District 8 Councilman Manny Pelaez speaks at a public event. Credit: Courtesy Photo / Manny Pelaez Campaign

Former District 8 councilman and failed mayoral candidate Manny Pelaez reemerged this week to bash Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones, calling her term so far “the dictionary definition of a dumpster fire.”

After falling off the radar following his loss to Jones in last year’s mayoral race, Pelaez made an appearance on WOAI 1200’s San Antonio’s First News on Monday to talk about the rotating door of staff in his former rival’s office. (For anyone keeping score at home, Pelaez finished fifth in that contest despite burning nearly $300,000 of his own money on the campaign.) 

“I can’t point to anything as messy as what we’ve got right now,” Pelaez said of Jones’ stewardship of the city. “I mean, what we’ve got right now is the dictionary definition of a dumpster fire.”

Jones made recent headlines after two staffers, Deputy Chief of Staff Pat Wallace and Chief of Staff Janise Caroll, both quit within a week of each another. That brings the mayor’s total staff turnover to seven people within a year’s time.

Pelaez’s remarks on WOAI came days after he spotted cozying up with both Wallace — who also served as his longtime chief of staff — and Carroll in a photo posted on his Instagram.

“I don’t want to come off as sounding like sour grapes here,” Pelaez told WOAI. “I really want this mayor to succeed. I want all of our mayors to succeed — whoever that person is. But, man, I’m getting impatient. When are we going to start winning here?”

Although Pelaez didn’t hide his feelings about Jones, the former councilman said he hopes that a recall petition remains unnecessary.

“What I hope for is that we’ve got a mayor who looks in the mirror and says, ‘You know, maybe I’m the problem here,’ and, you know, eats a little bit of humble pie and becomes a little bit more of a servant leader,” he added.

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Michael Karlis is a multimedia journalist at the San Antonio Current, whose coverage in print and on social media focuses on local and state politics. He is a graduate of American University in Washington,...