New Santa Ana | Category Archives: Governor Jerry Brown

Gov. Brown rejects State Senator Correa’s Mexico Trade Office bill

Posted on September 28, 2014 by Art Pedroza Posted in california, Democratic Party, Governor Jerry Brown, Lou Correa, mexico, Politics Leave a comment

Governor Jerry Brown announced yesterday that he had declined to sign State Senator Lou Correa’s SB 928 – a bill that would have required the Governor’s Office of Economic and Business Development to open an international trade and investment office in Mexico.

In Brown’s veto message he wrote that he agreed that trade with Mexico is of significant importance. Brown mentioned that he traveled to Mexico in August of this year and he hosted the President of Mexico in Sacramento shortly thereafter. Continue reading→

We need to contact Gov. Brown and ask him to stop his attack on Santa Ana

Posted on December 22, 2012 by Art Pedroza Posted in Affordable Housing, california, Civic Affairs, Democratic Party, Governor Jerry Brown, Politics, Redevelopment, Santa Ana, Taxes 8 Comments

Santa Ana is a city dominated by Democrats. Our city Council is entirely comprised of Democrats. Our State Assemblyman, our State Senator and our U.S. Representative are all Democrats. Yet the Democrats in Sacramento, led by Governor Jerry Brown, are trying to force the City of Santa Ana to fork over millions of dollars in redevelopment dollars that are already committed to affordable housing projects for the needy.

Mayor Miguel Pulido and our City Council say they are going to lobby Brown and his peers but they alone cannot stop this from happening. Only we can save our city!

Click here to email Gov. Brown. Here is the message I sent him (under the category of Taxes as his administration is threatening to withhold property tax money from our city): Continue reading→

City Council to hold a special meeting about State’s demand for $56 million

Posted on December 20, 2012 by Art Pedroza Posted in california, Civic Affairs, David Benavides, Democratic Party, Entertainment, Governor Jerry Brown, Politics, Santa Ana, Tom Daly 12 Comments

Does Benavides have a clue how to fix this mess?

The Santa Ana City Council is holding a Special Meeting on Friday, December 21, from 11 am – 2 pm, to consider how they are going to respond to the demand by Governor Jerry Brown’s administration that the city pay back $56 million dollars of what used to be redevelopment funds pegged to affordable housing.

The meeting will be held at the City Council Chambers, located at 22 Civic Center Plaza, in Downtown Santa Ana.

Click here to read the meeting agenda. Continue reading→

Occupy the DPOC Truman Dinner, which will feature Gov. Jerry Brown

Posted on October 11, 2011 by Art Pedroza Posted in california, Democratic Party, Entertainment, Governor Jerry Brown, irvine, Lou Correa, Marijuana, Orange County, Politics 10 Comments

UPDATE: The Occupy protesters are going to show up at this event! The dinner is sold out. It should be quite a ruckus.

“California Governor Jerry Brown has vetoed SB 847, a bill by Senator Lou Correa (D-Santa Ana) that would have required medical cannabis cooperatives and collectives be located at least 600 feet from residential zones,” according to 420 Times.

The bill was SB 847, by state Sen. Lou Correa (D-Santa Ana), who said he wanted to allow cities to chose their own regulations and to protect children living near such facilities from second-hand smoke, according to the L.A. Times.

In vetoing Correa’s bill that would have unnecessarily restricted medical marijuana clinics, Brown wrote “Decisions of this kind are best made in cities and counties, not the state Capitol,” according to columnist Steven Greenhut, in the North County Times. Continue reading→

Santa Ana Parks and Rec Director Mouet appointed to the O.C. Fair Board

Posted on July 20, 2011 by Art Pedroza Posted in california, Costa Mesa, Democratic Party, Governor Jerry Brown, Miguel Pulido, Orange County, Parks and Recreation, Santa Ana 1 Comment

Gerardo Mouet, 53, of Santa Ana, has been appointed to the 32nd District Agricultural Association, Orange County Fair Board, by California Governor Jerry Brown, according to the California Newswire.

Mouet has served in multiple positions with the City of Santa Ana since 1990, serving as executive director of Parks and Recreation since 2004. In that position he oversees a number of city departments including the Santa Ana Zoo and the Santa Ana Library. Continue reading→

Santa Ana graffiti targeting Gov. Brown underscores hate problem in the O.C.

Posted on January 21, 2011 by Art Pedroza Posted in Blogs, Civic Affairs, Civil Rights, Crime, Governor Jerry Brown, LGBT, Miguel Pulido, Orange County, Politics, Public Safety, Republican Party, Santa Ana 7 Comments

George Collins, a videographer who lives in south Santa Ana, and who ran for Mayor last year, was on the scene yesterday when graffiti was discovered on two walls in his area – but this was not normal tagging. The words that were painted onto those walls constituted a threat to the life of our new Governor, Jerry Brown.

Why target Brown? Who knows? He has been fairly moderate so far and has mostly made headlines for announcing that he is slashing public library funds and going after redevelopment and free enterprise zone funding.

Brown appeared here locally, at the Santa Ana Zoo, at last year’s O.C. Labor Day event. He is a close friend of Santa Ana Mayor Miguel Pulido and Brown has actually stayed over at Pulido’s house while in town. Pulido told me last year that he met with Brown several times to assist with Brown’s campaign.

The first one happened around Greenville Street just north of Alton Street, according to the OC Weekly, which also reported that the other graffiti threat appeared near Thornton Park.

Collins appears in the video above, which I am providing courtesy of ABC News. They interviewed Collins and were able to video the graffiti before City of Santa Ana public works crews quickly painted it over.

Collins noted on his Facebook page that the graffiti was covered up by 9:30 am. He credited the City of Santa Ana for acting quickly to get rid of these hateful messages.

Cpl. Anthony Bertagna, of the SAPD, talked to ABC News and he brought up what happened recently in Tucson – and he noted that there have been other hateful graffiti messages in town recently – those messages have targeted gays, Catholics, Mexicans, African Americans and Asians. He also referenced that other cities in Orange County have been dealing with the same problem.

ABC News cited at least eight such incidents, in four cities here in Orange County. Many of these messages have included spelling errors. I have noted over the years that right-wing anonymous commenters on local blogs often misspell words.

The targeted cities have included Brea, Anaheim, and Irvine. Police in those cities are working together to identify if the taggers are the same person or are otherwise in cahoots with each other.

One teenager I know who lives near the area targeted yesterday told me in a text message that there is a known skinhead who lives in that area. Young people in Santa Ana expressed fear yesterday, on Facebook.

These are indeed scary times. Hate is commonplace on local blogs in particular. This is one of the reasons I suggested yesterday that we need to scan those who attend our local City Council meetings for weapons. There are just too many unhinged people here in town and we need to take steps to ensure public safety.

And the local Republican Party is part of the problem. Minuteman Lupe Moreno got appointed this Monday to the OC GOP Central Committee, as I related in a post yesterday. So did failed Santa Ana Mayoral candidate Charles Hart. Moreno is well known for her hateful views targeting Mexicans and gays. Hart however is not much better. He pined during his campaign for the “good old days,” presumably when it was okay for city leaders to burn down Santa Ana’s Chinatown and segregate schools to keep Mexicans and African Americans away from white children.

Another major problem has been the behavior of failed Santa Ana Mayoral candidate Alfredo Amezcua, who has been railing against the Santa Ana City Council and who has recruited a Who’s Who of bitter, angry folks to his coalition of people who mostly don’t live in Santa Ana. Their attacks on our City Council and our Mayor have been little more than innuendo and slander – contrast that behavior with that of the aforementioned George Collins, who recently met with Mayor Miguel Pulido to discuss concerns about the Harbor transit corridor and who continues to do good work in our community. Collins is a shining example of how politicians should act when they lose an election.

How badly will Gov. Brown slash the Santa Ana Public Library’s budget?

Posted on January 18, 2011 by Art Pedroza Posted in california, Civic Affairs, Governor Jerry Brown, Literature, Orange County, Politics, Santa Ana 3 Comments

New California Gov. Jerry Brown, facing tremendous budget problems, has proposed a statewide budget that eliminates state spending on public libraries entirely. Those cuts amount to around $30 million, according to the L.A. Times.

If Brown’s budget is passed as is, it will eliminate state funding for the Public Library Foundation, Transaction Based Reimbursement and the California Library Literacy and English Acquisition Service. Public libraries across the state also receive funding from other sources.

I don’t know how this will impact the Santa Ana Public Libraries, or the Orange County Public Libraries, but it doesn’t sound like good news.

I recently proposed opening the Santa Ana Public Libraries later, during the week, in order to open on Sundays, but with Brown’s budget cuts pending, it may be difficult to keep the hours we have now.

The sad thing is that the State of California could easily make up its budget deficit, if Brown were willing to really get out of the box, as follows:

Dump the death penalty. It is a huge waste of money thanks to endless appeals by those on death row. Put them in prison for life and stop wasting money on lawyers!
Reform three strikes to include only violent felonies – the more people we put in prison, the more we have to spend on a bloated prison budget that already is larger than the combined budget of all our state colleges and universities!
Make gambling legal and tax it. Why let all that money go to Las Vegas and the Indian tribes?
End the drug war and tax the sale of drugs. Treatment should be offered to users instead of incarceration, as they do in Europe.
Take cars paid for by taxpayers away from state legislators and their staffers.
Reduce our state legislature to part-time, as they do in Texas.
Get rid of retirement at 50 for public employees.

These reforms would save our budget and stop Brown from cutting so many needed services. But, sadly, I doubt he has the spine to pursue such a Libertarian budget policy.

The President of the California Library Association responded to Brown’s proposed cuts in this press release:

CLA President’s Response to Governor Brown’s Proposed Elimination of $30.4 million in State Funding for California Public Libraries

For Immediate Release

Tue, 01/11/2011 – 4:00pm

Contact: Holly Macriss, CLA Executive Director, (916) 233-3298

Paymaneh Maghsoudi, 2011 CLA President and Director, Whittier Public Library, (562) 464-3452

Folsom – Gov. Jerry Brown’s 2011-2012 budget proposes eliminating $30.4 million in state funds for the Public Library Foundation, Transaction Based Reimbursement and the California Library Literacy and English Acquisition Service. These cuts eliminate all state funding for California public libraries. Paymaneh Maghsoudi, California Library Association (CLA) President and Library Director of the Whittier Public Library, released the following statement regarding the proposed reduction of funding for California’s public libraries.

“The revelation yesterday that Governor Brown is proposing to eliminate all $30 million in state funding for three of California’s most valuable public library programs – the Public Library Foundation, Transaction Based Reimbursement, and the California Library Literacy program, is both disastrous and disheartening. Since the early 2000’s, public libraries have been one of the hardest hit segments of local government, with deep reductions totaling more than 75% made to these programs by the previous two Governors combined. We understand fully California’s dire Budget situation and the challenges of the recessionary economy, but the public libraries have done more than their share to assist with the Budget deficit over the years by absorbing painful cuts. The time has come to stop the bleeding and CLA respectfully asks the members of the legislature to oppose these proposed cuts to our valuable programs.

The proposed cuts unveiled by the Governor will not only jeopardize library hours, staff positions, and the availability of books and materials, they will also potentially dismantle the cooperative system of borrowing and loaning books, known as Transaction Based Reimbursement (TBR), that has existed statewide for over three decades. Incidentally, a cut of this magnitude to the TBR could make the state ineligible for the federal match that is a part of this program. Lastly, in 2007 alone, more than 20,000 adult learners participated in the state literacy program, benefitting native English speaking adults who have never learned to read, or the K-12 schooling system has failed them. The elimination of the state funding for this program would be truly heartbreaking for individuals and families who desperately need this assistance.

While state funding for libraries has decreased, door counts continue to rise at an amazing rate for most libraries and library branches, and staffs are stretched to capacity. In this difficult economy, libraries are a safety net for many people who have lost their home or jobs and are using their local library to write resumes, attend workshops on credit repair, and utilize free access to high speed Internet to look for work or do research. Public libraries assist our K-12 school children with the necessary tools to help expand their education, such as literacy programs, Homework Help centers, books for school assignments, etc. The timing couldn’t be worse for the Governor’s proposed $30 million cut to public libraries.”

The California Library Association was established in 1895 and currently has 3,000 members consisting of librarians, library employees, library students, friends groups and trustees, businesses, institutions, and members of the general public.
The State’s Education Code notes that there should be “permanent, stable, and predictable financing for public libraries of the state through a combination of state and local revenues.” The Code further reveals, “…the public library is a supplement to the formal system of free public education, and a source of information and inspiration to persons of all ages, cultural backgrounds, and economic statuses, and a resource for continuing education and reeducation beyond the years of formal education, and as such deserves adequate financial support from government at all levels.”

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Governor-Elect Jerry Brown is targeting Santa Ana’s Enterprise Zone tax breaks

Posted on December 29, 2010 by Art Pedroza Posted in Business, california, Governor Jerry Brown, Jobs, Labor, Miguel Pulido, Santa Ana, Taxes 4 Comments

California Governor-elect Jerry Brown is laying the groundwork for a budget plan that would couple deep cuts to state services, including university systems and welfare programs, with a request that voters extend temporary tax hikes on vehicles, income and sales that are set to expire next year, according to the Sacramento Bee.

Among the breaks are multibillion-dollar incentives for redevelopment projects and hundreds of millions of dollars of “enterprise zone” credits meant to encourage investment in blighted neighborhoods, according to the L.A. Times.

According to the City of Santa Ana’s website, a qualified business may reduce its state income tax by $37,440 per qualified employee, over a 5-year period. The credits may be carried over until they are exhausted.

The Santa Ana website also explains that California income or franchise tax may be reduced by the amount of sales or use tax paid on certain machinery, machinery parts, and equipment purchased for exclusive use in an Enterprise Zone.

Brown appears to be targeting those tax credits, as the State of California faces a $28 billion budget shortfall – equivalent to nearly a third of the general fund. Brown is also targeting redevelopment funds. That too could have a considerable impact on the City of Santa Ana.

According to Good Jobs First, a think tank, the State of California spent $333 million on Enterprise Zone tax credits in 2005. Good Jobs First also raised the issue of transparency. California was rated a D-, as hardly anyone can tell if the Enterprise money has actually created jobs or been effective at all.

Santa Ana Mayor Miguel Pulido is close to Brown, who visited his home several times during this year’s hard-fought campaign against Republican Meg Whitman. Perhaps that will help, but Brown is desperate for money to replenish the State’s coffers. I don’t think he will leave any stone unturned.