Postal Aide Will Seek Santa Ana’s Top Position

Hector Godinez Sr., divisional manager for the U.S. Postal Service and a Santa Ana native long active in local politics, said Wednesday that he will apply for the job of Santa Ana city manager.

Godinez, 61, said several Latino community leaders urged him to seek the position and that after last week’s election he decided to do it. Had a proposition on the ballot passed, Godinez said, he might have run for the mayor’s seat, which would have been selected directly by the voters in November.

If hired by the City Council, Godinez would leave a position in which he supervises about 12,000 employees for one in which he would supervise about 1,600. However, he said he doesn’t consider it a step down but rather a “new challenge.”

Postal Service Pension

Godinez, who has worked for the postal service almost 40 years, would receive a pension of about 80% of his $73,000 salary if he quit. City manager Robert C. Bobb, who is resigning in July to become city manager in Richmond, Va., made $84,000.

While he said it would be appropriate for a city in which Latino residents are 44.5% of the population to have its first Latino city manager, he stressed that he doesn’t want to be considered “the Latino candidate.”

“I hope that it is recognized that I am an American of Latino extraction but also that I have good friends on both sides of the aisles. I also have very good connections with the Anglo community,” he said.

Godinez said he believes his “connections” with various sectors of the community give him the ability to pull the city together after a tumultuous year that has included a recall threat, an on-again, off-again plan to build a sports arena and a longstanding rent strike among low-income Latinos.

“That’s one of the things that really makes me want the job. . . . It’s a city that’s interesting and alive and there are so darned many things that I think can be adjudicated,” he said. “Santa Ana is in its embryo (state) right now. It’s an opportunity to see the blossoming of a beautiful rose garden.”

Godinez Urged to Apply

Rudy Montejano, an attorney who is also active in local politics, said he had urged Godinez to apply for the job, citing his “proven administrative skills” and his knowledge of local issues. And he said the selection “would sit well with a lot of Hispanics.”

But some Latinos are not so enthusiastic. At a meeting of the Chamber of Commerce’s Hispanic Affairs Council last week, rent strike leader Nativo Lopez criticized Godinez and several other Latinos for opposing a ballot measure that would have imposed ward elections in Santa Ana.

The opponents published a mailer, Lopez said earlier, that was designed to “whip up hysteria among the Anglo population to defeat a measure that would have given Latinos more representation on the City Council.”

Asked to comment on the possibility that Godinez might be considered for the city manager’s post, Lopez said Wednesday, “It doesn’t matter if the city manager has a black face, a white face or a brown face, they don’t set policy. They are just city employees.”

City council members contacted Wednesday said they were surprised by the announcement. Most said they would reserve comment because no decisions have been made on how the city manager will be chosen.