

Santa Ana City Manager Dave Ream abruptly retired today, effective immediately. He will stay on as a consultant through May 31, 2011 under a contract not to exceed $25,000. Ream will collect an as yet undetermined amount of sick and vacation pay but there is no additional severance package. His retirement is voluntary and he reached his decision to retire after the agenda for this past Monday’s Council Meeting was posted.
The announcement followed an emergency closes session meeting of the City Council Called by Mayor Miguel Pulido on Wednesday. Pulido indicated that the decison to retire immediately was a personal decision made by Ream. Dave decided it was time (to go),” Pulido said, “and we should applaud a great individual who has done so much for this community.” Pulido said he chose to call the special meeting of the council rather than wait till the next regular meeting in order to move the process of transition forward. Pulido said “Dave had been thinking about retiring for a while and we discussed it in October before the election. Dave could have retired a couple years ago and received his full pension.”
Councilman Bustamante added that for Ream “it wasn’t about the money, he had no incentive to continue to work other than his commitment to the city.” Bustamante has volunteered to put together a “Roast” to recognize Ream’s 32 years of service to Santa Ana.
Good luck, Dave and have a happy retirement. It’s a shame you leave the city in the clutches of Pulido, Tinajero, and Martinez. But, you served the city well. Good luck and God Bless.
Hey Santa Ana — I hear there’s a great city manager candidate over in Tustin
Keepdapeace,
Ream has been the problem. I guess you just want to blame the Latino councilmembers for everything and ignore the old white folks running the day to day operations of the city.
Good riddance to Ream.
Dave was good in the past, he just got too old & lost his vision of what is good for SA.
Now if we can get Mayor Podrido out, SA can be saved.
What SA Girl means is Ream was good back when he and the city council kowtowed to the white minority at the expense of the city’s Latino population.
It wasn’t until the city and the council stopped bashing Latino residents that folks like her and others around here started bashing Ream and even Pulido.
Ream was the problem then and with him out of the way the future will be brighter.
Hey Santa Ana Resident, could you be any more overtly racist.
Santa Ana Resident seems to be supporting the theory that Ream was chased out and didn’t voluntarily retire. (Even though he she?) has a really racist way of presenting it.)
That’s probably right. After seeing the rude way some of the council members treated Mr. Ream at public meetings, I’m not surprised.
Hopefully the city will bring in a professional from outside for the position and not try and promote one of the doofuses already working for the city to that position.
While we are at it, why don’t you tell us just what it was that Ream was “doing” for whitey and not “doing” for the Latino population. If a City maintains health and safety standards, don’t ALL the residents benefit. If homeowners and landlords are requiered to keep up their properties, don’t ALL colors and ethnicities live better and retain property values.
You may have forgotten that old saying ” A rising tide lifts all boats” but it is true. Every time this City made a major improvement, be it a shopping mall, an entertainment venue, a neighborhood revitalization, etc, each and every resident can reap the benefits. Stop being the problem, by tagging these actions as for Whites or against Latinos, or at least have the courtesy to include Asians and Blacks
This is terrible for the residents. Dave Ream was always responsive to the community. Even when he couldn’t solve a problem, he communicated personally and was honest about how things were.
God forbid the city council tries to run things in the interim till they find someone who is truly qualified to take over.
The neighborhood and business leadership will miss Dave.