Santa Ana Officials Bolt Open Meeting on Gangs

Three top Santa Ana city officials refused to enter a city council committee meeting Tuesday night where problems with gang violence were to be discussed because the council members had invited the media and members of the public.

City Manager David N. Ream, Police Capt. (and acting chief) Paul M. Walters and Fire Chief Bud Carter walked out of the eighth-floor City Hall offices after council members John Acosta and Miguel Pulido, who make up the council’s Public Safety Committee, started to meet in a nearby conference room in the presence of two reporters and two local residents.

The committee, one of approximately six committees made up of two council members each, meets monthly with the city manager and top police and fire officials.

Media ‘Inappropriate’

Efforts to contact Ream Tuesday night were unsuccessful. But earlier Tuesday, he said that the council had never intended the committee meetings “to turn into a public forum or public meeting” and that media attendance would be “inappropriate.”

The council committees, Ream said, were set up so interested council members could gain expertise on certain issues from city staff members and later share that information with the full council. “It’s an entirely informal process,” he said. “It’s a chance for the council to review things in greater detail.”

Ream said that on Monday he had decided to postpone the meeting because Intermim Police Chief Eugene Hansen is out of town and newly appointed Chief Clyde Cronkhite has not yet taken office. But he offered to brief Acosta and Pulido in his office when the two said they wanted to meet anyway.

Mayor Dan Young echoed Ream’s comments and added that the committee meetings are briefing sessions, and not policy-making sessions. “We don’t want policy statements to be made by one or two on behalf of all seven council members,” Young said. “The Public Service Committee has no right to propose public policy.”

‘Political Opportunity’

Young accused Acosta of using the meeting, which came after gang shootings have alarmed the city council, for “political opportunity.”

“He is trying to do it in order to get out ahead of the rest of the council,” Young said.

Acosta accused Young and Vice Mayor Patricia McGuigan of telling Ream not to attend the meeting. Acosta also accused Ream of choosing sides among council factions.

The gang problem “is an urgent situation, . . . and it causes embarrassment in the Hispanic community,” Acosta said, “and we have Anglos who don’t understand the problem telling us we should not meet.”

McGuigan, contacted after the meeting, said she did not tell Ream to stay out of the meeting. “I don’t think we have any right to order staff to do anything,” she said.

After reporters were invited to another committee meeting several months ago, McGuigan said, she circulated a memo among council members saying that she was “unhappy with the process” and thought that they ought to be closed meetings. However, The council did not discuss the issue, she recalled, and never made a formal policy decision on the committee meetings.

City Atty. Edward Cooper said the public could be legally excluded from the meeting because there was not the requisite four-member quorum.

As for actual committee business, Acosta and Pulido agreed to try setting up “living-room meetings” in neighborhoods afflicted by gang violence. They may also ask the council to establish a police advisory commission that would include church, school and community groups and that could attack the gang problem on a broad scope.

“We have to go out to Delhi, to Santa Anita,” said Pulido, naming a couple of Santa Ana’s predominantly Latino neighborhoods. “I think we need to get into people’s backyards.”

Pulido said it was unfortunate that he and Acosta had to discuss the gang problem without the benefit of police and other city staff. “But I don’t think that should stop us from doing what we have to do,” he said.