Cavazos is out as City Manager and Mouet is now in charge at Santa Ana’s City Hall

City Manager David Cavazos will be relieved of his duties but will receive a severance payout, council members decided Tuesday just a few weeks after he was placed on paid administrative leave by a new council majority, according to the O.C. Register.

The good news is that even though the City will have to pay Cavazos over $315K to take a hike they are replacing him with Gerardo Mouet, who has been running our City’s Parks and Recreation Agency for years. Mouet is already on the payroll so this won’t cost Santa Ana an extra dime.

What I love about Mouet is that he and his wife and kids live in Santa Ana – unlike Cavazos who was living in a condo in Newport Beach. Mouet is fully vested in our city. Check out his Facebook page and you will see that he promotes local businesses every day.

Cavazos was an awful City Manager. Never mind that he had a sexual relationship with a city employee and he falsely accused City Councilwoman Michele Martinez of sexual harassment. Those actions were bad enough! But on top of that he oversaw the dismantling of our police department which led to a massive increase in violent crime during his tenure.

With Cavazos gone I expect that any day now Mouet will move to get rid of our highly unpopular and inept Chief of Police, Carlos Rojas, who the previous City Council majority hired because he is a Latino. He had zero experience as a Police Chief when they hired him to replace our great former Chief of Police Paul Walters.