CORRESPONDENCE - 75A-1 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

Orozco, Norma From: Elaine Arriola <elaine.a.arriola@gmail.com> Sent: Tuesday, June 16, 2020 3:22 PM To: eComment Cc: Pulido, Miguel; Sarmiento, Vicente; Penaloza, David; Bacerra, Phil; Villegas, Juan; Mendoza, Nelida; Solorio, Jose Subject: URGENT: Public Comment Agenda Item 75 Categories: Correspondence To the Santa Ana Mayor, City Council, and to whom it may concern: I am not just addressing you today city council, I speak to us all. We are a city that stands together. We are different from the rest of Orange County; we are special. We value one another, our safety, our health, our well- being, our community. We know that we are being disproportionately affected by the COVID-ig pandemic in terms of health and our fiscal standing. However this comes to no surprise. As a city primarily populated by people who identify as an ethnic minority we are victims of viruses like COVID-ig that magnify the target towards minorities. Amidst this crisis we have proven we are resilient together. Our community came together to protect those most vulnerable. People across our city came together to support one another, to protect one another whether it was through food banks, protecting tenant rights, relieving challenges that those less fortunate and most impacted could not combat on their own. We each contribute to this city in our own way. I am here today to do my part in uplifting the voices of members of our home --Santa Ana. With that said, my name is Elaine Arriola from Ward i represented by councilman Vicente Sarmiento, and it is with the most profound urgency that I relay you this message. Santa Ana has been in and has been expecting a budget deficit since before the outbreak of covid-ig, we know that. Members of the council I know that you care about your constituents, but the question we have is do you care for us enough? Here is your opportunity to engage with us. So many of us constituents are urging elected officials, but most importantly you city council, to please reconsider where the general budget is going. Santa Ana especially is significant because even as almost half of our city's general fund is being and has been allocated to the local police department, crime has only increased in the past five years. When you run with the platform of increasing public safety you are telling us that we need protection from ourselves. That we are such a broken community that instead of investing in us especially our youth we need to be policed. Santa Ana is among the top ioo cities that pays their police the most. Yet some people in our community are impoverished, homeless, low-income, barely making ends meet, and living paycheck to paycheck. The effects of over policed communities are not only the outcome of police brutality and violence, its stunted child development, increasing mental health issues, less -higher education attainment for members of our community, and amplification of the school to prison pipeline, amongst many other negative outcomes. Let's find ways to provide resources for underprivileged children, students, and community members. Let's not condition a beautiful community like Santa Ana to feel criminalized because the city funds their policing more than community development plans. Especially in Santa Ana, undocumented constituents already feel criminalized by the current administration based on their immigration status, People of Color in the community feel criminalized because the rest of Orange County feels the need to ignore the humanitarian crisis that is the vast amount of homeless people in our county and leaving it to cities especially Santa Ana who are already struggling financially. I respect and admire your prolonged efforts of pushing the county to do more on homelessness. However, this city's spending should be effective. I am here to break it to you that hiring more police officers councilmen Solorio and Sarmiento who are running for Mayor and to everyone here today, is not the solution to a humanitarian issue. I live right by the train tracks on the southside of Santa Ana where a lot of homeless people reside. I witness the violence they are subjected to. The police come, tear down their