Five people have applied to fill the vacant District 1 seat on the Santa Maria City Council.
The seat became vacant when Councilman Carlos Escobedo abruptly resigned near the start of the March 3 meeting.
Escobedo, who immediately left the dais, said he left because he lived outside District 1.
The five applicants are Ricardo Batalla, Gary Michaels, Diana Perez, Maria Salguero and Osvaldo Sotelo.
Three of the applicants previously have run for seats on the City Council, with two seeking the District 1 term in those bids to be elected.
Sotelo, a Pioneer Valley High School graduate, ran for the District 1 seat in 2020.
He works for Goodwill Industries of Ventura and Santa Barbara Counties as mission service director.
He holds a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice with a minor in law and society from California State University, Los Angeles plus a master’s degree in public administration from CSU, Northridge.
Sotelo serves on committees for the Workforce Development Board of Santa Barbara County and a food distribution effort for the Housing Authority of the Santa Barbara County.
Likewise, Salguero, an attorney for the Santa Barbara County Immigrant Legal Defense Center, ran for the District 1 seat in 2024.
She graduated from Pioneer Valley High School in 2008 and then UC Santa Cruz, where she earned double bachelor’s degrees in politics and Latin American and Latinx studies.
She later graduated from the University of Idaho College of Law. She is a licensed member of the Washington State Bar Association.
Salguero serves on the board for Future Leaders of America.
Perez’s foray into city politics occurred nearly two years ago, when she ran for the role of mayor.
Her venture followed a 10-year stint on the Santa Maria Joint Union High School District board before she resigned in July 2024.
Perez works as the director of the California Student Opportunity and Access Program, or Cal-SOAP, at Allan Hancock College.
After earning an associate’s degree from Hartnell College, Perez went on to earn a bachelor’s degree in political science from UC Santa Barbara and a master’s degree in education from CSU Fresno.
Michaels, who is president of E-Rate Compass and has worked as a telecommunication consultant, has run for public office previously.
In 2020, he sought the District 19 seat in the State Senate but lost to Monique Limón.
In 2022, he ran for the California State Assembly District 47 term for the wide area around Palm Springs but lost in the June primary.
He earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration at New England College in New Hampshire and an academic certificate in accounting from UCLA.
Batalla works as the youth development director at the Santa Maria Valley YMCA.
He earned bachelor’s degrees in criminology and Chicano Latin studies plus a master’s degree in education leadership, all from CSU Fresno, plus a master’s degree in urban education from the University of Southern California.
He serves on the board for the California AfterSchool Network (CAN) and Leadership Santa Maria Valley, and he is president-elect for the Santa Maria Noontime Rotary Club.
Three other people turned in applications, but two were deemed ineligible because of living outside District 1 and not residing in the city, Chief Deputy City Clerk Donna Schwartz said. The third person withdrew the application, she added.
The City Council is expected to discuss the vacancy and applicants at the April 7 meeting, set to start at 5:30 p.m. in Council Chambers at City Hall.
The City Council has 60 days to either appoint someone to fill the vacancy or call for a special election, typically rejected as too costly and time-consuming.
Shortly after the resignation, city staff put out a call for applicants to fill the seat to represent an area mostly made up of the northwestern neighborhoods of Santa Maria.
If someone is appointed to fill the seat, they would have to run for election in November to finish the remaining two years of Escobedo’s term.