MENIFEE – (INT) – Mayor Neil Winter has died.

An announcement Sunday by the city indicated that Mayor Winter died Saturday evening of an apparent heart attack. He was 65.

State Assemblywoman Melissa Melendez confirmed his passing and added that paramedics responded Saturday night to the mayor’s home and found him in full cardiac arrest.

Winter, who had never before held political office, was elected mayor of Menifee in November 2016, defeating incumbent Scott Mann. A longtime businessman, Winter established himself as a public figure through a grass roots mayoral campaign.

Winter is the third member of the City Council to die while in office in Menifee’s nearly 10 years as an incorporated city. Vice Mayor Fred Twyman died in June 2011 of a heart attack at age 46. Wallace Edgerton, Menifee’s first mayor and a longtime City Council member, died in May 2015 at the age of 81 after a long battle with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.

Funeral arrangements for Mayor Winter are pending.

Story Date: May 23, 2018