Is Santa Ana City Manager Dave Ream finally going to retire now that his city budget has been gutted?
Ruh-roh! It might be time for Santa Ana City Manager Dave Ream to retire. His city budget is literally taking on water – and he appears to have few answers.
“City officials plan to carve more than $25 million from the heart of the city budget – the so-called “general fund” that pays for everything from police patrols to park maintenance. But after what happened Tuesday, even that may not be enough,” according to the O.C. Register.
With the failure of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s lame propositions this week, he is now on the verge of raiding city coffers. “If he does, Santa Ana – the biggest city in Orange County – would have to come up with another $5.7 million in cuts. That “would be crippling,” City Manager David Ream wrote this week in a memo to the City Council.”
I’ll tell you what is crippling – having the doddering, out of touch Ream as your City Manager! This dude hails from the Paleolithic era. Time to put him in a museum!
The problem is that Ream’s heir, which is likely to be Assistant City Manager Catherine Standiford, has a reputation for fee increases. This lady won’t cut the waste that has accumulated under Ream – she will stick us with the bill!
There are several reasons why Santa Ana is in a fix. According to the O.C. Register, “the sales tax – has fallen nearly 20 percent since last year. And it has been working for months, without success, to get concessions such as pay freezes or work furloughs from one of the main city unions.”
Moreover, those generous public employee pensions are wreaking havoc on the budget too – and will continue to do so ad infinitum. Wonder how much Ream’s pension will be? Perhaps $300K a year until he finally drops dead?
And Ream has a tendency to pay thousands of dollars to his buddies who are retired city managers for “consulting services.” Waste, waste, and more waste!
I hear that the cuts will finally include police and fire. Good. Perhaps their unions will finally realize that getting in bed with Ream and Santa Ana Mayor Miguel Pulido is bad for them and bad for all of us. Realistically, we need to look at moving our police and fire services to the County of Orange. There is money to be saved here!
What about Pulido? When will he finally run for the hills? And what sort of bloodbath will ensue for the Mayor’s seat? You know Councilwoman Claudia Alvarez will rush to claim it – but she may have to take on Pulido’s boy Vince Sarmiento for that “honor.” Awesome! She will go ballistic – and probably win – which will cause mass casualties amongst Santa Ana’s “Usual Suspects,” who hate her even more than they hate me!
Memo to Ream and Pulido – you reap what you sow…
Looks like Santa Ana is the Titanic of Cities in Orange County and Sacramento is the iceburg that sank it.
Is anyone really surprised the tax base has gone down 20%? I guess the store owners did get on their 10 speeds and ride off with their sales tax to neighboring cities.
Why doesn’t Ream offer an 18% pay cut for Admistrators, Middle Managers and all Department Heads? They are all overpaid and worthless.
“(SA) …has been working for months, without success, to get concessions such as pay freezes or work furloughs from one of the main city unions.”
Sounds like the BK option should be on the table. Intimidation and threat is the only language that public sector unions understand.
IMO, public sector employee unions should not be allowed to contribute to the campaigns of elected officials who “negotiate” their bloated salaries and pensions.
#1,
The high salaries to city employees particularly Police and Fire are in order to get some of the money recycled back to the independent expenditure committees responsible for the Mayor’s attacks on his opposition resulting in lack of opposition and his re-elections.
It is a beautiful scheme to get taxpayers to fund the incumbent’s campaigns and retain the supportive administrators responsible for the high salaries. All this is on the backs of the taxpayers of Santa Ana.
THE SANTA ANA TAXPAYERS ARE FUNDING THE ELECTION CAMPAIGNS FOR THE MAYOR.
You see why these would be the last to be cut or never to be cut.
Let’s see…the city council approves a pension spike that benefits all employees, in addition to granting them a 22% salary increase as the city is running a $15 million deficit. They instantly doubled the deficit when they did that. Now the unions are flat out refusing to renegotiate their contracts or give up the pension enhancement. Don’t expect to see the pension enhancement to go away because it benefits ALL city employees, management included. Santa Ana also has a large cadre of mid-managers earning anywhere between $120k-$150k per year, BEFORE their bonuses, benefits, etc. Most of them are fairly useless as their ample staffs do the work for them. Water rates are continually raised because they are not subject to Prop 218 limitations. Revenues raised in the water fund are then transferred illegally to the general fund to backfill the deficit. Santa Ana has had major budget problems for the better part of 5 years, yet they never bothered to cut to the core of the problem: A bloated, well-paid bureaucracy that actually generates very little work product. Also, Santa Ana needs to do away with their Class 1 Fire Department…it provides zero benefit to the city, costs a tremendous amount of money, and is only good for bragging rights. I believe bankruptcy is just around the corner. Look for Ream to retire just before it’s announced. That guy has effectively run the city into the ground because of the devil’s agreement he made with Pulido years ago: “Push my agenda, and you’ll have a job for life.”
**FLASH ALERT**
If the City Retirement thought it was in trouble, wait until the City Manager retires and starts collection his pension. That’s about the size of a small TARP bailout.
Every time REAM deposits his retirement check, he’ll be thinking about all the small people and shouting “Viva La Raza”. “Without them, I would have to actually live in SanTana.”
Me, Phil and the rest of our crew believe that the blame for this lies squarely on the shoulders of Claudia Alvarez.
Why you ask? Because she knows we are useless pieces of garbage and refuses to give any of us the time of day.
Doesn’t she know how powerful we are? My pal Phil got the “bike rack act” passed. He is a major player!
Follow my escapades at: http://twitter.com/ElGordoBot
Why doesn’t the city just ask Mike Harrah, Judy Ware, Robert Bisno, or some other sleazy developer/operator to give them $5 million dollars?
That would solve the new crisis of where to get money for the state, and it would be a drop in the bucket for these millionaires who have reaped big money off their city hall dealings in Santa Ana.
Santa Ana City government needs a total house cleaning. I mean gutted and replaced with fresh, young, energetic people who are 21st century managers and leaders. Santa Ana can be improved, but it’s clear that won’t happen under Ream, Pulido and the existing City Council. Too much dead weight.