Voice of OC (https://voiceofoc.org/tag/vicente-sarmiento/)
While there’s a statewide mandatory mask policy, Santa Ana became the latest Orange County city to adopt its own — all while strategies of enforcing such policies across the county and state remain in disarray.
The fate of the land, and the historic Santa Anita neighborhood around it, now hinges on a potential three-way battle between activists and two government bodies.
A year during which three other City Council seats plus the mayor’s are up for election will, after November, determine who has the power at City Hall.
Santa Ana City Council members late Thursday night approved a $9 million police spending increase for the next fiscal year along with the rest of the city budget in an initial vote.
Hundreds of public comments on spending pushed the Tuesday meeting into Wednesday.
Public speakers were unanimous in their calls to move money away from police and reinvest in youth, park and community programs.
Santa Ana residents — responding to social media posts calling on the community to help clean up — appeared at the sites of the protest the night before.
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.
The potential repeal of the rent freeze — which lasts through May 31 — prompted uproar across Santa Ana as soon as it was scheduled for a discussion.
City Council members on Tuesday night voted to repeal their initial approval of 2525, a much-contested apartments project in north Santa Ana, and authorized a request by developer Mike Harrah to add up to 415 apartments to his tower at One Broadway Plaza, which has been in development for at least 15 years.