LOS BANOS – With Mitzy Perez being sworn in on Oct. 1, the Los Banos city council reached full strength for the first time in 2025. But before she could get comfortable on the dais, her opponent in the Aug. 26 special election criticized her for using campaign materials she says were untrue.
Virriy Kalid Sanchez, who lost by 41 votes to Perez in the special election, remains angry over flyers distributed in District 1 just prior to the election.
“You printed and distributed door materials about me that were not only false, but were not true for everyone to see,” said Sanchez during the public-comment period. “When untrue accusations were allowed to stand uncorrected, they do more than sway an election. They mislead the public and weaken the trust that citizens place in those who ask for their votes.”
Perez was surprisingly unperturbed by Sanchez’s statement.
“I believe everyone is entitled to speak up. I believe in the First Amendment and freedom of speech,” said Perez. “So, I’m not going to react. She has a right to speak.
“That campaign is over, and I want to leave that in the past.”
Perez said she has a new focus: “People are about action” not accusations.
Only 488 votes were returned in the Aug. 26 all-mail special election. The district has 5,168 registered voters, meaning only 9.4 percent voted in the race between two first-time candidates. Ten months earlier, during the November general election, 2,634 people – or 51 percent of registered voters – cast ballots returning Kenneth Lambert to office. He resigned in January, and the seat was left vacant until votes from the Aug. 26 election could be certified.
Late in the campaign, door-hangers were distributed accusing Sanchez of being “deep in debt to Sacramento developer,” being unable to follow campaign laws and hiding loans.
That final door-hanger angered Sanchez. “They weren’t even selling Mitzy, they were saying, ‘Go read the articles in the Enterprise, you can see Kalid Sanchez is not qualified.”
Those accusations were originally made in stories written by Los Banos Enterprise publisher Michael Braa, a former lawyer who also operates Fresno-based Atlantis Private Investigations. His firm gave the Perez campaign $3,000 — its only sizeable donation.
Both Perez and Sanchez filed required campaign documents well after the election.
Sanchez filed an amended Form 700 on Sept. 16. On the amended form, she characterized money owed to Sacramento property management firm Ethan Conrad Properties as a loan – something she had left off entirely from her original Form 700 filed in May.
In early August, Sanchez told the Express that she owed back rent to Conrad Properties but had never taken a loan from the firm. Because she did not receive any money from Conrad – as opposed to working out a payment schedule for the back rent – she insisted there no loan. There are legal distinctions between debt incurred through non-payment of rent and borrowing money from a lender. But the amended form showed she is paying 7 percent interest on her outstanding debt, and that makes it a loan.
Having a loan would have required Sanchez to recuse herself from any vote involving Conrad Properties that came before the council.
“I wish I would have gotten advice from different sources,” said Sanchez when explaining her earlier characterization of the loan as back rent. “When they started questioning me about it, I asked for advice from the same people at (Merced County), and I was told, ‘We can’t really advise you on this.’ They gave me the contact information for (the Fair Political Practices Commission).”
The FPPC did not respond to Sanchez until three weeks after the election. While money owed as “back rent” is a gray area, the FPPC told her to list it as a loan – presumably because her payment schedule includes interest payments.
“They took more than 30 days to respond to me. I have the emails,” said Sanchez. “On my email to them, I told them I want to clarify this; I don’t want to get in trouble, I don’t want to break the law.”
In early August, both Perez and Sanchez said they anticipated spending only around $2,500 or less on their campaigns. While Sanchez stayed close to that amount, Perez ended up spending $8,443 – with $5,833 in the last month. In all, she raised $10,885.
As for the accusatory door-hangers, Perez said she did not pay for them herself but was thankful for the support.
On her amended Form 460, filed on Oct. 3, Perez showed she contributed a total of $7,885 to her own campaign. Other than Perez herself, her largest contributor was publisher Braa – whose Atlantis Private Investigations was listed as contributing $3,000 to the campaign.
It is highly unusual for a journalist to monetarily support a candidate in a political race of any kind.
Asked if the accusations contained in the campaign have dimmed her enthusiasm for serving the community, Sanchez said the opposite is true.
“The campaign has shown me I want to be involved. I want to help my community and represent whoever can’t speak up for themselves,” said Sanchez. She is applying to become a member of the city’s planning commission.
That’s fine with Perez. “I don’t mind her speaking out. She has her rights.” And if Sanchez remains active, “I’m sure we’re going to be seeing a lot of each other.”
