OC Political

After battling Santa Ana traffic, your intrepid blogger has reached the Costa Mesa Hilton, site of the City Selection Committee meeting, where Orange County’s mayors have gathered to vote on who will represent Orange County’s cities on OCTA, OC LAFCO, OC Waste Management Commission, OC Housing and Community Development Commission, and four other commissions. For more information on what’s on tonight’s docket, see my post from earlier today.

(5:40 PM): Thanks to Kevin Gilhooley from SCAG for filling me in on some of what I missed.

The biggest upset is in the OCTA 4th District seat, where Anaheim Mayor Tom Tait unseated Anaheim Councilwoman Gail Eastman. Buena Park and Placentia voted for Eastman while Anaheim, Fullerton, and La Habra voted for Tait.

Awkwardly, in the 2nd District OCTA seat, Joe Shaw of Huntington Beach nominated himself and voted for himself while all other cities voted for Matt Harper of Huntington Beach, so Harper retained his OCTA seat.

In the 5th District, incumbent Frank Ury of Mission Viejo survived a challenge from Robert Ming of Laguna Niguel. Due to the enormous number of 5th District cities, we don’t have the vote breakdown.

In the 1st District, Steve Jones of Garden Grove won the votes of Santa Ana and Garden Grove to defeat Diana Carey of Westminster who won only Westminster.

In the 3rd District, Al Murray of Tustin was reelected by acclamation.

For the San Gabriel and Lower LA Rivers and Mountains Conservancy, Troy Edgar was reelected by acclamation.

(5:50 PM): Michelle Martinez of Santa Ana won the votes of Santa Ana and Garden Grove over Margie Rice of Westminster in her bid to reclaim her old seat (Rice only won Westminster’s vote) as the 1st District Waste Management representative.

Mike Alvarez of Orange defeated Beckie Gomez of Tustin in Gomez’s bid to reclaim her former seat as the 3rd District Waste Management representative.

(5:59 PM): In a massive field of candidates for the OC LAFCO seat, the run-off consists of Cheryl Brothers of Fountain Valley and Tony Beall of Rancho Santa Margarita. Dean Grose of Los Alamitos, Steve Mensinger of Costa Mesa, Barbara Kogerman of Laguna Hills, and Sam Allevato of San Juan Capistrano did not make the run-off.

(6:02 PM): Cheryl Brothers of Fountain Valley won 17 votes while Tony Beall of Rancho Santa Margarita won 16 votes. 18 votes are needed to be appointed to OC LAFCO.

(6:06 PM): For those of you wondering, Costa Mesa is the city not present.

(6:08 PM): Brothers wins the LAFCO seat with 18 votes to Beall’s 15.

(6:10 PM): The meeting is complete, with Anaheim Mayor Tom Tait running an incredibly speedy meeting. 25 appointments in about an hour averages to about 2 minutes per appointment.