Santa Ana's top news & views blog

Santa Ana's top news & views blog

Tag Archives: nimbys

Why were wealthy residents allowed to encroach on public land by the Santiago Creek?

Posted on by Posted in Bicycles, Parks and Recreation, Santa Ana, Transportation 6 Comments

Santiago Creek Bike Trail Encroachment

I met with a Santiago Creek bike trail enthusiast the other day and she had some disturbing news for me.  When the City of Santa Ana recently plotted the land adjacent to the Santiago Creek’s unfinished bike trail they found out that a number of wealthy home owners had slowly encroached onto public property and no one at City Hall stopped them!

The property owners who have built onto public land include:

  • Barbara Russell, 410 W. Park Lane
  • Marsha Vandermolen, 414 W. Park Lane
  • Fernando Ospina, 502 W. Park Lane
  • Dale I. Cole, 506 W. Park Lane
  • Eugene Charles Andres III, 2467 N. Riverside Drive

These residents all live north of the creek except for Andres III. Continue reading→

Will the new City Council support finishing the Santiago Creek bike trail?

Posted on by Posted in Angelica Amezcua, Bicycles, Carlos Bustamante, Civic Affairs, Claudia Alvarez, David Benavides, Health and Medical, Mark McLoughlin, Michele Martinez, Miguel Pulido, Parks and Recreation, Politics, Sal Tinajero, Santa Ana, Vince Sarmiento 16 Comments

How will the new Santa Ana City Council deal with the uncompleted Santiago Creek Bike Trail?  The trail is complete right now – except for a “missing link” – a 1/4-mile gap located in the Santiago Creek, between the 5 Freeway underpass and Flower Street.  The City of Santa Ana does not currently have a bike trail proposed in the missing link.

A grass-roots neighborhood organization, Neighbors for the Santiago Creek Bike Trail, was formed to further the goal of a bike path in the “missing link” along Santiago Creek. Once the bike trail is completed, our neighborhoods will have ready access to adjoining trails. The Neighbors for the Santiago Creek Bike Trail want open space and the ability to connect to these outlying bike trails, shopping centers and communities either by biking, jogging or hiking. Continue reading→

$9 million for new O.C. bike trails, but not on Santiago Creek’s trail

Posted on by Posted in Bicycles, Nature, Orange County, Parks and Recreation, Santa Ana 22 Comments

“More than $9 million of federal dollars will be spent to add 28 crucial miles of bike lanes and trails in Orange County, an effort to better connect the region’s bikeway system,” according to the O.C. Register.

That is great news, and Santa Ana will draw some benefit from this expenditure, with new bikeways along 1st St., Chestnut Ave. and Newhope St., and new bike crossings along the Maple Bike Trail.

However there will be no money to complete the Santiago Creek bike trail, which abruptly ends after you pass the MainPlace Mall/5 Fwy. overpass.  Read more about that here and here.   Continue reading→

$9 million available to complete Santa Ana’s Santiago Creek bike trail

Posted on by Posted in Bicycles, Neighborhood Associations, Orange County, Parks and Recreation, Santa Ana, Transportation 8 Comments

The OCTA’s Bicycle Corridor Improvement (BCI) Program 2012 Call for Projects is a $9 million bicycle program available to local Orange County agencies. The guidelines and application are provided below. Eligible applicants must submit project proposals by 4:00 p.m. on April 30, 2012.

There is word on the street that a non-profit bike organization that supports bike trails in Orange County is going to file the necessary paperwork to complete the missing 1,500 foot section along Santiago Creek, in the Fisher Park/Floral Park neighborhoods and then turn the grant money over to the City of Santa Ana as a shovel ready deal! Continue reading→

Anti Santiago Creek bike trail NIMBYs caught on film!

Posted on by Posted in Bicycles, Nature, Neighborhood Associations, Orange County, Parks and Recreation, Santa Ana 7 Comments

The pathetic NIMBY’s who oppose completing the Santiago Creek bike trail have been caught on film and the results are hilarious.  What is not funny is their insistence on forcing bicyclists onto dangerous city streets instead of finishing the segment of the Santiago Creek bike trail that extends briefly through the Floral Park and Fisher Park portion of the creek.

Check out the video above and let us know what you think!  And click here to find out more about what you can do to help us finish the bike trail!

Santa Ana staff rejects Floral/Fisher Park NIMBYs’ demand to fence off trail

Posted on by Posted in Bicycles, Civic Affairs, Nature, Neighborhood Associations, Parks and Recreation, Paul Walters, Planning, Santa Ana 24 Comments

The Public Right of Way is 156 ft at its widest, runs 24 feet wide most of the length and the narrowest is 17 ft wide at Jack Fisher Park

The City of Santa Ana’s acting City Manager has made public a memo that is not good news for the Floral/Fisher Park NIMBY’s who want to fence off the unfinished Santiago Creek bike trail that runs through their neighborhood.  According to the memo, “Staff does not recommend fencing access to the area as it may result in other unintended consequences, such as creating a dead-end trail configuration and limiting access to the Police and Fire Departments, and will not be the most effective way of dealing with the issues raised by the neighbors.”

Here is the complete memo:

MEMORANDUM To: Paul Walters, Interim City Manager
Date: January 27, 2012
From: Mark Lawrence, Executive Assistant to the City Manager
Subject: OVERVIEW OF THE ISSUES RELATED TO A NEIGHBORHOOD REQUEST TO RESTRICT ACCESS TO THE FOOTPATH RUNNING BETWEEN JACK FISHER PARK AND THE CLASS I BICYCLE PATH THAT TERMINATES AT THE 5 FREEWAY Continue reading→

Pulido’s lawyer gets dragged into the Santiago Creek bike trail melee

Posted on by Posted in Bicycles, Civic Affairs, Miguel Pulido, Nature, Parks and Recreation, Paul Walters, Politics, public works, Santa Ana 55 Comments

The battle to finish the Santiago creek bike trail that currently ends under a bridge, just south of the Main Place Mall and Memory Lane, in north Santa Ana, took an interesting turn today as various letters and emails that were requested by the bike trail proponents were emailed by Santa Ana City Clerk Mary Huizar to an email list of media, bloggers and trail supporters.  I loaded the documents into Google Documents and you can see them for yourself at this link.

What this all boils down to is a belief by the handful of residents who don’t want the bike trail that they would be better off by denying public access to the trail, with a fence.  There demands are a bit tough to make out by pay special attention to the letter sent to the City of Santa Ana by their attorney, Mark Rosen.  You remember him, he was an elected member of the Garden Grove City Council and he is Santa Ana Mayor Miguel Pulido’s lawyer, which strikes me as a bit of a conflict of interest.  But there he is now representing the NIMBY neighbors. Continue reading→

Brea gets a Buffalo Wild Wings, after NIMBYs chases them out of Santa Ana

Posted on by Posted in Business, Civic Affairs, Development, Neighborhood Associations, Redevelopment, Santa Ana 74 Comments

The world’s largest Buffalo Wild Wings restaurant and sports bar opened to the public at 260 S. Brea Blvd. in Brea, on Monday, May 23.  Backed by local investors including several Southern California baseball and football players, the new $5 million restaurant is the latest redevelopment effort for downtown Brea by local business owner and former sports agent, Dwight Manley, who grew up in the town, according to Restaurant News.

Did you know that a Buffalo Wild Wings was going to open up in Santa Ana, over by Orchard Hardware on 17th and Tustin, back in 2008?  That didn’t work out though as a handful of NIMBY residents in the northeastern part of Santa Ana protested the establishment’s Conditional Use Permit (CUP.)  Eventually the owners of the proposed restaurant cleared out of town, abandoning all hope of ever being able to open for business here in Santa Ana.

Here is what the NIMBYs’ leader, Mike Tardif, posted about their protest on the Orange Juice blog article about the ill-fated Santa Ana Buffalo Wild Wings:

Dear Mayor Pulido and Members of the Santa Ana City Council:

We hereby request that the City Council call a public hearing concerning the alcohol (ABC) Conditional Use Permit granted to Buffalo Wild Wings, by the Planning Commission, for on-site sale of alcoholic beverages.

The residents of Parkwood, Meredith and Portola neighborhoods are very concerned that the negative effects of this “sports bar” on their neighborhoods have not been properly taken into consideration.

Respectfully submitted by,

Tom Childress
Kathy Ingersoll
Lee Ingersoll
Brad Day, Board Member Meredith/Parkwood HOA
Andy Martinez
Emmy Martinez
George R. Staff
Chrissy Staff
Rick Legowski
Peggy Legowski
Mike Tardif
Mercedes Tardif
Bridget Tardif
Tony Diaz
Jose Diaz
Carolyn Diaz
Muriel McCormick
Celesta Severtsen
Michael Severtsen
Jimmy Kabaian
Thomas Accongio
Nadine Accongio
Maria Cabrera
Milo Van Beck

These people are probably proud of themselves.  But what did they accomplish?  They cost our city jobs and tax revenue.  The newspapers are praising the new Buffalo Wild Wings in Brea today – but it should have been ours, here in Santa Ana, were it not for the selfish actions of a handful of NIMBYs.  What a shame.

So do you want to know what you missed out on fellow Santa Ana resident?  Here’s a few comments about the new Buffalo Wild Wings in Brea, from their Yelp page:

  • “This place is definitely the place to be for a while… it’s bringin in a lot of foot traffic into downtown Brea.”
  • “This place was recently opened in Downtown Brea…must say it is in a prime spot…there was a lot of people there for some good food and of course the games on TV.”
  • The restaurant overall is huge. There are TV screens on every walls. I will say that this place is a cool place to “hang out, watch a game, eat some wings, and drink some beers.”
  • “Inside is fantastic. The downtown Brea area is a void of sports viewing bars. Literally no good place to watch a game or two…until now.”
  • “LOVE this place! Incredible wings and flavors, like fifty different TVs (even have ones in the bathrooms lol), huge capacity, poker/trivia competitions, crazy wild and fun atmosphere and much more all for reasonable pricing as well.”
  • “The place itself is awesome – TV’s on every wall, all playing sports; the ambience upstairs is totally cool with the open deck and fire/water fountain upstairs.  Again, the place itself is 5 stars.”
  • “All in all a great experience…..Would definitely come again.”

Yep.  We could have had a Buffalo Wild Wings in Santa Ana.  But the NIMBYs killed it…and now it is in Brea instead.  Go figure.