Downtown Santa Ana is a place where the dentist, the jewelry shop owner, the tax preparer, the pushcart vendor, the artist and the Catholic gift shop owner double as activists.
Small-business owners have been battling among themselves for years over how best to attract more customers to downtown Santa Ana.
“It’s been one fight after another,” said Elsa Gomez, owner of Pacific Coast Tax Service.
Gomez heads up La Calle Cuatro de Santa Ana Association, which represents mainly Fourth Street and Fiesta Marketplace stores.
Gomez said she spends a quarter of her time on non-business issues.
Her group’s beef is that traditional businesses are being slighted at the expense of the city’s arts district growth.
Meanwhile, the group made up of artist loft owners, art galleries and restaurants, say they want to beautify the city. They want to create a broader arts and cultural hub for OC.
“When people start getting over their agendas, everyone can live in harmony,” said Arturo Lomeli, a dentist and head of the Downtown Business Council, the umbrella group for the loft, artist and restaurant associations.
One upside to the battle: “There’s a lot of people that care and participate,” said David Ream, Santa Ana’s city manager.
Downtown Santa Ana is a place that mixes the old,traditionally Hispanic businesses around Fourth Street with pushcart vendors selling fruits and Mexican treats outside wedding and boot shops,and the new,galleries and artist lofts that have lured young professionals.
There also is a handful of larger companies, such as title insurer First American Corp., in the area.
But it’s the mixing of the traditional and the new that has been difficult and downright contentious for the 600-some businesses in downtown Santa Ana.
In the past, downtown businesses contributed to a fund that paid for upkeep, marketing and other efforts to attract customers. Disagreements over how to spend that money has deepened the divide.
Some of the ongoing battles:
One group of business owners wanted to eliminate pushcart vendors. The vendors fought back and won city-backed cart upgrades and uniforms.
Management of the Sept. 16 Fiesta, one of the largest events in the state.
How banner signs should be used.
Whether developer Mike Harrah’s 37-story office tower is right for the city. Santa Ana officials view the tower positively, while Fourth Street retailers say it’s a case of a good idea, wrong neighborhood.
If and how businesses should continue to pool their money.
Until about a year ago, Santa Ana businesses were part of the Downtown Santa Ana Business Association. The group managed the area’s “business improvement district,” a 36-block region made up of about 600 mostly small businesses downtown.
The businesses pool their money through revenue-based fees.
Business districts are common in downtown areas. They are similar to homeowners associations in that businesses pool their money to pay for the common good,things such as maintenance and security, events and marketing.
But amid all the fighting, the downtown association disbanded last year. In its place, two new groups emerged: the Downtown Business Council and La Calle Cuatro Association.
La Calle includes businesses at Santa Ana’s Fiesta Marketplace, a four-block area with about 35 shops catering largely to Mexican immigrants. The Downtown Business Council represents the arts community, among others.
Money collected by the old association,about $700,000,is being held by the city until an agreement can be reached on how to split up the business district and how to spend the money.
There’s another $200,000 in the city’s budget that must be divvied up. The city and the Downtown Business Council want to use the funds to improve the streets with new benches, planters and lighting.
La Calle argues that while its members pay more into the business district, the arts district gets most of the dollars.
The group would like to see more money spent on marketing their businesses to Hispanics than on beautifying the arts district, which many contend the city should be doing on its own without businesses’ money.
The fees that the businesses pay long have been one of the major sticking points. Pushcart fees are as much as 20 times what art galleries pay, said Joe Ortiz, president of the pushcart association.
Then there are businesses that don’t pay into the district but reap the benefits, said La Calle chief Gomez.
There are countless opinions on who’s paying too much or too little, City Manager Ream said.
“They just want the money to be split up differently,” he said. “All these things need to be worked out.”
Pat Whitaker, who heads the city’s community development department, is the top adviser for the business district. Both sides seem to like her approach, contrary to the past head of the Downtown Santa Ana Business Association.
“She listens,” said Sam Romero, owner of St. Teresa’s Catholic Gift Shop, one of the traditional stores in the area.
Both sides agree that a new Farmer’s Market on Wednesdays, for example, will benefit everyone.
Ream said the city would dissolve the business district if an agreement can’t be reached.
“We will not continue the (Business Improvement District) unless it’s endorsed by all parties,” he said.
