Voice of OC (https://voiceofoc.org/author/bpho/)
Resident frustrations boiled during a town hall meeting hosted by the Buena Park City Council to consider a temporary, regional homeless shelter just north of the city’s border with Anaheim.
Santa Ana City Council members granted raises to police officers and sergeants totaling $25 million over the next two and a half years, without the ability to actually pay the $4.3 million cost for this fiscal year.
Santa Ana City Council members will vote Tuesday on the largest pay raises for the city’s police officers in more than a decade, totaling $25 million in taxpayer money over the next two and a half years and adding $12 million per year going forward in additional costs. The raises amount to a 13.6 percent to 19.3 percent increase in base pay for each officer and sergeant between now and July 2020, according to the city. Officers and sergeants with 15 to 19 years in law enforcement would receive raises totaling 16.5 percent, and those with 20 or more years would receive 19.3 percent in increases. Before the last set of raises in 2017, the median compensation for a Santa Ana officer totaled about $213,000 per year, including $111,000 in pay before overtime and $88,000 in benefits, according to city data published by Transparent California. The city staff report doesn’t offer an explanation for the raises, beyond saying they resulted from negotiations between the police officers’ union and City Council.
The city councils’ action struck down hopes for a park between two park-poor cities and stirred opponents’ fears developers will turn the property into an urban hotspot and price working-class families and Latinos out of the surrounding neighborhoods.
But volunteer teams reported difficulty finding homeless people during the first day of the two-day countywide homeless count.
But City Hall’s day-to-day leadership remained in limbo.
Council members vote Tuesday on a nearly $400,000 separation agreement ousting City Manager Raul Godinez and decide on a replacement for longtime City Clerk Maria Huizar.
The City of Santa Ana could yank money from the promotion of downtown businesses if those companies sue over parking, traffic or other disruptions caused by construction of the OC Streetcar Project that runs through one of the city’s busiest commercial areas.
Peter Morales, 35, brandished a pocket knife in front of the Orange City Council and was arrested Tuesday night during a heated public discussion on how to fill a council vacancy.
The Santa Ana City Council, in a move with long-term implications for a dais that changed by three members Tuesday, has a new ward boundary map.