Steve Lodge, as readers will recall, embarrassingly finished fifth–even behind phantom AnaHyna Jennifer Rivera!–in the race for two open seats on the Anaheim city council last year. The local GOP machine, disgraced blogger Matt “I Protect Pedophile Protectors and Out Sex-Abuse Victims” Cunningham, Disney and former Mayor Curt Pringle would have loved to see him up on the dais, only, it seems his murky past came back to haunt him.
But instead of retreating into political irrelevancy, Lodge is going to try, try again! The Anaheim Hills resident (and No. 6 on the Weekly Scariest People List for 2012!) quietly filed a candidate intention statement in February and updated his Facebook campaign site, not for the upcoming 2014 election cycle, but for the city council race in 2016!
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The Weekly laughed when the political newcomer tried to score cheap points by billing himself to the public as Steve “Chavez” Lodge. He was hit with a surname suit challenge by blogger Cynthia Ward and at the end of it all eventually appeared on the ballot as Steven Albert Chavez Lodge as per an Orange County Superior Court judge's ruling.
Will he try it again? In his latest 501 form filing, the future candidate's name appears as 'Steve Lodge' though he signed off on the verification as 'Steve Chavez Lodge.' Oh the cognitive dissonance of Latino Republicans…
Current councilwomen Gail Eastman and Kris Murray will likely run for re-election in 2014, but if Lodge's 2016 bid hopes that people will forget the pitfalls of his previous run by that time, it's never too early for a refresher course:
Despite having the backing of wealthy interests, Lodge failed to secure the endorsement of his own party in the lead up to the 2012 elections! Highlighting his law enforcement credentials during his time as a cop in SanTana, the Weekly revealed that he was the subject of multiple excessive force lawsuits, including the case of jaywalker Hossein Farahani who gained a settlement of $292,000. Then there is Jimmy Plazola, a SanTana native whom Lodge had wrongfully imprisoned for murder. Having lost more than a year of his life in freedom, Plazola warned Anaheim voters about Lodge saying to our Mexican-in-Chief, “He's dirty. It'd be a bad choice.”
If Lodge is banking on Anaheim amnesia while his political friends try to secure second terms, here's a scary thought. The city may very well be carved into single-member districts by then as a result of the vote of the people or a ruling in an ACLU lawsuit. It will likely be up to those in them thar Hills alone to keep him off the council! But if they don't, then they can claim to have done their job contributing to Latino representation in local government. Yikes!
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Gabriel San Román is from Anacrime. He’s a journalist, subversive historian and the tallest Mexican in OC. He also once stood falsely accused of writing articles on Turkish politics in exchange for free food from DönerG’s!