This Tuesday, Brea city officials will go behind closed doors to talk about their secretive water agency, Cal Domestic, and plans to keep city representatives on the Cal Domestic board of directors from filing any kind of financial disclosure about conflicts of interest. Such disclosures would have allowed city officials to question a former city manager that was being paid by the water agency while also advising the city to spend millions on controversial water rights purchases – a move that last year drew sanction from the state’s Fair Political Practices Commission.
Author Archives: Norberto Santana Jr.
Norberto Santana, Jr. is an experienced investigative reporter, serving as founding publisher and editor-in-chief for Voice of OC, overseeing newsroom, engagement and fundraising operations.
He’s also an award-winning columnist, focusing his efforts on First Amendment issues and local government, being recognized multiple years by the Orange County Press Club as the region’s best columnist.
The LA Press Club has named him a Journalist of the Year (2018) and the Los Angeles chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists has recognized him as a “Distinguished Journalist.” The California Chicano News Media Association has honored him with a lifetime achievement award and the national News Leaders Association has recognized him for his commitment to diverse staffing and coverage.
Santana is a pioneer in the field of nonprofit news having served on the board of directors for the national trade group for nonprofit newsrooms, the Institute for Nonprofit News (INN). He also has served on boards of the national nonprofit advocating investigative journalism, Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) and the California First Amendment advocacy group, CalAware.
In addition to journalism, Santana also teaches public affairs and investigative journalism as an adjunct faculty professor at Chapman University.
Before founding Voice of OC in 2009, Santana was a lead investigative reporter for the Orange County Register, focusing on county government. He spent nearly two decades covering local governments across Southern California, previously as a staff writer at the San Diego Union Tribune and San Bernardino County Sun.
Santana began his journalistic career as an apprentice reporter with Congressional Quarterly in Washington, D.C. covering daily floor action in the U.S. Congress and followed that up with a stint covering the territorial Senate for the U.S. Virgin Islands Daily News.
Languages spoken: English and Spanish
Posted inCountywide, Investigative, Norberto Santana Jr., Top Stories
Santana: DA Todd Spitzer and Sheriff Don Barnes Clash Over Secret Booking Audits
Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer and Sheriff Don Barnes continued to take aim at each other this week, in the wake of an evidence-booking scandal that has already triggered four fired and seven disciplined deputy sheriffs along with four ongoing probes inside the Sheriff’s department.
Posted inCountywide, Norberto Santana Jr.
Santana: Can DA Todd Spitzer and Sheriff Don Barnes Survive The Evidence Booking Scandal?
A disturbing OC Sheriff’s Department Audit of late evidence bookings finds that 30 percent of evidence booked by deputies over the last two years didn’t comply with policy. While photos and videos are the majority of late bookings, there’s also cash, drugs and guns among the items booked into evidence late, sometimes by as much as a month. The audit, kept secret until recently, raises a host of issues for Sheriff Don Barnes and District Attorney Todd Spitzer and could affect thousands of criminal cases across Orange County.
Posted inNorberto Santana Jr., Top Stories
Santana: Columbus, Indigenous Peoples’ Day Engages Around Equity
The debate over recasting Columbus Day as Indigenous People’s Day offers a chance to consider equity in society and how best civic leaders can address inequity. In San Juan Capistrano, the historic debate is in many ways still playing itself out in the effort to preserve one of the last original indigenous villages in Orange County. And on the modern policy front, one recent study about inequity in Orange County is challenging local policymakers to confront a stark opportunity gap between geographic areas of the county – split along largely racial, ethnic and income lines.
Posted inCountywide, Norberto Santana Jr., Top Stories
Santana: Orange County’s Key Organizing Group Gets Disorganized
With key debates over the future of Anaheim’s stadium and public lands in Santa Ana intensifying, Orange County’s premier progressive organizing group, OC Communities Organized for Responsible Development, OCCORD, is reeling from the resignations of Executive Director Shakeel Syed and a slew of organizers in recent months.
Posted inCountywide, Norberto Santana Jr., Top Stories
Santana: Chapman Student Newspaper Triggers Sparks
With congressional campaigns across Orange County intensifying for 2020, Chapman University Dean of Communications, Lisa Sparks – who is running as a Republican in the 45th Congressional District against incumbent Democrat Katie Porter – triggers a slew of questions about accessibility by avoiding interviews with her campus newspaper.
Posted inNorberto Santana Jr.
Santana: Commie Hunting in Westminster
City Council members in Westminster adopt an ominous resolution encouraging all residents of Westminster to raise their voices against individuals who fit the profile of an “aider and abettor” of the communist government in Vietnam.
Posted inNorberto Santana Jr.
Santana: Death of OC Auditor Controller Underscores Why Public Access to Elected Officials’ Calendars Matters
After having his department largely defunded last year because of an active watchdog approach, it now seems that deceased Orange County Auditor Controller Eric Woolery was transitioning his life to Kansas. Orange County taxpayers had a right to know that Woolery was super-commuting to his local office from out of state and might be transitioning to a new life. Access to an official public calendar would have allowed for that kind of accountability, something that County of Orange officials keep fighting.
Posted inNorberto Santana Jr.
Santana: Angels-Anaheim Negotiations Enter Final Stretch
Anaheim Mayor Harry Sidhu and the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim in October start closed-door negotiations on a new stadium development plan. The Angels enter the negotiations up against a Dec. 31 deadline that forces them to either opt out of their lease or stay under current terms until 2029. Is it the beginning of the end for Angels in Anaheim? Or the end of the beginning for a new lease terms between the city and the team?
Posted inCountywide, Top Stories
Recognizing Orange County’s Laborers
This long Labor Day weekend comes to us all as a legacy gift from a generation of labor activists who created the modern labor movement in America during the 1880s by agitating for worker rights.
