RSM cabal: Tony & Jennifer Beall sharing a drink center;
Josh Bastian & Kate Figueroa at left;
Kate Sanchez & Brad McGirr at right
If the roughly 5 million political mailers a couple of months ago weren’t enough to remind you, it’s election season 2026, and time to take a look at what is going on in Rancho Santa Margarita. It can be hard to keep track of all of Mayor Tony Beall’s machinations, but let’s see if we can explain it succinctly.
As a quick refresher, RSM was sued over its use of voting districts and held its first election for that in 2024. That was when city founder Carol Gamble was removed from the ballot for her criminal behavior on ballot gathering (Tony Beall is currently being investigated by both the State Bar and the DA for similar crimes). Beall conspired to go to 4 districts and 1 mayor, with a gerrymandered district that allowed him, Brad McGirr, and Anne Figueroa to continue serving at the same time, despite living right next to each other. Beall also snuck in a provision allowing him to select all the planning commissioners, even though it had always been the case that each council member selected one.
Beall’s master plan was to get his longtime nemesis, Jerry Holloway, replaced. To that end, he appointed Josh Bastian as the planning commissioner for Jerry’s district and has shamelessly been pushing him forward since 2025. There are 3 districts up for a vote; let’s look at the candidates and what is going on.
District 1
Current Councilman: Jerry Holloway. In a surprise move, Jerry is not running for re-election. He has been in office since 2002.
Running: Nicholas Reese
Running: Josh Bastian
As stated, Josh is a current planning commissioner. He is required to file financial disclosures. He did such a bad job that the FPPC reprimanded him and made him take a class on how to do it right and refile. He has other problems and likely some other financial filing issues that will be coming up soon. What’s also fascinating looking at the campaign website for Josh is that he literally has zero ideas for the city. It’s all just empty words. Nothing specific about anything that he could actually do and would matter to the city. Just like Tony likes them, dumb and pliable.
District 4
Current Councilman: Brad McGirr. Sadly, he is running unopposed. I’m not even sure why, he has a second home in Idaho and isn’t even in town all that much anymore.
District 2
Running: Dr. Natalie Guse
Running: Rod Ganjifard
Current Councilwoman: Anne Figueroa. Anne was another personal placement by Mayor Beall. Anne works under the Mayor’s wife, Jennifer Beall, for State Assemblywoman Kate Sanchez. Jennifer Beall has previously been found guilty of campaign finance violations and is currently under investigation by the FPPC for additional issues. The relationship tree looks like this:
Anne is also being investigated by the FPPC for campaign finance issues. Her financial reporting is a mess. She has the same client for her interior decorating business that pays her between $10,000 and $100,000 every year. She claims both employment and consulting for the same entity. She has a clear conflict of interest in her day job with the state, and her boss is the mayor’s wife.
Keep in mind, this job pays about $250 a month, but with all the perks they’ve baked in, after one term, they have about $100,000 in a pension/retirement/deferred earnings account. For some reason, Anne recently had to pay a political consultant-lawyer $1,500 for “something”. What? Trying to straighten out those financial issues? What’s also interesting is that this lawyer has been suspended from the bar in the recent past as a disciplinary measure. This is also the same lawyer that Mayor Beall used when he was found guilty of campaign finance violations a few years ago.
It’s essential that Rancho Santa Margarita breaks up the Beall Cabal. Getting a fresh majority on the council would allow the removal of the Mayor position and restore equal power to each member. Both Beall and McGirr maintain second residences out of state and out of the country; they aren’t even full-time residents anymore. We need new people and ideas, and we need to get rid of these self-dealing dinosaur bullies.
