“Not to blow my own horn or anything,” says Joe Carchio, the high-school-coach-turned-T-shirt-customizer-turned-Italian-restaurant-owner who has just turned into the newest member of the Huntington Beach City Council, “but I am enormously popular among regular folks.”

Barely a month after being sworn in to his first-ever elected office, Carchio says his public profile already goes far beyond the 24,573 votes he received to finish fourth and earn the final spot in November’s race for four open council seats.

“More people know I am on the City Council than any of the others,” he asserts. “I am a very visible person. I have a popular restaurant downtown. I coached kids’ baseball and football for many years. I’m just a guy—a simple guy—who wants to give back to the community and got myself elected to the City Council. It was kind of a grassroots thing.”

And then again, it kind of wasn’t. The real reasons for Carchio’s come-from-nowhere victory were big money, experienced strategists and highly placed Republican political connections. Carchio had neither the resources nor the resume to marshal them. Perhaps the most productive years of Carchio’s life were the years he coached at Ocean View High School. His shortcomings as a businessman—whether printing T-shirts or boiling pasta—have left him in tenuous economic circumstances. Despite that, Carchio’s campaign literature portrayed him as the common-sense candidate for the common man—“a responsible and popular employer and tax payer,” according to one of several expensive mass mailers. But the county and state have actually had a very tough time getting Carchio to pay his taxes; over the years they’ve slapped him with lien after lien, and he’s still in arrears. Now he’s also facing a federal lien for a debt to the Internal Revenue Service that as of 2005 was up to $50,252.24. Carchio claims that last bill, at least, is a mistake in government bookkeeping, and that he is fighting it.

The bottom line is that Carchio is on the Huntington Beach City Council because his candidacy was endorsed, managed and financially fueled by some of Orange County’s most-powerful kingmakers, from politicians like Congressman Dana Rohrabacher and OC Republican Party chief Scott Baugh to millionaires like developer Robert L. Mayer of Newport Beach and businessmen Ed and Jeff Laird of Coatings Resource Corp. Orange County Sheriff Mike Carona endorsed Carchio, too. Mayer and the Lairds formed and funded a committee called Freedom From Taxes, which spent $11,960 for a mailer supporting Carchio. The Republican Party of Orange County spent approximately $45,000 on mailers supporting Carchio and incumbents Cathy Green and Gil Coerper.

Then there’s Carchio’s relationship with one of Huntington Beach’s most-infamous political villains: former mayor-turned-felon Dave Garofalo. Five years ago this week—Jan. 10, 2002—Garofalo resigned from the City Council and pleaded guilty to one felony and 15 misdemeanor charges of political corruption. Among his crimes was a long history of voting favorably on council business that involved people—mostly developers and businessmen—who bought advertising in various publications he owned or produced. Although Garofalo avoided prison, he was fined $47,000, sentenced to 200 hours of community service and banned from political office forever.

But Garofalo never stopped trying to be a player in Huntington Beach politics, and he seems to be participating by proxy through Carchio. Garofalo played an intricate role in Carchio’s campaign, from letting Carchio write a column in his community paper, The Local News, to overseeing at least one mass mailer. Now Garofalo seems to be advising Carchio’s decisions on the council.

On the morning of a recent Huntington Beach City Council meeting, a downtown merchant reported seeing Carchio and Garofalo sharing a restaurant table—and poring carefully through the thick agenda and information packet that the city provides to council members.

“I never did that,” says Carchio. “If they saw me go over the council agenda with Dave Garofalo, they are mistaken. Dave Garofalo and I never talk politics. I don’t even know him that well.”

Nonetheless, in Carchio’s very first significant act as councilman—the appointment of a planning commissioner—he chose automobile broker Fred Speaker . . . the man who served as planning commissioner under Garofalo.

“I didn’t know that Fred Speaker was Dave Garofalo’s planning commissioner,” says Carchio. “I knew he’d been on the planning commission, but I never even asked him whose planning commissioner he was. And he never mentioned it. I wanted to give this city the best person I could give them, but I had to take the word of people in the know, because I am not that knowledgeable about the planning commission. I really don’t know Fred that well. I’ve only known him for about a year.”

Carchio says he was unaware that Speaker was one of the most public, forceful and enduring defenders of Garofalo’s behavior. He says he didn’t realize that some people fear Speaker’s appointment signals the return of sleaze to Huntington Beach government. Not that it really left when a judge sent Garofalo into the political wilderness: former mayor Pam Houchen, who pleaded guilty to massive real-estate fraud in a phony condominium-conversion scheme, began serving a 37-month prison sentence on Nov. 6, one day before Carchio was elected.

“With all the problems this city has had with crooked City Council people, it seems to me that someone newly elected would do everything they could to separate themselves from that, to be above reproach when it comes to public perception,” says Joe Shaw, a downtown businessman who failed in a November run for the council. “It will hurt Huntington Beach further if we give the impression that we are still associating ourselves with our past felons.”

Carchio says he never suspected that people would draw those kinds of connections. Oh, and he was also surprised to hear that Speaker filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy the last time he was on the planning commission.

“You’re telling me stuff I didn’t even know,” Carchio says, frustrated. “I had no idea of any of that stuff. All I went by was what I heard from people, then I made my choice. When you go to Vegas and roll the dice, sometimes they come up seven and sometimes they come up boxcars. Maybe if I would have taken it from that standpoint, maybe I would not have appointed Fred Speaker. I don’t know. I don’t know.”