Steve Rocco, the deranged Orange School Board member, has pulled papers to run against Santa Ana Clowncilman Carlos Bustamante, according to a pajarito who confirmed this with the Santa Ana City Clerk.
Rocco previously ran against Santa Ana Mayor Miguel Pulido a few years ago, before he was elected to the Orange School Board.
Rocco is famous for espousing a belief in a very strange conspiracy involving “the evil triumvirate of Albertsons, Kodak and SmokeCraft Sausage that led to his 1980 conviction for shoplifting several rolls of film and a sausage at a Santa Ana supermarket,” according to the OC Weekly.
Bustamante has had many Rocco moments himself, which I summarized in a recent post. Most recently he resigned (after allegedly being pressured to by the Governor’s staff) from two state commission appointments after making his scandalous “water bra” remarks.
One way or another Busty will be opposed in November. If nothing else Rocco will be entering the Space Commander’s orbit in Ward 3…
Jeez, two losers for the council in the same campaign. Can someone with some credibility and intelligence PLEASE run for Ward 3?
actually think about it, rocco is the better candidate.
LMAO!
The vultures smell the stench and are decending!
Seriously, folks, if the well-heeled, massively funded Floral Park Neighborhood Association cannot drum up a decent candidate to defeat this boob 😉 then how in the world is there any hope for Santa Ana at large?
Art, Maybe you should have a powwow with Mr. Rocco about running for school board instead, since you’re not convinced any of the candidates are decent?
Ever have one of those days when you wake up and think, “Gawd! We are sooooo screwed from all sides within this city!”?
“Jeez, two losers for the council in the same campaign. Can someone with some credibility and intelligence PLEASE run for Ward 3?”
Was that your hat that just landed in the middle of the ring, John Jacob? 😉
Jose,
I agree! The Space Commander must go! I would vote for a homeless wretch over him.
I do think someone else will emerge though. Does no one want to serve on the Clowncil? Busty is as lame a duck as I have ever seen. Someone needs to put him out of his misery…
Whew, what a relief for you, Art. Now you don’t have to run against Carlos!
Red Vixen, hardly.
I wouldn’t hesitate to file papers today if I still lived over by Fairhaven. Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on how you look at it, I was able to move to Laguna Niguel a few years back.
Someone should just thumb through a phonebook and start calling people and ask them if they could run for council.
JJM,
humm … “unfortunately” moved to LN. hummmm … I would guess that the unfortunately refers to a case of TMWP – that is “too many white people.” When those whiteys gang up like that they are totally crazy.
junior (whitey)
No Junior, the context in #6 was plain even if not serious: JJM “unfortunately” can’t run against Rocco and Busty because he moved away from SA. Get that race chip off your shoulder!
Vern – I may have inferred the context of JMM’s comment incorrectly, but I do believe that many poor souls in south county suffer from TMWP syndrome. I suffer from TMWP myself when I spend time in that area – no “race chip.”
Junior, Vern is correct. I meant that you could look at moving both ways.
I felt the fortunate thing about moving to Laguna Niguel was my own personal justification of living the American Dream — moving up in the world by moving south in the county.
The unfortunate part of moving away was leaving all of my good-natured and friendly neighbors in Fairhaven, and seeing them live in a city where every single one of the city’s elected officials believe that crime isn’t an issue… that gangs are non-existent… that the school system just has a couple of “monetary kinks” to work out of the system… I could go on.
In Laguna Niguel, we don’t face those issues. In Santa Ana, I believe people in the city unfortunately live in a town — with so much potential — that’s being squandered because elected officials can lead with blinders on just so any one of them can get elected to higher office.
It has to be the saddest state of affairs of any municipality in Southern California, and for that, I feel bad having moved away. I would’ve challenged Carlos. I would’ve easily raised upwards of $200,000 due to my personal and business contacts, not to mention my own personal addition of $200,000 to the campaign.
Carlos is an easy one to defeat. It just takes that one person with the tenacity and determination to file the paperwork and campaign for the seat. It is NOT difficult.
“Carlos is an easy one to defeat. It just takes that one person with the tenacity and determination to file the paperwork and campaign for the seat. It is NOT difficult.”
Someone, like, say, Art Pedroza?
If Art wants to run, then Art should run. What does he have to lose?
Besides, If Art WERE to run and end up somehow splitting the vote with Carlos allowing Rocco to win — I would say that the city of Santa Ana would deserve it.
One, it would make the council meetings much more interesting, but also, I think it would be an improvement over Carlos.
Granted, Rocco is nuts, but he’s not a County Administrator who creates hostile work environments by making sexist and uncomfortable remarks about other county employees and electeds.
Furthering my point, should Art defeat Carlos and be elected, you could argue that the city would have at least one member of the council who gets it. I mean, Art is arguably a controversial figure within the city, but at least he gets it.
Art would nail Walters for not doing his job. Art would vote to fire Dave Ream and hire someone competent. Art would propose new libraries for the city.
In fact, if Art were to be elected, he’d be the only member of the council who would have an openly cordial relationship with the local Supervisor. I hear everyone on council publicly bashes her and is disappointed she didn’t vote for Walters for Sheriff.
Say what you will, but if Art were to file papers, raise a little bit of money, walk a few precincts, and surprise people by getting elected — I think he wouldn’t be bad on council. Granted, there’d be a lot of people who would have issues with Art but like I said, he would be THE ONLY council member who would actually care about the city. And really, you can’t fault him for that.
$400K to win a city council seat? That is nuts !!
junior,
It doesn’t take $400K to realistically run for Council…more like $50K.
Run, Rocco, Run
junior and anon,
The figure sounds like a lot, but it could’ve been done. It’s a moot point since I no longer live in the city.
i dont live in SA but hell…
by dog’s 2-day-old S*** is better than this.
is this what we have to argue about? F-ing pathetic.
Art, do something, you have it!
B-man is not for the politic forum (yes we ALL know this…you want him running the city!?!)he needs to go back to the day job…had enough.
i havent seen anything from bra-man.
PUBLIC SERVANTS SERVE THE PUBLIC, IF YOU DONT THEN GO BACK TO BEING A THE PUBLIC.
Wow! Steve should feel right at home with the rest of the space cadettes if he for some freaky chance happens to win that seat…
Miguelito may have to pull Robby Richardson from the school board race and place him the council race. Robby is the consumate soldier; he does whatever Miguelito tells him to do.