Rancho Cucamonga’s city council will remain at four-fifths strength until December in the aftermath of Councilman Sam Spagnolo’s May 2 death.
The city council had the option of appointing someone who lives within the city’s First District to fill the vacancy.
Potential replacements included Tim Johnson, Luis Cetina and Tony Guglielmo.
Johnson was a protégé of former Rancho Cucamonga City Councilman and Second District San Bernardino County Supervisor Paul Biane. In 2002, Johnson served as Biane’s deputy campaign manager. In 2010, before Biane was defeated for reelection as Second District supervisor in that year’s race and after a falling out occurred between Biane and Matt Brown, who was both Biane’s chief of staff and his campaign manager, Johnson rose to the occasion from his post as Biane’s district field representative to serve in the capacity of Biane’s de facto chief of staff and took on the official assignment of his campaign manager. Johnson is the chief operating officer of Quality Management Group, which manufactures and sells high density housing and he was formerly the executive director for the California Apartment Association.
Cetina has been since 2012 and is still a board member of the Cucamonga Valley Water District. He is currently competing for Second District county supervisor against four others in the June 7 primary election. Cetina is employed as the governmental and regional affairs liaison with the Metropolitan Water District. He is the chairman of the Gateway Chambers Alliance, a member of the San Gabriel Valley Legislative Coalition of Chambers, a Rancho Cucamonga Chamber of Commerce board member and an active participant in the Inland Empire Chamber Alliance.
Guglielmo was from 2017 until 2021 a member of the Rancho Cucamonga Planning Commission, which included a stint as that panel’s chairman. He is a broker with Allied Commercial Real Estate.
There was concern that by conferring the District 1 council post on Johnson, Cetina, Guglielmo or anyone else, the council would give that person an advantage in the election that must be held in November for someone to fill out the final two years of four-year term to which Spagnolo had been elected in 2020. Moreover, some felt that by granting the position to Cetina, it would give him a leg up in the contest for Second District supervisor if he proves one of the two-top vote-getters in the primary election to be held next Tuesday and finds himself in a run-off for supervisor in November.
Sensitivity to this political issue seemed to convince Spagnolo’s four survivors on the city council that they should hold off on making an appointment.
“I’m inclined to leave the seat vacant and let voters decide,” Councilman Ryan Hutchinson said.
Councilwomen Lynne Kennedy and Kristine Scott concurred, as did Mayor Lloyd D. Michael.
Leaving the post blank for the next six months and scheduling a special election for the November 8 general gubernatorial balloting passed on a 4-to-0 vote.
Those who cast their hats into the ring to compete to replace Spagnolo will appear on the ballot with those who are looking to serve in place of Scott, Hutchison and Michael, who must themselves run if they are to remain in place as, respectively, the council representatives in Rancho Cucamonga’s Second and Third districts and as mayor.
-Mark Gutglueck

Those who cast their hats into the ring to compete to replace Spagnolo will appear on the ballot with those who are looking to serve in place of Scott, Hutchison and Michael, who must themselves run if they are to remain in place as, respectively, the council representatives in Rancho Cucamonga’s Second and Third districts and as mayor.

-Mark Gutglueck