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Orozco, Norma From: Sent: To: Subject: Hello Santa Ana City Council, Diana Castro <dcastro@berkeley.edu> Monday, July 06, 2020 11:01 AM eComment City Council Meeting 7/7 I wanted to send another email regarding my disapproval of the city's Annual Budget, agenda item 65d for tomorrow's meeting. It is very discouraging to see that the City Council completely disregarded all of the public comments that were made at the previous meeting when the budget was discussed. Many personal anecdotes and powerful statistics were shared in how the budget needs to be assessed to better serve the needs of our community. Instead, the majority of the council members felt that hearing Santa Ana residents didn't matter, as the majority voted to keep the Santa Ana Annual Budget as is. Which is giving an increase in funding to the city's police department, instead of divesting and reallocating those funds to other community development programs. It is really tiring to hear career politicians say that they care about this city when they have clearly lost sight of what it means to advocate for Santa Ana folks. Many of these council members were voted in based on their ability to appeal to the community by sharing their personal stories of growing up in Santa Ana/neighboring cities and how they have lived through many of the same struggles that Santa Ana residents are still facing today. Instead, of using these experiences and using it as a reason to fight for what is right, council members used it as a way to get on the city council and ultimately advocate for their own interests. Of course, an ex - sheriff will be in favor of increasing the SAPD budget. Instead of giving the SAPD over 40% of the city annual budget, how about we build more libraries or create better after-school/weekend/summer programs for children? Caring for Santa Ana residents would be reallocating money where our community members need it most, so that we can combat the 20% poverty rate that this city is facing. Continuing the over -policing of our community members is not the answer. It's unfortunate that there were multiple times while I attended SAUSD, that I would walk into an empty nurses' office. Instead of seeing a nurse, another office staff would have to take my temperature and call my parents to come to pick me up because I had a fever. Due to the fact that my school didn't have a nurse that day, since I nurse would work at multiple schools throughout the week. But I sure do remember having multiple security guards and police officers at my high school, present every single day of the week. This is only one instance of how the city's budget is incredibly misguided and places policing as a priority. I would also like to encourage the city council to add more information on each of the council members "bio" page online, to include a tab listing all of the campaign donations that they have received so that we can have a high level of transparency of who funds our local SA campaigns. This surely shouldn't be an issue since the public has a right to know where our mayor and council members receive funding from. Best, Diana Castro Born & Raised in Santa Ana, ward 4