CORRESPONDENCE - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

January B, 2015 7015 3AN 12 P�) 3^ 5 9 Dear Santa Ana City Co Unci Imembers, Every two years, your election platforms have promised to m�sffiijiiAs to operate in Santa Ana. And yet election cycles come and go and nothing ever cyanges to make it easier for businesses to operate here in Santa Ana. Agenda items 13A and 13C of the December 161h City Council Meeting are symbolic of why nothing ever changes. The vote on those two agenda items glaringly demonstrates that the Council is more interested in playing political games than in improving the business climate in Santa Ana. I've watched the Planning Commission for many years and we all know that most of the appointees have been political allies of the appointing Councilmember. Sadly, most Planning Commissioners have had few, if any, qualifications to make good Commissioners. Even sadder still, Santa Ana has many residents who would make excellent Planning Commissioners, but would never want to be associated with any of you or the Commission as it exists. Ask anyone who has tried to open a business in Santa Ana. It is a frustratingly long, outdated and obscenely expensive process. Some of this is due to outdated codes that never seem to get updated, some of it is due to unforeseen building conditions, some of it is due to missteps of City Staff or the business owner himself. But most of the frustration is due to politics. Santa Ana has stated many times that we want to encourage new business, yet the Planning Commission thinks nothing of delaying approvals for months on end as if these small businesses have the deep pockets of a store chain. Take Little Sparrow for instance. The flaming hoops this business owner was forced to jump through over and over again was shameful. Commissioners with no business experience who judge whether a business owner "has what it takes", are self-aggrandizing fools. And those Commissioners who find a way to turn everything into a racial issue, are crossing the line of decency. When Commissioner Mill was reinstated on the Planning Commission several years ago, it was with the strict requirement that he discontinue his blogging on the Orange Juice / New Santa Ana blog site. Yet we all know that he never stopped blogging. Just because he doesn't sign his posts and continues to feed the "Editor" with information, doesn't mean he isn't blogging. Of course Mr. Mill has a First Amendment right to speak his mind, but the kind of bullshit that goes on at "New Santa Ana", isn't something a Commissioner should be associated with. Especially when immediately after Planning Commission meetings, the "Editor" (who doesn't attend the meetings) will report the same biased information that Mr. Mill has just delivered in the meeting. Just as it wouldn't be appropriate for a Councilmember to be writing for "New Santa Ana", it isn't appropriate for any appointed Commissioners to be doing it either. Yet, it has been an unwritten rule (or perhaps it is actually written in our Charter) that City Councilmembers will always approve each other's choices for Commissioners unless there is something really egregious about the appointee. So it would be assumed that Councilmember Tmajero would be the one to remove or retain Mr. Mill as his Commissioner. And likewise it would be Councilmember Benavides who would be the one to remove or retain Mr. Bacerra as his Commissioner. As I understand, Commissioner Bacerra's actions were deemed egregious because he questioned the usefulness and the transparency of a new Ex Parte communication disclosure form that some unknown entity within the Planning Department decided the Commissioners should begin completing. Yet according to Mr. Bacerra, he did complete all the forms once the by-laws for the Planning Commission