 1990’s, who along with the THINK TOGETHER guys who shattered the gangs for a time. I don’t remember reading about that in the OC Weekly.
It was a Floral Park Mom (pretty sure she was WHITE) who led the charge against the barricades in French Park, by recruiting the ACLU. I missed that article too Gustavo!
Of course there are single Mothers in Santa Ana! just like in Tucson, Omaha, Toledo, Pittsburg and Cincinatti. All cities with similar populations.
So I lost my point…… but writing about it is OK, Commenting on it is a bit worse, but, WHY DON’t you do something?
Michelle, you are a Catholic, Voleunteer at St. Joes’s. Gustavo, use the power of the pen to BUILD, not destruct. How many FAT CATS on Greenleaf and Victoria would love to see thier name in your paper.?
It may not sell to your audience, but it just might help.
The St. Joseph community FOR 50 years has dealt with these issues….Sometimes directly, sometimes privately, at times publicly.
MQ says:
There is nothing new about the Catholic Church profiting from the poor! I worked for St. Joseph’s years ago and my first interaction with a catholic nun was not pretty! She was hispanic and a complete witch! She was rude to the nurses and made the mistake of being rude to me!
The fact is: she is typical of the Catholic Church today; social justice left wing nut’s with a radical racist agenda!
The sister’s of St. Josphes have lost their soul and gained politics! They have a Social Justice Center within the walls of the Sisters of St. Jos and it is run by a well known hispanic activist!!!!!!!!
As far as Gustavo using the power of the pen to BUILD: He uses the American Education he gained to put down the very people who payed to educate him!
“While many of the well off (not just white people) folks in North Santa Ana send their kids to Orange and Tustin (Holy Family, Orange Lutheran and St. Jeans), these are the families that also contribute a LARGE part of the financing to the community surrounding St. Joseph.”
MQ says:
The catholic church loves the left wing rich and the needy poor! It is the white middle class conservative that they have learned to despise!
The Catholic Church is in trouble all over the world… Poor third world people are the golden ticket of survival!
The church that my father was murdered for is no longer the church, but a union type organization!
Mrs. Quinn, you are confused.
The SSJ have no corrolation with the parish, granted several of the Nuns were of the Carendelet order.
I was speaking of and to the people of the Parish, which you obviously have NO EXPERIENCE with.
You sound less like an fed up Mother, and more like a Right Wing Blogger???
AP,
You left one item off of your list – that vehicles must be off of the street for a 4 hour time period one day each week in order to accomodate street sweepers.
It does make the job easier and more efficient for the street sweepers – and it also helps to keep junk vehicles that don’t run off of the street.
Too bad you that you seem to want SA to be more like Tiajuana.
“You sound less like a fed up Mother, and more like a Right Wing Blogger???”
Lol: So it is worse to a fed up mother than a Right Wing Blogger????
I am VERY happy to be a mother and am very proud to be right wing!
I am not confused and as far as experience with the Catholic church and politics that concern’s the church; I have a life time!
You must understand that Rich, Poor and the Church go hand in hand! It is really only in the last 20yrs that the church has really lost the religious focus and has taken on the left wing agenda!
Like everything that is the left, the intelligent and the independent leave in droves and the needy, corrupt and moronic move in!