Santa Ana residents got a late Christmas present today as our overpaid and oversexed City Manager, David Cavazos, was placed on paid administrative leave after a 4-0 City Council vote Wednesday afternoon, according to the O.C. Register.
As one might expect Cavazos’ allies on the City Council – Sal Tinajero, David Benavides and Vince Sarmiento, complained about this because they were not at today’s special meeting. Apparently they are all on vacation. Oh well! Even if they were here they could not have stopped this as Mayor Miguel Pulido had four votes on his side.
The fourth vote was Councilwoman Michele Martinez, who is the only woman on our City Council. Cavazos falsely accused her of sexual harassment so it should be no surprise that she voted to place him on leave.
Tinajero, Benavides and Sarmiento should be ashamed at themselves. How can they continue to support Cavazos after he got caught dating a city employee? While that may not be illegal it is in extremely bad taste.
I suppose Benavides is used to this bad behavior as his best friend on the City Council, Carlos Bustamante, went to jail for sexually harassing his fellow employees at the County of Orange. Benavides himself dumped his wife during his ill-fated run for Mayor then appointed his subsequent girlfriend to a City Commission.
Sarmiento, a lawyer whose family owns and operates a bunch of shady nightclubs, may also have no issue with Cavazos’ behavior. I wonder how his wife, who is also a lawyer, feels about that?
As for Tinajero he has been rampaging of late about the undue influence of the Santa Ana police union, but in the past they have spent vast sums of money reelecting him. Perhaps he should give back all those campaign contributions?
Pulido will need one more vote on the Council to fire Cavazos. Sarmiento should be that vote – as Pulido endorsed his reelection last year. And if he won’t play ball then the new City Council majority can remove Sarmiento and his allies from all of their commission posts, such as the OC Water District and the OC Sanitation District. That will hit them in their collective wallets!
Once Cavazos has been fired the new City Manager can fire our inept and inexperienced Police Chief, Carlos Rojas.
It is great to have the adults running our City Council again!
Amen Art.
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When is his contract over? And how is this a “gift” for the city? He’s now being paid to stay home and do nothing! I see this as more of a ‘gift” to him. He’s already getting paid by AZ, then making the bank he’s making here on top of that! I wasn’t a huge fan of him getting hired, but I’d rather have him finish his contract then be like, “Duce’s! Don’t let the door hit you where the good lord split you!” His contract can’t be much longer if his extension was to go through 2019. Either way, this is just another example of how our city government is not on the same page, and they’re not looking out to what’s in the citizen’s best interest! If they were, they wouldn’t be paying him to stay home and do nothing.
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And bilingual pay?! Are you serious?! Why is he getting bilingual pay?! I haven’t heard him speak Spanish. I wonder if he had to take the same test as other city employees? And to him having a relationship with another employee, WHO CARES! Why is that even an issue? How many other people working in the city have a spouse, partner, or significant other working there too? And to say she worked under him (lol. Under, over, on the side, on top, in front or behind {sorry, had to]), well yeah, he is the city manager, doesn’t everyone technically work under him?
It is an issue because the CEO should not be banging his employees. How do we know that they really can say no to him? How do we know they are not feeling coerced? Simply bad form!
The “relationship” is just an excuse – this is purely a political move.
We are fine with that!
Now the pressure will be on each of the 3 council members who did not attend the meeting and did not vote to be the 5th vote for dismissal. How long will it be tolerated that the City is paying a large sum to a no-show city manager? Who will be that 5th vote?
Once they lose their commission appointments they will vote to fire him.
We would be better off paying him to stay him than letting him molest more workers.
hahaha molest?!
Did we learn nothing from the Bustamante debacle?
I see a lot of internet “chatter” about this vote. Clearly the other bloggers have ZERO understanding of Santa Ana politics, or simply don’t care because they like to hear themselves talk.
The reality is, this IS just what Benavides and his cabal did to Walters, it’s close to what Tom Tait did recently in Anaheim.
I have my suspicions on how this will play out. It doesn’t look good for Benavides and Tinajero. The guy who will skate could very well be Sarmiento, for reasons not yet brought up.
The only thing that the asshole agitators will do is make it worse.
The Council was content enough with his performance to give him a bonus back in January and now they’re placing him on leave? What changed?
Roman lost and Angie quit.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, I suppose. I think it’s safe to say that the majority of the residents thought that Cavazos was doing a good job. I am quite astonished that in this day and age that a romantic affair is being construed as a crime fit for beheading, even if it was with an employee. To my knowledge, nobody cheated on a spouse here and there was no proof that Cavazos had a womanizing problem (if I am wrong, please correct me). After Bill Clinton’s impeachment proved these romances are not offenses fit for termination (even for the highest office of the land), I began overlooking this trivial stuff and focused on job performance for these elected officials. It’s not as if Cavazos was texting pornographic images of himself to young girls (now THAT is an offense fit for termination, IMO), These were apparently two adults that became attracted to each other. Should the female employee have been encouraged to quit her job and go elsewhere? Probably. But hindsight is 20/20, as they say. I have reached out to one of the four Councilpersons to please explain their rationale for why they did this. No reply whatsoever,so I have no reason to even try to understand their logic. 🙁
The problem with dating employees is that you never know if the employee felt coerced or if she was granted special benefits and favors. Cavazos should have gotten her a job at another city. He was either too stupid or too pompous to consider that option.
Then why were they going to give Cavazos a bonus AFTER his alleged daliance with an employee? Explain that please.
Simple. Those were the actions of the former Council majority. Reyna and Amezcua are gone now. The new majority is in charge now.
Why did they give him a bonus?
Sigh. I already explained that. There was a different Council majority at the time. Reyna and Amezcua are gone. Now the adults are running the Council and I appreciate that their first order of business is to dump the disgusting Cavazos.
It’s not a new council – it’s a group of monkeys phuking a football.
I can’t imagine why you are defending the tax and fee raising womanizer Cavazos.