Posts tagged Santa Ana
Santa Ana Councilman Calls on State Attorney General to Probe Police Union Spending
October 6, 2025 // Santa Ana City Councilman Ben Vazquez is calling on the State’s Attorney General Rob Bonta to thoroughly probe how Santa Ana’s police union spent taxpayer dollars over the last decade to see if there has been any misuse of public dollars. It comes as the city’s police department faced a host of accountability questions this past summer and as city officials brace for an expected deficit in a couple years that city staff project will be tens of millions of dollars deep. Vazquez says he is requesting the investigation after a city audit found officials overpaid $3.4 million for officers’ health benefit plans in 2023 despite the union’s health benefits account operating at over $608,000 deficit.
Police Union, Real Estate Interests Spend Big in Santa Ana Elections
October 23, 2024 // Public safety unions and real estate interests are spending tens of thousands of dollars on their preferred candidates in Santa Ana’s city council races this year – amid allegations that the police union has outsized influence on city hall.
Should Large Housing, Retail Developments Built in OC Require Local Union Labor?
October 3, 2024 // The delay in the vote came after representatives from unions like the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 441 raised concerns that developers have not reached an agreement with the LA/OC Building Trades Union.
Orange County’s Police Unions Are Increasingly Electing, Unseating Their Own Bosses
August 30, 2023 // But in both Anaheim and Santa Ana, the police unions account for some of the largest political spending on citywide elections. And in both cities, the result has been massive raises for police officers, despite concerns from some residents that such raises were fiscally irresponsible – forcing Anaheim residents to dip into their general fund reserves in 2020. At the county, big Sheriff Deputy raises created conditions where critical investments in public health couldn’t be made, an impact largely unnoticed by the public. Until the pandemic arrived.
Opinion: Public employee unions corrupt our system of government
February 14, 2023 // For an editorial in the Orange County Register at the time, I called Chapter 224 head Ronda Walen, who wrote the above statement on the union website. I asked if it was fair for the union to elect “our own bosses.” “Yes, I think it is,” she replied. “In a democracy, we have the right to do that.” Actually, using the voters’ own tax money to push candidates and positions on them is a violation of democracy, which is rule by the people — all of them. Not just a few union bosses living off taxes forcibly taken from everybody else, and funding pro