One of the bright spots of this past election was progressive-Dem Santa Ana Mayor Vince Sarmiento beating well-funded conservative-Dem Garden Grove councilwoman Kim Bernice Nguyen in the race for Supervisor, district 2, by over 3000 votes! He will join Katrina Foley as a dependable, honest Democrat on the Board, and maybe we’ll be lucky and incumbent Doug Chaffee won’t be so hard for them to work with as we fear. We happily reprint Vince’s press release from yesterday:
Santa Ana Mayor Vicente Sarmiento Becomes Only the Third Latino in 133 Years
to be Elected to the Orange County Board of Supervisors
Also, the First County Supervisor From Santa Ana Since 1948
ORANGE COUNTY, CA – With over 98% of the votes counted, and more than a 3,000 vote margin, Mayor Vicente Sarmiento declared victory today. After 15 years, Sarmiento finally brings Latino representation to the current Board of Supervisors’ newly drawn Second District that is almost 67% Latino. The district includes Anaheim, Tustin, Orange, Garden Grove, and all of Santa Ana.
Sarmiento inspired broad support with his community-focused message of reducing homelessness, creating safer neighborhoods, and helping working families. “We ran an honest and positive campaign that was responsive to the residents of Orange County, not the special interests,” said Sarmiento. “I’m deeply humbled by the trust of countless people who supported our vision, and will help us write the next chapter in Orange County’s story.”
Mayor Sarmiento’s historic campaign overcame more than half a million dollars in negative ads filled with distorted facts funded by special interests planning to once again dictate the composition of the Board. Fortunately, the people in Orange County’s Second District chose hope over fear, facts instead of lies, and principles over money.
###
In January of 2007, Mayor Sarmiento was appointed to the Santa Ana City Council to represent Ward 1. He was formally elected as the Ward 1 City Councilmember in November 2008, then re-elected in November 2012 and November 2016. In November 2020 he was elected Mayor of Santa Ana.
As Mayor, Vicente Sarmiento oversaw the adoption of landmark public policy including a Police Oversight Commission, Rent Stabilization, an aggressive Affordable Housing Ordinance, an Immigrant Legal Defense Fund, and Premium Pay for Essential Workers. He accomplished all of this while creating a $40 million surplus, increasing the city’s fiscal reserves, ensuring a Double A credit rating, and making Santa Ana recognized as one of the best managed cities in California. [V. note – See? A true progressive balances the budget!]
Mayor Sarmiento currently serves as a Director for the Orange County Transportation Authority. He previously served as the President of the Orange County Water District Board of Directors, Vice-Chair of the Transportation Corridor Agency, and Board Member with the Orange County Fire Authority. Mayor Sarmiento is a member of the Santa Ana Discovery Cube Board of Directors, and a former member of the Board of Directors with the National Association of Latino Elected Officials (NALEO).
Mayor Sarmiento graduated from the University of California, Berkeley with a Bachelor of Science Economics and received his Juris Doctorate from the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law. More recently, he attended the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and successfully completed the Certificate Program for Senior Executives in State and Local Government.
Mayor Sarmiento and his family have lived in and around Santa Ana, and central Orange County since 1965. He attended John Muir Elementary, Sierra Elementary, and Willard Intermediate Schools. Mayor Sarmiento now lives in a 1929 historic home in the Saddleback View neighborhood, three blocks from where he grew up. Presently, he and his wife Eva, also an attorney, are the principal owners of a law practice in Santa Ana. They have three children whom they hope will learn the value of public service and contributing to their community.
What was the deal with his carpetbagging?
I remember Diamond and Zenger calling him out.
All forgiven or just a better candidate than Kim?
Zenger can answer for himself (of course), but I think that it’s likely that by some moral/ethical definitions he was a carpetbagger but that he wasn’t established to have been the sort of carpetbagger who was breaking the law by claiming a false residence.
And, of course, the rules against the latter sort fo carpetbagging weren’t actually enforced under Rackauckas, as Mimi Walters could tell you (and Steve Young did tell you) back in 2012.
Spitzer has offered some reform — but not so much with influential Republicans allegedly living outside of their districts. (I forget whether this applies to Steel, Do, or others — but we get a lot of assertions in comments.)
[Edited to add: and yes, he was a way better candidate than Kimber Nguyen.]
I don’t know how to quantify living OPA. Serving as a Santa Ana City Councilman, later Mayor as simply morally/ethically irresponsible, but I suppose that’s your purview.
I do KNOW that on at least nine occasions the Samiento mansion on Fourth Street was used for OCDEM/OCDEM CANDIDATE fundraisers, where CLEARLY no family lived there. This was documented by the Santa Ana networking dude who went down with Bustamonte.
I also remember something about him being exposed for claiming (falsely) mileage from Orange to Fountain Valley. This was exposed and commented on here and elsewhere, but, of course that’s before he pivoted to more Liberal policy views.
Do:Carpertbagger/Liar: BAD
Solorio:Carpetbagger/Liar: Good
Galloway: Solorio:Carpetbagger/Liar: BAD
Sarmiento: Solorio:Carpetbagger/Liar: Good
I get it the morals are subjective.
Whatever’s true about Vince, you can be sure that nobody here ever said that Solorio was Good.
I never called this guy out about anything.
Carpetbagging is annoying and wrong. Faking an address in order to carpetbag is illegal – perjury, in fact.
Congratulations to Vicente! 3 is a lot better than 2, but 2 is also a lot better than 1.
Maybe Chaffee and Wagner will have a falling out or something and these two can have some real say.