Congratulations Miguel Pulido or You Get the Government You Deserve

Mayor Miguel Pulido

I would like to take this time to congratulate Mayor Miguel Pulido on his outstanding victory. Despite being exposed as a politician ripping off taxpayers, selling your vote to the highest bidder, taking every taxpayer funded perk on the planet and running a huge pay to play scheme by funneling money through a Democratic Party PAC, voters still gave you a mandate to rule the city. As a Santa Ana voter and taxpayer I have some recommendations for your 9th term as Mayor.Now it is not going to be the usual you need to be more accessible to the public and provide better service speech I have been giving. NO. I actually want to encourage you to continue governing as you have been, in fact I think you should amplify your governing style a bit. Instead of triple dipping on you car allowance, why don’t you quadruple dip, see if the Great Park Board will actually pay you for mileage. Heck, while your at it, see if you can also get Health Care from the AQMD. Instead of raking in close to $100,000, go for $150,000. The sky is the limit Mayor. As for public comments, I want you to encourage Claudia Alvarez to be even more disruptive towards speakers. Seriously Claudia, just order police officers to drag people away from the podium if you don’t like what they say. Santa Ana Voters may actually respect you more. Heck, lets just ban public comments and just outright do away with following the Brown Act, it is overrated anyways. It’s not like there is going to be any consequences for your bad behavior. As for park space, heck the people clearly don’t want it, lets just get rid of all parks and build one hundred thousand more apartment and condo units in a half baked scheme to gentrify the city. Clearly the people have spoken and this is what they want, who am I to go against that anymore.

As for the voters of this city who re-elected Mayor Pulido by a sizeable margin, despite a candidate who made the case clear of how corrupt Santa Ana City Hall is, who made a case of how screwed up City Hall and the School District have allowed our schools to get, who made a case of the pay to play politics going on with our elected officials, who stressed how little they cared about the residents by taking away park space while giving away the little bit of extra land left to developers, who exposed a Mayor literally selling this city to rich South County interests, YOU DESERVE MAYOR PULIDO. I guess you like being ripped off, having 1 acre of park space for every 5,000 people, having screwed up schools, and allowing your city to be sold to rich developers who just build thousands of dwellings with no upgrades to infrastructure. Well good luck, you can have it. To those who insisted on voting for Charles Hart, Roy Alvarado and George Collins despite it being paifully obvious that you were throwing a vote away, exactly what message did you send to Mayor Pulido? To Hart, Alvarado and Collins, what point did you get across to the Mayor? Seriously, all you did was split votes and gave the Mayor a mandate, but at least you still have your “message.” Mayor Pulido, at least give these three a commission appointment or something.

 Now a pandora’s box may have been opened and with all that Amezcua and the media has revealed. With the fact that Steve Cooley, who is a crusader against local corruption, may still win his bid for Attorney General, I can see some problems in Pulido and the Council’s future. I can see an investigation by R. Scott Moxley or Doug Irving or Norberto Santana that MAY finally get the same outrage we saw in Bell, with the City Hall overrun by angry residents. I just want these folks to do one thing, do not tell me I need to come to join protests at City Hall. Do not ask me to sign a recall petition, I will not sign it and do not ask me to vote to “recall the bums”, I will VOTE NO on a recall. Do not come to my door and say we have a chance for “real change”, guess what bozo, we had a chance for real change in 2010 and instead you decided to give Pulido another chance, so keep him now, you deserve him, you deserve Claudia Alvarez, you deserve all the corruption they have to bring. You deserve to have your tax dollars given to a bunch of South County rich gabacho developers, and I hope they use it to pay for their trophy wife’s next boob job or botox treatment. You know why, because you could have changed things in 2010 and you didn’t. Good luck, I am through, do not call me, do not knock on my door, I will do my imitation of Miguel Pulido and NOT RESPOND.

To the Democratic and Labor activists who spent years griping about Pulido and when a viable challenger came along backed Pulido anyway. Please do not gripe to me about Pulido again. I don’t want to hear “f&$%^ Pulido, you won’t believe what he did this time.” Really, since you backed him, funded hit pieces against Amezcua, raised money for Pulido,  he probably figures this is what you want from him. Isn’t that right Miguel? I too would probably think “gosh I screw them over and they keep endorsing me, maybe they want to be screwed over.” All I have to say Miguel is don’t change a thing, they obviously want you to keep pissing them off.

SO Miguel, congrats again, please take my advice. Rip the people off, it seems that’s what they want. Better not disappoint them. You might actually lose your next election if you are a much more responsive leader to the people and we wouldn’t want that would we. Of course you and the Council could decide to prove me wrong and actually start doing the right things and take a page out of the books of your better Councilmembers, Benavides and Sarmiento, but I am not holding my breath. Of course if you all did an about face, I would probably drop dead from shock. Until that day, good luck, you all earned the right to do what you want. Don’t worry, I will never go after you, Mr. Pulido or your fellow Councilmembers again.

23 Comments

  1. Claudio
    I so agree with your post, I am very saddened & disappointed in the way this city voted.

    I too will not tolerate any more “Bitching” from anyone. I understand the Unions wanting to save peoples jobs, but I’m done with them too.
    Amezcua ran an awesome campaign & he deserved more votes. Those others who ran, did what they thought was right, so I don’t want to citizen them. However it would have been better had they sat this one out.

    This city deserves better, but with Miguel he will only concentrate on himself & “enhancing public safety, bringing a light rail to town and strengthening the Artists Village.” Really??? Why are these 3 his biggest concern, when it should be better parks, open space, education, more libraries, & code enforcement!!

    Unfortunately I can’t move out of SA, or I would take the next train out of town…

    I was an activist in this city, now I’m just another constituent who got screwed!!

    • @ SA Girl – Uh, don’t want to “citizen” them? Ironic that you hit upon the word which actually is the crux of the issue. More ironic it was due to poor language…another issue crux.

      RE the train/trolley… does anyone willingly live in SA?

    • Mr. Gallegos from your Long Post ONLY ONE THING IS THE MOST ACCURATE!.PULIDO WON AND WILL KEEP WINNING BECAUSE UNIONS SLAVERY SUPPORT!!!!!!!!!!!!.Does no matter how much money you expend in any political campaing JUST UNION VOTES KEEP HIM(podrido) in office!!!!!!!!!. Pulido had run before with ONLY ONE CONTENDER and the result was the same as the last seven times before. UNIONS SUPPORT, UNIONS SUPPORT, UNIONS SUPPORT!!!!!!!!!!!!!.

  2. Claudio—Did you listen to a tape of Nixon’s 1962 press conference after he lost to Pat Brown to get you in the mood to write this post?

  3. Actually the song “They Don’t Care About Us” by Michael Jackson was much more of an inspiration if there was an outside inspiration for this. And comparing Pulido to Pat Brown, please, oh better stop myself while I am ahead, I promised never to rip them again.

    • I certainly don’t want to encourage you to go off again but for the record I wasn’t comparing Pulido to Pat Brown nor was I comparing Amezcua to Richard Nixon. Your post had a Nixonian last press conference flavor to it, among other things.

  4. For Sean Mill — because I won’t comment at OJ, please explain how you and Pedroza are in the catbird seat in Santa Ana. Your blog was bought off by Michelle Martinez for a few hundred dollars to write positive pieces abotu the city council and attack those who would run against the sitting members. You then failed to disclose that “Pedroza and Associates(note; you’re an associate Sean)” accepted money in exchange for this service. There’s a word for this Sean: It’s “whore.” And you and Art are cheap whores at that.

    You’re a cubicle jockey who spends most of his time blogging at work and Art’s facing foreclosure and multiple credit card fraud lawsuits. And you guys are somehow the power behind the throne in Santa Ana? And you’re both going to help Santa Ana businesses promote themselves by taking money to blog about them? Talk about delusions of grandeur.

    For what’s it’s worth, David Benavides got more votes than any candidate running for Santa Ana city council; slightly less than half of the voters in Ward 6 wanted someone other than Sal Tinajero to represent them on the council. And Claudio is somehow “unhinged.” Aren’t you the one who challenges people to fistfights like a seventh grader?

    You guys were played. You’re proven hypocrites. Even bloggers on your own site are posting stuff that’s at odds with your narrow view.

    Now that the election is over, I can’t wait for you and Art to defend the alleged special election to increase the sales tax in your city. If you’re going to sell out Sean, surely you can get more than a few hundred bucks…. but then again, it’s not about price, is it?

  5. Unhinged? What could be more unhinged than the spectacle of Pulido feeling so threatened by Amezcua (out of all proportion to reality, of course), that he felt compelled to enlist the services of Art Pedroza? Now THAT’s unhinged!

  6. Claudio What I don’t understand is in the last election there were over a total of 55230 votes cast in the Santa Ana’s 2008 Mayor’s election. Between 4 candidates. This voting year 2010 The oc clerk said that it had received a record number of ballots. this year there were 29,156 votes cast between 5 candidates. which leaves 26074 difference in votes from 2008 and 2010 ? Whats up with that, are there still votes to be counted or the lowest voter turn out In Santa Ana? Something funny is going on here.

    • Ms. Martinez: Nothing funny, just something sad. Its the normal drop off between a presidential election and gubernatorial election. Turnout in Orange County was 72.6% in 2008. In 2010 it dropped to 40.3% There was a 44% drop off in ballots cast in orange County this year from 08 The drop off in mayorial votes looks like about 47%. There is a drop off of people who vote at the top of the ticket but not for local offices. In addition, Santa Ana is more Democratic and Republican turnout was higher than Democratic, hence the slightly lower percentage for Santa Anathan the County which has a higher Republican registration.

  7. Let’s just deal with the hand that we’ve been dealt and move forward. It’s still the same city, the same problems and a new day (each day) to resolve the issues one by one. I am not giving up on Santa Ana and I think it’s a mistake to (figuratively) jump ship because the captain hasn’t been unseated. The ship still moves on, with or without us.

    • I really appreciate these sentiments, and I agree with them. But if you’re concerned about things moving forward for ALL of Santa Ana, you have to realize that there are forces out there, people like Art Pedroza and Sean Mill, who want to divide people and label them using the most simplistic of criteria. As long as that is happening, nothing will change in a meaningful way.

  8. Rebuttal allowed? – not!

    Sean Mill said: “.. McEwen, Jeff Dickman and Mike “Junior” Tardif are regulars at the city council podium opposing everything from the Station District and One Broadway Plaza to Buffalo Wild Wings.”

    A reputable and fair news source and opinion blog would allow for rebuttal – the Orange Juice blog is neither reputable nor fair.

  9. Mike —
    Remember, they only delete comments that libel them, so clarly you must have libeled them someone in response. Mike, your comment likely interferred with the narrative they want to create.

    I remember Larry Gilbert writing a post about them reaching a certain milestone on comments posted which they would have reached much sooner if Art didn’t keep deleting stuff.

    I noted that on Sunday, a post asked a question if Art would turn down the stipend if he was elected and then the comment was gone. How did that violate their ToS?

    It is unethical to take money from council candidates to positively write blog posts about them or attack their opponents without disclosing the deal.

  10. Claudio, sorry i missed your calls yesterday, I turned off the phone and went to Disneyland with husband, in a post-election attempt at detox. It did not work, we wandered Disneyland rehashing the election. So were you calling for the name of a good Anaheim Realtor? As frustrated as i was by our Mayor’s race (don’t get me wrong, I like Tom Tait, but I will not call it an election so much as a coronation) I have to say, at least i do not live in Santa Ana. What posseses you to stay there?Come to Anaheim where at least they pretend to let us have a say in our government…before screwing us anyway…

  11. Northcountystorm on November 3, 2010 at 8:30 pm

    Ms. Martinez: Nothing funny, just something sad. Its the normal drop off between a presidential election and gubernatorial election. Turnout in Orange County was 72.6% in 2008. In 2010 it dropped to 40.3% There was a 44% drop off in ballots cast in orange County this year from 08 The drop off in mayorial votes looks like about 47%.

    Your numbers are off as the 2010 vote count is not all in yet. Also a check of the Registrar of voters shows a consistent number of voters irrelevant of presidential elections. Santa Ana only differed in presidential year from the previous year by 8,000 votes.

    More Than a Quarter of all Ballots Cast Tuesday Have Yet to be Counted
    •Posted: Wednesday, November 3, 2010 7:02 pm | Updated: 7:08 pm, Wed Nov 3, 2010.

    0 comments

    Roughly 28 percent of the total votes cast in Tuesday’s election still needed to be counted as of late Wednesday afternoon, according to figures from the Orange County Registrar of Voters office, enough to possibly sway the outcome in a very tight race.
    There is a slim chance that still uncounted ballots could play a role in the Congressional contest between sitting Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez and state Assemblyman Van Tran. The two were separated by 6,600 votes as of 5 p.m. Wednesday.

    In a Fullerton City Council race, just 42 votes separated front-runner Doug Chaffee from former police chief Pat McKinley.

    Absentee ballots accounted for the majority of 258,196 still to be counted — the rest were provisional ballots and paper ballots cast at polling places.

    This election showed yet again that people are increasingly voting by mail rather than going to a polling place on Election Day.

    Since 2002, the number of voters casting absentee ballots has been climbing. In the June primary, for the first time in a major Orange County election, absentee voters outnumbered those who went to the polls, 18.4 percent to 11.7 percent.

    Election officials stress the importance of just estimating the remaining ballots because some may turn out to be invalid. Just which precincts are responsible for how many uncounted ballots, isn’t known. The figures are countywide.

    It could take several days before there is a final tally of all 912,045 votes cast countywide — each day the Registrar updates the vote count on its website.

    A total of 44,800 of the uncounted ballots were provisional. This is an important number to Sanchez, who said there were an unusually high number of Santa Ana voters who had to vote provisionally because of confusion over where they were supposed to vote.
    Absentee ballots that were mailed and remained to be counted totaled about 76,076 countywide, according to the Registrar’s figures and another roughly 112,320 were turned in at the polls instead of being mailed. About 25,000 paper ballots were cast on Election Day.

    Turnout seems to be just a bit higher than Registrar of Voters Neal Kelley predicted.
    He estimated before the election that 50 percent to 55 percent of Orange County’s 1,603,312 eligible voters would cast ballots. If the estimates of votes still to be counted hold up, about 56 percent of those eligible will have voted.
    — TRACY WOOD

  12. You’re correct Dr. Lomeli—the better response to Ms.Martinez would have been that there are still a number of ballots that remain to be counted before we can give the exact difference between 2010 and 2008. However historically there are significant drop offs between presidential and gubernatorial election years and I don’t expect that to change much .this year. There was a 46% (22,191 votes)drop off between 2000 and 2002 Santa Ana mayorial vote numbers. There was a 30%(14,270 votes) drop off between the 2004 and 2006 Santa Ana mayorial vote numbers. I’m not sure where you are getting the 8,000 vote figure because there is no comparable “previous year”–elections are every two years- and I’m working off the ROV web site numbers for the mayors race–which is the figure that Ms. Martinez was commenting on(Interestingly, the ROV has the 2010 mayorial vote total of 54,930 not the 55,230 she referenced).
    County turnout was as follows:

    2000…..72.9%
    2002…..51.0%
    2004…..73.2%
    2006…..50.5%
    2008…..72.6%

    As you can see, there are big drop offs in ballots cast in non-presidential years as will be the case this year. The article referenced by you suggests turnout may be as high as 56%, which is still far behind the alomst 73% of 2008.
    Now if you and Oliver Stone have some evidence of something “funny going on” I’m sure Neal kelly and the rest of us are all eyes and ears.

  13. “Northcountystorm on November 4, 2010 at 5:24 pm”

    Please run those numers for other cities in OC like Anaheim.

    2008 had over 55,000 votes with 72% turnout.
    2010 with a 56% turnout would be a 16% change. 16% of 55,000 is 8,800.

    So using these numbers the 2010 vote count should be around 46,200.

    If it is not NCS we “DO” need to call in Oliver Stone.

  14. Thank You to all those Santa Ana residents who could vote and voted 4 the Pulido Regime.I was not in favor of any candidate running for mayor of Santa Ana as I can’t even vote as I’m just a Senior at Saddleback High School I agree with you Claudio our city was in need of CHANGE and it was offered by Mr. Amezcua but they decided to keep the Pulido Regime going. Our schools are looking nice but inside them its a whole different story. Our district has the Worst high schools in the county and the other day one of our techers told us that Santa Ana is now #1 at something and it was teen pregnacy and thats sad. Our mayor took away a library making students like me beleive that he really doesn’t care about education. As where the motto in the city was “Where Education’s First” (B.S.) and then students like me don’t even have park to go to and do exercise their is one close to my house but it’s infested with homeless people. Again thank you Mr. Pulido 4 closing down our library and creating more buildings instead of parks and one last comment you should at least thank the residents of Santa Ana who pay for your electric car. I will not move away from Santa Ana because I still have HOPE that the Pudrido Regime will fall.

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