On the approach to Election Day, a candidate for Orange City Council faces an open, unresolved Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC) complaint.
Brandy Romero is one of four in the running to represent District 1. The seat, currently held by Councilwoman Arianna Barrios, will be an open contest between Romero, Albert “AJ” Ricci, Jonathan St. Clair, and Ernest Glasgow.
Romero is best known for her Instagram account and gift shop which share the name There’s No Place Like Orange. With a sizable follower count of over 63,000—no small feat for a grassroots, regionally-focused page—she endeavors to leverage that attention into a successful bid for public office.
However, earlier this year, Romero received a complaint from the FPPC, the nonpartisan state agency responsible for regulating campaign finance and ethics. This was actually the second complaint since Romero opened her campaign account (ID# 1481877) last year.
The first was brought forward by AdWatch, a public reporting tool run by the FPPC which allows users to report alleged potential campaign advertising violations. The September 2025 complaint indicated that Romero had failed to include the proper advertisement disclosure on her campaign’s Instagram account.
Romero, likely having been notified by the FPPC, went back and added the disclosure to the page and was presumably asked to complete a Political Reform Education Program. Upon doing so, the Commission’s Enforcement Division closed the matter three months later without further action—a proverbial slap on the wrist.
But five months later, Romero would again hear from the FPPC; this time, with a complaint initiated by the Commission itself. Exact details are scarce—and the case status is open and pending—but the alleged violation is over campaign reporting.
And since Romero, has yet to address the matter, it has predictably led to investigation and conjecture.
Reporting by Matt Cunningham at OC Independent could shine some light on what might have triggered the FPPC’s complaint. Cunningham examined Romero’s Form 700 filings and identified potential discrepancies involving her business income, assets and financial interests.
“On those forms, Romero reports receiving less than $500 a year in gross income—before expenses—from her co-ownership interest in The Squeeze, despite valuing that same ownership stake at between $10,000 and $100,000,” wrote Cunningham in June. “Put differently, Romero is asking the public to believe that a business she values as a potentially six-figure asset generates so little revenue that it falls below even the minimum reporting threshold for meaningful annual income.”
For context, Romero states that she is co-owner of The Squeeze, which is a shared storefront in Orange. One half is a screen printing studio called Casa Lulo, run by Johana Marin, while the other half is Romero’s There’s No Place Like Orange gift shop. Romero reported in March 2026, under penalty of perjury, that her gross income received from this venture was $0-499.
But then, after Cunningham’s piece was written and she had received the FPPC complaint, Romero filed a new Form 700 for the next reporting period. This time, she changed gross income from $0-499 to “over $100,000.”
Either Romero’s business exploded between March and August or this is a discrepancy that points to an error with one of the two financial disclosure statements she submitted.
The new Form 700 also includes up to $300,000 in previously undisclosed stock assets in the form of Apple, Disney, and Amazon shares. On top of that, Romero now claims part of the fair market value of her husband’s podcast, “Deeper Issues Nerdcast,” but did not make mention of this previously.
In any case, these new discrepancies from August wouldn’t have triggered the FPPC complaint issued in May—but they likely have complicated the matter and could explain why the case is still pending after half a year.
“The divergent financial disclosures in and of themselves do not explain the why of the discrepancies. Are these significant discrepancies due to incompetency in [completing] the Form 700 or an intentional effort to conceal income? Was it mere error, a misunderstanding of the Form 700 requirements, a change in the underlying income? Or something else?” wrote Cunningham in a follow-up piece from August 2026.
And still, Romero has yet to issue any form of public statement on the issue.
We reached out to Romero one month ago expressing our interest in producing a candidate profile for her as well as her opponents. After repeated attempts across several weeks to reach her via the campaign email address and phone number she provided to the City—and which appear on the City of Orange website listing for qualified candidates—we never received a response.
SoCal Daily Pulse reached out to Romero for comment on Thursday.
