Merced City Council candidate suspends campaign. Why he’s dropping out of the race.
Merced City Council candidate for the District 5 seat Felipe Rojas-Flores recently announced he’s suspending his campaign.
The news comes less than a month before the November 5th election.
Rojas-Flores was one of three candidates running in District 5, which covers Northeast Merced, including incumbent Sarah Boyle and Alex Carrillo, a communications and policy director.
Rojas-Flores, 30, works as public interest attorney for California Rural Legal Assistance. He said his employer recently informed him that he wouldn’t be able to keep his job and serve on City Council.
Rojas-Flores says he made the decision on Monday to suspend his campaign after talking it over with family.
“It was very difficult, because it really felt like I was letting my friends and family and supporters down,” Rojas-Flores said. “It was a strange feeling to know that I was having this positive impact on my community, with people reaching out to me and my family.”
Rojas-Flores said people had told him they were registering to vote for the first time so they could vote for him.
Rojas-Flores said one of the main reasons he decided to run in the first place also was why he felt he needed to drop out of the race -- home ownership.
“It basically came down to why I was running in the first place, to try to make housing affordable,” he said. “So I couldn’t give up my job and still work towards my personal goal of owning a home one day.”
Mail-in ballots have already been sent out to residents in Merced County so the deadline had passed to remove Rojas-Flores’ name from the ballot.
Rojas-Flores says he’s endorsing Carrillo in the race against Boyle.
“More than anything, we have a lot of similar ideas on how to address some of the issues we see in our community,” Rojas-Flores said.
Rojas-Flores says they both felt residents should have better access to council members and made commitments to hold office hours.
There are three seats on the City Council that will be decided in the November election.
With Jesse Ornelas not running for re-election, the two challengers vying for the open seat in District 1, which includes Southeast Merced, are planning commissioner Walter Smith and local civil attorney Darin DuPont.
Incumbent Bertha Perez is not seeking another term in District 3, which covers Northwest Merced. The three challengers in that district are Mike Harris, a retired sheriff’s sergeant, and planning commissioner, Cynthia Kelly, the Merced SPCA president and former City of Merced employee, and Sair Lara Rodriguez, who has worked in education for 16 years.
Rojas-Flores wants to see a more proactive council.
“That’s also one of the reasons I ran,” he said. “I feel like City Council tends to react to problems as they come up, but I think there’s a lot of changes coming to Merced, specifically with high-speed rail. I think problems should be anticipated and addressed before they become problems.”
Rojas-Flores says he still wants to find ways to be involved in helping the city thrive.
“It’s my hometown, I want it to succeed,” he said. “I want to live here and if it succeeds, it means it’s a better place for me to live in. I won’t rule out running again in the future, but that’ll be a decision for a later time.”
This story was originally published October 9, 2024 at 7:40 AM.
