Mitzy Perez and Virriy Kalid Sanchez are running to represent District 1 on the Los Banos City Council. Voters in that district will choose on Tuesday, Aug. 26.
The seat was left open in January when Kenneth Lambert resigned, becoming the fourth and final member of the council’s previous majority to vacate his seat.
The Westside Express sat down with Sanchez and Perez for individual interviews on topics ranging from housing to homelessness and creating more jobs. Meeting in the banquet room of Espana Southwest Grill, we asked them the same questions, with individualized follow-ups. The Express is making those interviews available not only in this issue but on Facebook.
Both candidates are relative newcomers to the city, one raised in Southern California, the other Salinas. Both are under 40, both graduated from UC Merced, and both work in finance. They had not met before arriving for their interviews with the Express on June 7.
The election became necessary when the District 1 seat was vacated by Lambert. In most cases when a councilmember steps aside, a replacement is simply approved by majority vote. But California law prohibits the appointment of a majority of councilmembers.
The council had already appointed Marcus Chavez and Evan Sanders to replace two recalled members — Brett Jones and Paul Begonia Jr. —so that meant District 1’s replacement had to be chosen by voters and the soonest an election could be scheduled was for Aug. 26. Ballots will be sent out in July and must be returned by Aug. 26.
Candidate Mitzy Perez:
Perez moved to the Valley to attend UC Merced and soon realized she loved it.
“I like the area, the slower-paced lifestyle. I like being in nature. It’s just a great location,” she said. It is also very different from where she was raised.
“Coming from LA (for college) was a little crazy, a little hectic,” she said. “So, I decided to stay in the Central Valley.”
She has no regrets: “Every time I go to visit my family in LA, it’s crazy. You can’t find parking. The traffic is terrible. And the housing costs are crazy as well.”
Those differences are crucial for Perez, a finance manager for a truck sales company in Turlock. She appreciates what makes Los Banos livable even as she sees the need for growth.
Perez is one of two candidates running to represent District 1. Filling that seat in the Aug. 26 special election will bring the council to full strength for the first time since December when two councilmembers were recalled and the former mayor was replaced by Michael Amabile.
In January, two new members were chosen to replace the recalled councilmembers and shortly after that vote, councilmember Kenneth Lambert resigned – leaving the District 1 seat vacant.
Asked about the two years of turmoil created by the previous council, Perez said she knows only “the basics of what happened.” More important than reliving the past, she believes “everyone is excited to have new faces and kind of start fresh.”
Important to that “fresh start” will be hiring a permanent city manager. Retired police chief Gary Brizzee is filling the role, for a third time, as interim city manager. But Brizzee does not want the job permanently, meaning one of the full council’s first tasks will be hiring his replacement.
Someone with experience in city government “would be preferred,” said Perez, but she is keeping an open mind.
Recognizing that she is “very new to this,” Perez stressed she would be reaching out to other elected officials inside and outside the city of nearly 48,000.
Her priority, she said, is to have “really good communications; have meetings … to discuss issues, brainstorm. If we want their help, they have to know specifically what’s going on. … So we have to stay in really good communication – even, ‘Let’s grab a meal, grab a quick coffee.’ It’s things like that.
“At the end of the day, we’re all working for the entire community.”
A resident of Los Banos for just over a year, Perez would like to see better connections to other communities. She wants to make certain schools don’t become crowded, that there are good jobs and good parks.
“I spoke to a couple of people” about what Los Banos needs, Perez said, and they told her “we want a Costco, we want the warehouses. But it comes down to where are going to place them.”
She also heard that the people of Los Banos want to keep the small-town feel even as they yearn for the choices found in larger communities.
Meanwhile, the state is requiring all California cities to plan for additional housing.
“It all ties together,” she said. “Do we have the population where these businesses will want to come to Los Banos?”
Making the right choices for housing “goes hand by hand with bringing better-paying jobs” and new opportunities said Perez. “Where do we annex more land so we can build more homes, grow the population.”
Once those homes are built, new “businesses will want to come.”
Still, “I’m not going to go crazy,” she said. “I know the community likes staying on the smaller side.” The key, she said, is to manage growth without losing the city’s character.
Homelessness bedevils every California community, and Los Banos is no different.
“It’s not just about finding homes for people,” said Perez. “I’m sure everyone can agree it’s a mental health crisis as well. A lot of these people have drug addictions, so I think if we want to combat homelessness, we have to go into these core issues. It’s easy to say hey let’s build homes for them, let’s build communities for them. But a lot of these people don’t want to move into homes; their option is to stay out on the streets.
“We have to address the mental-health crisis, the addictions, and have better resources.”
As a former high school soccer star, she’s also a big believer in good parks.
“It’s important to have options — a baseball field, a soccer field. Places where we can host events as well,” she said. “I love being out here because I see the kind of events people hold, not just here in Los Banos but in all the Central Valley.”
Parks, she said, provide “places for kids so they can figure out what they want to do. I played soccer my whole life, and I probably wouldn’t have gotten into it if my local park didn’t have a soccer field and soccer leagues.”
Asked what voters should know about her, Perez said this election is “important because of everything that happened previously. I’m going into this completely with one thing in mind and that is to serve the community. … It is important to go out there and talk to people on a regular basis, see what they have to suggest, what they think would be better for the whole town.
“It’s important for people to know they can always reach out to me; I will be there to listen. If we can get things done that will benefit the whole community, I will get it done.”
Candidate Virriy Kalid Sanchez:
When Sanchez was asked to dream up a park for her family and friends, she started with water — water slides, splash pads, maybe a swimming pool.
“A water splash — my kids would love that. Slides. Swings,” laughed Sanchez. But she quickly added, “there would also be a garden.”
Sanchez, 35, feels it is important that kids understand how things grow and see how growing food can become an opportunity.
“One of the things we need to encourage is agriculture, and a park where our kids are able to plant a flower or plant some tomatoes, or a little section where they could take care of some fruits and vegetables — that would be really, really interesting. You said my park, right?”
Sanchez did not pay a lot of attention to the chaos of the previous city council, when four members of a majority backed an inexperienced city manager who promptly abandoned a public budgeting process, became the subject of a grand jury investigation and fought openly with Deborah Lewis — the only member of the council willing to confront its mismanagement.
Perhaps because Sanchez didn’t pay much attention to the turmoil, she preferred not to talk about it.
“I have no personal feelings about the (previous) council,” she told the Express. “I believe there is always things that are shown and things that are not shown. We make up our minds based on what other people say, not what is the reality.”
Regardless, the political fallout is ongoing. One of the most important tasks facing the full city council in August will be recruiting and hiring a permanent city manager. The last person to occupy that position, Josh Pinheiro, was fired on a 3-0 vote in January. Shortly after taking that vote, councilmember Lambert resigned.
Former police chief Gary Brizzee is the interim Los Banos city manager for a third time, but has made it clear he doesn’t want the job permanently. So, it will be up to the council to recruit and hire a permanent replacement.
“When it comes to a city manager you can look at their experience, but you can’t really know how they’re going to work,” said Sanchez. “You can’t know what they’re going to be facing.
“At the end of the day it’s up to them how they act, how they take on the issues. As the City Council, we could try to look for someone who fits the mold to our growing community.”
Sanchez was asked about how the city should interact with other agencies and institutions – from Merced County to Los Banos Unified School District.
“As a mom with five kids, of course I will focus on education. That’s a big priority,” she said.
Asked what she would do about homelessness, Sanchez said the key is to find out why people are homeless. “It could be drugs. It could be (a lack of) personal opportunities. … There are a lot of programs for drug addicts, to take them out of that problem. For others, building new homes would help give that opportunity to people who don’t have (housing).”
Another big priority for Sanchez is forming working relationships on a council that will include three people still learning the ropes. Both Marcus Chavez and Evan Sanders will have been in office for only seven months, having been appointed in January. Mayor Amabile is serving in his sixth two-year term as mayor, and councilmember Lewis was re-elected to her third four-year term in November – so there is some institutional knowledge on the council.
They will be making decisions for a city of nearly 48,000 that has a split personality. Los Banos is the largest city on the Westside of the Valley and boasts some of the preeminent food-processing companies in the state – Morning Star, Ingomar and Kagome, to name three – with a strong farming community served by Central California Irrigation District. But each morning, at least 2,000 people drive west over Pacheco Pass to jobs on the coast.
Asked how the city can best serve both communities, Sanchez responded: “Our city is already set up for that.”
She should know. “I have been on both sides. I commuted to Taylor Farms in Salinas; I got tired of it and that’s when I opened my business. I do believe there’s been a little improvement in supporting local businesses who are starting. … Supporting the people who stay here.”
When asked if raising five children, ages 6 months to 12 years, was a lot of work she replied: “A lot of things are a lot of work, right?”
Asked if she has enough time to run a business, raise a large family and help run a city, her response was equally direct: “I own my time.”
Finally, Sanchez was asked to explain what voters should know about her.
“I’m here to represent everyone, not only myself,” she said. “I’m open to getting to know other people’s views. I’m not stuck thinking, ‘Oh, it’s going to be my way.’ I want to understand why people think the way they think. I think if it’s something good, I’m going to go with that.”
