Charles Hart for Santa Ana

Santa Ana City Council Votes for Sale

admin — Thu, 10 May 2012 06:06:49 +0000

Monday night, the Santa Ana City Council placed on its agenda a motion to remove a restriction on campaign contributions and loans and the effect they play on how our Councilmembers vote.

California Government Code and the Political Reform Act, along with Santa Ana Charter, require that elected officials abstain from voting on any matter where the official received a campaign contribution of more than $250 in the 12 months immediately preceding a vote. In November 1996, Ordinance NS 2034 was adopted by the City Council which imposed an additional restriction prohibiting a Councilmember from soliciting or accepting campaign contributions or loans of more than $250 for a period of three months following a vote.

The current sitting Santa Ana City Council has been plagued with controversy over Councilmembers voting on matters for which they have received campaign contributions. Back in 2010, Councilmembers Sal Tinajero and Michele Martinez received several thousand dollars in campaign contributions from companies with a financial stake in a land project called the Station District. Without their votes the council did not have the votes to approve the project. The contributions came both before and after the vote.

This was in direct violation of the state and city laws discussed above, and when exposed, the Councilmembers returned the contributions, but the vote had already been cast. The legally correct thing to do would have been to undue the vote and sanction or fine the Councilmembers that illegally voted, but our City Council claimed it was too late to undue the contractual commitments made. A contract illegally entered into is void, and that is what should have occurred, but our Council once again failed to do the right thing.

On Monday night Santa Ana’s City Council was going to try and make things right by simply making the law that makes what they do illegal, go away. So if we stop saying that robbery is illegal then it’s okay for us to rob and be robbed – right?

Wrong! A rose by any other name is still a rose; and the practice of putting your vote out for sale is wrong.

Fortunately, I was joined by several other concerned residents of Santa Ana that spoke out against removing the campaign ordinance. As a result, Ms. Martinez who had made the motion decided to back down and let the motion be considered next month after the primary election by the City Council’s Ethics Committee on June 7th. I trust there will be more concerned residents that attend that meeting to let them know we are serious.

Santa Ana City Councilmembers are very arrogant in the positions of authority that they have been elected to and have repeatedly said “Hey, if you don’t like it – vote me out.” Well, I agree with that statement and I urge the Santa Ana Voters to do just that this November.

Santa Ana and the Kyoto Protocol

admin — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 22:55:14 +0000

In the winter 2012 issue of Santa Ana Green, a quarterly newsletter of the City of Santa Ana, the article “City of Santa Ana Moves Forward with Climate Action Plan” made the front page. The article proudly informs us that at the November 7, 2011 City Council Meeting, our Council unanimously approved an agreement with International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI) Local Governments for Sustainability to develop a Baseline Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventory and Climate Action Plan. Our Executive Director of Public Works, Raul Godinez II said that Santa Ana has taken a leadership role by being part of the Kyoto Protocol. You all remember the Kyoto Protocol that came from the 2007 United Nations Earth Conference that attempted to hamstring the United States and other developed industrial nations while allowing nations such as China and India to continue their development virtually unfettered.

This is such a terrible plan that even our liberal congress rejected it. Unfortunately the money behind the green movement has been successful in going around our federal government and striking deals with our state and local governments. In 2007, Santa Ana’s Mayor Miguel Pulido signed the U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement, which urges federal and state governments to enact policies and programs to meet the Kyoto Protocol target of a 7% reduction in emissions to below 1990 levels.

One of the first steps to the plan that our City Council agreed to is to identify and account for the sources of emission in Santa Ana from government buildings and facilities, as well as community wide. The plan is to identify and measure emissions from electricity, natural gas, water, waste and transportation. The City then plans to “Target improvements.” Of course this will be at the owner’s expense. In other words reduce your emissions or be fined or run out of Santa Ana. This Community Action Plan (CAP) claims it will produce positive benefits for the community such as improved air quality, reduced energy bills and traffic congestion. In fact our Council is studying ways and implementing the construction of more apartments in already congested areas near downtown without expanding our streets and parking, with the intent to pressure people out of their cars and into mass transit (our Mayor also serves on the Orange County Transit Authority). The City also supports “smart meters” that measure electronic emissions an allow remote shut downs if you exceed what the government determines to be a “fair amount”. If you go online to the United Nations website and read the Kyoto Protocol and Agenda 21 you will see just how invasive the “green movement” is upon our individual liberties.

Our City Council (including the RINO that claims to be a business friendly Republican – Carlos Bustamante) has committed $55,855 to participate in this CAP. That may not sound like much to government. But when our City has mismanaged money so badly that we have been forced to surrender our 128 year old Fire Department to the County Fire Authority, and has cut the number of Code Enforcement officers and incurred $25 million dollars in deficits, the $55,855 seems huge.

The only “green” our City needs to be pursuing today is the color of money. We need to bring businesses back into Santa Ana by NOT CAPPING their ability to produce revenue for our hometown.

Your fellow Patriot,

Charles Hart

A great deal, but for who?

admin — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 22:54:11 +0000

This past June, our beloved city council decided to sell $40 million dollars in property for $3 dollars to land developers for the “Station District”. Yes, that is correct; $3 dollars. The council also decided to loan the developers $17 million dollars and to pay brokerage fees to a real-estate company. As if this wasn’t enough, the whole vote was cast with two of our council members being in direct violation of city conflict of interest laws.

Why would our elected representatives who have a fiduciary duty to use prudent judgment in all decisions for the best interests of the residents of the city of Santa Ana, decide to sell $40 million dollars worth of property for only $3 dollars???

The developer that received this deal is akin to the Dutch settlers that bought Manhattan from the Native Americans for $24 dollars worth of beads and mirrors. But this is worse, because the Native Americans had no real estate savvy to know what they were giving up. Our city council includes attorneys and other allegedly intelligent businessmen.

The only thing we have been hearing from Mayor Pulido and the city council are the “build it and they will come” mentality that got us the giant vacant lot known as One Broadway Plaza, another piece of land that Santa Ana has given up stake to a private developer in the hope that something great will be built thus generating revenue.

The Station District project is approximately 94 acres with at least 48 parcels of it designated toward “affordable housing” I am sorry, but Santa Ana has already built more than enough “affordable housing” that has resulted in overcrowding with insufficient infrastructure with little return in revenue for our city. This whole project smells like Bell from the 40 million dollars in land sold for 3 dollars to the conflict of interest votes used to approve the project.

The solution to our city’s problems is in your hands as you vote this coming November 2^nd. As your mayor I will be a watchdog over the money our city spends.

Vote smart, vote Hart.

New gang prevention program not being utilized in Santa Ana

admin — Sat, 09 Oct 2010 22:52:57 +0000

Santa Ana, the “Education 1^st” city has 4 of its 7 high schools and 2 of its 9 intermediate schools in the bottom 5% of California public school rankings. In speaking with many of the teachers in the Santa Ana Unified School District I have found that an increasing problem that is common among those schools ranked at the bottom of California schools is the increasing presence of gangs that are recruiting new members and intimidating those who refuse to join.

Well here we go again; our neighboring cities are actually being proactive and confronting the problem rather than blaming Sacramento for not having the funds to fix the problem.

This past Thursday, a program aimed at preventing gangs from recruiting elementary and middle school students was launched at 25 schools throughout Orange County; none of them were Santa Ana schools.

The program is part of the Orange County District Attorney Office’s Gang Reduction and Intervention Program, or GRIP.

GRIP uses volunteer parents to greet children being dropped off at school every morning and making sure that the kids get to class without being recruited or intimidated.

The program was started on a trial basis at Handy Elementary in Orange a year ago to confront the problem the school was having with gang members hanging out around the school and tagging it with graffiti. Orange County Deputy District Attorney said: “The gangs have gone away, and there hasn’t been any vandalism at the school in the past six months.” Local police departments provide a presence each morning.

Reports show that gangs are starting to recruit as early as elementary school. The Orange County District Attorney will tell you that the biggest gang problems in Orange County are in Santa Ana. So why aren’t Santa Ana’s schools participating in this County run program?

Mayor Pulido keeps crying that Sacramento is taking Santa Ana’s money and that is why we can’t fight our problems more effectively. But this is a program with nominal funding that is provided through Orange County, not Sacramento and not Santa Ana; the primary source of the program is the volunteer parents that commit just a couple of hours every week to make sure kids are getting to school safely. So the question of why this program is not being used in Santa Ana remains.

As Mayor of Santa Ana I will use my experience as an Orange County Administrative Manager to seek out the multitude of programs available to cities from the County and to make sure they are implemented efficiently and effectively. I will also be proactive in promoting programs like GRIP to the Santa Ana Unified School District and to our residents in volunteering to help make Santa Ana’s schools safer.

The two sides of Santa Ana

admin — Sun, 03 Oct 2010 22:51:45 +0000

On Saturday, I had the opportunity to visit two sides of our fair city. I was able to take my wife, Ronea, to the 13^th annual “Celebrate Santa Ana” held at the Santa Ana Zoo. This is a great event that included the presentation of Community Building Awards, a Resource EXPO, Most Beautiful Yard recognition, and a reunion event for our Neighborhood Heroes. There was also the first annual “A Taste of Santa Ana” with some of our restaurants offering samples from their menus. I had the pleasure of meeting several of you who have visited my web site and wanted to share with me your experiences in Santa Ana and offer ideas in ways to improve Santa Ana. There were a lot of influential community leaders in attendance today, and of course since this is an election year there were mayoral candidates in attendance, even Mayor Pulido himself.

On the other side, I took my son, Matthew, to the 4^th Annual “Off the Streets & into the Ring” presented by the Santa Ana Boxing Club at the corner of 4^th Street and Garfield. This also is a great event sponsored by the Orange County Youth Commission to draw attention to the terrific services offered at the Santa Ana Boxing Club designed to offer kids and young adults a place to turn besides gangs in this low-income neighborhood. I was invited with a list of several of our city’s leaders, including Mayor Pulido. Unfortunately, I did not see our mayor at this event. This is the kind of event that our city’s leader needs to come out and openly support and promote, especially with the increasing gang violence that has been growing in our city. But it does not surprise me that an establishment politician does not show up to events where the participants and viewers are not able to write campaign contribution checks.

Within six hours and about a 3 mile radius today I was able to attend two events that are both designed to preserve and repair Santa Ana’s issues. Events like the “Celebrate Santa Ana” are vital in promoting community building and providing resource expositions to display what is available to Santa Ana residents. Events like the “Off the Streets & into the Ring” are vital in community building and offering hope and opportunity in the areas of Santa Ana that need so much improvement and rebuilding, but are being forgotten by our city leaders.

As mayor, I will continue to support and promote the community building and celebration as seen through “Celebrate Santa Ana”, and I will do my best to draw more attention and promotion to events that will nurture positive growth in our low-income neighborhoods; we are only as strong as our weakest neighborhood.

What is “Business-Friendly”?

admin — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 22:49:45 +0000

It appears as though there have been a few candidates and our city council reading my website. The last couple of weeks the term “business-friendly” has been loosely thrown around. A few of the candidates agree with me that Santa Ana is not business-friendly. The term has also been used by those sitting on our city council that have been claiming that Santa Ana is business-friendly out of one side of their mouths while asking how do you define business-friendly out of the other side of their mouths.

Well let me give you all my definition of business-friendly and let’s see if you agree. A business-friendly city is one that has low taxes, low fees, few and fair regulations, educational and/or training opportunities, and last but certainly not least a safe environment for the business and its customers.

Santa Ana does offer and is located near some good educational and training facilities, i.e. Santa Ana College, Chapman University, and Cal State Fullerton. These are fine institutions that generate educated people eager to work; unfortunately, they are taking their education and training and finding work or starting businesses elsewhere.

I have talked with numerous business owners in Santa Ana and all of them said that they have had nothing but negative experiences in dealing with our city hall. Those negative experiences ranged from exorbitant fees for wanting more signage to draw in customers, to fines for having signs that were allegedly “too large”.

I have also talked with several small business owners and entrepreneurs that were considering expanding into Santa Ana, or starting in Santa Ana, but were discouraged from doing so by their financial planners because Santa Ana’s neighboring cities have fewer regulations and fees and a safer reputation.

The common thread that was spoken of among all of the current and would be business owners and their financial advisors is that “Santa Ana just has a lousy reputation.” Most of our current successful businesses are all on the borders of Santa Ana and market themselves not as being in Santa Ana but rather as being located in places like South Coast Metro.

Let’s face it, the entire State of California is not business-friendly these days, but that does not lend itself as an excuse for our mayor to lean on as a crutch for Santa Ana’s woes; in fact it presents the perfect opportunity for Santa Ana to take this bunch of lemons handed down from Sacramento and make the most profitable lemonade in the state.

One way (and I have more to come in the upcoming weeks) to start the lemonade is by cutting the 1.5% sales tax that goes on top of the state sales tax. This would draw businesses into Santa Ana knowing that if they can sell their products at with a lower sales tax they will draw more customers who are wanting and needing to save money. Lets face it, most of us do not do our shopping in Santa Ana; we go to Costa Mesa, Tustin or Irvine. If we drew in businesses that were able to sell at a lower tax rate, not only would we shop in Santa Ana, but customers from neighboring cities would be drawn in thus increasing the revenue our city collects, enabling it to provide more services such as safety, parks, and community preservation.

As a Contract Administrator for the County of Orange and as a former accountant for a private sector finance company I have years of experience in ferreting out wasteful spending and coming up with ideas to draw more business. If you elect me as your mayor, I will use my experience to make Santa Ana work for you; if you elect one of my competitors the only option being offered to gain revenue and continue providing necessary services is to raise your taxes – but they don’t even have the integrity to call it a tax, it is being labeled as an “assessment”. Don’t we all pay more than enough taxes already?