We all laughed when we heard it last May (those of us who read local news closely) – This longtime La Mirada councilman, Andrew Sarega, whose time on that Council was marked by turbulence and clownishness, was suddenly moving to Anaheim, to run for Council here. And only a month after finally being named La Mirada Mayor, a post he’d been trying HARD to get since 2013!

There was no way Anaheim voters would pick this shady cat from out of town to be their next Councilmember for District 5, was there? He sure wouldn’t be the establishment pick, would he? (And he wasn’t.) That’s a lot of chutzpah, to live in La Mirada for 30 years and then zoom into OC’s largest city out of the blue and presume you can represent us on Council! (Meanwhile telling everyone you’re gonna take on Ashleigh for Mayor in ’26!)

But now it’s real, and Sarega is amongst us. He’s found himself a home at the hard-partying “The George” (overlooking the Angel Stadium), and begun his well-funded, aggressive campaign to be our Councilman (although 80% of his funding is from out of town.) And now our district is festooned with his mug, block by block since August, which he clearly thinks will make folks want to vote for him:

How could you not love this guy?

In his early 20’s Andrew was a Newport Beach cop; allegedly he “retired” at 25 because of an injury. The Police Officers’ Bill of Rights makes it impossible for the public to learn the nature of that incident (just as we can get no details about Leandra Blades’ departure from the Paramount police force after fatally shooting an unarmed homeless man back in the day.) Andrew tells folks he “got into an altercation” and broke his hand. And so, 12 years later, he’s still not a cop – he’s 37 now. An altercation at 25, broke his hand, left the force, make of that what you will, he went into La Mirada politics from there. His hot-tempered brother David whom we’ll meet later is an Anaheim cop.

Andrew’s ONLY endorser is the Anaheim Police Union (APA) (although even they recently hedged their bets by also donating $2500 to his rival Kristen Maahs. [UPDATE – on the other hand, APA has JUST DROPPED 75K on Andrew – so prepare for another onslaught of mailers and ads, D5!]) This is new for Anaheim – up until this year, the APA has always been in lockstep with Anaheim’s other biggest Special Interests – Disney, developers, building trades, fire – but all those special interests are behind Maahs. At least that makes this race a little more interesting than usual.

As I list some of the concerns about Andrew Sarega, some of the things you should maybe take into account before voting for him, I’m labeling them as “EXIBITS.” I know, that’s not the accepted spelling – good story there though. In 2017, then-law student Andrew, representing himself “pro per,” unsuccessfully sued the La Mirada Lamplighter which had reported on his campaign finance violations, and the judge laughed the suit out of court; the headings below are screenshots featuring Andrew’s innovative, minimalist spelling of the word “exhibit.”

Sarega, the MAGA – Trump Candidate

CLOSE YOUR EYES. No, not right now, but in a minute – and try to picture Anaheim’s district 5, or Anaheim in general, during and after the MASS DEPORTATIONS that Donald Trump promises if elected President – something his fans are so fired up by that he’ll have to do it. And not just the undocumented – the dictator aims to deport all non-citizens, and – if his Supreme Court lets him – even those with “birthright citizenship.” We’d be talking about nearly half of Anaheim’s population, especially in district 5.

Well, when the always-ambitious Andrew Sarega ran for Congress in 2018 (coming in dead-last) he was an enthusiastic backer of all Trump’s most draconian policies. He’s deleted his Twitter account from back then, but the Wayback Machine is unforgiving:

(I know, the “recourses.”) Not a good look, running in a city and district that rejected Trump and his extremism, TWICE, by about 2/3, and has a solid Democrat advantage. Somebody should ask Andrew (he hasn’t responded to any of my messages) if:

• He still supports Trump?
• Who won the 2020 election?
• Were the events of Jan. 6, 2021 an anti-American insurrection or a patriotic protest?
• And do you support Trump’s promised mass deportations?

And the tweets go on…

“Absent Andrew” & his Passionate Family

From 2013-22, after barely squeaking onto La Mirada Council by six votes soon after his hand-breaking altercation, Andrew Sarega missed a total of 34 Council meetings, earning the nickname “Absent Andrew.” This is only one reason that, for ten years, Andrew’s colleagues passed him over for the traditionally rotating appointed posts of Mayor Pro Tem and Mayor – which drove Andrew and his relatives crazy!

The Los Cerritos News wrote two years ago that Andrew’s “behavior at city council meetings is only upstaged when his father, Ion ‘John’ Sarega, shows up and speaks at public comment.” Ion, an immigrant from Rumania, has also run for several offices (and experienced similar campaign finance violations.) La Mirada insiders tell me that Ion seems to live vicariously through his son’s political career, and is constantly pushing him on to bigger things. LCN again: Andrew “can often be seen fidgeting as his dad berates the rest of the council and the city manager for basically nothing.” Here’s a short video of one time Ion had to be removed from Council chambers (this could be a little entertaining at an Anaheim meeting!) By the way Ion now plans to run for his son’s vacated seat.

When the time would come to choose a new Mayor & Pro Tem, the chambers would be packed with around 20 of Andrew’s extended family, cheering on their hero and loudly protesting his rejection.

One of those was Andrew’s brother David, an Anaheim cop who had a conniption fit when Andrew was passed over in 2022, “went berserk” and called 70-year-old Councilman Steve De Ruse “a fucking bitch.” According to LCN, “outgoing Mayor Ed Eng stepped in between De Ruse and Sarega, with Sarega challenging Eng to a fight. [Officer Sarega] told Eng, ‘Let’s take it outside,’ but cooler heads prevailed.”

It’s said that Officer Sarega was reprimanded for this, and apologized to De Ruse… the FOLLOWING YEAR, when his brother was finally made Pro-Tem. But I can’t help noticing that, as soon as I mentioned here that I was going to write about Andrew, Officer Sarega started showing up at Varsity Burgers on Thursday mornings when my friends and I are there. (He hasn’t said anything yet.)

The Saregas aside, La Mirada is a genteel, Christian place – it’s BIOLA LAND for Christ’s sake! Councilman De Ruse is a pastor – they call him “Pastor Steve” at the local churches, and say he’s a “great Bible teacher.” He tells me “I wish Andrew the best; you people in Anaheim will have to decide if he’s right for you.” He says Andrew was finally named Pro Tem last year, and then Mayor this past April, “because he seemed to have learned how to moderate his behavior and work with the rest of the Council.”

Pastor Steve was the first person Andrew called when he decided, a few weeks after finally making Mayor, to resign and move to Anaheim – “I WAS FLOORED,” Steve tells me. “He had wanted so long to be La Mirada Mayor.” Andrew told him that there were “people” in Anaheim who were very worried about “some upstart” taking the place of termed-out Steve Faessel and that they really needed him there – he would have the support of all the big money, even Disney!

“Some upstart” – I wonder who that could’ve been. As with Trump, it’s hard to say when Andrew is fantasizing, prevaricating, exaggerating, or maybe misled. Disney never called for this troubled La Mirada Councilman to come to Anaheim and save the day.

Cluelessness follows young Andrew like a shadow: He’s told folks he and his wife chose to move to The George and start a family because he heard that “Anaheim Hills has good schools.” First of all, The George is not in that school district (OUSD), although both OUSD and Anaheim do have good schools. Secondly I’m guessing he’d read news reports that the OUSD had been taken over by right-wing culture-war radicals, and may not have heard that the district has been wrested back by parents and teachers. But then, maybe he does have a Master Plan of becoming D5 Councilman, then Mayor in ’26, THEN moving on up to the Hills where all our Mayors live, and start a family at THAT point.

Pastor Steve has observed that “there are three types of Councilmen”: ones driven by a certain issue or interests, ones that are willing to work with their colleagues – give, take, compromise – for the good of the City – and then the ambitious ones that are using Council as a stepping stone to higher office. And Andrew is the third type. “And I suppose there’s nothing wrong with that,” he allows, “If you want higher office you have to start somewhere.”

Pastor Steve also observes (warns?) that when you talk to Andrew he sounds “surprisingly humble and polite” given his behavior and views. Others have told me that he’s “gotten very good at telling everyone what he knows they want to hear.” Sounds like a troubling metamorphosis into a real Politician.

Enemy of the Free Press

I’ll try to keep this section shorter. In these dark times, in many places, the real investigative journalism is done by unpaid bloggers. Around La Mirada, much of the hard-hitting reporting – ALL of the hard-hitting reporting about Sarega – is done by Brian Hews and his “Hews Media Group,” specifically the La Mirada Lamplighter and the blog “Los Cerritos News.” [Hews writes in to correct me: “I am not a blog. I print and deliver 86,000 newspaper per week: 71,000 Cerritos News, 15,000 La Mirada Lamplighter.”]

It was these outlets that reported on Andrew’s campaign finance violations, on his many absences from Council meetings, and on the general disruptiveness of his tenure. So, in 2018, Andrew launched a bogus suit against Hews claiming that the 43-year-old La Mirada Lamplighter’s legal advertising standing had expired. Vowing to “put the Lamplighter out of business,” he apparently timed this lawsuit almost concurrently with another nuisance lawsuit to inflict maximum financial damage to Hews Media Group.

These lawsuits both failed, but this punitive behavior does not endear Andrew Sarega to bloggers across the Southland. In any case it won’t stop the Orange Juice Blog.

The Crypto-Currency Whiz

Now this wasn’t even on my radar – it came today in a long-overdue hit mailer from Kristen Maahs – but it does help explain (along with his run for Congress) what kept Andrew so busy that he missed 34 La Mirada Council meetings in a decade. This is probably worth its own article after I digest all this new info, but Andrew has been a busy Crypto Bro all this time, working with the Turkish government and a Swiss cryptocurrency company that’s lost 99.7% of its value. Mira nomas:

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I can’t tell you who to vote for…

Not that you’d listen anyway. If you like what you’ve heard about Andrew Sarega, and you live in District 5, then it’s simple, vote for Andrew Sarega.

But if not, which lady running against him is best, and which one can actually beat him?

I agree with Cristal Ruiz (left), a Democrat, on the issues – she’s even told us that she is open to a Gate Tax on Disneyland (the Holy Grail of Anaheim politics!) But she seems to have no funding, and she didn’t even try to get the DPOC endorsement, much as I urged her to.

Both Cristal and Kristen Maahs (below right) at least have met with me and Donna, and have come to speak to the Anaheim Democrats Club. And like I said, Andrew never responded to any of my messages; maybe he was told not to speak to Vern Nelson, or maybe his team is just disorganized.

Kristen, an independent, is backed by the whole establishment minus the police – Disney, building trades, fire, Councilman Faessel, Mayor Aitken, and Democrat politicians Sharon Quirk-Silva and Josh Newman. Even my reformist friends Cynthia Ward and Maritza Bermudez, who’ve worked with Kristen, think the world of her.

Early in this century, around the same time Andrew had his hand-breaking altercation, Kristen had two DUI’s – at the age of 21 and 27. Andrew has made a lot of hay out of that in multiple mailers. A few days ago when a woman was killed in this district by a drunk driver, I said to Donna, “Andrew is gonna jump right on this,” and sure enough it only took him a day to exploit that tragedy.

But people are tired of hearing about Kristen’s old DUI’s (last one 14 years ago) and I’m glad she’s finally fighting back. She’s been sober since then, and has devoted her time helping the elderly. She’s spent the past decade at Alzheimer’s Orange County, where she serves caregivers and those impacted by memory loss. She is Co-Chair of the Orange County Aging Services Collaborative Senior Food Security Committee and a member of the Anaheim Human Services Active Older Adult Committee.

Far from what Sarega claimed or was led to believe (speaking of “upstarts”), the establishment asked Kristen to run when they heard ANDREW was coming to town.

I should mention some of my friends are so sick of Disney choosing our candidates that they’d like to see Sarega win, just to enjoy what chaos may ensue. Point taken, but I don’t really think Andrew is the kind of politician who’d stand up to Disney or any big money.

As much as we love Cristal Ruiz, our next District 5 Councilmember will be Kristen or Andrew. You do you.

Finally, some people think it’s really funny that Andrew launched his campaign with a POOL PARTY AT THE GEORGE, and sent me these pics. Maybe they’re funnier than I think:

Party on, Andrew!

And we’ll see what happens November 5.