A recall effort funded by the Santa Ana police union against a council member who voted against police pay raises is moving forward.
Santa Ana Councilwoman Cecilia Iglesias (Courtesy of the city of Santa Ana)
The recall drive against Councilwoman Cecilia Iglesias, which garnered more than 16,000 signatures, was submitted to the city on Dec. 18 and delivered the following day to the Orange County Registrar of Voters. The Registrar’s office has until Feb. 3 to verify the signatures and return those results to the city.
To qualify for a ballot, the recall bid will need to have at least 10,865 valid signatures, Registrar Neal Kelley wrote in an e-mail.
Meanwhile, a separate recall drive against Santa Ana Councilman Juan Villegas, who also voted against police pay raises, appears to have stalled or stopped. In recent months, paid signature gatherers who earlier this year were urging Santa Ana residents to approve both recall efforts, have focused solely on Iglesias.
The councilwoman said Monday that recall is political payback for her vote earlier this year against the police contract and its new pay raises.
“This tells you: ‘Who has the money has the power,’” Iglesias said.
“City Hall is being managed by third-party interests.”
The Santa Ana police union is funding the drives against the council members, according to campaign disclosure statements filed with the City Clerk’s office. The Police Officers Association has spent $220,000 since last July to oppose Iglesias, most of it going to a committee dubbed “Neighbors Supporting the Recall of Cecilia Iglesias.” The union has given another $100,000 to “Neighbors Supporting the Recall of Juan Villegas.”
Gerry Serrano, the union’s president, wrote in an email that the POA is supporting Iglesias’ recall because “her behavior while in office has been unethical, unprofessional and criminal.”
“She has slandered the police officers association. She has illegally interfered in personnel matters and does not support public safety; she voted no on the city budget and the police budget. (The) illegal behavior must not go unchecked.”
Iglesias has openly criticized Serrano. Her hashtag for him on Facebook is “#greedygerry.”
“Gerry has taken a personal stand on me because I’ve called him out. And he doesn’t like it. He’s never been called out,” Iglesias said Monday.
Serrano wrote in e-mails to the Register that Iglesias has slandered, libeled and defamed him and the union, and insisted that such conduct “is criminal.”
The POA and Serrano made similar complaints to the council on June 28, when an attorney for the union asked city officials to investigate Iglesias for city ethics and code violations.
“Councilmember Iglesias has used language that is the opposite of civil and courteous such as calling Sergeant Serrano a bully and corrupt, and that implies improper action on his part to act for personal gain,” attorney Charles Goldwasser of Sherman Oaks wrote in the letter to Mayor Miguel Pulido and the city council.
No city action has been taken, Serrano said Monday.
Iglesias voted against the city and police budget because she said she did not support $25 million in police pay raises, which included retroactive increases and extra money for long-time officers. It is not illegal to vote against the budget.
In August, when asked about allegations that the union is behind the recalls, Serrano told the Register: “we are evaluating this as it progresses.” But by the date of that email, Aug. 6, the union had done more than evaluate. The union had spent a total of $50,000 against Iglesias and Villegas, according to records filed with the city.
“It’s a waste of everybody’s time but Gerry wants to prove a point,” Iglesias said.
Both Iglesias and Villegas voted in February against spending $25 million for police pay raises. The raises are being funded by Measure X, a sales tax approved by Santa Ana voters in 2018 that is expected to generate some $60 million annually.
That 1.5 % tax – which makes Santa Ana’s 9.25 % sales tax the highest in Orange County – was supposed to fund a number of city services, including police. But a citizens’ committee tracking the money said recently that most of that tax is being spent on police expenses and other city debt.
Meanwhile, the police department recently announced that it hired 50 new officers this year, “something that has not occurred (in Santa Ana) in over 20 years.”
Iglesias and Villegas both said they support police officers but want to see fiscal responsibility. Both said the police union is out of line with the recalls.
“It’s unfortunate that police officer dues are being used for this type of propaganda. I wholeheartedly support the men and women of the Santa Ana police department, not their union,” Villegas said.
Iglesias, a Republican, said the paid canvassers collecting signatures spread misinformation about her in the predominantly Latino city. In one flyer, which misspells her name, her smiling City Hall photo appears next to one of Donald Trump, angry and screaming: “Inglesias=Trump.” Iglesias shared the flyer on Facebook.
“They were people not from Santa Ana, paid canvassers, who were misguiding individuals,” she said.
One of the union’s talking points, according to Iglesias, is that she supports having a homeless shelter in Santa Ana. But Iglesias has vociferously opposed having her city be the county’s dumping ground for the homeless. Last month, she told county supervisors that their plan to open a new shelter in Santa Ana means they don’t care about the city’s Latino community and consider its residents second-class citizens.
If enough signatures are certified as accurately belonging to Santa Ana voters, the matter goes back to the City Council to decide when it should be placed on the ballot. It’s unclear when a recall election would take place and whether it would necessitate a special election — which could cost the city about $500,000, City Clerk Daisy Gomez said.
It’s unclear whether the recall could be included on the November ballot. Iglesias plans to be on that ballot already — she’s running for mayor.