Bad Boy: Salinas City Council censures Councilman Jose Castañeda.

Even now, three years after his election to represent District 1 on the Salinas City Council, I still get the question. Sometimes it’s delivered in an angry tone, sometimes a baffled one: What were you guys thinking endorsing Jose Castañeda?

I can’t speak for the four other members of the Weekly’s editorial board, which interviews almost every candidate running for a significant office in Monterey County and makes endorsements before elections. What I was thinking – and how I respond to the question – is this: “You didn’t meet the other guys.”

I’m sure both of them have their finer qualities. But when we asked District 1 candidate Margie Wiebush if she supported urban growth boundaries, she couldn’t answer the question because she didn’t know the term. Candidate Josh Kuzmicz wasn’t able to make it to the Weekly’s endorsement meeting because of his work schedule. When I tracked him down via Facebook, I found a post that compared President Barack Obama to Hitler. I met Kuzmicz for coffee before the election and asked what he was thinking by posting the Obama bit. He said he didn’t really understand how Facebook works.

HE WAS NOT THE RIGHT CHOICE, HE WAS THE ONLY ONE.

Castañeda, meanwhile, appeared on time and prepared. He answered our questions, elucidated a vision for what he wanted to accomplish for his district and made it clear that he wasn’t beholden to anyone, not Big Ag or the Salinas Valley Leadership Group. He had a serious independent streak we at the Weekly admire. Between that and the shortcomings of his opponents, he was not the right choice; he was the only one.

On Aug. 18, Castañeda’s fellow councilmembers took the unprecedented step of publicly censuring him, the first time in the city’s history that an elected official was censured by his or her colleagues.

The censure came because of a series of misdeeds, some of which are matters of fact and a few of which defy credulity. Castañeda, for his first three months as a councilman, held onto his seat on the Alisal Union School Board, a conflict of interest in that no person can hold two elected offices where duties might clash. The city of Salinas had to sue, and Judge Kay Kingsley not only ordered Castañeda to resign from Alisal, she also fined him $5,000, payable to the court. He has yet to pay the fine. He failed to file proof he completed required ethics training and failed to file his required statements of economic interest. He allegedly acted in an aggressive manner toward city staff and other council members, in closed session and elsewhere. He called KSBW’s Felix Cortez and the Californian’s Jeff Mitchell names.

And – this one is a belief-defying whopper – he allegedly claimed to be a family member of a man who was the subject of a violent arrest that was captured on cell phone camera – while escorting the man’s attorney and family to jail. His comment that he was “with the family” was twisted into something else.

A censure, in essence, is a public humiliation. It’s the council exercising its right to free speech to scold one of their own, but there are no consequences.

Castañeda wasn’t there to witness it. He didn’t come to the meeting, so he wasn’t there for the big show. He also wasn’t there to vote on city business.

I found the level of rage at Castañeda unsurprising. Even those who said they considered him a valued colleague, namely Councilman Tony Barrera, said Castañeda seemed to be fighting a number of demons in his role on the council. Councilman Steve McShane, the last councilman to speak, said the council had cremated Castañeda that night. Mayor Joe Gunter, with barely controlled fury, said Castañeda’s absence was endemic of his tenure – he doesn’t represent his district. And Councilwoman Gloria de la Rosa said Castañeda’s behavior behind closed doors had been so out of control she feared for her safety. (Some of those councilmembers are the same ones whose behavior toward former Library Services Director Elizabeth Martinez behind closed doors cost the city a $400,000 legal settlement. Nobody got censured for that.)

So when the question comes next – whether we’ll endorse Jose Castañeda again if he runs for re-election – my answer will be a variation of what I already say: Depends on the other guys.

MARY DUAN is the Weekly’s editor. Reach her at mary@mcweekly.com or follow her at twitter.com/maryrduan