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Orozco, Norma <br />From: pocharte@aol.com <br />Sent: Tuesday, December 15, 2020 4:09 PM <br />To: eComment, !City Clerk <br />Cc: City Council <br />Subject: URGENT: Agenda Item 75A <br />CORRECTION: I am commenting on ITEM 75A not 75C <br />-- SPS <br />-----Original Message ----- <br />From: pocharte@aol.com <br />To: ecomment@santa-ana.org <ecomment@santa-ana.org>; cityclerk@santa-ana.org <cityclerk@santa-ana.org> <br />Cc: citycouncil@santa-ana.org <citycouncil@santa-ana.org>; vsarmiento@santa-ana.org <vsarmiento@santa-ana.org> <br />Sent: Tue, Dec 15, 2020 3:53 pm <br />Subject: Agenda Item 75C <br />Dear Mayor, City Council, and Staff, <br />I am a Santa Ana native, resident and neighborhood leader. <br />I'm writing to comment on Agenda Item 75C, to express that I am against Downtown Inc and SABC receiving funding from <br />BID monies. <br />It's been my experience, both with the previous Downtown Inc administration under Vicky Baxter and the current one <br />administered by Lead Consultant Ryan Smolar, that Downtown Inc is a very dysfunctional organization. Not only to they <br />overcharge for services rendered and greatly inflate even their in -kind budgets, they siphon off additional public monies <br />that could have gone to other local non -profits. They also employ wasteful and divisive business practices that have killed <br />downtown Santa Ana's vitality. <br />In contrast to the the $500,000 + Downtown Inc/SABC receive every month, Downtown BIDS in prosperous cities like San <br />Diego only average about $100,000 in City Support, with BID staff responsible for raising their own operating and program <br />funds. The BID in Barrio Logan, San Diego employs local youth to carry our their cleaning, media, ambassador and <br />promotional services for a much lower rate than what we pay. <br />For all these reasons and the one's listed below, I recommend we dissolve Downtown Inc and SABC and get a fresh start <br />with our City BID structure. We should have staff research successful models in affinity cities and we should build a less <br />wasteful and more inclusive structure that's a better fit for Santa Ana. <br />Kind Regards, <br />-- Sandra Pena Sarmiento <br />Santa Ana Resident & Neighborhood Leader <br />*** Reasons to Defund DTI/SABC *** <br />- DTI/SABC is doing a terrible job considering the amount of money they are getting, over <br />$500,000 every year. <br />— DTI/SABC siphons off public monies from community non -profits, like the $400,000 they <br />are getting from the *YMCA sale. <br />