Members of the San Antonio City Council received four applications for a temporary appointment to represent District 7, following Ana Sandoval’s resignation last month.
Sandoval accepted a job at University Health, leaving her colleagues to choose someone to represent her Westside district for the remaining three months of her third term. Her last day on City Council was Jan. 29.
All council seats and the mayor’s office will be decided in the May 6 city elections.
When the application period closed Friday, the District 7 opening had received considerably fewer applicants than an interim council position in District 10 to temporarily replace Councilman Clayton Perry. That opening drew 17 applicants in November.
Among those who applied for the interim District 7 position were Rosie Castro, a longtime civil rights activist and the mother of U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-San Antonio) and Julián Castro, the former U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development and mayor. She ran unsuccessfully for City Council in 1971 and celebrated submitting her application for another shot at the job with friends and family this week.
“As a lifelong San Antonian, a resident of District 7 for more than 35 years, a former city employee and a San Antonio Housing Authority Ombudsman, I understand the needs of District 7 and how to use the local government to meet those needs,” Castro wrote in her application.
Sandoval endorsed Castro for the job.
Other applicants were retired Army veteran David Avila, retired education administrator Delia Guajardo and Sean Murphy, a former Florida county commissioner.
Avila said in his application that if appointed he planned to focus on maintaining unity between the San Antonio Police Department and his neighbors.
Guajardo’s résumé touted 55 years of community involvement, including starting a veterans’ parade, serving on the advisory board for the University Center for Community Health and serving on a citizen oversight board for the San Antonio Police Department.
Guajardo produces and hosts SA Community Pride, a public access channel show that’s run since 1999. Her resume said she was crowned senior queen at Fiesta’s Piñatas in the Barrio in 2010.
Murphy’s résumé says he’s a firearms specialist who performs maintenance on guns used by law enforcement. He served on the Taylor County Board of County Commissioners in Keaton Beach, Florida, from 2018 to 2020.
The candidates will be given time to deliver brief introductions at a City Council meeting Wednesday, and council members will select up to three of them to interview for the position. The interviews will be conducted Thursday, and a final selection will be voted on the same day.
