Conflict Over O.C. Fiesta Puts It in City Hands

Santa Ana city officials and downtown merchants are at odds over the city’s most celebrated event, a September street festival marking Mexican Independence Day that draws 200,000 people.

Not only is it city versus merchants, but merchants versus merchants. The result is that Fiesta de las Americas, run for the last 15 years by the Downtown Santa Ana Business Assn., has been renamed Fiestas Patrias California and will be run by the city.

The problems began when the business association disbanded last year because of conflict between two factions. One group, headed by tax preparer Elsa Gomez, wants the downtown to preserve its Latino immigrant-oriented businesses. The other side, headed by dentist Arturo Lomeli, wants to diversify from the bridal shops, check-cashing operations, jewelry stores and travel agents that now dominate to include businesses attracting more diverse customers.

Each group wanted to run this year’s fiesta, but City Manager David N. Ream said neither faction was strong enough to put on such a large event.

So he set up an event committee of about a dozen people, including city officials, retailers and representatives of All Access Entertainment, which has produced the event for the last three years.

All Access is expected to pay the city about $30,000, plus a percentage of its gross revenue from renting stalls and obtaining sponsors. Proceeds, expected to total about $40,000, will be placed in a bank account to be used for next year’s festival, Ream said.

The weekend festival features well-known musicians, a children’s carnival and booths selling food and other products.

Gomez was invited to join the committee, but she refused. Lomeli also declined.

Instead, Gomez said, she filed a request in June with the federal government to secure a trademark for the festival’s previous name, Fiestas de las Americas, as part of a legal strategy to block the city’s move to control the event. Gomez said she had also hired an attorney who would soon send a letter to the city in an attempt to block the new arrangement.

“We have ownership over this event.... We worked on this event to make it what it is today,” Gomez said. “They are threatening to destroy everything we worked for. The city could take this event and put it somewhere else. We do not know what will happen. We have to wonder why they want to take over what is ours.”

Lomeli agrees, but he is taking a more diplomatic tack by calling city officials and asking them to reconsider.

“We feel the event should be controlled by a community business-based organization, not the city,” Lomeli said. “I’m trying to get the message to city government. I’m just taking a different path.”

Ream said that neither pleas nor the filing for a trademark will affect his plans.

“We really only stepped in because of the demise of the downtown association,” he said. “We are letting the planning committee determine the key aspects this year. There is still downtown ownership.”