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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCORRESPONDENCE - 25G Orozco, Norma From:elizondo.maria1153@gmail.com Sent:Monday, July 06, 2020 10:34 PM To:eComment Subject:CITY COUNSEL MEETING 7/7/2020 Dear City Council, I am writing in regards to several Agenda Items for your meeting on 7/7/2020. 23A. Construction Contract for All American Asphalt – I understand that this work may have been done, but what kind of inspection of work is being done for these repairs. Myself and my family have driven on many streets that were “supposedly” repaired, but they are actually done very poorly and need more work. In particular is the area of Raitt and th 5 Street. The road was repaved, however it still has the same holes and very uneven pavement that makes driving in that area hazardous and taxes your vehicles wear and tear. Please ensure that if you are approving companies to do work, that it is thoroughly inspected and that the city has the right of refusal to pay unless it is fixed to the council / citizens satisfaction. If the repair was done to your home driveway, you know that you would be un-satisfied with the work and want it fixed. Treat of city streets like it your street and the money is coming out of your pocket. 25G. Amendment to Police Officers Association – Please do not give the police officers of our city a pay raise at this time. The extension needs to be a length of at least 2-3 years so that the police department can be thoroughly investigated for the issues that have been raised in recent weeks. We do need our officers, but we cannot in good conscience provide them a pay raise when many of them do not perform their duties in a proper fashion, to include harassment of citizens, police brutality, corruption, and a basic lack of human decency for all citizens of our city. 85A and 85B. Please pass this order as the wearing of face masks and having hand sanitizer available due to the COVID- 19 pandemic is a must for the citizens of Santa Ana, Orange County, California, and our country as a whole. As we all have seen, the positive test rates have increased since the Governor started to open things back up. All business should adopt the policy of “NO MASK, NO SERVICE” and not allow people without a mask in their premises. I have seen too many people just walking around like they are invinsible and will not get the disease. It is starting to reach people of all ages as the new reports show that the average age of those contracting the virus is decreasing. We must realize that we are not just taking these precautions for ourselves, but for our fellow man. 85C. Please approve this action to have the Staff report on how to curb / stop the street racing in South Santa Ana. Too many nights we can hear the cars screatching down the streets at all hours and have the sound turn into a crash. Our family has lost friends to these actions and they are senseless deaths that could be avoided. While this may seem to be a difficult task, it is a task that must be tackled head on and with great persistence. We are losing too many young lives of our city who could have gone on to live successful and fruitful lives. We need the police to be more proactive in stopping these incidents from happening. Please have a report ready to be discussed and ask the public for their thoughts as well as their lives have been directly touched by street racing. Lastly, I did not see an agenda item where the council is reducing the budget for assisting persons who are potentially being deported or held by ICE. Please excuse me I missing this in the agenda. Cutting this funding is a travesty. There are way too many people in our city who need this assistance as it is vital to them and their family to be treated fairly and with respect in being in our city and country. Please increase the funding back to prior levels or to an increased level so that the Immigrant Defenders Law Center can do more good for our citizens. Lupe Elizondo 1 Orozco, Norma From:Jarvis Jennings <jarvisjay2@twc.com> Sent:Monday, July 06, 2020 10:35 PM To:eComment Subject:7/7/2020 CITY COUNCIL MEETING AGENDA ITEMS Importance:High Dear City Council, I am writing in regards to several Agenda Items for your meeting on 7/7/2020. 23A. Construction Contract for All American Asphalt – I understand that this work may have been done, but what kind of inspection of work is being done for these repairs. Myself and my family have driven on many streets that were “supposedly” repaired, but they are actually done very poorly and need more work. In particular is the area of Raitt and th 5 Street. The road was repaved, however it still has the same holes and very uneven pavement that makes driving in that area hazardous and taxes your vehicles wear and tear. Please ensure that if you are approving companies to do work, that it is thoroughly inspected and that the city has the right of refusal to pay unless it is fixed to the council / citizens satisfaction. If the repair was done to your home driveway, you know that you would be un-satisfied with the work and want it fixed. Treat of city streets like it your street and the money is coming out of your pocket. 25G. Amendment to Police Officers Association – Please do not give the police officers of our city a pay raise at this time. The extension needs to be a length of at least 2-3 years so that the police department can be thoroughly investigated for the issues that have been raised in recent weeks. We do need our officers, but we cannot in good conscience provide them a pay raise when many of them do not perform their duties in a proper fashion, to include harassment of citizens, police brutality, corruption, and a basic lack of human decency for all citizens of our city. 85A and 85B. Please pass this order as the wearing of face masks and having hand sanitizer available due to the COVID- 19 pandemic is a must for the citizens of Santa Ana, Orange County, California, and our country as a whole. As we all have seen, the positive test rates have increased since the Governor started to open things back up. All business should adopt the policy of “NO MASK, NO SERVICE” and not allow people without a mask in their premises. I have seen too many people just walking around like they are invincible and will not get the disease. It is starting to reach people of all ages as the new reports show that the average age of those contracting the virus is decreasing. We must realize that we are not just taking these precautions for ourselves, but for our fellow man. 85C. Please approve this action to have the Staff report on how to curb / stop the street racing in South Santa Ana. Too many nights we can hear the cars screeching down the streets at all hours and have the sound turn into a crash. Our family has lost friends to these actions and they are senseless deaths that could be avoided. While this may seem to be a difficult task, it is a task that must be tackled head on and with great persistence. We are losing too many young lives of our city who could have gone on to live successful and fruitful lives. We need the police to be more proactive in stopping these incidents from happening. Please have a report ready to be discussed and ask the public for their thoughts as well as their lives have been directly touched by street racing. Lastly, I did not see an agenda item where the council is reducing the budget for assisting persons who are potentially being deported or held by ICE. Please excuse me I missing this in the agenda. Cutting this funding is a travesty. There are way too many people in our city who need this assistance as it is vital to them and their family to be treated fairly and with respect in being in our city and country. Please increase the funding back to prior levels or to an increased level so that the Immigrant Defenders Law Center can do more good for our citizens. 1 Jarvis Jennings 2 Orozco, Norma From:Melissa Palmerin <palmerinmelissa@yahoo.com> Sent:Monday, July 06, 2020 10:52 PM To:eComment Subject:item number 25g, 55B, 65d. My name is Melissa Palmerin. I live in ward 6 and today I will be addressing item numbers 25g, 55B, and 65d, Item number 25g: I hope that as council members, you all see the extension of the wages over the next 2 years, not as a symbol of generosity, but rather a confirmation of the claims many in the community have made about the police department and the POA. The fact that the POA are using the plight that the city of Santa Ana are in to push their agenda of increasing funds allocated to the police department, in any form is absurd. To add the 2% ($1,226,321) increase for the retiree health fund for police officers, that tax payers will have to pay, when many of us do not want to, is built on the assumption that the city council is in favor of all things police. This assumption is built on the actions brought forth from this council during the 2 previous city council meetings. The $200,000+ in vehicles, the majority of the city council in favor of the budget as presented, the claims affirming the jobs of police officers regardless of the neglect and abuse residents of Santa Ana endure from the SAPD. I vote to take out the one-time contribution to the retiree health fund. Instead, I would like to see those funds, that we seem to have, be allocated to Covid testing for those who do not have insurance, for remote therapy for those who are experiencing mental health issues enhanced by the pandemic, and financial support for those unemployed. If the best the city council can do is providing sanitizer and supporting the wearing of masks, during a time when we have the highest cases in OC, demonstrates the priorities for the council. If we have the $1,226,321 to give to the police retiree health fund, we have the funds to provide testing, medicine, money to those unemployed and uninsured. Many of you may have voted to increase the salaries of police wages, but I urge each and everyone of the council members to represent the residents of Santa Ana, in the manner in which we have told you. We have stated that we do not want to fund the police department, this also means the benefits police officers get. Item number 55B: I vote against the council charging candidates for the 200 or 400 word candidate statement. Why is there a cost for an electronic copy? According to the statement in the staff report "election code allows the Council to establish a charge to be levied against candidates in order to recover the cost of printing, handling and mailing these statements (pg 2). Therefore, why is there a charge for the electronic copy? Shouldn't the city council give all those running to have the same opportunity to advocate for themselves without the burden of having to pay $2,601.10 for a candidate statement. I find it unfair for those who are running, who do not have the means to pay these funds, regardless if it is optional, having to opt out. As a resident of Santa Ana, I want to hear the voices of each candidate equally. Why can't each candidate post their statement on the Santa-ana.org website under city hall for free? Having candidates statements included in the voter pamphlet should not be based on monetary returns for printing, handling and shipping. It is our rights as residents to have every candidate represented in the voter pamphlet, regardless if the candidates can pay the cost or not. Item number 65D: I oppose the budget, along with many residents in Santa Ana. I would like to refer to statements from Villegas and Pulido in 2017. A The reason why I want to bring up certain statements from 2017, is because during this time there was $17 million in legal fees taxpayers had to pay for the killings and use of excessive force by SAPD. In 2017, there was not a large public demand to defund the police, but rather to create a citizen oversight committee. According to the Voice of OC, Pulido stated in response to the committee in 2017, “I think it’s not broken. Don’t fix it, leave it alone. They have plenty, plenty of review.” Villegas stated "People make mistakes. We all make mistakes". Now 3 years later, residents of Santa Ana are calling for both, the defunding of SAPD and a citizen oversight committee. Yet, for members in the city council, the rhetoric for three years have stayed the same. 1 Villegas still states in 2020, "we all make mistakes". Pulido still believes that "if it isn't broken, don't fix it". After hearing, many residents call in the previous council meeting about the abuse, harassment, and negligence demonstrated by SAPD, we still has Solorio, Pulido, and Villegas vocally state that SAPD either needs more funding or is doing a great job. The residents of Santa Ana have spoken, we want to defund the police and allocate those funds to youth programs, homelessness, education, college prep, mental health programs, affordable housing, helping those who are undocumented, and drug addiction programs. The programs we, as residents, want to see are those that are not associated with criminalizing our youth, rather providing them with better paying jobs, better teachers, better curriculum, summer programs, mentors, and therapists. If ones worry is the crime in Santa Ana, then one should not look for the solution in the police department, but rather look at the causes. Unemployment, racial discrimination, lack of resources and programs, homelessness, lack of affordable housing, and racist policies. To fund the police, to increase their salaries, is to criminalize people who are most affected by unemployment, racial discrimination, lack of resources and programs, homelessness, lack of affordable housing, lack of insurance, and racist policies. The problem is not those who are being criminalized or are perceived as criminals, it's the racist policies put in place, that subjugates low-income POC to act in a manner that is perceived criminal, to those who have the means to survive or thrive in a capitalistic country. Census: - 23%= educational attainment of a high school degree - 17.7%= poverty rate - $29,970= the female median yearly wage in Santa Ana - $32,489= the male median yearly wage in Santa Ana Personal experience: - there are hardly any apartments that are decent that cost less than $2,000 a month. - Minimum wage jobs hardly give benefits or wages to support oneself financially. - Many are discouraged to go to college by teachers and councilors. - Lack of resources or programs at all SAUSD schools to prepare students for college. - Many of my friends who work full-time had to drop out of college. - Many people I know have mental health issues. 2 SANTA ANA POLICE OFFICERS ASSOCIATION 1607 NORTH SYCAMORE SANTA ANA, CALIFORNIA 92701-3513 \[714\] 836-1211 FAX \[714\] 836-6108 July 7, 2020 SANTA ANA CITY COUNCIL 20 CIVIC CENTER PLAZA P.O. BOX 1988, M31 SANTA ANA, CA 92701 Honorable Mayor and Members of the City Council: I am the President of the Santa Ana Police Officers Association (POA). The POA represents the rank and file sworn and non-sworn employees of the police department in their employment relationships with the city. Lately, police associations around the country are portrayed as bad and protecting bad officers. We do not do that. We exist solely to provide our members the medical and dental benefits and labor negotiations component. We do not provide legal defense rather the officers purchase their own legal defense plans. I think our relationship can be best described as one based on mutual trust and reverence for good governance. In the Great Recession of 2008, when the economy of the nation was teetering on the brink of disaster, your labor negotiator came to the POA and told us that the city was close to bankruptcy. We were skeptical but based on a relationship stretching over 50 years, we sat down with our partners at city hall and in the city administration and worked out an arrangement, foregoing agreed upon raises and deferring benefits, that was critical in keeping the city solvent. We were the only city labor group to make concessions, to defer benefits, and to come to the aid of the city. Now, we find ourselves in an unprecedented time, facing a global pandemic that has pushed the city into a financial predicament again. In Santa Ana, the cost of the coronavirus appears to be overwhelming for both the economy and the public health. The carefully crafted budget that you labored to put in place is of concern, bombarded by the loss of revenue that the virus has brought. Because of the current world pandemic that no one could have predicted, the POA reached out to the city administration in an effort to meet the financial issues head-on with a plan to bring some relief to the budget. Then, as we were thinking through the contract issues, the world was hit by nationwide civil unrest. Rather than dollars and cents, we sought to direct our efforts towards dollars and sense. st The dollars in our equation is the raise that we are due under the contract on July 1 of this year. We are going to forgo that raise for the time being. We will take part of it in January of next year and the rest at the end of the 2020 2021 fiscal year. We will extend the contract for an additional six months so that when we next discuss dollars, we will hopefully have a better idea what a post pandemic economy looks like. Page 2 July 7, 2020 SANTA ANA CITY COUNCIL HONORABLE MEMBERS OF THE CITY COUNCIL This plan makes sense for the city and for the association. We have made some progress in addressing the budget issue and we have shown the city, the county and, most importantly, the citizens that we are stakeholders in Santa Ana and that we take that responsibility seriously. We have been stakeholders in the city for the 75 years of our existence. We sponsor youth activities, give scholarships to high school seniors, hold community events, and outfit elementary school students for the school year, among other things. These are done by the Association, not the police department, but the union that represents our employees. We are good neighbors, friends, helpers and citizens. We will continue to be so in the future. For the present, we need to continue to build relationships with our community. For the future we are dedicated to working with you, our elected leaders to keep our city safe for all. Our partnership is vibrant, thoughtful, helpful and most of all, it makes sense. Respectfully, GERRY SERRANO PRESIDENT SANTA ANA POLICE OFFICERS ASSOCIATION GS/rr SAPOA-Santa Ana City Council-July 7,2020