Avelino Valencia set to characterize Orange County district in Meeting – Orange County Register

Anaheim Councilmember Avelino Valencia is headed to the state Assembly.

Though votes haven’t but been formally licensed, Valencia led his Republican opponent, Mike Tardif, within the 68th Assembly district by about 20,000 votes on Thursday, Dec. 1. The Orange County Registrar of Voters estimated it had about 4,000 ballots left to course of as of Thursday.

“I ran for State Meeting as a result of I imagine that each youngster deserves the absolute best likelihood to succeed and since Orange County can and ought to be a spot of common alternative,” Valencia, a Democrat, stated. “I’m deeply grateful to the numerous voters, volunteers, and supporters who share that imaginative and prescient and who labored to make our victory potential.”

“Within the State Meeting, I’m going to battle day by day to be an efficient advocate for residents, and to assist the faculties, working households, neighborhoods, and companies that make our Orange County communities robust and vibrant,” Valencia added.

The solidly blue 68th Meeting district contains the cities of Anaheim, Orange and Santa Ana.

Tardif, a small enterprise proprietor, congratulated Valencia Thursday.

“I sit up for working with him for the betterment of the group,” Tardif stated in a telephone name.

The son of immigrants and a first-generation faculty graduate, Valencia, 34, describes himself as a “pragmatic progressive who listens and finds frequent floor.” In a questionnaire posed by the Register, Valencia pointed to schooling as a high precedence for him, saying he needs to make it “extra equitable by guaranteeing each pupil has entry to early childhood schooling, nice colleges, and reasonably priced and attainable faculty schooling.”

“I imagine that the highest three points associated to our system of public schooling are increasing entry to early childhood schooling, decreasing the monetary obstacles to varsity, and bettering commencement charges and tutorial outcomes in our lowest performing college districts,” Valencia stated.

Valencia, who’s a district director for outgoing Assemblymember Tom Daly, is the primary millennial to characterize Orange County within the legislature, in line with his marketing campaign. He was first elected to the Anaheim Metropolis Council in 2020.

The California Meeting will convene on Monday, Dec. 5, for an organizational session — a gathering that features the election of the Speaker and Meeting officers, in addition to the swearing-in of recent members.

Valencia’s win means Anaheim can have a vacant seat to fill on its Metropolis Council.

Town’s constitution instructs the Metropolis Council to nominate somebody to fill the empty District 4 seat, which represents an space extending from State Faculty Boulevard to the east and Euclid Avenue to the west. It contains the theme parks, the conference heart, resorts, eating places and neighborhoods.

If council members can not come to an settlement on an appointment, a particular election will should be held inside 60 days of the emptiness, metropolis spokesman Mike Lyster stated.

“Residents can at all times attain out to our mayor as a citywide consultant, and so they can attain out to any council member” for providers or assist whereas the seat is vacant, Lyster famous.

Anaheim voters selected lawyer Ashleigh Aitken as its new mayor, a seat that was left open when Mayor Harry Sidhu resigned in Might. And at the least two of the three Metropolis Council seats on the poll this yr will function a brand new face; the third seat remains to be too near name, with ballots nonetheless left to be counted, though the challenger does have a slim lead.