Santa Ana Arts
Thank you for the spotlight on Santa Ana development in your March 6 edition (“Santa Ana May Be Next Hot Spot for High-Rise Condos”). Santa Ana’s re-emergence as OC’s legitimate centerpiece began 20 years ago when the first elements of a new foundation for growth and prosperity were laid.
That basis for growth was the founding of an arts council (the Santa Ana Council of Arts and Culture) that had very different plans for Santa Ana than the ones on hand.
With the arts came an emphasis on urbanism and the arts as partners. The Downtown Artists Village was the hood ornament. But the early 1990s Bowers Museum of Cultural Art expansion was the first visible success of Santa Ana’s turn to the arts to revitalize itself and add a more promising facet to a diminishing role in OC.
In the late 1980s, Santa Ana feared every morning paper as it reflected one urban ill after another: drive-by shootings, graffiti and overall crime endlessly marketing an overall decline in quality of life. It was the arts that turned the proverbial battleship around in a bathtub.
This was well under way before Mike Harrah even had the twinkle in his eye. Harrah became an important partner in the effort. But he was not responsible for “almost single-handedly revitalizing downtown Santa Ana.”
The arts saved downtown Santa Ana and they had assumed position and influence before Harrah decided to become a partner by acquiring properties and moving in that direction for all the obvious benefits they had already shown to provide.
Harrah is a treasure, and much of Santa Ana admires and respects him. But the arts deserve the majority of the credit for turning Santa Ana back out to sea, away from a rocky shoreline that had all but dismantled most optimism and opportunity as it headed into a world of disadvantage and grant-dependent directions.
With the arts came the artists, the galleries, the live/work studios, the advertising agencies, a sound lab, restaurants, a comedy club, the high school of the arts and California State University, Fullerton’s Grand Central campus, the Discovery Science Center, the St. Joseph Ballet, the Kidseum and small theaters. The Santiago Street lofts would have been far too risky if Santa Ana was not “A Place for Art,” as the banners read.
Don Cribb
Santa Ana Planning Commissioner
El Morro
The latest example of how the government can use its virtually limitless power to exact revenge on people it views as having the temerity to make a challenge is now unfolding in my coastal Orange County district.
After winning a multiyear battle to evict more than 300 people living in trailers at Crystal Cove State Park, the California Department of Parks and Recreation is accusing about 75 families of vandalism in violation of their eviction agreement.
The evicted families were to leave their soon-to-be-demolished trailers free of trash and in good order at the end of February. The penalty for violating the eviction agreement is $5,000 for each former resident.
The parks department and their allies in the mainstream media immediately swung into action to win the media battle.
Local newspapers extensively quoted Crystal Cove State Park Superintendent Ken Kramer as he recklessly blamed the former residents for the damage.
One headline read, “Vandalism Is Blamed on Evicted Tenants.” Another intoned, “State wants payback for El Morro vandalism. A park official hints former residents may be held responsible.”
But some of the former residents dispute the state’s claim as overreaching at best, and vengeful and deceitful at worst.
Former residents note that inadequate security over the vacated homes is to blame for the damage. Parks itself admits to “four or five” citations issued to date for trespassing and petty theft,and that’s only for the ones they caught, of course. Who knows how many vandals and thieves broke into the vacated trailers on state property and destroyed or made off with valuables in the days after the residents vacated?
State officials did not maintain a chain of custody during the process when the residents handed over control of their trailers to the government. There was no procedure for the outgoing resident to walk through his or her property with a parks official, then sign a form indicating that they did or did not comply with the legal terms of the eviction agreement.
In fact, according to a formal communication to my office, parks personnel inspected the properties only after they had been vacated. This means it is the state’s word against that of the evicted residents.
Some residents who did try to get parks to conduct a walkthrough were rebuffed, being told, “We don’t do that.” When some of these residents asked for a receipt for the keys they had given the state, the reply was the same, “We don’t do that.” A couple who asked for a walkthrough are being charged $5,000 because their toilet was removed from the trailer after they moved out.
In at least one case, a former resident was smart enough to have Superintendent Kramer sign an acknowledgement that the trailer was in acceptable shape. Incredibly, that person is still one of the 75 addressees accused of violating the agreement and is being ordered to pay $5,000.
Another former tenant reports that she asked for and received Kramer’s permission to donate some of the items in her coach to Habitat for Humanity. According to the tenant, Kramer even opened up the door for Habitat workers who hauled out part of the kitchen. This former tenant is now on the state’s vandal list and is on the hook for $5,000 because, as the report properly states, the “kitchen was dismantled.”
What has really been dismantled over the past 15 months is the reputation of the California Department of Parks and Recreation as a competent, truth-telling public agency.
Chuck DeVore
State Assemblyman
R-Irvine
Immigration
Seeing the recent images of hundreds of thousands of marchers wielding their Mexican flags all over our big city streets tugged at the patriotic strings of your heart, didn’t they?
The media quotes many who say how much these “immigrants” contribute to our economy and standard of living.
Are they referring to our schools where parents are forced to send their children to private schools to get a decent education? Or maybe they are referring to all the hospitals that have closed their emergency rooms because illegals used them for daily medical care.
Maybe they are referring to all the felons running loose on our streets because they won’t be extradited back to their homeland?
It’s criminal to be in this country illegally. Plain and simple. And don’t call me a racist because I have Latinos in my family and I love them, so that argument is just plain lame.
Will our Congress have the guts to solve this problem? If you think so, then I wonder what you are smoking.
Our “genius” president wants to use our military to contain problems overseas, so they don’t come here. Then why don’t we overthrow the evil and crooked government of Mexico? That way we could give the country back to its good people so they don’t have to come here either.
Barry M. Gold
Irvine
