Voice of OC (https://voiceofoc.org/tag/claudio-gallegos/)
Regardless of who wins the District 6 seat, either Rickk Montoya or Kim Nguyen will be the city’s first-ever Latino council member. While the two Democrats have similar stances on the issues, the community is divided over their candidacies.
As moves to district-based elections promise to transform the electoral landscapes of several large Orange County jurisdictions, demographer and Democratic operative Claudio Gallegos has emerged as a central, and at times, controversial figure.
When county supervisors adopted district lines in 2011, they pitted two underserved communities against each other for the First District supervisorial seat. Experts and activists say the district’s lines could violate the Voting Rights Act.