Danny Vega announces his campaign for the Santa Ana City Council’s Ward 3

Another candidate has emerged for the Santa Ana City Council’s Ward 3, which is up for grabs this November as the incumbent, Jose Solorio, is running for Mayor.

Danny Vega, an Engineering Technician at WD, a Western Digital company, has announced his campaign for Ward 3. Vega has a B.A. degree in Electrical Engineering from CSUF, according to his Linkedin page.

Vega wrote on his Facebook page that:

“If elected, I promise to get rid of this disease called “corruption” that has infected some in our government. It’s time we put people on the council who are not career politicians and have the resident’s best interest in mind, not their pockets!!!”

Vega makes his campaign priorities very clear on his campaign website.

Here are the other announced candidates for Ward 3:

Jessie Lopez is an elected member of the Orange County Democratic Party’s Central Committee, representing the 69th Assembly District, and she is an active coalition member of Rise Up Willowick. Rise Up Willowick is a Santa Ana-based coalition that fights for a fair and transparent community-driven process for responsible development. Jessie is a board member for the National Women’s Political Caucus. Jessie also volunteers her time with the Public Law Center, as a Spanish translator, and she volunteers with Planned Parenthood.

The other announced candidate is Janelle Welker. Her story is an interesting one. Her mom fled from Vietnam and married her dad, a veteran of the U.S. Marines, here in the U.S. Welker serves as a Policy Advisor for the Orange County Board of Supervisors. In this position, she helps Orange County residents connect to agencies such as the Social Services Agency when they face challenges applying for public assistance programs and serves as an advocate to connect residents to other resources outside of the County. She has a political science degree from UCI.

Welker has gathered up quite a few endorsements – all Democrats by the looks of it:

• U.S Representative Grace Flores Napolitano
• For. State Senator Josh Newman
• Orange County Board of Supervisor Doug Chaffee
• Anaheim City Commissioner Lashe Rodriguez
• Buena Park Councilmember Sunny Park
• Fullerton City Councilmember Ahmad Zhara
• Fmr. Santa Ana Commissioner Beatrice Mendoza
• City of Fullerton Commissioner Jose Trinidad Castaneda III
• Anaheim Union H.S. District Trustee Al Jabbar
• Centralia Unified School District Trustee Luis “Jerry” Flores
• Orange County Commissioner Claudia Perez Figueroa
• Buena Park City Commissioner Benji Gonzales
• Buena Park City Commissioner Lamiya Hoque

Santa Ana now will have ward-specific elections, as of November. This means Jesse and Janelle will have to find a way to get support from the NIMBYs in Floral Park and Park Santiago. These neighborhoods also have many more white residents as compared to the rest of Santa Ana. My guess is that they will field their own candidate, likely Mark McLaughlin, a former Rancho Santiago Community College District Trustee.

By the way, don’t forget that the Santa Ana City Council Ward maps will be changing as of this November’s City Council elections. Click here to see the old map and click here to see the new one.