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Home My WebLink AboutCorrespondence - #22 Orozco, Norma From:Lissandra Gaytan <lissandra714@icloud.com> Sent:Tuesday, May 18, 2021 4:30 PM To:eComment Subject:Section 36-708 I live in ward 6 and I support this item. Thank you Sent from my iPhone 1 Orozco, Norma From:Corkie Keys <corkie@mindspring.com> Sent:Tuesday, May 18, 2021 8:59 PM To:eComment Subject:Support for Section 36-708 We support the passage of Section 36-708 prohibiting spectators at street races. Please vote to pass it. Thank you, Kennette Keys & William Park Residents of 92707 2 Orozco, Norma From:Danny Vega <vegadanny@live.com> Sent:Tuesday, May 18, 2021 2:41 PM To:eComment Subject:Support for Item 22 Dear City Council and Mayor, I am writing this email to show my full support for Item 22: Ordinance Adding Article XV, Sections 36-706 through 36-710, Entitled "Street Racing" to the Santa Ana Municipal Code Prohibiting Spectators at Illegal Speed Contests and Reckless Driving Exhibitions. Street racing and street takeovers are becoming more of a problem in our city and we need to look out for the safety of our community. I have seen over a dozen of videos of street takeovers where spectators are knocked unconscious and suffer horrific injuries because they came too close to these cars. We need to take tough stance on this issue. I commend the council for bringing this forth and have faith you will put our resident's safety first and support this ordinance. Let's not wait until someone dies before we do something about this. Thank you. Regards, Danny Vega Resident of Ward 3 1 Orozco, Norma From:jpramirez714 <jpramirez714@sbcglobal.net> Sent:Tuesday, May 18, 2021 2:17 PM To:eComment; Bacerra, Phil Subject:Agenda item 22 Hello, I've been a resident in Santa Ana for 41 years and currently residing in ward 4. I ask that you vote in favor of Agenda item 22 "Street Racing" to the Santa Ana Municipal Code Prohibiting Spectators at Illegal Speed Contests and Reckless Driving Exhibitions. I feel this ordinance will strongly deter persons from congregating to watch street races or takeovers. Which in turn may help to deter persons from wanting to street race or perform takeovers as well. This is a problem that needs to be aggressively addressed and I feel this ordinance will aid in that regard. It has costs lives and injuries in the past and should be dealt with proactively rather than wait for another major incident to happen and then address it. Thank You, John Sent from my Galaxy 1 Flores, Dora From: Maria Ceja <ceja.maria95@gmail.com> Sent: Tuesday, April 20, 2021 12:53 PM To: eComment Subject: Item 28 Greeting Mayor Sarmiento and City Council, I am opposed to item 28. This ordinance criminalizes residents in their right to be in public right of way. This would subject residents to have encounters with a police department that hold a 37 percent score out of 100. These punitive measures do not resolve the issue at hand and can potentially create more safety issues. This is not the approach to create safer streets. The root of the issue must be addressed and the city can begin with consulting with residents and the organizations doing the work on the ground, like Santa Ana Active Streets (SAAS). This ordinance is a barrier that will affect a specific population, not an overall solution. Do better than superficial policies and take action. Sincerely, Maria SANTA ANA ACTIVE STREETS April 20, 2021 City Mayor, City Council, City Manager City of Santa Ana, Public Works Agency M-43 20 Civic Center Plaza Santa Ana, CA 92702 eComment(? Santa-ana.org Re: Public Comment, Item 28: Ordinance Adding Article XV, Sections 36-706 through 36-710, Entitled "Street Racing" to the Santa Ana Municipal Code Prohibiting Spectators at Illegal Speed Contests and Reckless Driving Exhibitions Dear Mayor Sarmiento; Council Members Phan, Lopez, Hernandez, Penaloza, Bacerra, Mendoza, and City Manager Ridge: I'm writing to express our opposition to Item 28 street racing ordinance. Santa Ana Active Streets coalition works to advocate for a more accessible, healthier, and safer environment on Santa Ana streets. We understand the dangers associated with street racing and residents' safety concerns regarding street racing. One errant car can result in injury or death of fellow motorists, pedestrians and bicyclists, as we've seen happen on our city streets. We also understand that speeding and street racing has increased during the lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Lockdowns emptied our streets, which in turn provide increased propensity for speeding and street racing, while residents have lost many opportunities for gathering and recreation. Our coalition disagrees with criminalizing people in public rights of way, as described in the following ordinance. People in a public right of way, even as spectators are still not participating in the illegal activity, and so we believe they should not be criminalized. Santa Ana has the highest pedestrian activity out of all OC cities, and under the current criteria laid out in the ordinance, it is unclear as to who is a spectator and who is simply a passer-by. Instead of enforcement strategies, we aim to resolve the root case of speeding and street racing in our roads. Simply put, Santa Ana's wide main roadways incentivize fast driving. While drivers speeding has grown more pervasive during the pandemic, speeding has always been present in the City's wider, freeway -like streets. In our view, speeding has become more common and faster, and it all comes down to how wide our roads are. People are naturally reacting to their built environment, and they are reacting to it by speeding. The City has invested and continues to invest heavily in improving street and traffic safety, and we applaud such efforts. We applaud the more than $50 million obtained through grant cycles to Santa Ana Active Streets 1450 West Fourth Street I Santa Ana, CA 92701 Tel. (657) 205-7306 1 www.saascoalition.ora I infonasaascoalition.ora Page 2 of 2 transform our streets to make it safer to walk and bike. However, we believe more work needs to be done. While progress has been made on some of our major arterial streets, including adding protected and painted bike lanes, they remain environments that incentivize fast driving. The City's prior planning efforts, including its own Safe Mobility Santa Ana plan, has identified arterial streets as constituting only 20% of our roadway network, but 60% of all pedestrian involved collisions and 68% of the collisions involving people on bicycles occur on them. These data show how dangerous these wide streets are for all travellers, whether they be motorists, pedestrians, or cyclists. Yet, limited progress has been made in implementing the numerous street reconfigurations that have been studied in prior city planning efforts that would calm traffic speeds. We call on the council to prioritize public works efforts on improving traffic safety on arterial roads. We believe that policing will not mitigate Santa Ana's street racing problem. This approach would be reactive, and we believe a more effective approach will be proactive. Rather than improving traffic safety, these measures will have the unfortunate consequences of policing innocent civilians rather than those breaking the law. We believe the Santa Ana Police Department had good intentions in developing this ordinance, and as our work in Advocacy Activation, and Education demonstrate, we both have a shared goal of improving traffic safety in the City. But we believe a more effective effort will lay in cooperating with the Orange County Transportation Authority, and a more ambitious collaboration with the Santa Ana Public Works Department. This team of agencies should collaborate and set policy and implement capital projects that should change street design and geometry to discourage street racing. Working with these entities will help to identify a data -driven approach to locate which corridors in Santa Ana see pervasive street racing and where to invest capital improvements directed at mitigating street racing. Examples of policy changes and capital improvements include: Allowing parking on arterials such as metered parking (which would require policy change at the OCTA level) which would generate revenue for the city, protected bike infrastructure, pedestrian safety improvements (in collaboration with Public Works), speed humps, and more frequent traffic lights and crossings throughout arterials. More ticketing will not improve public safety long term, and we fear it is a slippery slope when we are criminalizing people in the public right of way. We respectfully request the mayor and council to vote against this ordinance. We at SAAS look forward to building a stronger partnership with the City and County in improving traffic safety for all in Santa Ana. Sincerely, ,;I� Krictnrnher Fortin Project Director Santa Ana Active Streets 1128 E Katella Ave. I Orange, CA 92867 I Tel. (657) 205-7306 1 www.saascoalition.ora I infonasaascoalition.ora