Voice of OC (https://voiceofoc.org/tag/david-benavides/)
Santa Ana City Attorney Sonia Carvalho adjourned Tuesday’s city council meeting in the middle of public comment while people were still waiting — some for four hours — to address a half-empty dais.
City officials say they need the extra $63 million to maintain existing service levels and fix aging infrastructure. Most of the increase apparently would go toward maintaining existing services and the pension cost increases for the existing workforce and retirees.
Most of the council moved toward placing a sales tax increase on the November ballot, but didn’t explain what the tens of millions of extra dollars would be used for.
The suit seeks to ban the city from holding any more at-large elections for City Council members, and require the city to adopt “fairly constituted districts” that don’t dilute Asian American voting power.
The effort to have district elections in place for November seems to have been killed, according to Councilman Vicente Sarmiento, who supports the proposed voting system change.
A proposed June ballot measure on Santa Ana district elections appeared less likely Monday to make it to the ballot, with Mayor Miguel Pulido increasing his legal action against it and little time left for the City Council members who support the measure to ask the courts to put it on the ballot.
It was unclear Friday whether the measure will go before voters in June. The ruling left a potential door open for further round of legal arguments by city officials and the mayor.
Cities across Orange County have taken positions on California’s sanctuary laws since Los Alamitos passed an ordinance last month in an attempt to exempt itself from the requirements.
“What we saw with…the hysteria from Irvine, is this: It’s simply a class-based argument that if ‘I pay enough for where I live, I shouldn’t have to deal with my homeless problem. I should shift it to some other city,’ ” said county Supervisor Andrew Do.
The city is seeking a court order to force Mayor Miguel Pulido to sign paperwork allowing a June ballot measure in which voters could change Santa Ana’s election system to district-based voting. The case could be filed in Superior Court as soon as Tuesday.