Voice of OC (https://voiceofoc.org/tag/santa-ana-city-council/)
The ability of the Santa Ana city manager to pay her office’s bills has been thrown into doubt, after City Council members deadlocked on a $450,000 mid-year transfer to cover bills related to the council’s ouster of former City Manager Raul Godinez.
The new city manager, Kristine Ridge, said the budget increase is no longer needed to cover the costs because the Police Department is reducing overtime and other expenses. City Councilwoman Ceci Iglesias said staff have not been transparent about how they found the money.
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.
In sworn testimony, Mayor Miguel Pulido was accused of running a side business personally renting out city-owned property and interfering with police decisions about which illegal pot shops to raid. Pulido denies the allegations.
Two top Santa Ana officials, including a former police chief, alleged under oath the city’s police union leader engaged in bribery of City Council candidates in 2016, saying Sgt. Gerry Serrano told candidates they had to agree to fire then-Police Chief Carlos Rojas in order to benefit from $400,000 in campaign spending.
All work and construction on a new homeless shelter has stalled in Santa Ana, as city and county officials continue to point fingers over an apparent lack of public input on the effort to relocate homeless people from the Courtyard shelter in downtown to the new location on Yale Street.
The suit alleges union president Gerry Serrano held a grudge stemming from then-Police Chief Carlos Rojas’ discipline of Serrano for a 2011 hit-and-run DUI arrest, and later worked to oust Rojas as part of an “illegal scheme.” Serrano and the city deny the claims.
Santa Ana city officials, fearing a downturn in local commerce amid a recent voter-approved 1.5 percent sales tax increase, are trying to encourage residents to shop locally, and they’re helping car dealerships first, through a $1.7 million subsidy.
Santa Ana is now set to get a new city manager May 1, but will hold a special election this November to fill the vacant City Council seat formerly held by Roman Reyna.
District Attorney investigators served search warrants at multiple locations in recent weeks to obtain documents, including text messages involving Reyna from multiple cell phones.