Santa Ana’s Ward 3 City Council Member, Angie Amezcua, was accidentally elected four years ago when she ran for the seat but did not spend a dime, nor did she campaign. But she was at the time the only woman on the ballot and she ran as a “Schoolteacher.” She won then but this November she is stepping off the City Council and so her seat is wide open.

Former Santa Ana City Councilman Jose Solorio, who also spent a few years in Sacramento as our State Assemblyman in the 69th Assembly District, has moved into Ward 3 in order to run for the open seat. Solorio, who is now a lobbyist with a law firm in Irvine, tells me he already has over $200K in campaign funds ready to go.

As you can imagine, it will be tough for other candidates to raise as much campaign money as Solorio already has on hand. Those will will try to beat him in the November Primary Election include:

• Shane Ramon Barrows, a police officer in Irvine who is married to a city employee who works at the Santiago Park Nature Reserve. Barrows and his wife have a couple of kids and he has been involved with the Cub Scouts for a few years. He did not buy a candidate’s statement. He ran four years ago and got just over 4,000 votes. He says he will not accept campaign contributions so the odds of him winning this time are not great. But he is a good guy.
• Patrick D. “Mr Patrick” Yrarrazaval-Correa – This fellow was booted from the Santa Ana Planning Commission. He also was demoted from his former job as a Principal at the SAUSD to his current job counseling kids who are in the SAUSD’s continuation program. He was also apparently arrested and convicted way back in 1989, according to the L.A. Times for blocking access to a military conference in El Toro in a show of opposition to U.S. defense policies including the  the Strategic Defense Initiative, or “Star Wars” program.
• David De Leon – He pulled papers and has time to gather more signatures as Amezcua has vacated her seat. De Leon is a PTA dad who is also active in the local Kiwanis club. He is allied with Santa Ana City Council Members Roman Reyna and David Benavides, which is not good.

I am also told that Santa Ana Mayoral candidate Benjamin Vazquez is trying to place a woman friend of his on the ballot for Ward 3. He has a few days to do so. We will report more about this as we get the information. All I know for now is that she works at a health-related non-profit.