Voters in Orange soon will choose a mayor and representation for four of six new City Council districts in the first contest since switching from at-large elections last year.
Up for a two-year term as mayor are incumbent Mark Murphy, who also is an account manager at Hewlett Packard Enterprise, and challenger Adrienne Gladson, city planner and owner of Gladson Consulting. The mayor’s seat is still determined by all voters.
Murphy served as mayor from 2000 to 2006 and was elected again in 2018.
He said he’s kept his pledge to fight taxes while securing funding to support residents and businesses hurt by the coronavirus pandemic.
If reelected, Murphy said he would keep the city on the path to economic recovery and address homelessness in the city’s streets and parks.
“We will approach these challenges through a combination of cost reductions where possible, while actively supporting our business community through the recovery,” he said.
Gladson, who has served as president of the Orange Historical Society, said she’s running because Orange residents are “restless for change.”
“Science and facts” must be at the center of all city decisions as it navigates the pandemic, she said, adding the city has to prepare now to support businesses in a post-coronavirus economy.
And, as mayor, “I will marshal efforts to reduce homelessness, maintain public safety, and care for our growing senior population,” she said.
Jon Dumitru, Daniel Correa and Martin Varona are vying for the city’s western District 2. A fourth candidate, Caroline Alatorre, announced her withdrawal from the race on Oct. 6.
Dumitru, who served on the council from 2004 to 2012, stressed the need to help local businesses survive the pandemic and suggested the city buy protective equipment in bulk and sell it to businesses at lower prices.
Correa, a planning consultant, said he would avoid raising taxes in response to the coronavirus pandemic, and would focus on homelessness and preserving Orange’s neighborhoods.
Varona, a civil engineer for the city, suggested closing the Orange Plaza area to cars, making it pedestrian friendly to “help spur” the downtown economy. He described himself as politically and ethically “progressive” and pointed out that Orange’s government has lacked diversity for years, “which is especially egregious considering Orange is majority non-White.”
In District 1, which includes the downtown plaza and Chapman University, candidates Arianna Barrios, David Vazquez and Christian Vaughan said they would avoid new taxes to keep up revenue through the pandemic, while Eugene Fields said lower-income businesses need stimulus funds or risk shuttering for good and called for a moratorium on business license fees for those that report incomes of less than $100,000.
Fields also said the Orange Plaza’s pedestrian-only “Paseo,” introduced to allow restaurants to set up outdoors during the pandemic, should be a seasonal event to help drive foot traffic around the district’s businesses.
Barrios, a trustee at Rancho Santiago Community College District, said her experience balancing the district’s budget would help her do the same for the city, “by stimulating economic growth and reducing non-essential city services as needed.”
Vazquez, a planning commissioner, said he would reexamine the city’s spending without burdening residents with new taxes.
“We must support our businesses by helping them to re-open safely and re-purposing federal grants to allow them to keep their doors open,” in the face of the pandemic, he said.
Vaughan, a police detective and traffic commissioner with the city, billed himself as a fiscal conservative and said he would focus on maintaining public safety, historic traditions and community values.
Amid the pandemic and recent social unrest, “our current City Council will need help, and this is no time to have someone untested representing District 1,” he said.
In the city’s northern District 3, Councilman Mike Alvarez and one challenger, Danett Abbott-Wicker, both seek to address homelessness.
“We are working hard to find them help in order to get them off the streets,” said Alvarez, who was first elected to the council in 1996. “This problem is tough since we are surrounded by cities whereby their homeless problem is out of control and tends to spill into our city.”
Abbott-Wicker, who owns a pet sitting business, said homeless people must be treated humanely and she would bring in more social workers to help them.
“I will fight to support the local nonprofit orgs that are already doing the work on the ground and have the best understanding of how to help our shared communities,” she said.
John Russo, an Orange Unified School District employee running for District 3, faulted the current council as one made up of insiders who have been in and out of their seats for years.
“I (would) provide fresh ideas,” Russo said. “This is something Orange hasn’t had in a while.”
And in District 5, which includes El Modena, candidates Rick Ledesma and Ana Gutierrez both said they would prioritize public safety.
Gutierrez, a teacher at Santa Ana Unified School District, said there was an uptick in crime in the area and said neighborhood watch groups were needed.
Ledesma, a board member at Orange Unified School District, said his decades of experience in finance and business management could play a “pivotal role” as the city faces pandemic-related budget challenges.
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