Construction worker and rapper Daniel Munoz runs for Salinas mayor on a renter-rights platform
Munoz, 43, known in music circles as Cal Paradox, says the council majority's early-2025 repeal of tenant protections pushed him into the Nov. 3 race against incumbent Dennis Donohue and two other challengers.
Daniel Munoz never planned to run for mayor of Salinas. But when the new council majority moved at the start of 2025 to repeal the city's rent stabilization and other renter protections, the 43-year-old who spent years working in construction, and who is known in music circles as the rapper Cal Paradox, decided City Hall needed a challenger.
"I've always paid attention nationally, but locally, what caught my attention was the repeal of the ordinances," Munoz said in an interview with the Salinas Californian this week.
Munoz is one of four qualified candidates for mayor on the Nov. 3 ballot, alongside incumbent Dennis Donohue, retired educator Peter Szalai and Hezekiah Gonzalez, according to the city's elections office. Donohue served as mayor from 2006 to 2012 and won the office again in 2024; another win would give him a fifth two-year term.
Before running, Munoz took on the officials behind the repeal directly. He mounted a recall effort against Councilmember Jose Luis Barajas, one of the representatives who first moved to repeal the four ordinances, and earlier this year filed a second round of recall notices against Barajas and County Supervisor Luis Alejo, submitting 96 signatures for Barajas and 98 for Alejo in May after a first attempt with 30 signatures fell short of the legal threshold.
He contends city leaders answer more to landlords, investors and Realtor groups than to renters and working-class residents. "They forgot who they were elected to serve," he said.
On the ballot, Munoz is firmly against Measure H, the Nov. 3 measure asking voters whether to adopt Ordinance No. 2687, which would repeal four city ordinances: the residential rental registration ordinance, the rent stabilization ordinance, the tenant protection and just cause eviction ordinance, and the tenant anti-harassment ordinance. A no vote keeps the protections in place.
Munoz, a single father, says he knows the renter's side of the housing crunch firsthand: he was once forced to move when a landlord renovated his building. Under the city's just cause eviction rules, a tenant in that situation would receive three months of rent as relocation assistance.
His platform centers on city services. Munoz wants a dedicated public works crew fixing potholes, and at an Oct. 7 League of Women Voters mayoral forum he floated forming a volunteer crew to take on deferred maintenance tasks. He calls for more accountability among city staff and less spending on outside consultants.
A regular speaker during council public comment on pesticide risk, Munoz wants the city to ban glyphosate and to require a one-mile buffer between schools and farm pesticides; he is a member of the group Safe Ag Safe Schools. He argues the agricultural industry places heavy demands on city infrastructure and should contribute more revenue to city services, and that Salinas should negotiate harder with big employers such as Amazon.
He also wants Salinas to think bigger on family attractions, naming a water park, go-kart track or mini golf as the kind of destinations that would draw visitors from inside and outside the city. "We're the biggest city in the county," he said. "We're not tapping into that."
On process, Munoz says he would extend the public comment period to three minutes, let city staff answer questions raised by the public, and allow applause after comment, which he says the current mayor stops. He argues the mayor's greatest influence is the power to place issues on the agenda and bring them before the council for debate.
We correct errors promptly and note them here. Send corrections through the contact form, choosing the Correction topic.
