Orange County leaders are celebrating as they’re about to open a long overdue street car railway in Santa Ana – but many of the business owners who live and work right next to it say the project wrecked their businesses and disrupted their lives.
“To all the politicians who approved this, truthfully, with all respect, I hope you do not get offended; this is the stupidest thing that could have been done,” said Minerva Alvarez, who’s owned a dress shop for over 32 years in downtown Santa Ana. “It has brought the worst for us, a lot of my friends have had to close their businesses down.”
A county grand jury also took a look at the issue earlier this year and questioned why it took over a decade to build a rail line that stretches just over four miles at a cost of over $156 million per mile, with no clear answer on who will be riding on it.
[Read: How Did the Santa Ana Streetcar Construction End up Costing Over $150 Million Per Mile?]…