Voice of OC (https://voiceofoc.org/tag/gerry-serrano/)
In-person voting has been cancelled for a special recall election in Westminster. It’s still up in the air whether Santa Ana’s special recall election will follow suit. Meanwhile, county elections officials will proceed to review a referendum movement against a controversial Santa Ana apartments project and a ballot initiative to relocate a planned Veteran’s Cemetery in Irvine.
Voters across Santa Ana will decide Iglesias’ fate on the council in the May 19 recall election, which was put on the ballot through a signature-gathering campaign financed by the city’s police union.
Assistant DA Tony Ferrentino, who apparently declined to prosecute a police officer arrested for DUI hit-and-run, has already won his election to become an OC Superior Court judge.
Trying to head off a budget disaster in Santa Ana, City Councilmember Cecilia Iglesias voted against a pay increase for police. She was outvoted. But that didn’t stop the head of the police union from trying to remove her from office.
Gerry Serrano, President of the Santa Ana Police Officers Association writes that who holds dirty politicians accountable? Cecilia Iglesias’s unethical and illicit behavior has been repeated and continuous. She is not above the law and should be removed from office.
The union in a memo to the council last month criticized Villegas and Iglesias and requested their removal from the public safety board, questioning their commitment to the city’s police officers and their ability to make key public safety policy decisions.
Two recall movements in two neighboring cities are on the move against elected officials this year – one in Westminster that’s guaranteed a recall election and another in Santa Ana that has gathered the signatures but won’t find out until next month from county officials whether it can move forward.
Councilman Juan Villegas, who also works as a special officer at the Orange County Sheriff’s Department, is publicly alleging that one the key people behind the controversial 2525 N. Main St. project admitted to him their involvement in a dark money campaign to influence the 2018 Santa Ana city council elections – which involved hiding $320,000 in campaign money through a shell company.
DA records contradict its public statements for why the DA’s office did not file DUI hit-and-run charges against Santa Ana police Sgt. Gerry Serrano, who now leads the city’s influential officers’ union.
It’s the latest twist in a months-long saga over the police raises, which tie up most of the new money from Santa Ana’s recent $60 million sales tax increase approved by voters last November.