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Sal Tinajero with Vice President Joe Biden

Santa Ana Mayor Pro Tem Sal Tinajero Press Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: October 12, 2014

Contact: Santa Ana Mayor Pro Tem Sal Tinajero, 714-913-3515

Mayor Pro-Tem Sal Tinajero drops his endorsement of Santa Ana Council Member David Benavides

Santa Ana – It has been a tumultuous relationship for Santa Ana Mayor Pro-Tem Sal Tinajero and Ward 4 Santa Ana City Council member David Benavides. Tinajero begged Benavides, in 2010, not to give an award to Minuteman Lupe Moreno and her racist colleagues, but Benavides held on to his stubborn position and did it anyway.

In 2010, Benavides was caught working with OC GOP Central Committee member Thomas Gordon and Helen Martinez in a vote-splitting scheme to oust Tinajero from Ward 6. The scheme backfired when Gordon did not get enough signatures to qualify to be a candidate for the 2010 election. The OC Weekly ran a story that produced emails to prove that Benavides was a part of the plan.

Tinajero was reelected and decided to let bygones be bygones and attempted to create an action plan to work with Benavides. Tinajero openly supported Benavides for Santa Ana Mayor in 2012, in hopes of keeping “Team Santa Ana” together.

Measure BB sucks

Tinajero has worked very hard to pass Santa Ana’s Measure BB, which would regulate medical cannabis in the city of Santa Ana, but Benavides voted against it. After many meetings, Tinajero continued to work diligently to salvage the working relationship with Benavides; but on October 3 everything changed. Benavides blast e-mailed a private text conversation between him and Tinajero.

Tinajero stated, “At first I thought, this is grade school stuff and a breach of trust. For me this was the last straw.”

Team Santa Ana Broken

Tinajero didn’t expect Benavides to sink any lower, but on October 4, Benavides posted a picture of the team Santa Ana slate’s walk piece, but he covered up Tinajero’s picture with stickers.

According to Tinajero, “I cannot support an individual who does not value the privacy of a private conversation. I can no longer trust that a conversation with David Benavides will remain private. For these reasons, I am pulling my endorsement from David Benavides.”

Vote for Alex Padilla

Tinajero further stated that “As of this moment I am endorsing Ward 4 challenger Alex Padilla. I have lost my patience and dealt with this type of behavior for the last eight years and I do not see anything different occurring in the behavior of David Benavides. I urge the community to support Alex Padilla and remove David Benavides from the City Council, for he continues to be an obstacle to transparency, common sense, and good government.”

Tinajero also noted that even the Association of Orange County Sheriffs have decided not to support Benavides.

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author avatar
Art Pedroza Editor
Our Editor, Art Pedroza, worked at the O.C. Register and the OC Weekly and studied journalism at CSUF and UCI. He has lived in Santa Ana for over 30 years and has served on several city and county commissions. When he is not writing or editing Pedroza specializes in risk control and occupational safety. He also teaches part time at Cerritos College and CSUF. Pedroza has an MBA from Keller University.

By Art Pedroza

Our Editor, Art Pedroza, worked at the O.C. Register and the OC Weekly and studied journalism at CSUF and UCI. He has lived in Santa Ana for over 30 years and has served on several city and county commissions. When he is not writing or editing Pedroza specializes in risk control and occupational safety. He also teaches part time at Cerritos College and CSUF. Pedroza has an MBA from Keller University.

11 thoughts on “Mayor Pro Tem Tinajero drops his endorsement of Councilman David Benavides”
  1. Councilman Tinajero just got my vote. After Benavidez smeared the Mayor last year, I vowed to never vote for him. Alex Padilla had my vote all along.

  2. Sal finally wised up and dumped this clown. Time for him to dump the rest of the clown posse as well. Sarmiento never endorsed Benavides or Reyna. It looks like the intelligent members of the council may finally join forces and do what’s best.

    The Benavides/Reyna clown car came off the tracks long ago. Unemployed and under employed councilmen will lead to corruption. Time to send them both to the unemployment line.

  3. Is this really a press release? It’s very unprofessional and reads, well, like a childish blog post.
    This certainly underscores the dysfunctional nature of the Santa Ana city council and the reason they all need to be voted out this election.
    Now that Sal Tinajero has telegraphed his inability or unwillingness to work with other council members, he needs to go. David Benavides has some very concerning relationships with big developers with upcoming projects in the city, and his votes can’t be trusted to be good for the residents so he needs to go. Martinez fabricated her job for the last election and has been living the lie ever since. Her voting record is schizophrenic, and her long pointless speeches are so unnecessary, she needs to go.
    It’s time to wipe the slate clean and bring in 3 new council members.

  4. BTW-Over the weekend, I heard a rumor that after the election (if Sal wins) he will resign shortly after and try to have one of his buddies be appointed to fill his seat with no election. Have you heard this? Could that really happen?

  5. The Terrific Trio has turned silent since Phil’s rumored removal, Pulido’s standing up to Gangs and now this. That leaves me to wonder where Angie Oliver ends up in all of this?

    I don’t think her husband will let her wind up in Amezcua’s stable.

  6. Sal should not feel bad. It took Emily a few years to figure out that David couldn’t be trusted and she slept with him.

    David has serious character flaws and he uses the Bible to try and hide them.

      1. Are you telling me that this Lomeli guy is still defending David’s faux family guy persona? Lomeli should talk to Emily and get the truth from her.

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