Did DeMaio Staffer Join SD Republican Central Committee as Riverside Resident? ...Middle East

Joseph “Joe” Linares, a 22-year-old employee of Assemblyman Carl DeMaio’s Reform California, was elected in March 2024 to the county GOP’s Central Committee. He was sworn in Dec. 10.

On that much, everyone agrees.

But local Republicans are bitterly split over whether Linares was a San Diego County resident when he took his oath to represent supervisorial District 3. And Paula Whitsell, the resurrected GOP chair, is being blasted for refusing to hold a special meeting to hear evidence of fraud.

Internal critics are scorching firebrand DeMaio. One calls the fight “a disaster of unimaginable proportions” for the local party.

“If Linares was not eligible to be seated at the December organizing meeting, it puts a cloud on the entire series of events leading to Paula’s return as chair and the entire future of the Republican Party including the status of the bylaws,” a GOP insider told me on the promise of anonymity.

Times of San Diego obtained email exchanges on the request (by 15 members) for a special meeting of the Central Committee and Whitsell’s reasoning for not granting it.

Whitsell wrote: “It would be a violation of the bylaws to attempt to resolve this issue in the full Central Committee. Moreover, because the issue is fraught with legal peril it would be reckless and irresponsible to attempt to do so.”

She said Linares was duly elected by the public. (His ballot description was “Veterans Outreach Specialist.”) But local GOP bylaws say: “Any regular member who changes legal residence from the supervisor district in which elected shall be considered to have resigned.”

Whitsell said the smaller Executive Committee would deal with the Linares issue as “the final arbiter of conflicts between members.”

But in her letter, Whitsell wrote that any decision that had the effect of removing Linares could be contested in court “if the decision was arrived at by irregular means, without due process. Moreover, the publication of personal information could expose the party or individual members to legal jeopardy.”

In this case, “personal information” includes the fact Linares received 90 days in custody and two years’ probation in a June 2024 reckless driving and vandalism case (with the road-rage vandalism being a felony), according to the county District Attorney’s Office.

Linares — who court records said was undergoing anger management training — also was sentenced to five years’ probation in a subsequent DUI case. He pleaded guilty to “driving a vehicle under the influence of alcohol.”

But why is Linares’ residency being questioned?

Although records show him casting ballots locally in March and November, the county Registrar of Voters Office says Linares’ voter registration was canceled Nov. 16 — 11 days after the presidential election — when Riverside County processed a national change-of-address record, giving him an active registration in that county.

But on March 3, 2025 — three months after becoming a Riverside County voter — Linares re-registered in San Diego County, the local office says.

(The Riverside County Register of Voters Office told me Linares last voted in Riverside in 2022.)

In his DUI guilty plea dated Nov. 8, Linares lists his address as 2191 Whitestone Drive in Riverside. But in a Slack message I obtained, he wrote the GOP committee on March 2 that his voter registration address is 9644 Caminito Del Feliz, San Diego, “and this address has consistently been accurate.”

Linares added in the Slack message: “I understand that several individuals have accessed my legal records and discovered an address outside of San Diego County. This discrepancy occurred because I was temporarily residing with my parents for health reasons. I did not permanently relocate to that address; I maintain residency in San Diego County. I currently live and go to school in San Diego.”

However, the GOP insider told me that the San Diego Registrar of Voters Office had no registration for Linares at that Caminito Del Feliz address (in University City) before March 3.

The insider said a Central Committee member visited the address and found it unoccupied with a Realtor lockbox on the door. (The unit — going for $3,485 a month — is currently available for rent, says a Redfin listing.)

“When talking to neighbors and maintenance, they indicated he hadn’t been there in months,” the insider said. “An online search showed that the property was available for rent. A call to the property management company indicated he hadn’t lived there in four months or so.”

A second Central Committee member told me of their own investigation, confirming the absence of San Diego residency during the time of Linares’ swearing in.

Linares didn’t respond to requests for comment. Neither have DeMaio or GOP chair Whitsell.

Why is DeMaio being attacked over a single person on the 50-member committee?

Email I obtained says Linares was the pivotal vote in a 20-19 Central Committee decision to back a DeMaio move to amend the party’s bylaws. The motion changed the way a party chair vacancy is filled.

Previously, the Central Committee elected a new chair — as it did in early April 2024 when Corey Gustafson became chair with Whitsell stepping down under a deal. But the new bylaws mandate that the first vice chair becomes the chair and the second vice chair becomes the first vice chair upon a vacancy.

The current first vice chair is Alana Sorensen, aligned with the controversial Awaken Church. The second is Kristie Bruce-Lane. Both are deemed DeMaio allies.

DeMaio himself is accused of leading a “cult” that is bleeding the San Diego GOP of money, with one leader saying “quite a few individuals and organizations have grown tired of [his] intimidation and bullying tactics.”

Party fundraising has dried up so much that DeMaio is having to subsidize the party, the GOP insider told me.

“Republican women’s groups are unofficially boycotting the party,” the insider said. “Committee members routinely yell at each other. At the March [Executive Committee] meeting, it was reported that the party had approximately $32,000 cash on hand between state and federal accounts.”

The Central Committee meeting last month was supposed to net between $10,000 and $12,000 according to the budget and instead cost $300,” I was told.

The GOP insider added, via email: “So the worry is that Carl DeMaio wants the party completely dependent on him through his various entities. He fired all party staff; when the former [executive director] was fired, Carl DeMaio personally called to tell him he was fired instead of Paula” sharing the news.

The local GOP has hired one staffer after historically having three to five in a non-election year, I was told, and all other staff work and obligations are outsourced to Carl DeMaio/Reform California and the Capitol Media strategic communications firm.

A final question: Who else employs Linares?

He’s listed on the Reform California website as a field manager. Court records also say he works for DeMaio’s Transparency Foundation and the county Republican Party. But Whitsell won’t answer questions from members, several sources said.

Linares also uses a Capitol Media email address.

A call to the 202 area code number listed by Capitol Media — which claims Sempra Energy and the San Diego Taxpayers Association as “featured clients” — led to this voicemail reply that “the user’s mailbox cannot accept new messages.”

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