SAUSD School Board candidate Valerie Amezcua is hosting a fundraiser on Thursday, September 27th, at the home of the Cazales Family, located at 1030 West Moore Avenue, in Santa Ana, from 6:00 – 8:00PM.
Parents are Free. Suggested Ticket Prices for everyone else are: $25 Per Person; $75 Amiga/Amigo Sponsorship; $150 Comadre/Compadre Sponsorship; $250 Madrina/Padrino Sponsorship. Continue reading
Republican home where Valerie Amezcua’s fundraiser will be held, in Orange Park Acres
Failed Santa Ana mayoral candidate Al Amezcua’s daughter, Valerie Amezcua, a Democratic Party candidate for the SAUSD School Board, is finally going to have a fundraiser, at the home of Republicans Dr. Arturo & Raquel Lomeli on Saturday, September 22, 2012, at 20208 E. Rogers Drive, in Orange Park Acres, from 4:00 – 6:00 pm.
Valerie ran previously for the SAUSD School Board in 2006, and lost to Roman Reyna, who she is now supporting for the Santa Ana City Council.
The event will be catered by Casa 7 Mares. Just to be safe, I looked up their record of health violations on the website of the Orange County Health Agency: Continue reading
Valerie Amezua, David Benavides and company – but no Eric Alderete
Santa Ana mayoral candidate David Benavides and his supporters would like us to think that he represents some kind of revolution, but in truth he is working with Santa Ana’s Usual Suspects – the mostly Republican, angry, older anti-Latino busy bodies that ran City Hall for far too long.
The Usual Suspects are the folks who passed laws against drying your laundry in the backyard; who limited garage sales to four per year; who worked to get rid of jobs – targeting those who deliver printed marketing materials to homes and those who stand on street corners twirling signs to build up local businesses. These are the gentrifiers who bemoan the fact that Santa Ana became a Latino majority city and who put bear locks on their trash cans to keep the homeless from collecting their bottles and cans. Continue reading
Robert Hammond, promoting the GOP
Orange County’s Democrats are generally clueless, but this past June they were particularly out of sorts. They inexplicably gave Orange County Supervisor Janet Nguyen a free pass, allowing her to focus on electing her fellow Republican, and gay-basher, Robert Hammond as he won a seat on the O.C. Department of Education’s Board of Trustees.
And the Democrats managed to fumble away Orange County’s most Latino seat, allowing it to go to Orange County Clerk-Recorder Tom Daly, who has since been charged with sexual harassment in the workplace. If they had gotten behind Santa Ana Council Member Michele Martinez she might have prevailed in June. Instead organized labor put up their guy, Julio Perez, splitting the Latino vote and allowing Daly to prevail. Continue reading
SAUSD Trustee John Palacio
To understand why SAUSD Trustee John Palacio hates Santa Ana Mayor Miguel Pulido so much you have to understand that Palacio is still mad that his best friend and mentor was booted off a local school board some years ago. Wait a minute – I am not referencing the recall of former SAUSD Trustee Nativo Lopez, but rather the fall from grace and eventual resignation of former Rancho Santiago Community College District Trustee Rodolfo “Rudy” Montejano.
Long before Lopez was causing trouble in town, Montejano was the man. An attorney, who graduated from UC Berkeley, like current Council Member Vince Sarmiento and Council candidate Eric Alderete, Montejano was quite the player back in the day – and Palacio was his number one lackey. Continue reading
It has become increasingly obvious that the so-called “Santa Ana Spring” is actually a collection of Santa Ana politicians with different axes to grind, who have come together as their mutual petty hatreds have temporarily converged. This alliance is a shaky one at best.
The drivers of this movement are failed Santa Ana mayoral candidate Al Amezcua, who resigned from the Rancho Santiago Community College District’s Board of Education a few years ago, after he got caught living outside of the area he was elected to represent; Santa Ana Unified School District John Palacio, who survived the recall of his close friend and ally Nativo Lopez; Santa Ana Councilman Vince Sarmiento – who is bitter because he didn’t run for the 69th Assembly District and who has designs on the Santa Ana Mayor’s office; Santa Ana Council Member Michele Martinez, who was soundly defeated by Santa Ana Mayor Miguel Pulido back in 2008 – and who did poorly again this June as a candidate for the 69th Assembly District; and Council Member David Benavides, who is embroiled in a controversy regarding allegations of infidelity and divorce. Continue reading
Apparently the Orange County Democratic Party Central Committee endorsed the following Santa Ana candidates yesterday:
I have no other view than to promote the public good. – George Washington.
There is a time for everything and it struck me today that the time for me to run again for the SAUSD School Board is not this November. Now that was not a decision I came to rashly, but one that I arrived at after much thought.
We need change at the SAUSD School Board, now more than ever. There is only one open seat – and two incumbents are up for reelection. Right now we have several decent challengers, including: Probation Officer Valerie Amezcua, Social Worker Myriam Tinajero, Parent and Businesswoman Ceci Iglesias. If one or more of them are to win, and possibly take out incumbents Rob Richardson and/or Jose A. Hernandez, then I must exit this race – or risk splitting the Latino vote further, which would only benefit Richardson, who, in my opinion, really needs to go. Continue reading
Santa Ana code enforcement officer Sergio Verino has dropped out of the race for the SAUSD School Board. Remaining candidates include the two incumbents, Jose A. Hernandez and Rob Richardson, and challengers Valerie Amezcua, Cecilia Iglesias and new candidate Myriam Tinajero (sister of Council Member Sal Tinajero).
None of these candidates are teachers. Amezcua works in probation and Tinajero is a social workers. I am told that their campaigns will be run by SAUSD Trustee John Palacio. He supported Trustee Audrey Noji two years ago and was allied with recalled SAUSD Trustee Nativo Lopez. Continue reading
UPDATE: Council Member Sal Tinajero has pulled papers to run against Mayor Pulido this November. Chisme has it that Benavides will be pressured to get out of the race ASAP.
UPDATE: Council Member David Benavides has announced that he is running for Mayor. Pulido has nothing to worry about.
Santa Ana Mayor Miguel Pulido’s detractors are befuddled about how exactly he keeps on winning, every two years. What they don’t understand is that their views don’t reflect the views of the residents at large in our city.
Santa Ana is a huge city. The “inside baseball” and chismoso/gadfly set is fairly small, perhaps a hundred people at most. In 2010, mayoral challenger Alfredo Amezcua lined up a lot of these folks – and combined them with the dwindling “Usual Suspects.” Amezcua spent a quarter million dollars and he thought he had victory in the bag. But you see what he was listening to was an echo chamber – and he failed to reach the majority of voters in Santa Ana. Continue reading
Valerie and Al Amezcua
UPDATE: Valerie Amezcua has pulled papers to run for the SAUSD Board of Education. She last ran for the SAUSD School Board in 2008, when she lost by less than a hundred votes to Roman Reyna. Reyna is running for the Santa Ana City Council in November and is walking away from the SAUSD School Board. Amezcua had a chance to run for the SAUSD School Board in 2010, but she declined to do so.
Amezcua is the daughter of local attorney Al Amezcua, who challenged Santa Ana Mayor Miguel Pulido in 2010, losing badly. Al and Valerie both served on the Measure G Campaign Committee – helping to pass a bond measure that raised our taxes for dubious purposes (the SAUSD School District remodeled their district offices after Measure G passed). Both of the Amezcuas also supported liberal union hack candidate Julio Perez in the Open Primary, for the 69th Assembly District. Perez spent a small fortune on that race, as did his labor allies, but he lost to a Republican, Jose Moreno, who spent almost nothing on his campaign. Continue reading