Missed the Meeting? Bullet Points to the Rescue!

Last night's meeting progressed a little smoother than the OCCCO sponsored meeting that took place in late October at St. Joseph’s, but that’s not saying much. Here’s a brief recap.

The Good

• The Mayor lightly touched on a good point saying that while pedestrian and vehicle traffic is key, the future of Santa Ana is being a “Multi-Mobile” city (street cars, lightrail, etc.).


• The Renaissance Plan allows for residential zoning in downtown. Currently, only mixed-use residential is permitted.


• Having shops that stay open at night in the downtown area to resuscitate the nightlife. Downtown Santa Ana has a lot of potential to be a great 24-hour environment.


• The recognition of the need to attract stores into downtown Santa Ana that appeal to a broader spectrum of residents to spend our dollars in this city as opposed to others like Irvine and Tustin.


• Stefanos Polyzoides, an architect that the city hired as a consultant seems to really know what he’s talking about. Unfortunately, it looks as if he is going to have to handhold our council through every step of the way.
  

The Bad

• Most of the night was spent discussing parking issues such as converting surface parking into parking structures, opening private parking garages after hours, and the construction of new ones.


• Claudia Alvarez seemed overly concerned about the residents who currently live in low-income housing and expressed an interest in adding even more. While I can appreciate a champion for the “financially challenged”, Santa Ana needs to understand that one of the reasons why it’s in its current state is due to the abundance of low-income/high-density housing. Again, this could all be political rhetoric on her part being that she is up for re-election next year.


• Sadly, many of the residents who live here now will not enjoy the fruits of the Renaissance Project being that by the time of its completion, many will have moved on.


• Overall, to me, it really feels like Santa Ana is a city where the majority (lower-income) has the ears of the city council. Not once did I feel as if anyone sitting at that table was representing my needs or concerns.
  

The Ugly

• While I don’t fully understand the political mind, at times I was concerned with our mayor and his behavior during the meeting about this serious topic. When not cracking jokes to his fellow council members as the presenter spoke, or checking his cell phone several times like a 16-year-old “txting” fiend, the mayor just didn’t seem all there in my opinion.


• The brave souls who pioneered the downtown Artist Lofts as well as our community have no representation. The city seems to forget that we generate a lot of tax revenue and more developments like ours can only be beneficial for the city as a whole. No one ever said, “Hey, what are we doing to keep the residents who’ve already moved here in the past few years safe and stable? You know, when this project takes off, people are going to look to the current loft residents to gauge the success of future developments.”


• The mayor stated that the council would need to take their workbooks home and “do their homework” and digest what was heard tonight. Everything that was said tonight is a regurgitation of what has been said many times before in previous discussions. City discussion of the Renaissance Project will reconvene early next year, and most assuredly be drawn out to be part of the mayor’s re-election campaign.


• While I may not have all of the answers and sometimes might seem hypercritical, it is apparent now that we are the minority in Santa Ana and we need to speak louder to have our voices heard.

Doug Irving from the OC Register was also in attendance.
Read his article about the meeting here.