General (16)
Susana Barrios
From:Stephanie Mercadante <burglin.stephanie@gmail.com>
Sent:Tuesday, July 28, 2026 5:48 PM
To:Public Comment
Subject:\[EXTERNAL\] On Behalf of Georgia Price, District 6, Councilmember Natalie Meeks
Warning: This email originated from outside the City of Anaheim. Do not click links or open
attachments unless you recognize the sender and are expecting the message.
For public comment on July 28, 2026:
Anaheim has a serious accountability problem.
A few days ago, the Los Angeles Times reported that the City agreed to pay $250,000 to settle a lawsuit
brought by Deja Bush, a young black woman who alleged she was wrongfully arrested after purchasing a
vehicle from an Anaheim dealership. According to the lawsuit, what should have been a contractual
dispute became a criminal case, and prosecutors ultimately dismissed the charges. The City settled the
lawsuit while admitting no wrongdoing.
Residents should ask themselves one simple question: How does a civil dispute become a felony
arrest?
According to the allegations, a young woman legally purchased a car, lost her vehicle, lost her job, faced
felony charges, and lived under the threat of prison before those charges were eventually dismissed.
If those allegations are true, that isn't just a mistake. That's a failure of accountability.
This Council wouldn't have to worry so much about bad press if it simply addressed its internal problems
and held people accountable.
But your actions speak louder than your words. When six of the seven of you refused to ask former City
Manager Jim Vanderpool even a single meaningful question about his Lake Havasu trip, you sent a clear
message to the public: accountability has not changed.
The names may have changed, but the culture hasn't. Residents were promised a new direction after the
Harry Sidhu era. Instead, too often we see the same reluctance to ask difficult questions, the same
unwillingness to hold senior officials accountable, and the same expectation that the public should
simply move on.
When serious allegations involve constitutional rights, residents deserve an independent review, not
simply another internal conclusion.
Now, Anaheim taxpayers are paying another quarter of a million dollars to resolve a lawsuit.
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Just last week, we learned that Jose Duran and Tony Lee each received roughly a quarter of a million
dollars in overtime.
Whether it's excessive overtime or costly settlements, the common denominator isn't the dollar
amount—it's that taxpayers keep paying for the City's failures.
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