While the city leaders in Santa Ana appear to have no clue as to how to resolve our city’s budget deficit, our neighbors in Westminster are banking on affordable housing construction and helping their area businesses while they “ride out the storm,” according to the O.C. Register.
“Westminster will also be partnering with neighbor Garden Grove to pursue a joint federal housing grant to help the city acquire foreclosed homes and to develop low and moderate income housing.”
I cannot imagine this happening in Santa Ana, where Pulido is often heard to say that our city has more than enough affordable housing, even though that is a complete lie.
The City of Westminster also “runs a program called Business Education Attraction and Retention (BEAR), whose goal is not only to attract more businesses into the city but to help keep them in the city by offering various incentives and programs.”
I cannot imagine the City of Santa Ana actually helping local businesses. Westminster is doing so in conjunction with their local Chamber of Commerce. Santa Ana has one of the most worthless Chambers of Commerce, in fact they no longer even call themselves the “Santa Ana Chamber of Commerce.” They now call themselves the “Greater Santa Ana Business Alliance.” I call them “basura.”
Meanwhile, in Garden Grove the “city has been trying to keep buyers inside the city with their “Buy in Garden Grove” program through the holidays encouraging residents to buy locally. Sales tax revenues account for 25 percent of the city’s budget. Businesses that are participating in this program are offering special discounts to buyers during the holidays,” according to the O.C. Register.
Funny. I don’t recall anything like that happening in Santa Ana. Why are our City Manager, Dave Ream, and our Mayor, Miguel Pulido, asleep at the wheel while our city is going down in flames? Clearly our central county in neighbors in Westminster and Garden Grove have the upper hand. Perhaps the Santa Ana City Hall is closed for the Holidays?
Westminster’s city website also kicks tail over Santa Ana’s lame city website, which is to be expected. Here are a few of the major differences between the two:
- You can sign up for “e-notify” service on Westminster’s website. Not so on Santa Ana’s, where Ream and Pulido DON’T want you to know what is going on in town.
- Westminster’s website uses a simple, pull-down menu style format to make their site easy to navigate. Getting around the Santa Ana website is a pain by comparison!
- You can register for Westminster’s recreation classes online!
- The only thing that the Westminster and Santa Ana websites have in common is that neither offers translation into other languages.
small is beautiful