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. Proponents say the Renaissance Plan will transform the city's downtown; opponents say the same, except use the word "gentrification." Greenhut, in one of his increasing moves to the Left, sides with the o
The Measure D gap has shrunk--a tiny amount, but shrunk. The No on Measure D crowd are getting more optimistic. They have no other choice. "We already saw the bulldozers driving up Flower Street," Orange Juice blogger Thomas Anthony Gordon cracks. I tell them to pray hard, or to at least move to Anaheim. "We do gentrification right!" I offer, which the semi-drunk Measure D folks think is the funniest thing in the world.
"We should put that on a bumper sticker with Curt Pringle's face on it!" Go
The souring economy has closed two Orange County hole-in-the-wall favorites, is threatening a third, and changing a fourth. Closed for unknown reasons is Irie Jamaican Restaurant in Cypress, long the only local Jamaican restaurant. Shut down as a casualty of downtown Fullerton's continuing gentrification is Ruben's Panaderia, which I've been frequenting since a kid, so I know it didn't close for lack of business. Jason's Downtown in SanTana is now only open for dinner Thursday through Saturday b
In my latest book, I devote a chapter to the many sins of the Orange County Republican Party but also hinted that they were finally evolving from the slimeball campaigns of the past when it came to scoring easy points off of demonizing Mexicans. Specifically, I pointed to the 2006 Tan Nguyen affair, where GOP chair Scott Baugh fully repudiated Nguyen and only the farthest extremes of party activists (i.e., the CCIR crowd) stood by their Tan.
So much for that goodwill. As noted by OC Blog, the
Chris Ziegler reported for us back in October about Koo's returning to Santa Ana and taking over programming at the long-dormant Yost Theater, and now shows are beginning to pop up on the venue's schedule. It's a move that generated some degree of grousing--particularly around November's SoundDowntown festival, which was organized by Koo's founder Dennis Lluy and used the Yost among other venues--namely, that it marks gentrification of downtown Santa Ana. (One commenter in the above linked story
Taco Man appreciates those who help his preparers... My cover story on Orange County loncheros sparked
an outraged letter from Sean Mill, longtime SanTana activist,
sometimes-blogger for the wonderfully libelous Orange Juice!, and
current SanTana planning commissioner. What got his attention was this part of the piece:But the taco-truck battle in Santa Ana isn't over. Santa Ana
officials have created the Renaissance Specific Plan (RSP), an
ambitious redevelopment project for the city's
