A great deal, but for who?

This past June, our beloved city council decided to sell $40 million dollars in property for $3 dollars to land developers for the “Station District”. Yes, that is correct; $3 dollars.  The council also decided to loan the developers $17 million dollars and to pay brokerage fees to a real-estate company. As if this wasn’t enough, the whole vote was cast with two of our council members being in direct violation of city conflict of interest laws.

Why would our elected representatives who have a fiduciary duty to use prudent judgment in all decisions for the best interests of the residents of the city of Santa Ana, decide to sell $40 million dollars worth of property for only $3 dollars???

The developer that received this deal is akin to the Dutch settlers that bought Manhattan from the Native Americans for $24 dollars worth of beads and mirrors. But this is worse, because the Native Americans had no real estate savvy to know what they were giving up. Our city council includes attorneys and other allegedly intelligent businessmen.

The only thing we have been hearing from Mayor Pulido and the city council are the “build it and they will come” mentality that got us the giant vacant lot known as One Broadway Plaza, another piece of land that Santa Ana has given up stake to a private developer in the hope that something great will be built thus generating revenue.

The Station District project is approximately 94 acres with at least 48 parcels of it designated toward “affordable housing” I am sorry, but Santa Ana has already built more than enough “affordable housing” that has resulted in overcrowding with insufficient infrastructure with little return in revenue for our city. This whole project smells like Bell from the 40 million dollars in land sold for 3 dollars to the conflict of interest votes used to approve the project.

The solution to our city’s problems is in your hands as you vote this coming November 2^nd. As your mayor I will be a watchdog over the money our city spends.

Vote smart, vote Hart.

New gang prevention program not being utilized in Santa Ana

Santa Ana, the “Education 1^st” city has 4 of its 7 high schools and 2 of its 9 intermediate schools in the bottom 5% of California public school rankings.   In speaking with many of the teachers in the Santa Ana Unified School District I have found that an increasing problem that is common among those schools ranked at the bottom of California schools is the increasing presence of gangs that are recruiting new members and intimidating those who refuse to join.

Well here we go again; our neighboring cities are actually being proactive and confronting the problem rather than blaming Sacramento for not having the funds to fix the problem.

This past Thursday, a program aimed at preventing gangs from recruiting elementary and middle school students was launched at 25 schools throughout Orange County; none of them were Santa Ana schools.

The program is part of the Orange County District Attorney Office’s Gang Reduction and Intervention Program, or GRIP.

GRIP uses volunteer parents to greet children being dropped off at school every morning and making sure that the kids get to class without being recruited or intimidated.

The program was started on a trial basis at Handy Elementary in Orange a year ago to confront the problem the school was having with gang members hanging out around the school and tagging it with graffiti. Orange County Deputy District Attorney said: “The gangs have gone away, and there hasn’t been any vandalism at the school in the past six months.” Local police departments provide a presence each morning.

Reports show that gangs are starting to recruit as early as elementary school. The Orange County District Attorney will tell you that the biggest gang problems in Orange County are in Santa Ana.  So why aren’t Santa Ana’s schools participating in this County run program?

Mayor Pulido keeps crying that Sacramento is taking Santa Ana’s money and that is why we can’t fight our problems more effectively. But this is a program with nominal funding that is provided through Orange County, not Sacramento and not Santa Ana; the primary source of the program is the volunteer parents that commit just a couple of hours every week to make sure kids are getting to school safely.  So the question of why this program is not being used in Santa Ana remains.

As Mayor of Santa Ana I will use my experience as an Orange County Administrative Manager to seek out the multitude of programs available to cities from the County and to make sure they are implemented efficiently and effectively.  I will also be proactive in promoting programs like GRIP to the Santa Ana Unified School District and to our residents in volunteering to help make Santa Ana’s schools safer.

The two sides of Santa Ana

On Saturday, I had the opportunity to visit two sides of our fair city. I was able to take my wife, Ronea, to the 13^th annual “Celebrate Santa Ana” held at the Santa Ana Zoo.  This is a great event that included the presentation of Community Building Awards, a Resource EXPO, Most Beautiful Yard recognition, and a reunion event for our Neighborhood Heroes.  There was also the first annual “A Taste of Santa Ana” with some of our restaurants offering samples from their menus.  I had the pleasure of meeting several of you who have visited my web site and wanted to share with me your experiences in Santa Ana and offer ideas in ways to improve Santa Ana.  There were a lot of influential community leaders in attendance today, and of course since this is an election year there were mayoral candidates in attendance, even Mayor Pulido himself.

On the other side, I took my son, Matthew, to the 4^th Annual “Off the Streets & into the Ring” presented by the Santa Ana Boxing Club at the corner of 4^th Street and Garfield.  This also is a great event sponsored by the Orange County Youth Commission to draw attention to the terrific services offered at the Santa Ana Boxing Club designed to offer kids and young adults a place to turn besides gangs in this low-income neighborhood. I was invited with a list of several of our city’s leaders, including Mayor Pulido.  Unfortunately, I did not see our mayor at this event.  This is the kind of event that our city’s leader needs to come out and openly support and promote, especially with the increasing gang violence that has been growing in our city.  But it does not surprise me that an establishment politician does not show up to events where the participants and viewers are not able to write campaign contribution checks.

Within six hours and about a 3 mile radius today I was able to attend two events that are both designed to preserve and repair Santa Ana’s issues.  Events like the “Celebrate Santa Ana” are vital in promoting community building and providing resource expositions to display what is available to Santa Ana residents. Events like the “Off the Streets & into the Ring” are vital in community building and offering hope and opportunity in the areas of Santa Ana that need so much improvement and rebuilding, but are being forgotten by our city leaders.

As mayor, I will continue to support and promote the community building and celebration as seen through “Celebrate Santa Ana”, and I will do my best to draw more attention and promotion to events that will nurture positive growth in our low-income neighborhoods; we are only as strong as our weakest neighborhood.

What is “Business-Friendly”?

It appears as though there have been a few candidates and our city council reading my website. The last couple of weeks the term “business-friendly” has been loosely thrown around. A few of the candidates agree with me that Santa Ana is not business-friendly. The term has also been used by those sitting on our city council that have been claiming that Santa Ana is business-friendly out of one side of their mouths while asking how do you define business-friendly out of the other side of their mouths. 

Well let me give you all my definition of business-friendly and let’s see if you agree.  A business-friendly city is one that has low taxes, low fees, few and fair regulations, educational and/or training opportunities, and last but certainly not least a safe environment for the business and its customers. 

Santa Ana does offer and is located near some good educational and training facilities, i.e. Santa Ana College, Chapman University, and Cal State Fullerton. These are fine institutions that generate educated people eager to work; unfortunately, they are taking their education and training and finding work or starting businesses elsewhere.  

I have talked with numerous business owners in Santa Ana and all of them said that they have had nothing but negative experiences in dealing with our city hall. Those negative experiences ranged from exorbitant fees for wanting more signage to draw in customers, to fines for having signs that were allegedly “too large”. 

I have also talked with several small business owners and entrepreneurs that were considering expanding into Santa Ana, or starting in Santa Ana, but were discouraged from doing so by their financial planners because Santa Ana’s neighboring cities have fewer regulations and fees and a safer reputation.

The common thread that was spoken of among all of the current and would be business owners and their financial advisors is that “Santa Ana just has a lousy reputation.”  Most of our current successful businesses are all on the borders of Santa Ana and market themselves not as being in Santa Ana but rather as being located in places like South Coast Metro. 

Let’s face it, the entire State of California is not business-friendly these days, but that does not lend itself as an excuse for our mayor to lean on as a crutch for Santa Ana’s woes; in fact it presents the perfect opportunity for Santa Ana to take this bunch of lemons handed down from Sacramento and make the most profitable lemonade in the state.

One way (and I have more to come in the upcoming weeks) to start the lemonade is by cutting the 1.5% sales tax that goes on top of the state sales tax. This would draw businesses into Santa Ana knowing that if they can sell their products at with a lower sales tax they will draw more customers who are wanting and needing to save money.  Lets face it, most of us do not do our shopping in Santa Ana; we go to Costa Mesa, Tustin or Irvine. If we drew in businesses that were able to sell at a lower tax rate, not only would we shop in Santa Ana, but customers from neighboring cities would be drawn in thus increasing the revenue our city collects, enabling it to provide more services such as safety, parks, and community preservation. 

As a Contract Administrator for the County of Orange and as a former accountant for a private sector finance company I have years of experience in ferreting out wasteful spending and coming up with ideas to draw more business.  If you elect me as your mayor, I will use my experience to make Santa Ana work for you; if you elect one of my competitors the only option being offered to gain revenue and continue providing necessary services is to raise your taxes – but they don’t even have the integrity to call it a tax, it is being labeled as an “assessment”.  Don’t we all pay more than enough taxes already?

Motivation for Mayor

“You must be the change you wish to see in the world.” -  Mohandas Gandhi

Over the last few weeks I have had the opportunity to meet with lots of fellow Santa Ana residents and converse about the needs we all share. Like me, most of the people I have encountered are deeply concerned about the economy, crime, and our schools.  Some of the people I spoke with admitted that they thought our city was not doing enough to address those issues, but because of other important issues that so many of us share, like raising families, working, caring for aging parents and/or ill spouses they themselves weren’t able to get involved and help make the changes needed in our city government.

I can empathize with those who are doing their best to meet the immediate needs of their families and are just overwhelmed with responsibilities.  I spent several years caring for my grandmother, who suffered with dementia, while working and completing my bachelor’s degree.  The last four years I have been going to law school, while working full time, being married, and having three children with my unbelievably supportive wife.   All this is to simply say I know the feeling of having a full plate; but sometimes we all need to clear some space on our plates to make room to be the change we want to see in the world.  For me, that time is now.

Today’s news is filled with corrupted politicians, from Washington D.C. down to local municipalities like the city of Bell. The common denominator all these news stories share is politicians that have forgotten they are public servants.

Santa Ana truly is my home town.  I was born and raised here. I graduated from Santa Ana High School, and today I am living here with my wife and three children. I have a lot invested in this city.  I have my past, my and my family’s present, and my children’s future invested here.

Every time I watch my children play in the yard and I see probable gang members walk by with their pit-bulls, in a neighborhood north of 17^th Street that never used to have that kind of presence, I see with great clarity what my motive is for wanting to be mayor of this city.

I cannot simply stand by while our mayor, who has truly become a professional politician, having held office for the last 16 years, pontificates about his conservative ideas of bringing business into our city with no follow through; and brags about Santa Ana’ schools while four of our high schools and two of our intermediate schools are at the bottom of statewide rankings.  I cannot stand by as I witness the gang problems in Santa Ana increase with more shootings and graffiti spreading into those once “untouchable” areas of our fine city with the gangs outnumbering our police department 5,000 to 362.

Vince Lombardi once said: “Individual commitment to a group effort – that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work.”  I have that individual commitment to the group effort that can make our team of Santa Ana residents work – join me in fighting the good fight for our families and our city.

To the residents of Santa Ana

As a proud native of Santa Ana, I’m excited to announce that I’ve decided to run for city Mayor in the upcoming November election.  I’d like to introduce myself and tell you a bit about myself and my plans as a candidate.

I was born and raised in Santa Ana and know what Santa Ana was like when the streets were safe enough for kids to play on, downtown was a fun place for families to visit and shop on the weekend and when the schools were considered a great place to get a good education. I am running for Mayor to help Santa Ana get back to being that great place to live; where the streets are safe to walk and play, without the fear of gangs, and where our children can proudly say they graduated from school.

I firmly believe that the Mayor should work for the people and not the other way around.  So I believe there are three key fundamental goals for a Mayor to ensure a city has a prosperous future:  to make the streets safer, the schools better, and provide a business friendly environment.

With me as your new Mayor you will get new leadership that brings fresh ideas, the desire to bring the community together and the toughness to work hand and hand with the Santa Ana Police Department to develop long term plans to make our streets safer and our city a great place to call home.

I would be honored if you would consider supporting my candidacy with financial support or volunteerism.  For more information about me or my vision for Santa Ana, visit my my website at www.hartformayor.com.  If you want to speak to me directly, email me at charles@hartformayor.com.

Charles Hart

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