Voice of OC (https://voiceofoc.org/tag/santa-ana-police-union/)
Santa Ana City Council members in a near-unanimous vote of the majority Democrat panel approved a budget Tuesday that increases police spending by nearly $3 million.
Aggressive police unions, spending on law enforcement over youth programs and few citizen oversight boards — activists and leaders say OC’s debate is years in the making.
What happens today could set the stage for the November general election, and impact the future of Santa Ana politics. If voters want Iglesias out, they’ll have three different replacement candidates, all backed by different people, to choose from.
Iglesias is calling on the city to find a way to lower sales taxes for people and families making purchases during the coronavirus public health crisis on tonight’s meeting agenda.
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.
The recall campaign was largely funded by the city’s police union after Iglesias opposed controversial pay raises for police officers last year. It’s one of the city’s first recall campaigns in years that’s been successful enough to go forward with an election.
Santa Ana’s police union has backed recall efforts against two council members: Juan Villegas and Ceci Iglesias, who vocally opposed the scale of $23 million in controversial raises granted to police officers last February. Now the union wants both off a public safety board, which could be disbanded or restructured by council members today.
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.