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massive Heritage Village housing development off of Dyer - underneath the John wayne flight path and against the Airport Board's opposition - with the condition the Inclusionary Funds be given to AMCAL. Again, no RFP. No surprise either since they couldn't compete successfully in 2015. But Sarmiento does change with the winds. And he helped, not surprisingly, to get the Heritage Village developer to only pay the Inclusionary Funds in installments. This put the AMCAL development in jeopardy but now the City is attempting to use Successor Agency funds to make sure former Planning Commissioner Mario Turner finally gets his $2 million payday. And it only takes $8.7 million of City funds in order to do that. So what is Sarmiento and Mario Turner afraid of? Why do they not want to see this project compete against other affordable housing projects? Why does the City not want to get the best deal possible, leverage as much of this money as possible, maybe even pay a non profit a lower developer fee to create more units? AMCAL is a for profit, why are they the beneficiary of a no compete $8.7 million? Well, Turner and Sarmiento were both on the planning commision together ;-) The other reason could be that if AMCAL had just worked with staff, if AMCAL hadn't got an employee fired, if AMCAL had just played by the rules, none of this would have come to light via the Orange Juice blog and AMCAL would have gotten City money plus vouchers in 2015. Karma does have a way of biting back. So what should the City do? It is already acknowledged as one of the most corrupt, if not the most corrupt, City in Orange County. Situations like this, that force talented employees like Mrs. Reenders and Mr. Stone to leave their positions, further devalue the City and cause talented employees to never consider working there unless you overpay them to the tune of $500,000 a year. Also, think of the current Housing Division Manager Judson Brown, how scared is he of doing anything that upsets the Council? Do you think he is negotiating a good deal with AMCAL? No, every time Mario Turner calls him he just reminds Mr. Brown of how his predecessor was fired for standing up to Sarmiento. The City is most definitely getting a raw deal here at worst, an unfavorable deal at best. The City must issue an RFP for all of the Inclusionary Funds and all of the Successor Agency funds. Temecula released an RFP in 2016 for $12 million plus City land and got 30+ responses. City of LA recent RFP for multiple City sites got 30+ responses. Same thing for 2016 Pasadena RFP. Anaheim issues RFP for its affordable housing funds, Irvine does it for money and land, other cities do it statewide. It's the proper thing to do if a city is truly interested in leveraging its funds and getting the best deal possible. Make developers compete for the money and offer truly innovative design and product. The fact that after 2+ years, Sarmiento is still attempting to give money directly to AMCAL, and after AMCAL couldn't win 2015 RFP, makes this a very fishy, corrupt transaction and it means yet again the City of Santa Ana is not doing what is right for the residents of the City. You are already wasting hundreds of thousands of dollars on that buffoon of a City Manager, don't waste this money too without getting the best deal possible. Finally, Sarmiento keeps harping about how this development is going to "revitalize" First St. This is completely unproven and in fact, study after study shows that a bad neighborhood influences a development more than a development influences a neighborhood. In fact, growing up in a bad neighborhood has for worse effects than most people know. See the link below. Maybe if the City issues an RFP, a nonprofit just might build affordable housing in a decent area instead, with far more units.