Venezia quits Newport council race

Newport Beach City Council candidate Barbara Venezia late Tuesday announced that she is withdrawing from the race.

Her announcement came during a meeting with the Daily Pilot’s editorial board. Venezia was at the Pilot’s office to interview for the newspaper’s endorsement. The paper’s editorial board — consisting of Publisher Tom Johnson, Editor S.J. Cahn, City Editor Carol Chambers and websites General Manager Tony Dodero — has been meeting during the last week with the candidates running for Newport Beach and Costa Mesa city councils and the Newport-Mesa Unified School District board of trustees.

Venezia was challenging appointed incumbent Leslie Daigle for the District 4 seat, which includes Santa Ana Heights and Eastbluff.

It is a race that in the last week had become more contentious.

First, Venezia was the target of an attack suggesting that she had a conflict of interest if she served as a councilwoman because her husband, Stan Tkaczyk, used to own Rainbow Disposal, which operates in Newport.

The lawyer who raised the issue, Mark Bucher of Tustin, would not identify his client. But the only person to check on Venezia’s financial forms before the issue arose was political consultant Dave Ellis, one of several consultants on Daigle’s campaign.

Venezia strongly denied any conflict, which seemed to be born out by the documents she filed with the city. However, the issue could not have been resolved unless Venezia had won the race, at which point Newport’s city attorney would have had to investigate it.

Following that story, long-standing rumors that Daigle had had a confrontation with a Corona del Mar High School security guard surfaced. The he-said-she-said story involved an incident last spring in which the guard asked Daigle and other women to leave the school’s track. Daigle said she was surprised she was told she couldn’t use the track and felt intimidated by the guard, Fernando Ospina.

Ospina, however, said that Daigle did not want to follow the rules, became hostile and, he told the Pilot: “Then she said, ‘You must live in Costa Mesa. I’ll have you deported. I’ll have your job.’ ”

In withdrawing from the race, Venezia presented the following statement exclusively to the Pilot on Tuesday:

“I am extremely saddened that I have decided to withdraw my candidacy for city council. I pray that the hundreds of volunteers that believe in me and my goals will understand my situation and not be disappointed.

“I pulled papers for this race intending to draw upon my 20 years experience in the television business, my volunteer work for good causes all over this County, and my love for family and community. I looked forward to drawing upon these experiences to make Newport Beach a better place. The many wonderful friends I met along the campaign trail, including the Police, Firefighters and Lifeguard Employee Associations, all believe in my integrity, character, and intelligence and in my ability to better our community. That is what I am about.

“My chief supporter is my husband of 18 years. Stan has spent that time providing for me and walking side by side in all my business and civic endeavors. He also spent his career building his former company, Rainbow Disposal, then selling his shares in the company back to the employees when he retired more than two years ago. The last thing I wanted when I filed my candidate papers was for my race or my City service to have any negative ramifications on my family, the wonderful employees and families at Rainbow Disposal, or my City.

“There are people who hide in the shadows, parasites that thrive on the nasty business of politics that are not only trying to malign my character and what I stand for, but are trying to drag my husband into a cesspool of innuendo. I will not be a party to this.

“As I write this today, in my mailbox is another piece of negative mail maligning another candidate…the ugliness continues and will continue until people say enough is enough. The result will be that the pool of quality people to choose from will get smaller and smaller as intelligent capable people, weigh this option.

“I am in the process of writing to each supporter and along with a personal note; I will be enclosing a check returning their generous contributions to my campaign. I am, and always will be about doing the right thing. In ending this campaign, I am doing the right thing for my family and those I love. To my detractors, I say you have not won. I will still be a vocal voice in the community, continuing to do good work uniting the community for a strong voice on issues.”

QUESTION

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