Claudia Alvarez

10 Orange County "City Leaders" We'd Just as Soon Not Hear from the Rest of 2013

Being a city council member is a thankless job, although they do usually save you a nice parking spot at city hall.While we applaud public service, many, many holders of local office in Orange County use their positions of "power" to do some really fucked-up things.Here are but 10 supposed city lead ... More >>

The Five Least-Deserving, Non-Incumbent Winners in Orange County Elections Last Night

SO...while a lot of good happened in Orange County politics last night, so did a lot of evil. Not just did a bunch of former councilmembers who have nothing else to do with their sorry lives except run for offices in which they were termed out years ago win last night (Lucille Kring in Anaheim, Mike ... More >>

Bill Hunt Must Renounce Joe Arpaio and Barbara Coe If He Want to Be Taken Seriously Once Becoming Fullerton Police Chief

I've been receiving a ton of email and Facebook messages from both good and bad people in Fullerton, concerned that tomorrow, the Fullerton City Council just might replace acting Fullerton Police Department Chief Dan Hughes with former Orange County deputy sheriff Bill Hunt. Hunt is a darling of Tea ... More >>

Santa Ana Water Rates Among World's Best

​Santa Ana, an Orange County city whose murders, graduation rates and housing values make it constantly in need of a hug, at least has bragging rights when it comes to one thing.Tap water.For the second straight year, the county seat's Water Resources Division has been recognized for producing amo ... More >>

Stop Stealing Our Cars, New Documentary, Shows Santa Ana's Fight Against Unjust Impound Policies

​Working-class immigrant residents of SanTana have been beneficiaries of new, fairer vehicle impound policies since October 1, 2011, when activists scored a solid grassroots victory. Stop Stealing Our Cars, set to premiere this Saturday at El Centro Cultural de Mexico in the city's downtown, is an ... More >>

Santa Ana Councilwoman Gets Caught Talking About Political Dirty Tricks on Public Train, Cries Invasion of Privacy

​SanTana City Council member and current 69th Assembly District candidate Michele Martinez has never been the smartest taco in the combo plate, especially since she's decided to align herself with SanTana Mayor-for-Life Don Papi Pulido and the Wicked Witch of Washington Square, Claudia Alvarez. Bu ... More >>

What We Learned

The Year on Navel Gazing and Beyond!

Will One Broadway Plaza, Santa Ana Freudian Project for City Council, Finally Get Built?

​Wow, I gotta hop on the wayback machine to remember what was the first time I wrote about One Broadway Plaza, the proposed 37-story office tower in a residential SanTana neighborhood that would be the tallest building in Orange County history AND the biggest Freudian monument yet erected for the ... More >>

OC's Scariest People 2011

Celebrating the Day of the Dead with some of the county's worst offenders

[UPDATE: Notes from the Protest] Anti-Gentrification Protest to Hit Downtown Santa Ana TOMORROW, During Art Walk

Photo by Carlos CorderoThe Don Papi in his latest conquered territory...​UPDATE: For a group that's about to get booted from its space due to gentrifiers, members and friends of the Centro Cultural de México had a gay old time yesterday at their anti-gentrification protest during the SanTana Arti ... More >>

The Yost Theater Is Ready for Its Closeup

The renovated, revamped venue is ready for its grand reopening. So why aren't all of its downtown Santa Ana neighbors celebrating?

Who's Behind the Call for Artists and Musicians to Boycott the Yost?

​The SanTana chattering classes are, well, chattering over news that an anonymous letter is calling on artists and musicians to not play at the Yost, the historic theater that's proving to be the Chavez Ravine of the city with its epic tales of poor-man's paradise, city-father usurping, and pathet ... More >>

Notes, Quotes, and Observations from Last Night's AirTalk with Larry Mantle Town Hall on Santa Ana Gentrification

More than 100 people in attendance last night...​With apologies to Orange County Register sports genius Randy Youngman, notes, quotes and observations from last night's epic town hall on SanTana gentrification wars held by KPCC-FM 89.3's AirTalk with Larry Mantle. *More than 100 people attended la ... More >>

[UPDATED AGAIN: Event TONIGHT, Now SRO and with New Guests] KPCC's AirTalk With Larry Mantle to Host Special on Santa Ana's Gentrification Wars March 28

​UPDATE: All seating for tonight's event is GONE; there is a waiting list, but the better bet is to show up and stand in the aisles to listen. Show up early--doors open at 6 p.m.Also, there are one-and-a-half replacements. Taking the place of Downtown Inc. is SanTana councilmember Busty Bustamante ... More >>

Santa Ana Councilmembers Michelle Martinez and Claudia Alvarez: Frenemies for Life?

Martinez​I must admit, it was an absolutely jarring St. Patrick's Day for me, and not because of the special Jameson I imbibed at Memphis at the Santora in SanTana. Just before that, I went to the opening of Chapter One: the modern local, the pretentiously named new restaurant in downtown SanTana ... More >>

Sunday News Notes

News highlights include:Relax, sir. It's only .000034 percent of your wealth.​Is OC's Biggest Billionaire Stingy?Two of Donald L. Bren's children are expected to take their father to court this week in Los Angeles in hopes of winning $800,000 in retroactive monthly child support payments because, ... More >>

Art Pedroza: Santa Ana Looking To Dump Controversial Council Member

Benavides in big trouble?​I didn't attend tonight's Santa Ana city council meeting, but influential political blogger Art Pedroza is reporting that he thinks the council majority "has had it with" member David Benavides and might be recruiting a candidate to replace him.Benavides' apparent sin? At ... More >>

Boss Mike Harrah

[Moxley Confidential] Santa Ana sends a message to One Broadway Plaza's developer: Anything you say, sir

OC's Proposed Tallest Building Gets Energetic Union, City Backing

Build it and they will come?​Thanks in part to enthusiastic labor union support the Santa Ana City Council tonight unanimously approved five development agreement concessions to a wealthy Newport Beach real estate developer who is proposing to build Orange County's tallest building.The smiling, re ... More >>

Santa Ana Mayor Miguel Pulido Voted To Aid a Vending-truck Business In Which His Father Was Involved

[Moxley Confidential] Accused Drug Dealer Walks After Deputy's Threats to Him Revealed

From the Mixed-Up Bankrupcty Filing of Mr. Robert Bisno

Bisno: Doesn't pay bills​A source sent us the Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing of Robert Bisno, the man who essentially bought an election for SanTana Mayor Don Papi Pulido's regime by pouring tens of thousands of dollars into a campaign that extended term limits for the SanTana city council. Maybe th ... More >>

Racist OC Register Fustercluck of the Week: Bullets for Bangers!

Nothing like a good old gang-related murder in Santa Ana to set off all the Register readers who would like nothing more than to see the city cordoned off by immigration cops and the entire non-English speaking population rolled into Tijuana-bound paddy wagons. The latest example? This story from We ... More >>

The Best Posts of 2008, Direct From the Weekly's Parallel Universe

Live from the Banana Republic...

Three Local Elections Worth Watching. Call It Morbid Fascination

Busty Bustamante Losing Sense of Reality

*Updated, with new info on the bottom... I will always be a fan of Art Pedroza, the county's original political blogger and the man behind Orange Juice!, because he's living proof that people's political philosophies can change—in Art's case, he went from a homo-hating, MEChA-bashing Republican t ... More >>

First OC Book Signing for Orange County: A Personal History Mucho Success

With apologies to Orange County Register sports genius Randy Youngman, notes, quotes and observations from my Sept. 18 book signing at the Yost Theater for my new book, Orange County: A Personal History: *About 500 people showed up to hear my lecture! About 500! I add the qualifier because the Yost ... More >>

This Is Your Life: A Companion Guide/Shameless Propaganda for 'Orange County: A Personal History'

Santa Ana Now Officially Run by Lazy Mexicans

*Updated, with new information on the bottom... As the largest city in Orange County, SanTana needs a more-committed city council than, say, Laguna Niguel. Unfortunately, the county seat is cursed with buffoons, a veritable clowncil, to use the term of Orange Juice! bomb-thrower Art Pedroza. We've ... More >>

Some Words of Advice for Mike Harrah

Was walking up Main Street in SanTana the other day, and who was driving a massive Cadillac Escalade without a care to gas prices? None other than Mike Harrah, the Weekly's former landlord, one of many sugar papis to councilmember Claudia Alvarez, and the man who wants to build a 37-story building n ... More >>

Controversial Developer Robert Bisno Brings His Grease-a-Palm Politics to Santa Ana

Hispanic Bar Association Hijinks!

With apologies to Orange County Register sports genius Randy Youngman, notes, quotes and observations from yesterday's Orange County Hispanic Bar Association annual fundraising dinner: *Greeting the well-dressed, well-coiffed crowd as they drove toward the Westin South Coast Plaza hotel were about ... More >>

Obama's OC Man is My Boy

Ben Escobedo is my college pal from Chapman University and a Morrissey freak. He's also the point man for Barack Obama's campaign in Orange County and the Inland Empire and just called me on his cell phone to rave about Obama's grassroots effort in OC. "There are 18-year-olds who just had their bir ... More >>

Somebody is Reading Jennifer Delson

We've always been big fans of Los Angeles Times SanTana reporter Jennifer Delson because her stories are how journalism should be: hard-hitting, about unserved communities, and making a difference. And her skills have never been more evident than this past weekend, when Delson wrote a piece about th ... More >>

I Remember Claudia Alvarez

I remember SanTana councilmember Claudia Alvarez. I remember back in early 2000, when a friend of mine asked if I could help stuff envelopes for a campaign he was working on for a deputy district attorney. I remember meeting her--young, energetic, sincere--and thinking I wanted more politicians like ... More >>

Correction Regarding Robert Bisno's Influence on Santa Ana Politics

We must apologize for two huge errors we made in our recent post regarding developer Robert Bisno's campaign contribution love affair with SanTana councilmember Claudia Alvarez. We had reported that Bisno and his friends contributed $36,300 to her failed 2006 Assembly race, but we were grossly off. ... More >>

None of His Bisno-iss

Only in SanTana can an effort to impose term limits on Papi Pulido transform into a ballot measure to extend term limits for councilmembers. But that's exactly what happened with Measure D, which SanTana voters will decide on February 5 and is one of the most laughable pieces of crap to grace Orange ... More >>

Time to Give Santa Ana's Mayor a Nickname!

Today, bad-ass Los Angeles Times reporter Jennifer Delson writes about the idiotic Measure D, the SanTana ballot measure that would extend city council term limits from eight years to 12 years. She reveals that Measure D originally started as an attempt by residents and councilmembers to install ter ... More >>

Have Money, Will Vote: How Carlos Bustamante Pays Back Donors

Part dos of 3... Every day, we drive by City Place, the unfinished development across the street from MainPlace Mall with cool live/work lofts and horrid restaurants (seriously: McCormick & Schmidt's and Corner Bakery as the anchor tenants??? Can't wait 'til Mother's Market opens to save us from t ... More >>

Register, Times Slam Santa Ana Good--And a Challenge

If there's one thing that Orange County Register editorial writer Steven Greenhut hates more than Sheriff Mike Carona, it's city-controlled urban planning, and he ripped SanTana officials a new one and then some yesterday in a piece blasting the city's much-ballyhooed Renaissance Specific Plan. Prop ... More >>

Fight! Fight! Fight!

While Latinas have earned a reputation for having “spicy” personalities (just ask the governor!), it was something else to watch Santa Ana council member Michele Martinez and Mayor Pro Tem Claudia Alvarez exchanging insults and dirty looks during tonight’s city council meeting. Things starte ... More >>

Puta Politics

Its about time someone called Loretta Sancheza whore

The Lovable Loser

Ryan Gene Williams has no chance this Novemberand thats why we like him

Dem Bones

First there was yesterday's Election Day lunch--the GOP-heavy shindig where Weekly editor Will Swaim only got halfway through the hilarious speech I wrote for him because he was shuffling back and forth between pages and so lost my text and thus never got to the payoff, "Thank you, ladies and gentle ... More >>

Slapp-Happy

Anti-tower activists claim developer and friends are suing them into silence

Letters

Letters

The Times They Are A-Changin . . . Back!

The GOP gets funky, by which of course we mean they smell