Santa Ana Council Member David Benavides is finally holding a fundraiser for his fading Mayoral campaign, on Thursday, September 20, 2012, from 5:30pm – 7:30pm, at Chapter One Restaurant, located at 227 N. Broadway, in Downtown Santa Ana.
The event’s host committee includes Council Members Sal Tinajero, Michele Martinez and Vince Sarmiento. No other politicians or community leaders were referenced on the email blast sent out by the Benavides campaign. Continue reading
If there is one thing I can guarantee going into the November elections, it is that the current Santa Ana City Council is destined to crumble. Already the coalition that is backing Council Member David Benavides is showing signs of cracking.
We exposed this week one of Benavides’ supporters after she reached out to the Charles Hart Ward 3 campaign – a slap to the face of Eric Alderete, the Ward 3 candidate who has sided with the crumbling majority. Alderete has already distanced himself from Team Benavides. Continue reading
City of Santa Ana, Downtown Orange County
Community: Santa Ana City Council Announces Improvement in Acres of Recreational Space
SANTA ANA, CA (August 20, 2012) – For the last twenty years, Santa Ana has had .9-acres of recreational open space for every 1,000 residents. In the last five years, the City has made great strides in planning and building new recreational open space opportunities, which are projected to add 22 new acres to the City’s park system. At the August 20th Council meeting, the City Council announced that the new open space ratio will be 1.48-acres per 1,000 residents. Continue reading
Santa Ana Ward 3 candidate Eric Alderete’s campaign held a fundraiser tonight at Chapter One: the Modern Local, in Downtown Santa Ana. There were at least 80 attendees including quite a few elected and appointed officials. These included:
UPDATE: A four member city council voted tonight to unanimously put to the voters a four term limit of 2 years each for the office of Mayor.
I can understand why the Santa Ana City C0uncil Members are upset at Mayor Miguel Pulido. Let’s face it – he has been running circles around them for almost 20 years. But he is now dealing with a Council that, for the most part, he did not elect. He opposed Sal Tinajero and Michele Martinez when they first ran for the City Council. He did create David Benavides, but when Vince Sarmiento was appointed to the Council, to replace Jose Solorio, he was already his own man. Unlike Benavides, he was a polished product and a guy most people respected. Who would have forseen two Pulido allies going down in flames – Carlos Bustamante’s own alleged misbehavior did him in, and Claudia Alvarez could not undo the term limits she helped create. Now Pulido, like Julius Caesar, is surrounded by short swords and although we are headed into August, it might as well be the Ides of March.
Back in Pulido’s heyday, he and former City Manager Dave Ream knew how to work this bunch. Once they got elected, they would be warmly welcomed, even if they had initially been opposed. Commission appointments would be handed out like Halloween candies and just like that Council members would be subverted. But Ream is gone and so is his magic bag of redevelopment – and now even the developers that lived high on the hog in our town for so long are slinking to the Council’s side. Continue reading
UPDATE: Council Member Sal Tinajero has pulled papers to run against Mayor Pulido this November. Chisme has it that Benavides will be pressured to get out of the race ASAP.
UPDATE: Council Member David Benavides has announced that he is running for Mayor. Pulido has nothing to worry about.
Santa Ana Mayor Miguel Pulido’s detractors are befuddled about how exactly he keeps on winning, every two years. What they don’t understand is that their views don’t reflect the views of the residents at large in our city.
Santa Ana is a huge city. The “inside baseball” and chismoso/gadfly set is fairly small, perhaps a hundred people at most. In 2010, mayoral challenger Alfredo Amezcua lined up a lot of these folks – and combined them with the dwindling “Usual Suspects.” Amezcua spent a quarter million dollars and he thought he had victory in the bag. But you see what he was listening to was an echo chamber – and he failed to reach the majority of voters in Santa Ana. Continue reading
Sources at City Hall are telling me that Mayor Miguel Pulido is working overtime to stop an attempt by the Santa Ana City Council to draft a term limit measure that will eventually end his career as Mayor of Santa Ana.
The City Council appointed an Ad Hoc committee to consider term limits. The term limit committee includes Council Members Michele Martinez, David Benavides and Vince Sarmiento. That committee will present their findings to their colleagues at the next Santa Ana City Council meeting. It is thought that the committee will show up with a prepared ballot measure that the voters will be able to consider in the November general election. Continue reading
Tonight’s Santa Ana City Council meeting, which was held at the SAPD’s Community Room, was, as predicted, a real zoo. Media vans and news crews were everywhere and residents and out of town bloggers packed the proceedings.
As we stated in an earlier post, Council Member Carlos Bustamante, who is facing serious felony sex crime and public theft charges, was not likely to show up, and he didn’t. This is his second unexcused absence. After sixty days of not showing up to work, at City Hall, the City Council can dump him and appoint someone to fill out his term. Continue reading
Play time is over – the Santa Ana City Council appears to be rebelling against Mayor Pulido
“The Santa Ana City Council is scheduled July 16 to consider a ballot measure that for the first time could place a term limit on longtime Mayor Miguel Pulido and change term limits for other council members,” according to the Voice of OC.
Council Member Michele Martinez placed an 85 A item on the agenda that reads as follows, “DISCUSSION OF POTENTIAL BALLOT MEASURE REGARDING MAYORAL AND COUNCIL TERM LIMITS.”
Both Martinez and her colleague, Council Member David Benavides, ripped Santa Ana Mayor Pro Tem Claudia Alvarez this week, on Facebook, when Alvarez’ ally, Santa Ana Parks and Rec Commissioner Max Madrid, filed a lawsuit to compel the Santa Ana City Clerk to issue nomination papers to Alvarez. She is seeking to run again in November, for reelection, although she appears to be termed out. Continue reading
Chris Nguyen, over at the Republican OC Political blog, spent a lot of time breaking down the vote in the 69th Assembly District, in the June 5 primary. It turns out that corporate Democrat Tom Daly won in Anaheim and in Santa Ana, which is no surprise as he spent a fortune and his friends in Sacramento and Anaheim spent even more.
Daly also benefited from being the only white candidate in a pool of Latino candidates. But the other story of note is that liberal union hack Julio Perez, who grew up in Anaheim, completely failed in that city. Republican candidate Jose Moreno, who barely ran a campaign, totally whacked Perez in Anaheim. Continue reading
CAREER COLLEGE OF CALIFORNIA TO HOST INDEPENDENCE DAY AND STUDENT APPRECIATION BARBECUE IN DOWNTOWN SANTA ANA ON JULY 3rd
Councilmember Michele Martinez will provide a key note address at 6:30 PM
Career College of California, based in historic downtown Santa Ana, is hosting a barbecue to celebrate Independence Day and the accomplishments of its students on Tuesday, July 3rd, 2012. The faculty and staff of CCC will be serving hot dogs and refreshments to CCC students, alumni, their families and friends from 12:30 PM to 2:00 PM and again from 5:30 PM to 7:00 PM. Councilmember Michele Martinez will be speaking about the significance of Independence Day and about the importance of voting beginning at 6:30 PM. Continue reading
The Orange County Voter Registrar finally closed the ballot counting from the June 5 Open Primary, yesterday. Ultra liberal 69th Assembly District candidate Julio Perez lost by 242 votes to Republican Jose “Joe” Moreno, who will now face off against top vote-getter Tom Daly, a corporate Democrat, in the November General Election.
Perez and his union allies spent a small fortune and all they got out of it was third place. I have argued in a previous post that Perez and fellow Democrat Michele Martinez both erred by not attacking Daly, but there might be more to this story. Continue reading
The 69th Assembly District is Orange County’s most Latino legislative district and it is currently represented by Jose Solorio, a former Santa Ana City Council Member and OCTA lobbyist. But in this month’s Open Primary Election the candidate who got the most votes was Orange County Clerk-Recorder Tom Daly. That was due in part to the presence of four Latino candidates on the ballot – all Democrats except for one Republican. But did Daly come out on top because the Latino candidates failed to attack him? Continue reading
The Orange County Voter Registrar updated the Open Primary Election results tonight at 5 pm and the bad news for liberal union hack Julio Perez is that he is still over 500 votes behind Republican Jose “Joe” Moreno, who spent almost no money on his campaign. Perez spent thousands and also benefited from a multitude of independent expenditures spent on his behalf by unions.
It is becoming clear that Perez is going to lose as he is not making up any ground as the votes continue to be tallied. This is no surprise to those of us who remember when the unions unloaded on behalf of former SAUSD Trustee Nativo Lopez, when he was facing a recall. The union money failed then too as Lopez was indeed recalled. Continue reading
It was not a good night for Orange County’s liberals, who crashed and burned in California’s first Open Primary.
Labor spent hundreds of thousands on Julio Perez‘ campaign for the 69th Assembly District. The result? So far he is in third place – ahead of Santa Ana Council Member Michele Martinez, wjho had 3,316 votes, and wannabe candidate Francisco Barragan, who must have run so as to keep Perez out of last place. Perez has 3,554 votes. Tom Daly is leading that race with over 8,231 votes. A Republican who spent no money, Jose “Joe” Moreno, is in second place with 4,495 votes. Continue reading