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Santa Ana is a very large city and our community is at its periphery thus the arrival of <br />service vehicles, such as police will be delayed by the great distance between our <br />neighborhood and central Santa Ana. Additionally, there is a lot of violent and serious crime <br />in the city of Santa Ana. The police are not going to take the minor crimes that occur in our <br />more peaceful neighborhood seriously compared to the homicides, rapes and drug deals that <br />are endemic in central Santa Ana. The CHP/OC Sheriffs that currently respond to us, <br />however, have easy access to our location due to its close proximity to the highways that they <br />routinely traverse. The current situation in our neighborhood is perfect as we have emergency <br />assistance within moments. This response time will be greatly reduced if we are annexed by <br />Santa Ana. I work at Orange County Global Medical Center, in the ER and I can say that <br />when we call for the SAPD we expect the response time to be an hour up to 3 hours. True, <br />this is not for an emergency call, but it shows that SAPD's resources are stretched thin as it is <br />and adding another neighborhood so far from their primary jurisdiction will increase the <br />danger to everyone else in Santa Ana, but will especially increase the danger to our <br />neighborhood, which has been served so well prior to this annexation attempt. <br /> <br /> Secondly, we purchased a home in this neighborhood because we liked that it was <br />unincorporated. We did not want the micromanaging that city bureaucracies often force on <br />their citizens. We don't want to be forced to use the city's sewage line. We don't want to be <br />told how high our fence can be or what can be put in our back yard. We also payed extra for <br />this home because it wasn't in Santa Ana. You may be unaware of this, but your city has a <br />poor reputation for safety and health. I could have bought a larger home for less money in <br />Santa Ana, but I didn't want to, because Santa Ana is not a nice city. If our neighborhood is <br />annexed, it is quite likely that my house will lose value because Santa Ana is not a nice city <br />and other people don't want to live there either. <br /> <br /> Finally, we have a connection to Tustin. Our children go to school there. We shop there. <br />My wife works there. We spend most of our time in Tustin. <br /> <br /> I suspect that this attempted annexation of our community is merely a naked land grab by <br />the city of Santa Ana to provide itself with more tax money from whatever commercial <br />enterprise (In and Out?) is being constructed on the corner of Tustin and 17th Street. It <br />certainly is not for the purpose of improving our little community. It appears to be crass <br />exploitation of our neighborhood to extract tax dollars that will be taken to central Santa Ana <br />to hire more bureaucrats and buy more votes for corrupt Santa Ana politicians. Stay out of our <br />community. We didn't invite you, and we don't want you. <br /> <br /> <br /> Thanks, <br /> Ben Meekhof.