Several Santa Ana Council Members are going to have to run for re-election in 2014, including David Benavides, Michele Martinez and Sal Tinajero.
It may well be that by then a court will have already invalidated Measure D, which would mean these Council Members would be termed out, but that is by no means guaranteed.
So will anyone challenge these Council Members?
Benavides in particular should be in hot water with the voters. He came to this city as a young youth minister, with his schoolteacher wife. Today she is no longer mentioned on any of Benavides’ Facebook pages or websites although he did ride with his kids in this year’s Fiestas Patrias Parade.
Benavides really lost it when he ran against longtime Mayor Miguel Pulido, who groomed Benavides for office and showed him the ropes. Pulido soundly thrashed him in last year’s General Election.
Benavides also hurt himself via his friendship with former Councilman Carlos Bustamante, who left the Council and chose not to run again, after he was arrested on several felony counts related to his conduct at his former workplace, the County of Orange.
And Benavides is now being blamed for the mess that has been made of the Fiestas Patrias and Cinco de Mayo Festivals. He is apparently closely allied with MX Live, the promoter that the City of Santa Ana hired to run those events.
But worst of all was the fact that Benavides tried to make it even easier to open more bars in our town – thankfully the rest of the Santa Ana City Council rebuffed most of his efforts.
What about Martinez? She admitted to selling drugs when she was a teenager, when she was first elected. Like Benavides, she turned on Pulido and hee easily beat her too.
Last year Martinez ran for the 69th Assembly District and was destroyed in the Open Primary. It was an embarrassment.
What about Tinajero? He is more respected than his other colleagues, mostly for his work as a public school teacher and debate team coach. He has proven he can raise money and rally volunteers as well.
Tinajero has kids, unlike Martinez, and he is very involved in local youth sports.
All three of these Council Members acted to fire our last City Manager, Paul Walters. It cost a fortune to replace him as they seriously overpaid a guy from Phoenix to take over.
Who will run against these Council Members?
I saw sACRED had a big circle jerk after Mondays meeting.
It occurs to me that the city is shifting from one special interest group to the next. Right now, Martinez, Benavides and Tinaero are more interested in getting reelected than ANYTHING else.
We are trading Mike Harris for Irv Chase.
In response to your question, I don’t think either will face a worthy opponent, simply because no one cares. This is a rigged game. Like Bell. A Santa Ana politician is like serving in the SHU.
Editor,
I should probably comment about Benavides LIE, but I don’t think anybody really cares about his morality anymore. If he will burn his family what does that have to say about his commitment to residents.
Anyway, What I will say about Benavides is how desperate he seems to have gotten for cash. He is now using his Councilmember FB page to solicit real estate listings, He could also recently be seen passing out cards in well shall we say a questionable manner, when he was on “Quasi Council Business” (at the fiesta. I don’t know, perhaps that explains his relationship with MXLIVE, he can’t be getting rich selling $120,000 houses in Rialto!