Victor Preciado

Pomona Had Plenty of Absent Commissioners. City Hall Removed the One Running for Council

The 2026 candidate for Pomona’s District 2. Jacky Elizalde missed meetings. So did other Pomona commissioners. Their cases concluded with their commissions. Hers went upstairs,  and landed before the City Council and followed her onto the November ballot. 

Updated 10/14/2026 5:15 pm PST

Pomona has always had a way of conducting itself when times get hairy by “playing politics”. Nothing cryptic about that. In this particular case Pomona has gone full brow, full beard, or full bush whichever you prefer. The city has had commissioners who miss meetings,  it's not breaking news, because shit happens. People get sick. Their kids get sick. Work runs late. Family emergencies happen. Sometimes people simply do not show up because they’re tired of being tired. 

The City also has a process for when this happens. The rules are after three absences in a calendar year, excused or unexcused, the commission secretary puts a removal recommendation on the agenda. The commissioners hear the circumstances and decide whether to send the matter to the City Council. Three absences trigger a review. 

Ms. Elizalde missed three Parks and Recreation Commission meetings in 2025. Her commission reviewed the absences and voted 7–0 against recommending her removal.

In 2026 she missed three more: March 19, April 17 and June 17. The City classified all three as unexcused. On July 16, the commission tried again. The vote was 3–3. The motion to recommend her removal failed.

Pomona’s bylaws already said what came next. If a commission declines to recommend removal after the third absence, the matter returns after the commissioner misses another meeting. Ms. Elizalde did not miss another meeting first.

Councilmember Elizabeth Ontiveros-Cole stepped in four days later and asked staff to place Elizalde’s removal before the City Council. It is also imperative to understand Ms. Ontiveros-Cole had appointed Elizalde to the commission. 

The staff report acknowledged that the motion failed. Then it reached for Section 801(b) of the City Charter, which allows the Council to remove a commissioner by majority vote.
The report said the Council could remove Elizalde “outside of the process established by the standard by-laws.” The attendance process reached one result, so City Hall used another process to reach a different one.

Mayor Sandoval was absent. Councilmember Victor Preciado recused himself. The remaining five council members voted to remove Elizalde on  August 3. 

Pomona did not bring this kind of heat every time another commissioner hit the same or worse attendance threshold. 

Vehicle Parking District Commissioner Alejandra M. Tessier reached three absences in 2026. One involved illness. Another involved a family emergency. Her commission heard her explanation and voted 5–0 to retain her. Nobody escorted Ms Tessier before the full City Council for a second round. She remained on the commission and was still listed as a member in October.

Ethics Commissioner Bernice Stillions reached three excused and unexcused absences in 2025. The Ethics Commission voted 7–0 against recommending her removal. She was still serving in September 2026.

Planning Commissioners John Ontiveros and Edgar Rodriguez each had four absences in 2025. Not three, but four absences. 

The Planning Commission discussed their attendance and took no action. The chair said their absences had not delayed the commission’s work. Rodriguez said he had asked to attend one meeting remotely. Both men were still on the commission a year later.

According to Pomona’s Only Local Newspaper, La Nueva Voz their September 24 Issue reported Cultural Arts Commissioner Jovani Esparza was counted for having 15 documented absences since 2019, including four while he chaired the commission. It reported that the City Clerk confirmed Esparza had served as Preciado’s appointee since 2023. That total spans several years; the report did not give a year-by-year breakdown.

Their situations were not identical. Nothing in the bylaws required them to be. The commission review exists so actual human circumstances can be heard before City Hall starts canning people from an unpaid civic position.

Pomona has sent another attendance case toward removal. In February 2025, the City Council had an item recommending the removal of Parks and Recreation Commissioner Audrey Olmos-Govea after three or more absences. The item was pulled after she resigned that day.

Elizalde was not the first commissioner whose attendance became a serious issue. She was the commissioner whose removal motion failed, then got revived by the councilmember who had appointed her. She was also running for City Council against an incumbent.

Emails obtained show Ontiveros-Cole raising concerns with City staff before the commission reviewed Elizalde’s absences. On July 13, she asked Community Services Manager Mike Osoff for an update and wrote, “Where are we on this? I am very disappointed.” Two days later, she told Osoff and three other City employees that Elizalde had been “pardoned in 2025” and had failed to report later absences. She wrote that another commissioner was surprised by Elizalde’s “aloofness” and repeated his claim that Elizalde said she was “not getting paid.” The Pomonan could not independently verify that exchange. After the commission deadlocked 3–3, Ontiveros-Cole asked staff to place the matter before the City Council. The records reviewed by The Pomonan did not include the 2025 letter that Ontiveros-Cole said she had sent concerning Elizalde’s earlier absences. 

Ontiveros-Cole did not respond to our request for comments about why she revived the matter or whether Elizalde received the same treatment as other commissioners.

Councilmember Nora Garcia responded after the deadline. She said she supported “the decision and wishes of the appointing Councilmember” because commissioners serve at the Council’s discretion. She also said nothing in the bylaws prevents a councilmember from requesting an appointee’s removal at any time. That explains the power. It does not explain the double treatment.

Councilmember Lorraine Canales said she was not fully educated about what constituted removal and would investigate. No further explanation arrived before publication. The other council members contacted by The Pomonan did not respond.

The Council did not just take away the commissioner seat. On August 4, the City Clerk Karla Shipman told Elizalde she could no longer use “Parks Recreation Commissioner,” the ballot designation she had used during the primary. She no longer held the position. The City gave her until August 7 to choose another label.

Ms. Elizalde replied that City staff had not told her the removal would appear on the August 3 agenda. She said she believed the matter had ended at the commission level with the 3–3 vote.The records reviewed by The Pomonan do not establish whether the City had a separate legal duty to notify her personally beyond posting the public agenda.

The city clerk described the path City Hall used. The Parks and Recreation Commission did not recommend removal because its vote failed. Ontiveros-Cole made a separate request. The Council then used its Charter power to remove Elizalde outside the attendance procedure in the standard bylaws.

On August 7, Elizalde filed a replacement ballot designation: “Nonprofit Director/Mother.” Her alternate choices were “In-Home Caregiver/Mother” and “Oversight Member/Mother.”

A commission refused to recommend removal. A councilmember brought the same commissioner before the Council anyway. Five council members removed a candidate, and the City made her rewrite the words that would appear beside her name on the November ballot.

Missing three meetings did not automatically warrant a removal by a city council. Tessier, Stillions, Ontiveros, and Rodriguez were all able to stay. 

Maybe the officials had a cute collection of explanations for treating this case differently. However they did not provide one even when given the opportunity to. 

Ontiveros-Cole did not answer. Garcia said she followed the wishes of the appointing councilmember. Canales said she would look into it. The rest offered the familiar municipal sound of an empty room.

Pomona had its rules. The commission voted to not remove her. City Hall removed her anyway. Does Pomona follow its own rules out of conveniency to produce the results City Hall wants?

References

● Pomona City Charter, Article VIII, Section 801(b)

● Ordinance No. 4328

● Elizalde removal file 26-1585

● August 3 City Council meeting

● July 16 Parks and Recreation Commission meeting

● Tessier attendance file

● Planning Commission attendance file

● August 28, 2025 Ethics Commission minutes

● City email correspondence

● Elizalde ballot designation works

Victor Preciado Accepted Pomona’s Spending Ceiling 66 Days After the Primary. City Hall Has Not Explained What That Means

Victor Preciado Opted Into Pomona’s Spending Limit 66 Days After the Primary. City Hall Still Can’t Explain What Happened.

Updated 10/13/2026 5:17 am PST
Updated 10/08/2026 12:11 pm PST


The District 2 incumbent accepted Pomona’s $27,460 general election ceiling more than two months after the primary. City records show no tracking records, written guidance or legal analysis explaining what happened next.

October 8, 2026

Pomona’s campaign finance rules offer candidates a deal. Accept a voluntary spending ceiling and the candidate may place a statement in the voter information guide. Decline the ceiling and the statement is off the table.

District 2 Councilmember Victor Preciado first declined that deal. Then, more than two months after the June primary, he changed his mind and changed his answer.

On August 7, Preciado filed an amended Candidate Intention Statement saying he was “amending to accept the voluntary expenditure ceiling.” He checked the box stating that he accepted the ceiling for the 2026 primary and general election.

By then, the primary was over. His campaign reports showed total expenditures above the dollar amount of Pomona’s primary ceiling.

Pomona created a campaign spending rule tied to access to the voter guide. Preciado changed his filing 66 days after the primary, although the state law incorporated into Pomona’s City Charter contains a 14-day window. The City received and posted the amendment but has produced no records showing whether anyone reviewed it or determined that it was effective.

Pomona lists a voluntary expenditure ceiling of$15,680 for a City Council primary and $27,460 for a general election.

Preciado’s filing history shows two changes in position. On December 17, 2025, he filed an amendment stating that he would “no longer accept” the ceiling. Then, on August 7, 2026, he filed another amendment saying he would accept it.

The August filing came 66 days after the June 2 primary.

The amendment had a real consequence. Los Angeles County’s official candidate statement portal lists Preciado and provides access to his statement for the November 3 general election. The County describes its online candidate statement as an additional option to the printed statement in the Sample Ballot book.

Pomona’s City Charter says its voluntary expenditure ceiling is governed by California Government Code section 85400 and the sections that follow. One of those provisions, section 85401, says a candidate who declined the ceiling may accept it for a general election within 14 days after the primary, provided the candidate did not exceed the primary ceiling.

That state law is written for candidates for state office. Pomona chose to incorporate those provisions into its City Charter. How the City applies its timing and eligibility rules to City Council candidates is therefore not a minor technicality. It is the question.

Preciado’s May 21 campaign statement reported $22,918.69 in cumulative expenditures through May 16. That reported total was $7,238.69 higher than the $15,680 ceiling. Establishing whether he exceeded the ceiling requires identifying which expenses counted toward it. A later statement placed his cumulative expenditures through June 30 at $29,476.02.

Preciado was allowed to spend past the primary ceiling because he opted out. Then he opted back in. That is where things get a wee bit messy. The state rules Pomona adopted appear to allow that switch only if the candidate stayed below the primary limit.

His August form creates another question. It checked the general box accepting the ceiling, but it did not mark the separate amendment line declaring that the candidate had not exceeded the primary ceiling and was accepting the ceiling for the general election.

Maybe the City has an interpretation that makes the amendment proper. If so, it should be able to state it and identify the rule. So far, it has done neither.

What his latest filing shows

The numbers must be separated by election period. Preciado’s first general election preelection statement, filed September 24 and covering July 1 through September 19, reported:

$4,190 in monetary contributions received during the period;

$4,709.41 in payments made;

no accrued expenses or unpaid bills; and

an ending cash balance of $5,560.03.

Even if every dollar in payments reported for that period counted toward the general election ceiling, the total remained $22,750.59 below it.

The same filing lists $34,185.43 in total expenditures for the calendar year. That amount combines spending across reporting periods and cannot simply be compared with the general election ceiling. Calculating spending counted toward that ceiling requires reviewing the expenses and allocating them to the appropriate election.

The City says it keeps no tracking records

The Pomonan asked the City for the records that should settle the issue.

In response to a September 10 Public Records Act request, the City pointed to its public filing portal and municipal code. But when it came to the files that would actually blow this open, the official response was straight blunt: “No responsive documents.”

The City said it had no spreadsheet, worksheet, database entry, calculation, audit record or review notes tracking Preciado’s expenditures against the ceiling. It said it had no written policy or staff guidance explaining how compliance is monitored, which expenses count, what happens if a candidate reaches the ceiling or whether exceeding it affects a candidate statement. It also reported no internal communications, warning, determination, referral, complaint, enforcement record or legal analysis concerning whether Preciado reached or exceeded the limit. That response was marked complete on September 23.

What the response does show is that City Hall could not produce a paper trail explaining how it administers a rule that determines what voters see in their election guide.

A narrower follow up request was submitted on September 24 seeking records showing any City analysis of the August amendment, its timing and Preciado’s eligibility to accept the general election ceiling after the primary. Under the California Public Records Act, an agency generally must make a determination within 10 days or provide written notice of an extension based on unusual circumstances.

As of October 8, the City had provided no determination, no records and no extension notice in response to that request.

Preciado also did not respond to detailed questions sent by The Pomonan about the amendment, his campaign spending and the City’s administration of the ceiling.

A ceiling is not much use if nobody can explain it

The unresolved issue is whether the August amendment was timely and effective, and why City Hall has produced no records showing that anyone made that determination.

Pomona made the deal simple. Agree to the spending ceiling, get space in the voter guide. Preciado declined the ceiling for the primary, reported total expenditures above the primary ceiling’s dollar amount, then filed an amendment accepting the general election ceiling 66 days after the primary. His statement now appears on Los Angeles County’s official candidate statement portal. The City received and posted his amendment but has produced no record explaining whether the amendment was timely and effective or who reviewed it.

Pomona has no shortage of rules. Keeping track of whether City Hall actually follows them is another story. If Preciado’s amendment complied, the City should explain why. If the 14 day condition works differently for local candidates, the City should point to the rule that says so. And if nobody reviewed the amendment at all, voters deserve to know that too.

The ceiling may be voluntary. Explaining how City Hall administers it is not.

SOURCE DOCUMENTS

Julian Lucas is the founder and publisher of The Pomonan, as well as a photographer and writer. His work examines art, culture, local government, race, displacement and the social consequences of public policy. And don’t trip out and shit. He knows he needs to update his website.

Who Is Funding Pomona’s District 2 Council Race?

UPDATED
09/10/2026 12:56 pm PST
09/07/2026 7:36 pm PST

Pomona District 2 campaign funding

Reported itemized monetary and nonmonetary contributions through June 30, plus late-contribution reports through August 28, 2026.

The candidates, Jacky Elizalde and the incumbent Victor Preciado campaign filings reveal two very different fundraising operations, and one contribution that is deserving of a disclosure.

We understand that money does not cast a ballot, but its always been the storyteller within politics. In Pomona’s District 2 City Council race, incumbent Victor Preciado and challenger Jacky Elizalde are financing their campaigns through noticeably different networks of supporters.

After a review of itemized contributions reported through June 30, along with late-contribution reports filed through August 28, shows approximately $41,066 in monetary and nonmonetary contributions reported by Preciado’s committee and approximately $64,518 reported by Elizalde’s committee.

While these figures do not necessarily represent each campaign’s complete fundraising total, they provide us with a story of who is investing in each candidate. Also understand they are calculated from itemized transactions in Pomona’s campaign finance database and do not include every small, unitemized contribution, loan or independent expenditure.

Victor Preciado, Incumbent

The incumbent, Preciado, has a contributor list that is a mixture of Pomona residents, local business interests, organized labor, political and figures.

Preciado’s filings also include individuals connected to local nonprofits. Emily Dolce is the executive director of The Common Good LA. Christian Verdugo is president of the 909 Market Foundation and Holly Reynolds is an educator at Bright Prospect. Bright Prospects was founded by Mayor Tim Sandoval.

The contributions came from the individuals, not their organizations. That distinction matters because a 501(c)(3) cannot legally contribute to a political candidate, but the people operating the non-profit can. 

Several of Preciado’s individual contributors are connected to nonprofits that have received public funds through the city of Pomona. The filings show who contributed money. So what does this connection mean? 

His largest reported contributor is the Laborers Local 300 Small Contributor Committee, which gave $2,750. United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 1428 contributed $2,000.

Other substantial contributors include Metro Event Center at $1,800, All Sports Hospitality LLC at $1,500, Ana Preciado at $1,500, Marisol Ramirez at $1,250 and 24 Hour Laundry Inc. at $1,250.

Several contributors gave approximately $1,000, including Miguel Sanchez, Sergio Gomez, Laura Mundy, Rick Albertini, Michael Preciado, Stein Team Realty and Thomas “Tom” Hsieh.

Another contributor we all are aware of from our previous reporting was Athens Services, which gave Preciado’s campaign $499 on January 30, 2026. Athens holds Pomona’s exclusive franchise for residential and commercial trash collection under an agreement awarded by the City Council. Of course the contribution does not establish that Preciado gave Athens favorable treatment. But when a company doing business with the City contributes to a sitting councilmember, that relationship belongs in front of voters, not hiding behind the garbage can with its wheels and ass sticking out.

Athens is not the only corporate private business appearing in Preciado’s filings. Additionally, Preciado’s cute collection of contributors include businesses and people connected to real estate, hospitality, development and other commercial interests, although much of his money also comes from individual donors and organized labor. But these contributions do not tell or prove that anyone purchased influence. But corporations do not need Pomona City Hall to rewrite the federal tax code. But what they do need is the approvals of contracts, developments, franchises, fees and policies that can affect their bottom lines.

Approximately $24,134 of Preciado’s reported itemized contributions came from contributors with Pomona addresses. Roughly $16,932 came from “out-of-town”. And to think Measure Y was given such a hard time for receiving “out-of-town” money. Hypocritical? However, that does not make every local contribution more virtuous. It is just the insular suburban mindset. “Out-of-town” money is suspicious when it fits the narrative and perfectly acceptable when it does not. Preciado’s financial base is mostly local, but it is hardly confined to Pomona.

Preciado also benefited from a whopping $2,250 independent expenditure reported by none other than the “po-po”—or “One-Time”—or “5-0”—or “the fuzz,” depending on which generation you belong to, but also known as the Pomona Police Officers Association Political Action Committee. Independent expenditures are not contributions to a candidate’s committee and are legally supposed to be made without coordinating with the campaign, but voters should still know when an outside organization spends money supporting a candidate.

Jacky Elizalde, Challenger

Elizalde has reported more itemized contribution money, but her fundraising base is much more heavily concentrated among labor organizations and contributors outside Pomona.

The largest amounts reported under her committee include $7,000 from Plumbers and Steamfitters U.A. Local Union 398, $5,900 from the Los Angeles County Firefighters Local 1014 Legislative Fund Committee and $5,900 from the UA Journeymen and Apprentices Local 250 PAC.

The IBEW PAC Educational Fund contributed a reported $4,000. Western States PAC contributed $3,000. Other substantial contributors include the Service Employees International Union Local 121RN Health Care Fund at $2,950, Superior Duct Fabrication at $2,950 and the United Firefighters of Los Angeles City Local 112 PAC at $2,500.

After June 30, Elizalde reported another $2,950 from the Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles PAC, $1,000 from the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local Union 40 PAC and $1,000 from the Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers Local Union 105 Political Education Fund.

Approximately $9,021 of Elizalde’s itemized contributions reported through June 30 came from contributors with Pomona addresses. Approximately $50,547 came from contributors reporting addresses outside Pomona, although union members may live or work within the city.

Again, geography does not settle whether a contribution is good, bad or delivered by a hood pigeon. Labor organizations routinely support candidates in local elections because city governments make decisions affecting public works, development, employment and contracting. But the concentration is still relevant. Elizalde’s campaign is receiving significant financial support from organized labor beyond Pomona’s borders.

However, to be clear, union support is not something dirty. Unions are supposed to fight for workers, including at the ballot box. The point is not that Elizalde accepted union money. The point is that voters should know who is funding her campaign.

Her filings also complicate any attempt to place the candidates into tidy political boxes. Alongside union support, Elizalde received money connected to real estate and apartment interests, including Mark Warren Realty and Investments, Indian Hills Ltd., doing business as Villa Del Sol, and the Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles PAC. Pomona politics, as usual, declines to organize itself into a convenient screenplay.

Among Preciado’s contributors is Stein Team Realty, which gave his campaign $500 on November 14, 2025, and another $500 on April 8, 2026, for a total of $1,000.

The company is associated with Mitchell Stein, creator of The Pomona Bulletin, a shiny, ambitious real estate pamphlet with an accompanying Facebook group created in 2023. Somewhere along the journey, that Facebook group also became an editorial board. Interestingly enough, another Facebook group called Pomona Bulletin had already existed. It was created by challenger Jacky Elizalde in 2019. In the Hip Hop world, creating a new Facebook group with the same name in 2023 is called biting, or being a biter. Translation: copycat.

Additionally, Stein’s relationship with Preciado goes beyond the $1,000 campaign contribution. Stein publicly identifies himself as a co-founder of Collective Acción, a Pomona-based 501(c)(3). A post in Stein’s Pomona Bulletin group also credited Preciado’s “shared effort to create” the nonprofit. So the person calling on Elizalde to withdraw was not simply commenting from outside the friend group. He was Preciado’s donor and had publicly credited Preciado with helping create the same nonprofit.

Furthermore, the group later published an editorial calling on Elizalde to withdraw from the District 2 race because of her attendance record on the Parks and Recreation Commission. The editorial did not disclose Stein Team Realty’s $1,000 contribution to Preciado, the candidate who would benefit from Elizalde’s withdrawal.

That contribution does not automatically invalidate the attendance criticism. Elizalde’s missed meetings remain fair grounds for scrutiny. However, she had addressed her record in an August 26 campaign statement. Elizalde said some absences involved childcare responsibilities and caring for a sick child. She also noted that the Parks and Recreation Commission deadlocked 3–3 on whether to recommend her removal before the City Council voted 5–0 to remove her. Elizalde alleged that commissioners with comparable or worse attendance records had been allowed to remain. The Pomonan has not independently verified those comparisons.

But the financial connection should have been disclosed. Readers deserved to know that a business associated with the person making the argument had contributed to the opposing candidate.

Apparently, the attendance record deserved a full editorial. The campaign contribution could not find its way into a footnote.

The filings do not prove that contributors control either candidate. A campaign donation is evidence of financial support, not evidence of a secret agreement, promised vote or political conspiracy.

What the records show is not a tidy contest between corporations and working people. Preciado’s financial consortium combines local residents, private businesses, property interests and organized labor. Elizalde’s campaign relies much more heavily on unions and other organizations outside Pomona, although apartment and real estate interests appear in her filings as well. One campaign is more locally dispersed. The other is more institutionally concentrated.

District 2 voters can decide which fundraising model concerns them more, or whether either one concerns them at all. They can ask Preciado what his contributors expect from his continued service. They can ask Elizalde how she will remain independent of the organizations investing heavily in her campaign.

They can also expect political commentators to disclose their own financial relationships before ordering a candidate to leave the race.

Campaign-finance filings rarely deliver a dramatic confession. Mostly, they deliver names, dates and dollar amounts. The interesting part begins when those details are placed beside what Pomona’s political voices choose to say—and what they quietly leave out.

Julian Lucas is a darkroom photographer, writer, and bookseller, though photography remains his primary language. He is the founder of Mirrored Society Book Shop, publisher of The Pomonan, and creator of Book-Store and Print Pomona Art Book Fair. And he will charge you $ 2.5 million for event photography.

Who Speaks for District 2?

Victor Preciado and Jacky Elizalde are campaigning to represent Pomona City Council District 2. Here is what they are emphasizing, and how residents can participate in The Pomonan’s reader poll.

Pomona voters will return to the polls on November 3 to decide who represents District 2 on the City Council.

Incumbent Victor Preciado and challenger Jacky Elizalde advanced from the June primary. Preciado received 1,154 votes, or 45.38 percent. Elizalde received 840 votes, or 33.03 percent. Samantha Zavala-Angulo finished third with 549 votes, or 21.59 percent.

Neither remaining candidate is presenting the race as a dramatic ideological break. Both are campaigning on familiar municipal concerns: public safety, housing, infrastructure, city services and opportunities for young people. The differences may be found less in the subjects they discuss than in their experience, priorities and proposed approach to governing.

Preciado is the incumbent and has served on the Pomona City Council since 2018.

His campaign points to work involving parks, neighborhood infrastructure, food distribution, small-business assistance and youth mentorship. For another term, Preciado says he wants to continue focusing on transportation and infrastructure, expand housing opportunities—including affordable and inclusionary housing—and support programs for young people.

Elizalde is challenging Preciado with a campaign centered on public safety, reliable city services and greater fiscal accountability.

Her stated priorities include addressing homelessness and human trafficking, improving housing affordability, supporting seniors and young people, encouraging economic development and expanding after-school programs. Elizalde has also emphasized transparent, measurable city spending and identifying additional revenue before considering higher taxes. Which candidate currently has the support of The Pomonan’s readers?

This is an informal, voluntary reader poll. It is not a scientific survey or an election forecast. Respondents are not independently verified as registered voters or District 2 residents, and the results should not be interpreted as representative of the District 2 electorate.


The Pomonan will continue following the candidates and the issues shaping the race before Election Day.

Vote here

The Pomonan editorial board consists of opinion journalists whose perspectives are shaped by their expertise, research, discussions, and established principles. This board operates independently from the newsroom.

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The Municipal Romance of Trash, Trucks, and Campaign Cash

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A campaign contribution from Athens Services is reopening old questions about privatization, infrastructure, political alliances, and who Pomona believes City Hall ultimately serves.

Editorial illustration by The Pomonan

There are only a few things less glamorous than garbage. It sits outside quietly in black and blue containers, rolled toward the curb once a week with the expectation that it disappears before the next morning. Most residents do not think about sanitation contracts, transfer stations, hauling agreements, or municipal privatization until something changes. But when the bill jumps. A service changes. A truck appears more often than it used to. Then suddenly, garbage becomes political.

And of course, in Pomona, where politics increasingly feels trendier than the restaurants, galleries, and art itself, trash had already become a political issue long before campaign season arrived. 

For years, residents, business owners, and city observers have argued over the city’s relationship with Athens Services, the private company tied to Pomona’s controversial waste collection transition. Some defended the move as modernization. Others viewed it as another example of a city steadily outsourcing pieces of itself while residents were left absorbing the consequences in real time.

Now there's an issue that has entered the campaign season directly. Public campaign finance filings for Victor Preciado’s 2026 reelection campaign show a $499 contribution from Athens Services dated January 30, 2026. Preciado is not a neutral observer in Pomona’s trash debate. As an incumbent councilmember, he sits inside the same governing structure that defended and normalized the city’s relationship with Athens while residents and businesses continued raising concerns about cost, accountability, and transparency. 

The amount itself is not a 5 million dollar lottery ticket. In California politics, $499 barely qualifies as eyebrow raising. But local politics operates differently than Sacramento or Washington. In municipal elections, symbolism often matters more than scale. Residents do not experience city government through million dollar lobbying campaigns. They experience it through potholes, homicides (unless the cops are not reporting) warehouse fires, zoning decisions, abandoned buildings, police response times, parks, and trash bills. That is why the contribution matters.

Not because it proves corruption. It doesn’t. Campaign donations are legal and happen all the time. But when a company tied to one of the city’s most controversial contracts starts donating to elected officials during election season, people are naturally going to question how close City Hall has become with the same companies doing business with the city. 

The Athens debate never really ended in Pomona because it was never just about trash pickup. It has always been about control.

Residents watched the city transition away from a municipal service structure toward privatization while being told efficiency and improvement would follow. Instead, many businesses complained about increased costs. Residents questioned accountability. Illegal dumping remained visible in  parts of the city. And politically, the issue lingered in the background like the smell residents insist they notice even when officials pretend not to.

Meanwhile, parts of Pomona continue carrying the physical burden of the region’s infrastructure economy. District 3 remains surrounded by warehouses, truck routes, industrial land use, and the waste transfer station itself, where the movement of garbage becomes part of the neighborhood landscape rather than an invisible municipal function hidden safely elsewhere.

This is where Pomona’s politics become revealing. 

The city often speaks about growth abstractly, but growth always lands somewhere physically. Warehouses land somewhere. Heavy truck traffic lands somewhere. Waste infrastructure lands somewhere. Rarely are those burdens distributed evenly across the map. Some neighborhoods become corridors. Others become destinations.

And once residents begin seeing those patterns, every campaign contribution starts carrying a little more meaning than it otherwise might.

The current election cycle is already exposing tensions inside Pomona’s political culture. Challengers are openly discussing council voting blocs, predictable alliances, and decisions that residents increasingly believe are settled before meetings even begin. Questions about transparency, consent agendas, and political alignment are surfacing more publicly than they have in years.

The Athens contribution enters that atmosphere at precisely the wrong time for incumbents hoping the trash debate had faded quietly into administrative history. Because residents remember.

They remember the transition. They remember the arguments. They remember who defended the contract and who questioned it. More importantly, they remember that one of the most basic services in city life became a symbol for something larger. The feeling that decisions affecting everyday people are often negotiated far above them, then delivered back down as inevitabilities.

The problem for incumbents like Victor Preciado is not simply that residents noticed the contribution. It is that many residents already believe City Hall has grown too comfortable operating within a small political orbit where contractors, council alliances, and major city decisions increasingly overlap.

And that is the danger for Pomona’s political establishment heading into 2026. Not the contribution itself. The timing.

Because once infrastructure, campaign finance, district frustration, and public distrust begin entering the same conversation, local politics stops feeling procedural. It starts feeling personal.

Garbage has a way of doing that.

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Investigative Report: Did Current City Council Members Victor Preciado and Steve Lustro Properly Disclose the Campaign Contributions they received from Pomona Police Officers' Association in 2018?

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During the 2018 election cycle, the Pomona Police Officers Association PAC (PPOA) made campaign contributions to three Pomona City Council candidates for around $9,000 each - Victor Preciado, Steve Lustro, Christina Carrizosa. Preciado and Lustro won their election that year and are currently sitting members of Pomona’s City Council today.

In recent days, it has come to the attention of the Pomonan editorial Board that these campaign contributions were not properly reported.

In the fall of 2018, the PPOA paid more than $41 thousand to the Freedman Public Affairs for mailers to support the campaign of Victor Preciado, Steve Lustro, who won their election, and Christina Carrizosa, who lost hers.

According to CalAccess, District 2 council member Victor Preciado received a total of $9,689.12, and District 5 council member Steve Lustro received $9.396.56 from the PPOA through contributions and late independent expenditures.

Before assuming office on Dec. 3, 2018, both officials filed a California Form 700, also known as Statement of Economic Interests form, but neither reported the amount received from the PPOA. The form is meant to prevent decisions made by public officials from being influenced by their personal financial interests.

Pomona Ordinance No. 4298 states any person holding a position in Government Code Section 87200 needs to file any required Statement of Economic Interests report online or electronically with the City Clerk.

The PPOA made 83 donations to Preciado’s campaign and 72 donations to Lustro’s campaign of different totals ranging from $72.54, $27.67, $26.86, $1,436.07 and $678.59 from Sept. 2018 through Nov. 2018.

On his 700 form, Preciado reported his salary working with the Kellogg Company and from the San Gabriel Valley Conservation Corps as in the range from $1,001 to $10,000, but did not report the amount donated to his campaign by the PPOA.

Lustro did not report any of the donations from the PPOA or any other salary that might influence his decision making. See both Form-700

Under the Pomona City Code, Article II, Sec. 10-34, it stated that a candidate shall not solicit or accept any contribution which will cause the total amount contributed by such person with respect to a single election in support of or opposition to a candidate that exceeds $500.00.

However, Section 10-36 of the same code states that all contributions, including campaign contributions, exceeding $25 needs to be reported.

During the same election, the PPOA also made 72 donations that equated to $9,449.49 to the campaign of Council member Christina Carrizosa of District. Carrizosa was currently on the Council at the time, but lost her position to current Pomona City Council member, Nora Garcia.

The Police Oversight Starts Today (POST), a coalition of Pomona and area residents, filed a complaint with the Fair Political Practices Commission in Aug. 2021 claiming the PPOA caused a conflict of interest when it donated sums of money to certain council members and not equally to every potential candidate.

Council member Preciado, recently contacted, said he wasn’t aware of the money. He also stated that, the form does not need to have that kind of payment on it: 

“While [the PPOA] have to state who they are using it for, they actually can’t legally coordinate or talk to the candidate about it. In this example I wasn’t aware of this expenditure or what they used it for.”

To date, Pomona city council member Lustro has not responded to this reporter’s request for comment.