“Wachovia headlined the series of dismal earnings reports yesterday, saying it would lay off 6,350 employees and leave 4,400 more positions unfilled while posting a record $8.86 billion loss in the second quarter,” according to the Washington Post. Uh-oh!
In retrospect you have to wonder what Al Amezcua, the Bustamante twins, Mike Metzler, Victoria Betancourt and the other oddballs on the board of the Santa Ana Business Bank were thinking when they opened a new bank – right before all the banks started tanking.
I wonder if they were planning on putting public bond money in their bank? Amezcua was the co-chair for Measure G, the latest property tax increase from the crooked folks at the Santa Ana Unified School District. He is running his daughter Valerie for the SAUSD school board in November. And I am told that the SAUSD will be putting yet another bond on the ballot in November too.
Amezcua himself will be pimping for two new bond measures being put on the ballot by the Rancho Santiago Community College District, where he serves as a board member. They passed a bond a few years ago but Al and company spent most of the money on the Santiago campus and the Carona Sheriff Training Facility – they ignored Santa Ana College for the most part. Then they didn’t fire the Santa Ana College president after she got caught building a secret shower in her office and after she got caught having fire alarms turned off rather than fixing the fire alarm system.
But I digress. The Santa Ana City Clowncil is also going after millions of dollars in OCTA funding for a streetcar system that will link the lame Santa Ana downtown with the lame Garden Grove downtown. And where will that money be kept? Hmmm…. Sure enough the guy whose engineering company is involved with the streetcar plan, George Pla, is also a board member of the Santa Ana Business Bank.
What gives? Are these people really that confident that they can pull the wool over everyone’s eyes? Or are they prototypical dumb criminals who will eventually get caught red-handed? Who knows? But we do know this – right now is a bad time to be in the banking business.
What a bunch of losers! Santa Ana is such a joke. No one with any intelligence keeps their kids in the SA school district and the only mexicans who stay in the city are my fellow rancheros who eat frijoles. Grandpa, Barney and the Keystone Security Guards. All corrupt and waiting for your tax dollars to deposit into their bank. Yes pendejos, bonds are taxes. I hear they may be sharing a cell with Corona.
AHUA!
It’s only a matter of time.
You should see the new batman movie for some additional inspriation.
Gotham City is overrun with Criminals and Clowns.
Q’s: Do business people in SA “have” to join this particular bank in order to “get things done”? Any other large business banks in the city or is this thing pretty much a monopoly?
Is this just more wealth and power grabbing by the few for the few?
Opening a “Business Bank” in the starter stages of what is shaping up to be a fairly good sized recession is an unusual move, for sure, Art. Good catch.
Today at Los Amigos Amezcua announced he will not be seeking election for the RSCCD board. He said that it was important for new leadership…
With all the big banks failing on the bursting bubble of the bad debt selling party, SIV etc., a fresh group of banks without a vault full of junk bonds, just might be a very smart move. Time will tell.
Was this bank really opened “right before” all the banks started tanking? Weren’t you writing about this bank a year ago? And wouldn’t the planning and logistics have started even farther before that?
#5,
Yep – I would say that last year qualifies as “just before.”
Won’t matter if they end up tanking.
I wonder why Al isn’t running again? Hmmm…
Art, Al isn’t running because one of his many mistresses will publicly out that “well-kept” secret of his on-again-off-again relationship with Michelle Martinez.
Claudia Alvarez and Pulido should take Amezcua lead and also not seek re-election. We need you leadership… I am happy to hear Amezcua wants new leadership in Santa Ana.
#7 Amezcua is not going to give up his political career for no one. Why are you people so concern with who he is seeing or not seeing. Everyone in SA knows Amezcua a womanizer just like Bustamante.
DONT HATE THE PLAYER HATE THE GAME… The person who you should be questioning is Carlos Bustamante who is married and cheats on his wife with many ladies he works with.
“Yep – I would say that last year qualifies as “just before.””
It figures you’d say that.
Hey Pedroza…
Really man….why didn’t you blame the ‘racist’ Minutemen for THIS debacle too? I mean, another poor group of Mexicans failing…it’s GOT to be the fault of SOMEONE out to get them..right?
OK, I know your article was right on…so how is it that someone (you) with the ABILITY to be logical can let his love of “La Raza” blind him to right and wrong?
Please make up your mind whether you will be a hateful, pro-Mexican at-any-price closet racist, or a logical, fair minded thinker (as in THIS piece).
I wonder if you have THIS bumper sticker on your car;
“Roses are red, Violets are Blue, I’m Schizophrenic..and so am I”
Rancho Santiago Community College District has not placed a bond measure on the ballot this November; the Chancellor did not recommend one nor has the Board of Trustees taken any action to do so. At the most recent Bond Oversight Committee meeting on 5/15/08, a report of Measure E expenditures was distributed. Of the $190,227,529 spent so far from the Measure E bond, the college district has spent a total of $87,330,282 for Santiago Canyon College and a total of $91,806,150 at Santa Ana College. (The remaining $11,091,097 went to replace aging telephone and computer networks districtwide.) The fact is MORE, not less, has been spent on Santa Ana College to date. In addition to renovating 14 buildings, a state-of-the-art Digital Media Center, an Exercise Science Complex, a new softball field, a two-story instructional building (under construction), a new maintenance and operations building (under construction) as well as the O.C. Sheriff’s Regional Training Academy (part of the Santa Ana College’s renowned criminal justice program) have been undertaken. Other Santa Ana College Measure E projects still to be built are a new Child Development Center (going to construction bid soon), a new two-story classroom building at Centennial Education Center, and a new parking structure.
Judy,
Good info, thanks. Would you please tell me how much was spent at SAC once you remove the money spent on the Carona Sheriff Training Facility?
Also, wasn’t there going to be a new math/science building built as well? Were there other structures or projects promised that weren’t built? And were the voters aware that so much bond money was going to be spent on the Carona Sheriff Training Facility?
Judy,
I believe the cost per student was quite a bit different for SAC vs. Santiago. SAC’s enrollment is quite a bit larger than Santiago, isn’t that right?
Thanks for the spending recap. There were a number of items that are beneficial to all of the students.
#7. Many Mistresses? Why would any decent woman want to sleep with a monkey?
Regional Banks are under a lot of pressure because of credit tightening. Some of the more prominently traded small banks have had significant price declines in their stock.
Who decides where the bond money should be parked and managed? This clearly seems like a conflict of interest to have council members’ banking institution have an unfair monopoly on incoming tax monies that the council is also in charge of spending. How many of these guys, their family members and business “associates” are on the bond oversight steering committee?
This thing is starting to stink worse than Judy Ware’s place. At least she has a legitimate excuse of managaging actual garbage.
I think a call to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency might be necessary to see if the SABB is on the list of banks in trouble. That is assuming that the SABB is federally chartered. If not, a call to Sacramento is in order. Who’s up for the task? Im sure that Cordova does all their banking with SABB-one would have to be an idiot not to think that. Plus look at the illustrious history of PLA and Cordoba in LA County as published over the last 20 years in the LA Times.
This thing might have legs, Art. Julie Lance over at Redfin smells a rat, too.
Nothing personal Art, but if you know anything about banks or public finance, your post reads like sequential non-sequiters.
FWIW, SABB is teeny, tiny. They have 10 employees. If you want to check out their stats, you can go to http://www.fdic.gov. Click on “Industry Analysis” and then click on “Bank Data & Statistics.” From there, choose “Institution Directory.” Under the blue/black banner of “Find All” click on “Institutions.” In the box for “Institution Name” type “Santa Ana Business Bank,” and click on the “Find” button. When SABB pops up, click on the cert number (58390) and you will get a new page. For assets and liabilities (the default), just click “Get Report,” and bingo – you’ve got your info.
Then pick another local bank – maybe First Federal of California – and compare the number. SAAB has only 10 employees. They certainly won’t be handling the bond indenture trusts. That will likely be US Bank or Wells Fargo, who have the staff and expertise to handle such matters. SABB may hold some city deposits, but that’s hardly nefarious. Just about every city I know of spreads the love, er, deposits, as a safety measure (IndyMac, anyone?).
#20,
You forget that the SABB board includes a City Clowncilman – Carlos Bustamante. That SHOULD preclude the City from putting ANY money in this bank.
BTW, Amezcua says he is not running again for the RSCCD Board. Methinks something is up at SABB.