It was great to see former Councilman Dr. Jose Moreno speaking at Council last night, on the current Ashleigh Aitken “dirty Mexican / you sure you’re not a lesbian?” scandal, and putting it all in a historical context which Jose is uniquely qualified to do. Here is the planned text of his comment, and below is a video of him delivering most of it – as we all have learned over the years, it’s hard to squeeze what you gotta say into 3 minutes!
Justice for Albert Arzola!
My name is Jose Moreno, President of Los Amigos of Orange County. Los Amigos has been meeting in Anaheim every Wednesday at 7:30am for over 48 years, since 1978. Bourne of police riots wherein Chicano youth and residents were attacked by the Anaheim police at Little People’s Park. An outraged community met with then Mayor John Seymour– with former Mayor Bill Thom anchoring those meetings along with Amin David–a host of community voices arose establishing meetings every Wednesday morning where people from across our city could attend, petition for help they may need, seek solutions or to discuss community affairs. We continue meeting in this tradition with one guiding motto “Nos Gusta Ayudar” (We like to help)
At a time when we had few Chicano or Latino elected officials and institutional leaders, Los Amigos unapologetically stood up against racism and discrimination, advocating for more diverse leadership. Los Amigos has initiated or participated in countless community actions, initiatives, and even lawsuits–including when Anaheim Police illegally surveilled it’s residents for exercising free speech; when corrupt councilmembers were giving away millions of dollars in corporate welfare to their donors; and when data showed the city’s electoral system suppressed the rights of Latino voters—which led to our current district-based electoral system. Natalie Rubalcava, Carlos Leon and Norma Campos…you are a product of that history. When you ignore us, you ignore your history.
Mayor Aitken, you have often partnered with us in our work, including standing up for district elections. For that we will always be grateful, and with it, you have earned our community’s patience while this investigation is completed. We are firm believers in due process.
But we are now in a moment. A moment of reckoning.
Our history is ripe with examples of what is possible when we engage in difficult but necessary conversations with the intent to heal, build bridges and examine the root causes of what still ails our city’s soul.
Whether the allegations are true or not, the historically painful and diminishing term “dirty Mexican” is once again revived in the language of our city.
Look to your Mayoral predecessors and lean into the pain this causes our city; engage do not hide; speak in your voice–not through your consultants; be in community—let’s regain a spirit of trust and reconciliation to determine our next steps forward. We can do this Mayor Aitken—it is the only way.
Councilwoman Meeks, thank you for being the only councilperson to call for accountability. Natalie, Carlos and Norma…for decades our people took to organizing, marching in the streets & at city hall, and filing lawsuits to press for a council that may represent and reflect the voices, hopes, experiences and pain of a people too long diminished. For you to sit there, speaking about ice cream socials, puppies and unicorns with 10 ppt slides in your communications at last week’s council meeting with no expression of concern, is equally troubling and painful. ¡Tanta lucha, para que lleguen a estos puestos para que se queden callados – que lastima! (so much struggle to gain those seats just for you to stay quiet–how sad)
Some may consider it unfair that we hold you to higher expectations. Well, I remind you that it is you who campaign in our neighborhoods citing your Latino “homegrown” credentials, telling us that we can trust you. Pues donde estan? Where are you? I fear that we know this script all too well, your charity and pictures may bring smiles, but your silence brings pain and a reminder to our community in these elections, in the words of James Baldwin, “I cannot believe what you say, because I see what you do.”
Who’s conducting the independent investigation? When will the investigation be completed? And why is an independent investigation needed when the statements can either be independently corroborated or not?
As for police unions, IRVINE’s police union contributed to foreign agent Farrah’s mayoral reelection campaign after she was compromised for associating with known Turkish nationalist genocide deniers?
https://voiceofoc.org/2022/11/are-irvine-city-leaders-spiking-police-pay-to-gain-votes/
Was Farrah ever another country’s “foreign agent”? I interpret that term as having a foreign “handler,” as opposed to perhaps a “sympathizer” who tried to promote causes that Armenians didn’t like without compensation or foreign control rather than out of her own actual beliefs. Does she have the beginning a defamation claim against you for this?
FYI the chair of the ochrc is also the executive vice chair (a created position) of the Democratic Party of Orange County.
Icymi this happened
https://voiceofoc.org/2026/09/anaheim-police-union-pac-suspends-support-for-mayor-ashleigh-aitken/
“Florice Hoffman, Chair of the Democratic Party of OC, said the party is taking the allegations against Aitken seriously and is in support of a fair and independent investigation into the accusations.
‘If substantiated, the reported remarks and conduct would be inexcusable. Racist, denigrating, or otherwise offensive treatment has no place in our party or in public service. Elected officials must be accountable to their staff and the people they serve,” Hoffman said in a Monday text message.
“Every public employee deserves dignity and respect, regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, or background. We stand in solidarity with marginalized groups across Orange County, including women of color and our LGBTQIA+ community.’
The DPOC endorsed foreign agent Farrah for reelection as mayor despite the scandal.
https://voiceofoc.org/2022/04/oc-democrats-fight-over-irvine-mayor-endorsement-shows-deep-divide-in-partys-membership/
Now the COPD are taking a wait and see approach to ffp.
FYI the cop for Irvine and the executive chair of the dpoc are a commissioner and the chair of the oc human relations commission which appears dormant.
Looks like an alcohol issue has entered this little drama.
Indeed, it’s become besotted with it!
Wait is FFP voluntarily entering rehab? The horror… accusing someone of Celtic descent of being a drunk is xenophobic Zenger. I guess she will have to give up the monthly Celtic bar association meeting at Muldoon’s in Newport Beach.
Notice how Latino media, politicians and NGOs have mostly been silent about this matter?
Where is Sarmiento, Correa, Gus, Gabe “I love free doner kebab”, Vicki Vargas, MALDEF, OC Hispanic bar association, Hispanic chamber of commerce OC.
Gus wrote about the slurs at the high school basketball game despite incorrectly identifying the location of the incident as Irvine instead of Laguna Hills and that story made it to CNN.
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-01-27/racism-orange-county-high-schools
https://youtu.be/l_0uOmLR8cc
https://voiceofoc.org/2026/10/anaheim-mayors-chief-of-staff-alleges-culture-of-booze-and-bedlam-at-city-hall/
Gabe “free doner whatever” freakin broke the story.
He didn’t break the drunken disinhibition part of it, if I recall correctly.
I didn’t accuse anybody of being drunk, Apparently you don’t know what xenophobic means, either.
There is an Armenian angle to this story. The city’s ethics officer Berjikly – an Armenian American – was apparently a witness to some of the shenanigans that Ffp allegedly engaged in.
“Ultimately, Ballinas claims the city retaliated against her for reporting her concerns including by withholding her salary raise and that current staff like City Attorney Rob Fabela, Interim City Manager Greg Garcia, Director of Human Resources Linda Andal, Deputy Police Chief Charles Cinnamo as well as the city’s chief ethics officer Artin Berjikly were witnesses to the mayor’s conduct.”
https://voiceofoc.org/2026/10/anaheim-mayors-chief-of-staff-alleges-culture-of-booze-and-bedlam-at-city-hall/
You’re welcome to that honor, you cartoon.
Well it looks like an adult has entered the room. Thank you for the words of wisdom Dr. Moreno.
I make no apology for exploring relatively benign possible explanations for Ashley’s behavior. I was actually planning to write a post on it saying that some people come to believe that they have earned enough “social credit” with someone that they can safely joke around, sardonically using terms that someone from that culture may use within that ingroup. That’s usually a bad idea — and especially repulsive (though not uncommon) when the recipient of this “comic styling” is their direct-line employee. But her being a mean and salacious drunk had not been on my bingo card.
I realize that Jose’s congratulating Natalie Meeks on what is likely a self-serving action prodded along by the interests who may now support her is grading her on a curve, and that his main focus is why the Latinos on the council didn’t act on that knowledge. It’s a good point, but for me she’ll always be the one who — and correct me if I’m wrong about this, Vern — worked with Arte Moreno’s people to move a perfectly good train station out of the ballpark land that he wanted into the extremely expensive, poorly designed and built, and mostly a ghost town that it is today. (I forget whether I ever described it as ‘Meeks’s Folly,” but that’s certainly what I thought about it. I continue to believe that it would do a great job of housing lots of homeless people — a position that as I recall made Tom Tait cringe — but that “accomplishment” of hers alone would keep me for praising her for being a self-serving politician who suddenly sees a power vacuum.
I hope that she doesn’t resign this close to the election. But she should make clear that she will not serve this next term, even if she wins, and should with the Registrar of Voters on when she could most quickly resign to precipitate a the most rapid possible new Special Election. I guess that the new Council would then choose the Mayor-Pro-Tem, who will serve as the Acting Mayor until the results of such an election are certified, and that should of course be someone who does not plan on running in that election.
What a mess.
Enough speculation from everybody, until you all read the 25-page Claim here. You won’t regret it, it’s as colorful and full of explanations of our recent history as the JL Report was, and a lot shorter and better written.
http://www.orangejuiceblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/Ashleigh-gate-Complaint.pdf
Me and Greg can forget the scenario of Ashleigh drunkenly and inappropriately joking, for one thing. She was being belligerent, refusing to let either Berenice or Vanderpool drive her home drunk, protesting that she wouldn’t let a “Dirty Mexican OR a Faggot Man” drive her home.
I’m gonna make a whole new piece based on this, today. “Vanderpool Dancing Too Gay, and other Scenes from the Ashleigh-Gate Claim.” There is SO MUCH there~!
Yikes! That is indeed a vivid complaint.
I can’t rule out that AA (hey, *I* didn’t give her those initials) is entirely correct in her recollections and explanations and that everyone else seems to be consistently wrong — but it’d be hard to say that one could come away from that thinking the chances are even 50-50.
I’d like to know if Ashleigh acknowledges that it’s wrong, in most circumstances, to demand that a policy aide act as if they were a personal aide. If you want people to have those personal obligations, as might happen with someone with a disability, add it to their job description ahead of time, pay them more, and reduce your own pay accordingly.
But I remain open to the idea that at least some of her use of offensive terms is grounded in her being entitled to use them because it is a perk of people a longtime ally — which she more or less implies herein. I’d like to see if she denies that that’s her belief!
I’m troubled by the role of Linda Andal (whom I’ve long liked and respected) in this, though not so much based on her not bucking what Vanderpool and Greg Garcia wanted of her. She should have known that she was in the position of ensuring that such abuses of the law were not permitted — and that even if she was convinced that “going along” was both expected and permissible, she should have (and did) know better. I hope that she documented these abuses — and who blocked her enforcement of them — and did a little whistleblowing to the state AG’s office (if not elsewhere.) The people above her are mostly ones I wouldn’t trust — but not all of them. (Then again, I don’t know that she didn’t do so!)
That the law firm she chose is from far away — and from where, IIRC, GOP bigwig Shawn Steel lives — is ironic and sad, if not worse. I know nothing about them, but … I wonder who recommended them to her?
Here is the big problem. There is NO mechanism for Linda Andal/City HR to discipline an elected official. They can only hold STAFF accountable. Even the rest of the Council cannot do anything to another member, other than vote to censure them. The rebuke of an elected official’s bad behavior is left in the hands of the public that voted for them. We can recall her, pressure her to resign, or move on. But because officials are not staff, they cannot be made to answer to Linda Andal. See the bad behavior of Jordan Brandman in threatening Denise Barnes for earlier example.
EDIT: The appropriate venue for discipline of an elected official is through the court system, with a civil suit for harassment or creating a hostile workplace, etc. That is what the Mayor’s CoS is doing. So those who are griping about what Ms. Ballinas is doing by filling a lawsuit do not understand that is the only option open to her.
I believe that she could have notified the state Attorney General — or possibly another official, I think that there’s an inspector general somewhere (maybe Comptroller?) — of a harassment problem that she was prevented from acting upon herself. This might be accomplished by filing a FEHA claim, likely leading to a “right to sue” letter. She could also file a complaint against Vanderpool as well due to his own complicity. She could file a complaint against Greg Garcia for failing to prevent her from being coerced to provide “aide” services on demand that were beyond her scope of duties. I’m sure that there are other approaches available to someone who took protecting the rights of Ballinas seriously.
Yes, this could have meant her sacrificing her position in order to do her job. But I expect that she’d be a lot more employable that she might end up now if she had done some fact-finding — she can ask AA to answer questions about her drinking pursuant to investigating an employee complaint (and AA could certainly refuse to answer) — but then she can document that she asked and AA demurred and therefore XYZ issues raised by Ballinas remained unresolved. This would, among other things, give Andal herself more job protection against a retaliation claim than what she enjoys now — and it might also signal to AA that the secret she denied having was on the verge of cracking open, something that might itself have done much to protect Ballinas, unless AA has a completely Trumpian ability to convince herself of self-serving nonsense.
Your argument suggests that if some male elected official — let’s make it a hypothetically bisexual Jordan Brandman, since he cannot be libeled — had repeatedly snuck up behind Ballinas and told her unsolicited stories about his lurid fantasies of having passionate (and/or kinky) sex with her in her office, Andal would continue to do nothing but throw up her hands and say “not my job”? (If hypo-Brandman had physically assaulted her, she could have called the cops; the trick here is that the actions are not themselves criminal, but merely actionable.) I’ll bet that if it was this sort of sexual harassment, Andal would have found a way to get information leaked — not to Voice of OC, I suppose — or otherwise corroborated, such as opening a file and tracking alleged facts and complaints, showing it repeatedly to AA whenever there was a new entry, asking if she would agreed to be interviewed with a neutral witness such as outside counsel, etc., until the message sank in.
I don’t think that that’s the way that the law works — or at least should work. It grieves me to say this because I do like Andal and respect her competence and intellect, but I don’t think that she took the complaints from Ballinas seriously enough to risk her job over them — and yet risking her job in some situations like this is part of her job.
“Yes, this could have meant her sacrificing her position in order to do her job. But I expect that she’d be a lot more employable that she might end up now if she had done some fact-finding”
Want to bet?
How would we adjudicate a winner?
Ffp admits to drinking problem and enters rehab.
https://voiceofoc.org/2026/10/anaheim-mayor-admits-drinking-problem-going-to-rehab/
You read the 25-page complaint yet?
Everything the Mayor puts out is insufficient. The entire social media world is lauding her for her honesty while she pretends she’s done nothing wrong but have a regrettable illness. She’s STILL saying “the investigation will bear out the truth!” So, she’s still saying Berenice was telling the truth about her drinking, but lying about everything else.
BZZZZT. Wrong.
Just read the last paragraph of the Voice article:
“Blah blah blah judge us by our weakest moment” — 3½ years is not a moment!
Also Eric, you read too quick. She said nothing about “entering rehab.” She admitted she went to Betty Ford last year. For now she is “vowing to be a better leader” – she really intends to hang on!!
Again, why de we need the investigation – which apparently won’t be concluded until after the election -when ffp is corroborating Ms. Ballinas’ story? The Latino got duped again and with the help of their own like Jose Moreno. There is no due process in the court of public opinion. Ffp is not being threatened with firing from her elected office by a mantle of the state. The only one who was entitled to due process is Ms. Ballinas and it appears to have been withheld.
With today’s announcement she’s an alcoholic who drank on the job, there’s no path forward without a resignation.
Respect the office.
Hm, should this be its own story?
Los Amigos (most prominent member Jose Moreno) along with several other local justice-oriented nonprofits like OCCCO and OCCORD, e-mailed a request to meet with Ashleigh about these matters.
Ashleigh responded that she would meet with ANY of them, JUST NOT JOSE MORENO. The coalition said forget it, you can’t just leave someone out like that.
Why is Ashleigh so terrified of Jose Moreno? Funny. I’ve had a front-row seat to those two’s relationship for years. But still I thought it was guardedly cordial. Jose and the rest of us did feel stabbed in the back when Ashleigh got elected with all our support and immediately backed off her support of his campaign finance reform ordinance. And he’s been pretty critical of her since. And I’ve agreed with him.
Or is it just that this whole affair COULD conceivably culminate in Jose’s return to power, as Mayor even?
Did you guys notice, in this video I posted last week of Jose’s Sept 29 public comment (the first he’d made in years) how Ashleigh, not realizing he was there, said, “Next speaker, Jose M- M- [stammering] -Moreno?” And then you can see her cover her mouth while she says something to someone on her left – the 3 councilmembers there aren’t looking so it’s the attorney? Clerk? Interim CM?
Moreno as Mayor would be nice. In my local-politics dreams, though, he’d take down Lou Correa and we’d get a Congressman who did something other than posting social media pictures of himself giving out prizes at grade-school spelling bees.
Yes, this shall have its own story. I’ve come into possession of the e-mails.
And a spokesman for the genocidal AIPAC.
Moreno probably wouldn’t post vacation snaps from his trips to see South American dictators on his official House website, either.
Some aren’t pleased with Correa’s honoring Alex Odeh. Wonder why.
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Lou Correa, you need to keep Alex Odeh’s name out of your goddamn mouth. Alex Odeh was a Palestinian champion for the people. He was killed here in Santa Ana by Israeli extremists who then fled to Israel to escape justice. YOU on the other hand have funded and supported Israel’s genocide of Palestinians for 3 years. You run and hide any time you are challenged by your constituents about your undying support for Israel. Instead of trying to co-opt Odeh’s legacy, try growing a spine instead and speak out against the genocide. See how your AIPAC donors like that.