So. In the very center of the eponymous City of Orange, in District 1 where you’ll find the Traffic Circle and Chapman University and Olde Town Orange – the very navel of OC – an amazing young woman named Brandy Romero is running for Council. And we might never have noticed way out here in Anaheim, except the notorious Wordsmith-for-Hire Matt Cunningham made the time to pen THREE – count ’em – THREE HIT PIECES against Brandy last month. Hm, let’s see why.

Second and third things you’d say is, yes, Brandy should think of this as a badge of honor, and yes, Matt is finally throwing stones inside his own town at least. But the first thing most of us ask is, Who is Matt doing this for? He never puts that much work into flinging mud unless somebody is paying him.

There ARE three men running against Brandy. But come on. The answer is clear. Brandy’s main rival for this seat is AJ Ricci, the son of old Al Ricci, realtor and possibly the richest and most powerful man in Orange, who dominates the town’s Chamber of Commerce and owns many buildings in that part of town. (Always the Chamber with Matt.) Ricci, a LONGTIME supporter of the Late Mayor Mark Murphy, whose baleful legacy casts a long, wide shade over the town that will not dissipate quickly.

Here is young AJ Ricci campaigning with his Ricci-mobile last month:

Do you dig that peppy smooth jazz? It’s an original jam – the “Ricci for Orange” jingle! By the way the family pronounces their name “Reek-y” which is weird, it SHOULD be pronounced “Reechy” or “Ritchey,” but that’s their business.

More to the point, do you see the clunky Ricci slogan? “The Orange Way Forward.“ As mentioned, Ricci Sr. was a charter member of the Mark Murphy insider crowd, who justified everything they did with “It’s the Orange Way!” Students of the town identify the main tenets of the “Orange Way” as:

• an Old Boys’ Club rubber-stamping things they can’t afford;
• robbing Peter to pay Paul;
• not even bothering with Economic Development;
• and covering up all their incompetence and cronyism with shady accounting.

Candidates have run successfully, recently, on “driving a stake into the heart of the Orange Way.” The “Orange Way” is what got this fine town into the fine mess it’s in, with a multi-million dollar structural deficit.

And I propose that, since the “Orange Way” consists of doing things the way they’ve always been done, that “The Orange Way Forward“ is an OXYMORON.

NOT the dread VACANT PROPERTY TAX!!

Here’s another clue that Cunningham’s attack on Brandy is for the benefit of Mega-Realtor Ricci. Back in March Brandy suggested three possible solutions to Orange’s revenue crisis (beside the 1% sales tax which will be on November’s ballot.)

You see, Brandy suggested raising the TOT, instituting the “pilot program” of “payments in lieu of taxes” for Orange’s mighty universities and hospitals, and maybe levying a “Vacancy Occupancy Tax” on vacant commercial properties. It was only the latter that Matt highlighted in yellow, and he went on to pen 13 alarmist paragraphs listing all the terrible things that could go wrong or unfair with such a tax, sounding like he was taking dictation from an anxious mega-realtor who happened to own lots of vacant properties. [And sure enough, turns out Ricci is Orange’s biggest vacant property owner, both commercial and residential – he just refuses to lower his rents, takes the write-off.]

Ricci/Matt’s gripes with this tax range from it being unfair to some property owners who couldn’t help their properties being temporarily vacant for one reason or another (a “problem” that could easily be finessed) to the nightmare scenario of Bands of Organized Squatters Poring through City Databases for Vacant Properties to Commandeer! (seriously, that’s all here.)

So. You’ve got this Scion of Orange’s Top Land Baron, this Offspring of the Old Guard who is still talking about the “Orange Way” to run the government, and who obviously has all the money he needs. This dude with zero experience in Orange other than at the Chamber which his dad runs. And whose dad apparently pays Matt Cunningham to smear his son’s main opponent (Matt who was paid for years to propagandize for Harry Sidhu’s Cabal in Anaheim till they ended up in jail; for the disgraced Santa Ana Police Union; for Milan Capital who’s responsible for ten years of illegal dumping in the Sully-Miller site in Orange Park Acres… we could go all the way back to covering up for the Fullerton police killing of Kelly Thomas, the sex-abusing priests in the 90’s, but I’ll stop.)

OR you’ve got Brandy Romero, who truly IS an amazingly successful businesswoman and has put ALL her stunning energy into helping her city since she moved here eight years ago, and who is endorsed by the firefighters union, Councilwoman Ana Gutierrez and Arianna Barrios, and the beloved Mayor Dan Slater.

Mayor Slater endorses Brandy

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Brandy introduced by city treasurer & Arianna Barrios

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That second video with Arianna was from last December, and did you catch how Arianna starts by saying “First of all I am SO GLAD I AM NOT RUNNING. AGAIN. EVER.” Funny story there. (Or maybe not so funny)

Interlude: Arianna Barrios is running against Mayor Slater!

Councilwoman Arianna Barrios has been a supporter and ally of Mayor Dan Slater for years, both running against the Murphy Mafia and the disastrous corruption of the “Orange Way.” They had their differences but they weren’t big. They both love Brandy Romero.

When Orange switched to District Elections six years ago, Arianna drew the “short straw” meaning she’d only get 6 years in office – like Anaheim’s Jose Moreno in 2016. (An irony I won’t elaborate on here.) Brandy was and remains Arianna’s chosen successor in District 1.

More recently Arianna and Dan seem to have had a falling out, over that “pilot program” of “payments in lieu of taxes” and Chapman University’s participation in it. Won’t get into details here, but this issue was important enough to Arianna, that important to the City in her view, that she decided to run for Mayor against her old ally Dan Slater.

Brandy, who remains very close to both of them, tells me “This is like your mom and dad divorcing.” Did I just break the news, of Arianna Barrios running against Dan Slater for Orange Mayor? Very well then, I have broken the news! (Update: Actually “Orange Independent” – NO relation to OC Independent – has the full lowdown here.)

Let’s get back to our heroine…

*********************

The Goodness of Brandy Romero

So yeah, there’s the argument that you should just IGNORE hit pieces like Matt’s, as Brandy has; that responding to them just “gives them oxygen.” But that’s obviously difficult for me with my history with Matt, plus I would probably never have heard of Brandy if it weren’t for his hit pieces. I had to call Brandy and get her side of things; how much of Matt’s (admittedly weak) criticisms of her may have had any truth to them. And first I called Arianna, who told me I had to hear Brandy’s life story and I’d be floored. (It sure contrasts with AJ’s story!)

I admit, I expected her to be nice, but was taken aback at how smart, articulate and knowledgeable she is, an encyclopedia of Orange issues budgetary and otherwise. You people better elect her.

Before she married Pablo Romero her last name was Murad, which is Arabic for “happiness.” Her Turkish-Scottish dad (who actually came from money) vanished early on and never helped; Brandy’s sister and her teenaged mom Wendy King lived in a car for a while, in the city of Carson. By the time she hit 3rd grade her mother was able to get an apartment in Costa Mesa; Wendy could barely pay the rent but Brandy remembers how the local shopkeepers would give her a break, let her postdate checks and so on, which instilled in her the drive to always help the less fortunate.

Wendy is fully as energetic and cheerful as her daughter, and Brandy says most people could never guess how poor they were. Finally when Brandy was 17 Wendy got a good job in electronic equipment sales. From there Brandy went off to get a full ride scholarship at Academy of Art University in San Francisco and earned a BFA, followed by a full ride to UCI for the masters and credential program. As Brandy was working on her degree at UCI she began helping her mother Wendy with her new packaging business, OEM Materials & Supplies; Brandy became an “account executive,” and a very successful one as we’ll see. At that time she made the decision to step away from UCI to help the family business. OEM has been “recognized nationally as a woman-owned business enterprise.”

And in 2018 Brandy came to Orange, fell in love with the place and gradually became something of a local hero. The COVID era of 2020 was hard for OEM, but Brandy redoubled her efforts as an account executive and grew OEM from a $7 million company to a $25 million company. That’s when her mother made her 25% owner.

Cunningham’s biggest rap against Brandy is that she told someone she owned OEM and she doesn’t, her mom does. “Jeez, that’s the best they can come up with against me? I OWN 25% of the company!”

They’ve been doing background checks on Brandy’s mother, husband, family, looking for whatever damaging material they can find. And it’s not just Cunningham and Ricci doing the heavy lifting of oppo research on Brandy, it’s old-guard Murphy-ites like ponderously distended Councilman Dumitru, former Councilmen Mike Alvarez & Fred Whitaker, and social media MAGA trolls like Patrick StLaurent. This is how important it is for them to keep Brandy out of this seat, keep it safe with the trusted AJ.

“Let’s see… supposedly your own business – The Squeeze and There’s No Place Like Orange gift shop – isn’t so successful, doesn’t show a profit?”

“That’s because one, it’s brand new, and two, I plow most of the profits right into the community! That’s how I’ve managed to save a lot of events that the city budget couldn’t cover, and raise ten thousand dollars for our Orange firefighters last year when they were fighting the LA wildfires.“

“You raised ten thousand for the firefighters, through The Squeeze?”

“Yes, and we also talked Starlink into donating $75k worth of equipment so they could get internet and communicate with each other and their families while they were out there. People don’t realize how tough it is being a firefighter, away from your families for such long stretches. The highest cause of death to firefighters is suicide. We had two suicides this past year, firefighters in Orange.”

“I gather that dissolving the Orange Fire Dept and signing up with the OCFA is NOT one of your solutions for the budget crisis?”

“I did look into that. Cities that have done that, like Irvine, thought they’d be saving money. For the first year or two they did. But then the costs start adding up. Irvine is trying to go back right now to having their own fire department.”

“I see you’re being endorsed by Democrats and Republicans alike, and you’re an independent?”

“I feel very strongly about being independent of political parties. I feel right now that we’re constantly being divided against one another, and I don’t want to be part of that.”

I’m actually starting to take a real interest in this race now. I’ve got some more leads on the Riccis (father & son.) For now I should just say, I hear that AJ has so far declined to participate in a debate at the Old Towne Preservation Society. (Hopefully he changes his mind.) But he will definitely participate in the August 6 debate at Rancho Santiago, August 6, organized by the Chamber, which his Dad runs. Brandy will be there too. Some folks have the character to “walk into the lion’s den,” and some don’t.

Update. Brandy with Elected City Treasurer Garrett Smith.

It is interesting that one of Brandy’s biggest allies is the elected City Treasurer.
Here they discuss ways to pull the town out of its quagmire.

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