Citing his support for former state cabinet member, Anna Caballero, Gilroy City Councilman Peter Leroe-Munoz shocked local political watchers on Thursday, Jan. 7th when he announced that he would be dropping out of the race for State Assembly.
“I am withdrawing to support Anna,” said Leroe-Munoz during a phone call to the Gilroy Dispatch on Friday. When asked why he did not make the announcement during the Gilroy city council meeting on Monday when he was explicitly asked by a member of the public whether he could effectively hold the position of Mayor Pro Tempore while running for the Assembly, he said it was due to timing.
“This [decision] wasn’t public yet, Anna and I had been talking about timing and so with respect to her we waited,” he said.
At Monday’s city council meeting some members of the public castigated the council over a perceived lack of transparency due to the quick selection of new Mayor Perry Woodward and his subsequent failed motion to appoint Leroe-Munoz as his second in command because the item was not in the night’s agenda.
The position of Mayor Pro Tempore is theoretically still up for grabs and will be decided at the next city council meeting. Applications for the city council seat left vacant due to the surprise resignation of former Mayor Don Gage in December will be accepted by the city clerk until Jan. 15.
Leroe-Munoz’s announcement leaves former Salinas Mayor, Anna Caballero to vie for the Assembly District 30 seat currently held by Luis Alejo (D-Watsonville), who cannot run for reelection due to term limits, against Watsonville City Councilman, educator and Alejo’s wife, Karina Cervantez-Alejo.
When told that Leroe-Munoz said he dropped out of the race in order to throw his support behind Caballero, Cervantez-Alejo sounded skeptical.
“For a very long time it was just him and I in the field,” she said. “And by all accounts we out campaigned him and outworked him. That probably had something to do with it” adding that she “wished him well“ with his work on the council.
As of July 31st, Cervantez-Alejo raised $150,000 in campaign contributions versus $25,000 raised by the Leroe-Munoz campaign, according to campaign finance filings with the state. Caballero just announced her candidacy in November and has not yet filed any campaign finance reports.
