Civic Duty, Foretold and Lived by Ambriz

It’s the day after the funeral and a week after his lifelong friend had died. The thoughts and words are coming out a little easier for Jon Dumitru, an Orange city councilman with a sweet story to tell about friendship, a pledge to public service and coping with heavy, hurtful loss.

All those things are wrapped up in his memory of fellow Councilman Steven Ambriz, killed last week when a driver crossed into his lane on Santiago Canyon Road and hit his car head-on.

What led me to Dumitru was something a friend of mine had told me about the 35-year-old Ambriz: that he wanted nothing more in life than to be a councilman in the city he grew up in and loved. Another friend remembers a teenage Ambriz playfully introducing himself as “the future mayor of Orange.”

The stories point to a larger truth, Dumitru says. “It wasn’t necessarily to be the mayor or councilman,” Dumitru says of Ambriz’s ambitions. Rather, it was to stay close to his roots and to serve the public -- even if it just meant volunteering.

“It was like the cherry on top to be a council member,” Dumitru says. “He and I made a pledge that we’d get there together, to both get on the council, and that once we were there, to get things done for the community.”

That talk dated to their teen years, Dumitru says. The boyhood buddies grew up a few blocks apart in west Orange but went to different elementary and middle schools. They attended Orange High School together, and by then their goal of public service had matured. Dumitru remembers making up cardboard signs for future election campaigns and comparing whose looked better.

Their fathers taught them that being a man meant more than just enjoying life, Dumitru says. Fun was important, but serving your community also mattered. “It was expected in his family and in mine,” Dumitru says. “We were taught it’s not about fancy cars or about having the biggest house on the block.”

Dumitru remembers being at a restaurant with Ambriz -- he thinks they were still in high school -- and the two looking out a big bay window that overlooked the city and saying, “Someday we’re going to be making decisions for these people.”

It wasn’t boasting, Dumitru says. Rather, the two appreciated the small-town feel of Orange and, beyond that, shared a love of traditions. They felt like kindred spirits who should have been living in the early 1900s.

In 1996, while in their mid-20s, they set the plan in motion and ran for council. But as early returns came in, they realized that, oops, sometimes the timing isn’t right. Neither won, but Ambriz didn’t let it go unnoticed that he got 243 more votes.

Ambriz made it to the council first, winning his seat in 2002. Dumitru says Ambriz’s father, who had been fighting cancer, died on the night his son was sworn in. Two years later, Dumitru followed Ambriz on the council.

“Steve would love to call me, right up through the election,” Dumitru says. “It’d be 7:15 in the morning and he’d say, ‘What’s the plan today? Where you walking?’ He’d already be working, making calls for me. I’d say, ‘Let me sleep’ and he’d say, ‘OK, sleep in till 8.’ ”

Their public service included their jobs. At his death, Ambriz worked for the county Health Care Agency; Dumitru works for the county Fire Authority.

Now, like the wide range of Ambriz’s friends and family (he had a wife and 3-year-old daughter), Dumitru must soldier on. “We always had this pledge,” he says, “that we’d always help each other out. If something happened to either of us, the other would step up and help people get through it. I always thought I’d be the first to go. I never thought I’d have to pony up.”

A pledge is a pledge. “My belief system says he’s always going to be with me,” Dumitru says. “Accomplishments will be there, setbacks will be there, but we’ll power through it and we’ll do it. We’ll accomplish the things he and I set as goals.”