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Becerra, Alexis From: victor@unitedartistsofsantaana.com Sent: Thursday, November 20, 2025 3:03 PM To: eComment Cc: Zurita, Bianca; Le, Tram Subject: Arts Commission Public Comment: CAC Cultural District Proposal / United Artists of Santa Ana -Attention: This email originated from outside of City of Santa Ana.Use caution when opening attachments or links. Dear Santa Ana Arts Commissioners, This year, Arts OC, the City of Santa Ana and United Artists of Santa Ana submitted a proposal to the California Arts Council's Cultural Districts program to designate Historic Main Street as a California Cultural District. The proposal was selected as a semi-finalist, and a site visit was scheduled for October 23, to include a meeting with Main Street arts leaders and a tour of arts organizations. A few days before the visit, we learned that Alicia Rojas was mobilizing people to protest the meeting and was preparing a letter to the CAC to shoot down the proposal. My first response was to request a meeting to hear their concerns. I was told this was not an option, so the difficult decision was made to pull the proposal from competition rather than risk portraying Santa Ana in a negative light. I have obtained a copy of this letter, which was signed mainly by Alicia's clique of friends and family, and having read it, I want to call the Commission's attention to the fact that it is based on numerous key inaccuracies and falsehoods. These include: 1. The letter attacks the reputation of Arts OC and asserts that Arts OC was a partner in Downtown Inc's famously reviled 2017 proposal to this program. The letter goes to great length to list the failures of that proposal. The problem is, it was Grand Central Art Center, not Arts OC, who was a lead partner on the 2017 proposal. To infer any relationship between the 2017 proposal and this one is nonsense. It must be noted that John Spiak, who is a signer on the letter submitted to the CAC, was director of Grand Central in 2017. It is alarming that he would put his name on a letter assigning blame to Arts OC, a highly respected organization, for a proposal that his own organization was a lead partner on. This one substantial error alone delegitimizes Ms. Rojas' letter and raises concerns about how this issue was presented to the signers for support. 2. The letter falsely misrepresents the proposal's statement regarding UASA's involvement with the organizations mentioned. In her letter, Ms. Rojas avows "Several organizations listed as "partners" or collaborators have never worked directly with United Artists of Santa Ana (UASA)."This is a misrepresentation. What the proposal actually says is "United Artists of Santa Ana's members have worked directly with numerous organizations in the district,"which is true of the organizations mentioned in the proposal. Ms. Rojas' letter contains too many inaccuracies, aspersions, falsehoods, misrepresentations and personal attacks than there is time to discuss here, but I wanted to bring this to the Commission's attention to set the record straight and defend ourselves. i