UPDATED: No GOP Endorsements for SJC Council

EDITOR'S NOTE: Updated At 1:37 p.m. to add comments from candidate Kim McCarthy and again at 2:09 p.m. to add comments from candidate Roy Byrnes. Updated at 12:30 a.m. Oct. 17 to add comments from Councilman Sam Allevato.

Five Republicans running for San Juan Capistrano City Council, and not one of them will have the support of their party.

The OC GOP Central Committee met Monday to consider for the final time this election season whether it would want to endorse any San Juan Capistrano council candidates.

In early September, an endorsing committee heard the requests from incumbent Sam Allevato and Planning Commissioner Ginny Kerr but rejected both after critics of the current City Council spoke out in opposition.  

Then earlier this month, that same committee considered the requests from candidates Kim McCarthy and Roy Byrnes.

While the committee did agree to recommend the candidates’ endorsement, it was not without fireworks.

From the OC Political blog: 

Endorsements Committee Member Mary Young speaks and Candidate Kim McCarthy starts shouting over her, with each demanding that the other show respect.  Young states and McCarthy shouts about how hard they work on the Central Committee and as a candidate, respectively.  (OC Political wishes we had a camera going.)  McCarthy rises out of her seat as the male Endorsements Committee members have facial expressions of concern about a potential physical confrontation.

Still, the committee narrowly approved to recommend Byrnes and McCarthy for endorsement.

Contacted after the Oct. 1 committee meeting, Young told Patch the account is accurate.

Monday night, the Central Committee gathered as a whole to make a final decision, and according to the OC Political blog, Young made the motion not to endorse anyone in San Juan Capistrano. The motion was passed unanimously.

"Being unknown to the republican party, Dr. Byrnes and I never expected to get as far in the endorsement process as we did," McCarthy told Patch. She views the biggest accomplishment is ensuring that Allevato did not get the endorsement.

Byrnes saw it the same way.

"For Sam Allevato, a nine-year entrenched incumbent politician to be rejected by his own Republican party speaks volumes and is an earth-shaking, wake-up call to the voters. Powerful political bosses tried every trick in the book to pull him through but his record was too clear," Byrnes said.

Allevato said McCarthy's failure to clinch an endorsement had much more to do with her than he.

"McCarthy has consistently lied to her friends, and has now be caught in a lie by the OC GOP Central Committee and rebuked for her offensive behavior in front of 30-plus Central Committee members and an audience of elected officials," he said in a note to the media. "And she considers this a victory! She took Byrnes down with her."

McCarthy and Byrnes did pick up a major endorsement from the Orange County Register. 

Patch does not endorse candidates.