Anaheim’s City Council has decided to attempt to preserve the ability of Anaheim Hills to determine the composition of the City Council by adopting the “Santa Ana plan.” The allure of this plan for them is that it gives the appearance of representation of all areas of Anaheim without its substance. Anaheim Hills residents would be able to use their power as a wealthy voting bloc to choose the representatives from West Anaheim, North Anaheim, Central Anaheim and South Anaheim that are most palatable to Anaheim Hills.
This was such an obvious and devious fallback position for the reactionary members of the City Council that the Democratic Party of Orange County resolution on Anaheim districting specifically rejected adopting this approach, before it was even offered. (I know that it’s in the resolution because I wrote that section.)
Anaheim’s big argument to Judge Franz Miller, who is tasked with deciding whether this remains discriminatory, will be that “if Santa Ana does it, it must be OK.”
Well, it’s not OK, but there is a fair point to be made here: Santa Ana shouldn’t do it either. Now, to be fair, it’s not nearly as large a problem in Santa Ana as it is in Anaheim. Santa Ana’s counterpart to Anaheim Hills would probably be Floral Park, in the Third Ward previously represented by Carlos Bustamante and now represented by Angelica Amezcua. But Floral Park’s hold on Santa Ana is nothing compared to Anaheim Hills’s hold on Anaheim.
One can show this with a meticulous review of various election results, or for now one can follow Cynthia Ward’s observation that in the past election Floral Park was the one harmed (if one wants to call it that) by this system, where this most conservative part of Santa Ana ended up represented by its third choice for its Councilmember, because the rest of the city preferred Amezcua — without knowing anything about her. (This may have had to do with the 2010 candidacy of Al Amezcua, to whom Angelica Amezcua is unrelated, or to the campaigns of two other Amezcua’s running much larger campaigns in other parts of the city. Local control really has its advantages, doesn’t it?)
If Santa Ana’s City Council takes this moment to take this stand, passing a resolution of intent to reform their own system of district voting in time to pass along the news to Judge Miller before the July 9 hearing, it would be a profound and striking statement that Santa Ana will not let itself be used to justify the suppression of Anaheim’s Latino population.
I’ve heard discussion over time about Santa Ana getting rid of this odd system. (Doing so may also mean that the city’s Vietnamese population may finally elect a member of Council on its own. If that’s what the numbers dictate, good!) If they have any inclination at all to do so — and to not be used as an example to justify Anaheim’s desperate grasp for continued power — now is the time to act.
Some of the members of Santa Ana’s City Council have higher political ambitions. Well, if you have higher political ambitions, you want to do things that are memorable and that gratify the public. This refusing to let Anaheim hide behind the skirts of Santa Ana would be both.
They’ll have to act quickly, of course. But they can.
How about using the California Voters Rights Act against Anaheim?
Ummm….
“.. one can follow Cynthia Ward’s observation that in the past election Floral Park was the one harmed (if one wants to call it that) by this system, where this most conservative part of Santa Ana ended up represented by its third choice for its Councilmember,”
Ward 3 in Santa is a great deal more than Floral Park. That is a bogus criteria – Floral Park is less than 1/5th of Ward 3.
It’s called “metonymy.” But since you were nice enough to stop by: do you think that Ward 3 in its entirety has the same control over Santa Ana that Anaheim Hills has over Anaheim? When you do your calculation, please show your work.
It’s called “bullshit.” The D’s have control – Developers in Santa Ana and Disney in Anaheim. You ain’t gonna change that.
Are you sure it is metonymy? Did you check with Cynthia on that? Maybe she singled out Floral Park.
I brought up Floral Park in my story, off the top of my head, as I knew it was a place that had money. But on more consideration, Santa Ana’s a place where name recognition and ethnicity trumps all, not big Disney-type money looking for favors.
So what is it? Did the entire Ward 3 reject Amezcua?
The thing about Floral Park is it’s a GREAT place to live.
Mayor Pulido, VOC writer Nick Gerda (w/ his parents), The late KENLAYSNOTDEAD, Mike Ness (of social distortion), Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez, Former county clerk Citron, Barbara Flour (sister of Daniel), Former Councilmembers Franklin, Bustamonte and many, many other civic activists on both sides of the aisle.
No matter how bad someone like Gustavo wants to bash the “Norteno’s” it is the the glue that keeps the city together. Benavides realizes this and keeps close relations with the people there,
Comparing Anaheim’s electoral issues to Santa Ana’s a poor way to make a point, kinda like comparing Mick Jagger’s cock to Vincente Fernandez’s asshole ( that was from my Mater Dei friend “one doesn’t belong in the other”)
KENLAYSNOTDEAD’s dead? Where’s the obit? For that matter, where’s the body?
We published the obit here, nearly a year ago. You missed it?
http://www.orangejuiceblog.com/2012/04/kenlaysnotdead-is-dead-long-live-kenlaysnotdead/
Great place to live.
Yeah.
Except when they’re insisting on traffic blocks and having Halloween on a different evening to keep the brown people out of the neighborhood.
Yeah the holloween thing is weird.
It’s mostly driven by the days when people would LITERALLY be bussed in for candy. For sure that was a culture clash. That was a fucked up quagmire. But in truth the kids of EVERY neighborhood was robbed. Of course the good dentist would dress up his house only to have it destroyed Year after Year.
A better question might be why did not the other neighborhood associations like Casa Bonita get together for a Safe and Sound event.
In a weird sort of symentry, Greg Diamonds Neighbor, has pioneered such a cause, where in kids from “less fortunate” neighborhoods dress up and go to a parking lot and people deliver candy from the trunks of cars. It’s cheesy but super cool. It falls under the heading: ” You can’t dictate manners” .
This is all Fine and Dandy here, but shouldn’t we be watching sports?
No wonder our kids think we are such assholes.
Amezcua is a teacher and a mother and not a known ideologue or puppet of any political party. At least yet. She is Occupying that position until further notice. Good for her. She can tell all the establishment to go to Hell.