Interesting Articles From 2005 and before -- Page Two
Page 2 of this website contains the following 9 articles:
1. New Light Shed on Corruption Probe; Investigation: Complaints from neighboring cities led authorities to look into political appointments in Cudahy, Bell Gardens, July 7, 2001
2. Bell Gardens Official Charged in Conflict-of-Interest Case; Courts: City manager is accused of making a power play to gain her post. Lawyers say Latinos are being targeted, which prosecutors angrily deny, June 27, 2001
3. Probe Focuses on Official's Real Residence; Huntington Park: D.A. investigators search offices and home in a corruption investigation of councilwoman, May 25, 2001
4. A Scramble for Power, Patronage; The Battle for Lucrative City Attorney Contracts in L.A. County's Heavily Heavily Latino Cities Has Resulted in Some Nasty Allegations. Ex-Partners in a Well-Connected Firm Are in the Center of the Storm, November 17, 1999
5. S. Pasadena Tax Panel Violated State Open Meeting Law, September 6, 1996
6. South Pasadena Names Third City Attorney in Past Three Months, August 28, 1996
7. South Gate City Attorney's Aides Donated To Campaigns, June 20, 1995
8. Program Benefits; Mayor Buys In--Literally--To Aid Plan for First-Time Home Buyers, February 5, 1995
9. Political Allies at Issue in Bid to Unseat Soto; Campaign: The Councilwoman Says Her Opponents Want to Return Control to the Old Boy Network. Challengers Question Soto's Ties to Ousted Councilman C. L. (Clay) Bryant, February 17, 1991
For additional articles of interest from 2005 and before, click here.
New Light Shed on Corruption Probe;
Investigation: Complaints from neighboring cities led authorities to look into political appointments in Cudahy, Bell Gardens.
by Richard Marosi, Times Staff Writer,
Authorities investigating alleged political corruption in Cudahy acted in response to complaints from managers in nearby cities concerned that such practices would spread throughout the region if gone unchecked, according to city managers and a search warrant affidavit.
The search warrant was one of two affidavits unsealed Friday that shed light on investigations in Cudahy and nearby Bell Gardens. The managers in both cities, both former city council members, are under investigation for voting for measures that cleared the way for their appointments.
Managers from other southeast Los Angeles County cities approached prosecutors because they feared the moves in Bell Gardens and Cudahy would be copied elsewhere and undermine years of reforms statewide aimed at keeping administrations free of political influences.
"It would be a step back to old machine politics," said Jack Joseph, deputy executive director of the Gateway Cities Council of Governments.
"If the profession were changed from essentially a professional lifetime manager [position] to a political appointment, it changes the whole nature of the council-manager form of government," Joseph said Friday.
Bell Gardens City Manager Maria Chacon, charged on suspicion of violating conflict-of-interest laws, was not available for comment. Nor was Cudahy City Manager George Perez, who has not been charged with wrongdoing.
The search warrant affidavits had been under seal since April, when authorities raided the city halls of both cities as well as the homes of Perez and Chacon.
The documents detail the ascendancy of both officials based largely on the testimony of former council members and officials. They also show that investigators believed the city attorneys in both cities played significant roles in the appointments of Perez and Chacon.
Cudahy City Atty. David Olivas was the alleged "brains" behind the council meetings where Perez was appointed, according to the testimony of William Davis, the city's former community development director.
Bell Gardens City Atty. Arnoldo Beltran allegedly orchestrated a meeting between council members and Chacon on the appointment issue, according to the affidavit.
Neither Olivas nor Beltran were available for comment.
Neither attorney has been charged with wrongdoing.
Los Angeles Times, July 7, 2001
Bell Gardens Official Charged in Conflict-of-Interest Case; Courts: City manager is accused of making a power play to gain her post. Lawyers say Latinos are being targeted, which prosecutors angrily deny
Richard Marosi and Greg Krikorian, Times Staff Writers
Prosecutors have charged Bell Gardens City Manager Maria Chacon with violating conflict-of-interest laws by allegedly orchestrating a power play that pressured City Council members to vote for her appointment.
The felony complaint, after a two-month investigation, marks the first charges levied against a public official by the newly formed public integrity division of the district attorney's office.
Prosecutors contend that Chacon, as a council member last year, voted for measures that cleared the way for her appointment to the $80,000-a-year city manager's job and influenced fellow members to go along with her plan. She is scheduled to be arraigned Thursday, and prosecutors are recommending that bail be set at $20,000.
Chacon's attorneys called the charge unfounded and accused prosecutors of singling out Latino officials for heavy-handed treatment.
"This is a witch hunt, and it's focusing on southeast Los Angeles County," said Mark Rosen, referring to current political corruption investigations in other nearby, largely Latino cities.
Chacon was not available for comment. If convicted, she could face three years in state prison.
The criminal complaint, filed late Monday, sparked wide-ranging reactions in Bell Gardens and nearby communities. Some viewed the criminal filing as a strong step against widespread corruption.
"It's marvelous what [prosecutors] are doing for our city," said Rogelio Rodriguez, a former councilman and a Chacon opponent. "This will send a message to other cities."
The allegations of targeting Latinos drew angry denials from the district attorney's office. Prosecutors said inquiries are proceeding countywide and stem from complaints filed by citizens, many of whom happen to be Latino.
"We respond to complaints, and [in this case] we received a complaint," said David Demerjian, head of the public integrity division.
Chacon is considered the most powerful public official in Bell Gardens. Credited for spearheading a campaign to oust the white-majority council in the early 1990s, she has consolidated her power by getting a series of allies elected.
Last year, she voted as a council member to repeal a law that required one year to elapse before a council member could be appointed to a staff position such as city manager. Prosecutors say Chacon then met privately with at least one council member at his residence to influence the appointment vote.
Her appointment drew angry protests from residents who said she was not qualified because she does not have a college degree or training in running a city.
Other Bell Gardens officials could face prosecution for participating in the alleged scheme, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Richard Wilson.
Wilson said he is seeking access to city documents that could implicate others. He said officials could be charged with aiding and abetting, or with violating the Brown Act, the state law that requires open meetings of public bodies.
City Atty. Arnoldo Beltran has not turned over those documents because he says they are protected by attorney-client privilege.
Chacon cleared a key hurdle Tuesday in her bid to resume receiving her salary. She was removed from the payroll in April after prosecutors told the city her contract was void because of her alleged crime. But a judge ruled Tuesday that the law cited by prosecutors is unconstitutional because it denies Chacon a right to a hearing.
It is not clear if the city will resume paying her. Council members are to discuss today whether to place her on administrative leave.
The district attorney is also investigating George Perez, Cudahy's city manager and a former councilman, for alleged conflicts of interest. And Huntington Park Councilwoman Linda Luz Guevara is under investigation after allegations that she does not live in that city.
Los Angeles Times, June 27, 2001
Probe Focuses on Official's Real Residence; Huntington Park: D.A. investigators search offices and home in a corruption investigation of councilwoman
Richard Marosi, Times Staff Writer
District attorney's investigators served search warrants and closed offices at Huntington Park City Hall on Thursday as part of a corruption probe of a council member suspected of not living in the city.
The raid marks the launch of the latest investigation into southeast Los Angeles County cities and came as several Cudahy City Council members and officials were ordered to testify before the Los Angeles County Grand Jury.
The Huntington Park raid by about 10 investigators focused on the city offices and the business of Councilwoman Linda Luz Guevara, according to city officials.
Investigators also executed a search warrant at a home in Downey alleged to be Guevara's true address.
Rumors about Guevara's residency have swirled for years. Earlier this year, residents launched a recall effort against her because they believe the house she lists as her residence in Huntington Park is actually her mother's address.
Guevara's critics claim she actually lives in Downey with her husband and son. Sources said investigators found her Thursday morning at the Downey house. Authorities also executed warrants at her son's school in search of documents containing residency information.
Guevara, a paralegal who was elected to the council in 1997, was not available for comment. Mayor Ric Loya said Guevara should step down if the allegations are true and "thus bring an end to the turmoil that the city is now in the midst of."
The Huntington Park investigation exemplifies Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley's increasingly aggressive stance against allegations of public corruption. The newly formed public integrity unit has launched several probes in recent months, mainly against city officials in Southeast L.A. County.
Earlier this year, a South Gate City Council candidate was charged with election fraud stemming from allegations that he does not live in the city. His case is pending.
The most wide-ranging investigation involves alleged conflict-of-interest violations by the city managers in Bell Gardens and Cudahy. Both managers--Maria Chacon in Bell Gardens, George Perez in Cudahy--are former council members who voted for ordinances that cleared the way for their appointments.
Chacon and Perez--neither of whom have college degrees--each makes more than $80,000 per year running their cities.
The Cudahy probe reached a crucial stage this week as several council members and city officials testified before the L.A. County Grand Jury. After the two-day hearing, some officials emerged badly shaken.
Though they could not comment on the secret proceedings, one called the prosecution's investigation a "witch hunt."
"We walk in as witnesses, we come out as targets," complained one official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Meanwhile, Chacon has launched a legal battle to resume her salary after prosecutors advised city officials that it was unlawful to pay an official who is in violation of conflict-of-interest rules.
Chacon, who has not been paid since late April, claims she is entitled to her salary because she has not been charged with any crime. According to court documents, Chacon states that she may have to step down if the city does not resume paying her.
Though some officials in the blue-collar cities targeted in the investigations criticize prosecutors' tactics as heavy-handed, others applaud their efforts as long overdue.
"It was about time that they put a stop to this woman," Rosa Mesa, a resident involved in the recall attempt, said of Guevara. "When someone lives in Huntington Park, you see each other. We never saw her anywhere."
Huntington Park Councilman Ed Escareno added: "We don't have anything to hide. We welcome any investigations. I see it as an opportunity to prove that [residents'] faith in voting for us is justified."
Los Angeles Times, May 25, 2001
A Scramble for Power, Patronage; The Battle for Lucrative City Attorney Contracts in L.A. County's Heavily Heavily Latino
Cities Has Resulted in Some Nasty Allegations. Ex-Partners in a Well-Connected Firm Are in the Center of the Storm
Ted Rohrlich, Times Staff Writer
As new groups scramble to consolidate power and patronage in Los Angeles County's small cities, the pushing and shoving usually takes place underneath public radar.
One exception involves a pair of lawyers who, adversaries complain, have not exactly been using the good government handbook.
The lawyers, Stanford-educated J. Arnoldo Beltran and Harvard-trained H. Francisco Leal, have played power politics in pursuit of lucrative municipal attorney contracts long held by white-dominated law firms, and now also sought by competing Latinos, in cities with new or changing Latino majorities in southeast Los Angeles County and the San Fernando and San Gabriel valleys.
They have used the specter of recall campaigns as a threat against newly elected Latino officials if those officials do not vote to give them contracts, the officials or their associates charged in interviews with The Times. In one instance, a political ally of the lawyers, state Sen. Richard Polanco, allegedly did the threatening for them.
The lawyers and Polanco deny the charges.
There is nothing new about mixing recall politics and the pursuit of city attorney jobs, which are awarded in small cities by majorities of five-member city councils. In Los Angeles County's largest cities, city attorneys are elected.
Edward Dilkes, a veteran white municipal lawyer, recalled that in the 1970s, he was part of a generation of lawyers allied with tax conservatives and environmentalists who seized political power largely at the expense of older, pro-development whites who had settled in Southern California after World War II. Dilkes said he got the city attorney's job in Rosemead after advising such allies on how to run a recall there.
But the allegations lodged against Beltran, Leal and Polanco go beyond merely advising. They involve a form of coercion--specifically, promising to call off recalls in return for contracts.
Because of the rifts they have created, the allegations are significant for another reason: They provide an unusual opportunity to glimpse normally secretive operations of the political machine Polanco is building as it continues to gain and keep footholds in Los Angeles County's local governments.
Polanco, a Democrat who represents northeast Los Angeles in the state Senate, has become known as the leading architect of Latino empowerment in California largely through his successes in sponsoring Latino Democratic candidates for the state Legislature. But he has also dabbled in local politics. He acknowledges that he has possible county supervisorial ambitions when he is termed out of the Legislature in 2002.
As his political allies, lawyers Beltran and Leal have enjoyed considerable success in recent years. They have represented, at various times, eight Los Angeles County cities with contracts each worth hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. They also became lobbyists in Sacramento for some of the same cities, earning tens of thousands of dollars more.
But as participants in a volatile business where job security is only as solid as a three-member city council majority, they also experienced their share of defeats--losing some of these same contracts to other lawyers in a hotly competitive field.
This past summer, Beltran and Leal broke up their partnership, dividing the cities that their firm represented in a move that Leal attributed to stylistic and personality differences. Leal is smoother, thinner, and at 39, 10 years younger than Beltran. He is the diplomat. Beltran is more plain-spoken and direct.
The allegations of coercion lodged against them and Polanco involve only three cities--Bell Gardens, which Beltran still represents; the city of Commerce, which Leal's breakaway firm still represents; and Lynwood, from which the Beltran-Leal firm was fired.
In Bell Gardens, two council members facing recalls said that Beltran and Leal told them early this year that the recalls could stop if the law firm were retained.
Councilman Joaquin Penilla said Leal told him: "What does it take for me to get you not to fire us? What does it take? You want us to stop the recall tomorrow? We'll do it."
"Beltran then said, 'I have a lot of powerful friends, and they'll be very disappointed if we get fired,' " Penilla said.
Another of the council members, Salvador Rios, said that Beltran talked to him too.
"He says he can do anything to keep us in office, but don't fire him ," Rios said. "And I said, 'What could you do?' And he said, 'I could stop the recall just for you.' "
Beltran and Leal deny making the statements.
In Commerce, a different form of pressure was applied.
Leal admits he launched a retaliatory campaign to punish the councilman he held most responsible for firing him by targeting the councilman's half-brother, a school board member, for electoral defeat. Leal said he now regrets that move, which he attributes to letting his anger and hurt get the better of him.
He also wrote a petition to recall the councilman.
Then something strange happened.
Facing recall, the councilman, Hugo Argumedo, suddenly reversed himself and voted to rehire Leal.
Exactly what persuaded Argumedo to change his mind remains unclear since Argumedo would not explain himself for this article. But someone who knows him said Argumedo explained to him that he acted under duress, after he was told that the lawyers would dump big money into the recall campaign against him unless he changed his mind.
Leal and Beltran deny making any such threats.
In Lynwood, Polanco himself became involved.
A council member, Ricardo Sanchez, said that Polanco, the state Senate majority leader, told him that a recall attempt against Sanchez could be stopped if the firm were rehired.
Sanchez had broken away from Lynwood's first-ever Latino City Council majority, which had hired the firm, and formed a new majority with two black council members, which had fired Leal and Beltran.
Sanchez said Polanco told him, "We should work things out. The recall could die if we allowed these people to come back."
Sanchez said Polanco referred to Leal in their conversations as "his boy."
Polanco, whose public demeanor is perennially buttoned down, denied threatening Sanchez and denied referring to Leal as his "boy." "I don't talk like that," the senator said.
He said he met with Sanchez and other members of the Latino bloc, at Sanchez's request, to see if he could repair a breach between Sanchez and Leal and patch up the fractured Latino majority.
"I sit down and I tell them . . . 'Look, you guys are just getting started. You've got to learn to work together,' " Polanco said.
The senator said he has no financial ties to Beltran and Leal, other than that they have made campaign contributions to him, and merely supports them as qualified lawyers in a field that "has been closed to ethnic minority law firms."
Beltran and Leal's reputed involvement in recalls, and a perception that they are closely tied to Polanco, have contributed to an atmosphere of fear even in cities where there were no recalls. Some council members who are already known as dissidents were cautious about what they would say. "I don't feel comfortable being quoted by name in any article regarding them ," said one.
Bell Gardens
Bell Gardens is a 2 1/2-square-mile city of 40,000 in southeast Los Angeles County that was settled by whites fleeing the Dust Bowl in the 1930s and incorporated in 1961. Thirty years later, it became the cradle of the current Mexican American political ascension, when a Latino voting majority recalled a nearly all-white City Council.
Beltran, then a real estate lawyer active in politics, was involved in that recall effort through an organization called NEWS for America, whose "news" was that Mexican Americans no longer needed to wait and practice coalition-building with other ethnic groups since they were so numerous--N(orth), E(ast), W(est) and S(outh).
Two years after the Bell Gardens recall, its local leader, Maria Chacon, herself won election to the council, and Beltran became city attorney. Chacon put together her own three-member slate of council candidates to join her on the governing body in 1997.
Beltran backed this slate--which he knew, if successful, would contain his future employers--by asking political friends to contribute. There was nothing illegal or unusual about that. Some city attorneys or would-be city attorneys do not do it because they take a long view that contributions aimed at making friends also, unavoidably, make enemies of the friends' opponents. But Beltran's view was: "Unless and until the rules change, I'm going to help people who help me."
Shortly after the slate was elected, trouble erupted between its members and Chacon and that led to her effort to recall them.
As tensions mounted, former Bell Gardens Planning Commissioner Alfredo Martinez said that Beltran told him repeatedly that a recall was in the works against the slate, even before a petition was filed. "He said, 'These bozos don't believe we're going to recall them,' " Martinez said. Beltran denies making the remark.
Many issues were involved. One was the use of city funds to subsidize a single-family-home development to be built in part by TELACU, an acronym for The East Los Angeles Community Union. TELACU is an influential nonprofit community development corporation, containing profit-making subsidiaries, that has long been a mainstay in providing Polanco with financial and political support.
Financing for the Bell Gardens portion of TELACU's 53-house project, which extended into neighboring Commerce, was contingent on a $ 2-million Bell Gardens loan.
The City Council initially gave the project a green light. But Chacon's handpicked council members, David Torres, Salvador Rios and Joaquin Penilla, had second thoughts. They said they worried that the loan might not be repaid and that houses, which they said were to be sold for $ 150,000 or more, would prove too expensive for most Bell Gardens residents.
Beltran stepped in to try to save the deal, Rios said.
He said Beltran called him to arrange a private meeting between him, Polanco and the key developer, TELACU President David Lizarraga's son, Michael, who is TELACU's executive vice president.
Beltran denies setting up the meeting.
At the meeting, which Penilla also said he attended, Rios said Polanco pushed for the housing project, saying it would be good for the city.
Polanco, who early in his career worked for TELACU, acknowledged attending. "I was invited to give a recommendation . . . on the experience of TELACU as a housing developer and to share with them history about the organization . . . and I did, as I have done for others who I believe are capable and qualified and, if given the shot, will do a good job," he said.
Rios and Penilla remained unmoved, and together with Torres, voted against the project.
As a recall movement against all three gathered steam, they also moved to fire Beltran. Leal said he then stepped in to try to prevent the loss of a "million-dollar" account. "I'm the relationships guy," Leal said. "I can ask. I can plead. . . . Arnoldo Beltran can't."
Leal said he sought out council member Penilla to make "mostly a plea based on loyalty."
Leal, as well as Beltran, denies Penilla's account that Leal offered to call off the recall against Penilla in return for Penilla's vote.
Leal said it was absurd to imagine that he would say he could stop a recall inspired by Chacon, the most influential politician in town.
Rios, however, said that first Beltran and then Chacon herself made similar pitches to him.
Rios said Beltran told him: "I could stop the recall just for you."
Then Chacon joined their conversation and said, as Rios tells it: "If you don't fire Beltran, we can keep you in office."
Beltran denies saying he would call off a recall. But he acknowledged that he listened as Chacon said "basically, 'We want to work with you.' Obviously, the comment means, 'We don't want you out of office.' "
Chacon said: "I don't recall that at all."
Penilla and Rios, along with their ally, Torres, went ahead with their vote to fire Beltran.
Beltran responded by helping to raise money for their recall. "Some of my friends contributed," he said.
Polanco reported giving $ 1,000 through a campaign committee he controlled.
Saying that was his only involvement in the recall, he explained that he gave the money to help Chacon, who "has been a strong friend and supporter of all of us." By "all of us," he said he meant himself and Democratic state Sen. Martha Escutia, a lawyer whose legislative career he launched in 1992 by helping her win election to the state Assembly representing Bell Gardens and other southeast cities. He also included Democratic Assemblyman Marco Firebaugh, a former Polanco aide who became a law clerk and lobbyist for the Beltran and Leal firm, and then last year, Polanco's choice to replace Escutia in the Assembly.
Escutia's campaign records show that she, too, sent a $ 1,000-contribution to the Bell Gardens recall committee. She sent it to the address of the Beltran and Leal law firm in downtown Los Angeles.
The recall was successful.
The day after new City Council members were sworn in, Beltran was rehired.
The new members, who had campaigned on a pledge to approve the TELACU project, quickly did that too.
Commerce
Commerce is a small industrial city six miles southeast of downtown Los Angeles that boasts that it has no local property or utility taxes. Established in 1960 when industrialists and homeowners decided they would be better off incorporating than risking annexation, the city has more than 40,000 workers but only 12,000 residents.
Leal got the Commerce city attorney job in 1994 and kept it until 1997, when City Councilman Hugo Argumedo led a move to oust him. Leal attributed their squabble to personnel matters. There were also disagreements about a multimillion-dollar project known as Rail Cycle.
Rail Cycle was to involve construction of a giant facility in Commerce to remove recyclables from 8 million pounds of garbage that would be trucked daily into the city from other towns. The remainder of the waste would be put on trains bound for a landfill in the San Bernardino County desert.
The project's partners, Waste Management Inc. and the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway Co., hired a well-connected Latino political figure, Robert Morales, a longtime aide to former state Sen. Art Torres, the current state Democratic Party chairman, as their consultant. His job was to drum up community support for the project.
With Morales' help, Rail Cycle won a conditional use permit from the City Council in late 1992. But four years later, when Argumedo was running for council on a campaign against the project, major construction had still not begun. Rail Cycle's partners cited unforeseen delays in winning approval for their desert landfill.
Citing the inaction, Argumedo asked Leal for a legal opinion that he could use to revoke Rail Cycle's conditional use permit.
But Leal would not provide one. Leal said that he was concerned Rail Cycle could sue the city and win and advised that a better course was to wait, since the project might die of natural causes.
Argumedo would not be interviewed for this article, but associates described him as fed up with what he saw as Leal dragging his feet. He engineered Leal's firing and the hiring of a replacement who said that the city would be on solid legal ground stripping Rail Cycle of its permit.
Rail Cycle sued, and Leal's replacement, interim City Atty. Fernando Villa, won in court, persuading a judge that Rail Cycle could not reserve land indefinitely for future use. The company has appealed.
Leal and some of his associates, meanwhile, set out to punish Argumedo for having fired Leal.
Initially, they targeted Argumedo's half-brother, Hector Chacon, the effective head of Argumedo's local political family, who at the time was running for reelection to the school board of Montebello Unified, which also serves Commerce and nearby cities.
Leal and others associated with either Polanco or the law firm helped fund a campaign committee, called Parents for a Better Education, whose sole purpose was to defeat Hector Chacon.
Leal launched and directed the committee without Beltran's knowledge, both men say.
Polanco denies any connection with Rail Cycle or the committee.
The committee's records show that besides Leal, key donors included David J. Olivas, another lawyer who worked for the Beltran-Leal firm; George Castro, a financial manager who is Polanco's brother-in-law; George Pla, a longtime TELACU insider who heads Cordoba, a consulting firm; and Dario Frommer, then an attorney-lobbyist subcontractor for the Beltran-Leal firm. Frommer later became Gov. Gray Davis' appointments secretary, recommending to the governor who should get patronage jobs in state government, and is now an Assembly candidate from Los Angeles.
Chacon would not agree to be interviewed for this article.
However, his campaign consultant, Phil Giarrizzo, said his client had no doubt where his opposition was coming from. Chacon identified "the people who want to see me defeated because of my brother" as "Polanco, Leal," the consultant said.
Chacon, who had been the school board's top vote-getter, barely survived the challenge, finishing in third place with only three seats up for grabs.
Leal also wrote a petition to recall Argumedo.
He wrote it at the request of Edgar S. Miles, a Commerce activist who had reasons of his own to target Argumedo, according to both Miles and Leal.
Faced with the possibility of being recalled, Argumedo suddenly reversed himself on the question of Leal as city attorney and voted to rehire him.
Someone who knows Argumedo, who was interviewed on condition that his name not be published, said the councilman explained to him that the change of position was made under duress. "They told me, if we didn't take them back, they'd put $ 30,000 into the recall against me," the source quoted Argumedo as having said.
Leal and Beltran deny having made such a threat.
Leal suggested that Argumedo voted to rehire him for another reason. Leal said that the law firm that replaced his was costing more. The increased legal fees had become a big issue in the recall.
Who was behind the recall remains something of an official mystery.
Donors to the effort were not enumerated in a campaign report. Miles said that was because no contributor gave more than $ 100 and therefore names did not have to be disclosed under state law.
But not everyone believed that the recall was exclusively the grass-roots effort it seemed to be.
Bill Orozco, a political operative and one-time aide to former state Senate majority leader David Roberti, said he believed one of Roberti's successors, Polanco, was behind it.
He said he visited Polanco to try to persuade him to call off the recall, which had also targeted an Argumedo council ally.
"I told Polanco, 'Can we stop that recall taking place in Commerce?' " Orozco said. "And he said, 'No, I'm going to see that the two candidates are recalled.' He said, 'I didn't like what they did to people who are loyal to me , so I'm going to punish them and take them out of office.' "
The two candidates were indeed recalled, although Argumedo later won reelection.
Polanco said that his alleged conversation with Orozco never took place. "People are going to say things and do things and create things based on sour grapes, and I think I get credited at times for things that I have very little to do with," the senator said. In fact, he said: "I had nothing to do with that recall."
Lynwood
If Bell Gardens was ground zero in Latino takeovers of city councils from whites, Lynwood was ground zero in Latino takeovers from blacks.
A three-member Latino council slate wrested control of the city from black politicians in 1997, with the aide of an independent expenditure campaign financed by an out-of-town billboard company looking for business opportunities and managed by the political consultant-husband of state Sen. Escutia.
After the slate won, Leal sought the city attorney's job and said he asked Polanco to lobby on his behalf. Polanco acknowledges providing a reference.
Leal got the job but lasted--as did slate unity--less than a year.
Slate member Ricardo Sanchez had a series of disagreements with his fellow Latinos on the council, who subsequently launched a recall campaign against him. Sanchez then allied himself with two black council members, forming a new majority which named him mayor and fired Leal. Sanchez blamed the lawyer--Leal says inaccurately--for playing a role in the recall attempt.
Leal said he once again turned to Polanco for help.
Polanco paid Sanchez a visit.
There are two very different accounts of what happened next.
Sanchez and a friend whose account was read into the record at a public meeting said that the senator told Sanchez that the recall attempt could be stopped, if he came back into the fold and voted to rehire Leal and/or a Latino city manager who had also gotten the ax.
"He was saying, 'We should work things out. The recall could die,' " Sanchez said.
Leal and Polanco deny that Polanco made that statement. Polanco said he had nothing to do with the recall attempt in Lynwood. He said he spoke generally, as a peacemaker. "I sit down and I tell them . . . 'Look, you guys are just getting started. You've got to learn to work together.' "
Leal says he regards what happened in Lynwood as "a tragic story, where a Latino community has been empowered but has been unable to overcome differences for a greater good."
He portrays himself as something of an idealist, trying to help "well-intentioned, humble individuals who want to improve these cities," but don't have the education or experience to do so.
Sanchez is not buying this. He survived the recall attempt when a petition alleging numerous improprieties on his part was invalidated for lack of enough valid signatures. But he remains embittered. "I have a lot of hate," he said. "They made me look like the worst guy in the whole world."
Los Angeles Times, November 17, 1999
S. Pasadena Tax Panel Violated State Open Meeting Law
Richard Winton
Already beset by scandals involving its police officers and a onetime assistant manager, South Pasadena is now embroiled in another controversy, this time over its acknowledged failure to obey the state's open meetings law when an advisory committee on taxes met behind closed doors.
A divided South Pasadena City Council on Wednesday narrowly voted to place its existing 5% utility tax to the voters in a Dec. 3 special election based on the recommendation of that committee after the city attorney admitted that the panel met numerous times in violation of California's open meetings law.
Council members, as they took the 3-2 vote, said the election could be scrapped if the city attorney determines that the violations of the law by the council-created Utility Tax Ad Hoc Committee would make the election result vulnerable to a successful legal challenge. The current utility tax expires next July.
City Atty. Francisco Leal said the committee had failed to follow the law by not providing public notice of the meetings and then denying the public the right to attend the sessions--including one Tuesday that brought the problem to light after reporters were denied access.
"This committee was not in compliance with the Ralph M. Brown Act and we ought to be frank about that," Leal said.
He said it would require further legal research to determine the ramification for the council vote, but on its face the council could make its own decision.
The committee recommendation was approved after more than two hours of debate in which a council majority initially expressed concerns over a Dec. 3 ballot given the potential legal problems and seemed to be moving toward combining the vote with next March's City Council election to save the $ 25,000 cost of an extra election.
But a speech by Ted Shaw, former mayor and committee chairman, turned the tide.
"Let the issue alone go directly to the public and let them have an opportunity to vote on it--nothing else--and allow them to look it straight on and not a number of other issues," he said.
Mayor Dorothy Cohen said it was difficult to ignore such advice. "We are dependent on community volunteers to carry out this campaign" she said. "These same community volunteers are the ones telling us to do it in December."
Cohen, council members Wallace Emory and Paul Zee voted for the December election, while council members Dick Richards and Harry Knapp dissented.
Los Angeles Times, September 6, 1996
South Pasadena Names Third City Attorney in Past Three Months
By Kenneth Ofgang, Staff Writer/Appellate Courts
The City of South Pasadena has hired its third city attorney in three months.
Francisco Leal, of the Los Angeles firm of Beltran, Leal & Medina, was unanimously named to the post on an interim basis Monday night following a closed session of the City Council, the Pasadena Star-News reported yesterday.
Leal, who is also the Commerce city attorney, replaces Judith Roberts, who resigned 33 days after being hired to replace Edward Lee. The newspaper previously reported that Lee had been fired due to council displeasure with the amounts of his billings.
Roberts is one of a number of members of the city's government who've resigned, been fired, been arrested, or taken leave in recent months. The others include the city manager, assistant city manager, and senior center director, as well as the police chief, who is on voluntary leave while the city faces a number of claims and suits regarding alleged police misconduct.
Metropolitan News Enterprise, August 28, 1996
South Gate City Attorney's Aides Donated To Campaigns
By Sharon Hormell, Staff writer
When he applied for the job of city attorney in 1993, Arnold Alvarez-Glasman promised to avoid involvement in South Gate politics.
But last year, three of his paralegals and his secretary donated $5,750 to the campaign committees of Mayor Albert Robles and Councilman Bill Martinez.
Because the campaign finance reports that Robles and Martinez filed with local and state governments did not accurately list the donors' occupations and their employers' name, as state law requires, it is not apparent from the public documents that the donors worked in Alvarez-Glasman's private Montebello law office.
Robles, whose losing 1994 campaign for the state Board of Equalization received $4,000 from the workers, and Martinez, whose City Council campaign received $1,750, could not be reached for comment despite repeated calls requesting interviews. There is no indication that Alvarez-Glasman got anything from the council in return for the contributions his workers sent.
Alvarez-Glasman's mid-1993 resume seeking the South Gate post said, ''Mr. Glasman knows that a good city attorney will be sensitive to the pressures of the elected officials, yet will avoid playing politics or counting votes''
Asked if his office workers' donations to Robles and Martinez might make it appear that he was politically favoring the pair, Alvarez-Glasman likened the contributions to those that might be made by a city employees' union.
''There is no inappropriate activity whatsoever. Campaign contributions are everyone's First Amendment right,'' he said.
According to campaign reports, Alvarez-Glasman himself did not donate to any South Gate council members last year. He said he made a donation in his own name of more than $100 to Robles' council campaign committee in March.
In January, the council gave Alvarez-Glasman a 25 percent raise, increasing his hourly fee from $100 to $125 per hour to handle city and redevelopment issues.
At that rate, he still earns less than the average rate of $145 per hour charged by his predecessor, William Rudell at the firm of Richards, Watson and Gershon. Depending on the complexity of the issue and the attorney assigned, South Gate was paying Rudell's firm $105 to $250 per hour. The council changed city attorneys in 1993 as an economizing move, several council members said.
State law says candidates who receive $100 or more from a donor must truthfully disclose the donor's full name and address, occupation and employer. Candidates and their treasurers sign the reports, swearing under penalty of perjury that they have used all responsible diligence in preparing the forms, said Fair Political Practices Commission spokeswoman Jeannette Turvill.
Failing to disclose the real occupations and employers of donors is an illegal practice informally known as campaign money laundering. The Fair Political Practices Commission can levy fines of $2,000 per offense against the donor and recipient, or turn cases over to the District Attorney's Office for criminal prosecution.
The FPPC does not confirm, discuss or deny ongoing investigations, so Turvill would not say if the agency is researching South Gate council campaigns or Robles' failed 1994 state Board of Equalization campaign.
However, South Gate City Clerk Nina Banuelos said an investigator from the FPPC had requested Robles' council cam paign finance records dating back to 1991 as part of an audit of all candidates in the Board of Equalization race.
''People have the right to know that the companies and their employees are supporting a particular candidate,'' Turvill said. ''If the disclosure (report) is not accurate, that can be a deliberate attempt to defraud the voters.''
On the required forms, Alvarez-Glasman's three paralegals were listed as working at three different paralegal or secretarial services bearing their last names and their home addresses in Chino, Chino Hills and Arcadia, although none holds an official county permit to do business as those firms.
The secretary, who lives in Monterey Park, was identified as working at Alvarez-Glasman's firm, but her occupation was misidentified as an attorney on the campaign disclosure form.
Two of the paralegals could not be reached for comment despite repeated calls to their homes and office. The secretary and the third paralegal said in separate interviews that they made the donations voluntarily and were not reimbursed, but each declined to discuss the circumstances or reasons for writing the checks.
Alvarez-Glasman said he knew of the donations by his workers, ''probably, in passing, they may have mentioned it,'' but stressed, ''I had nothing to do with that, and it is up to you to decide if it is a coincidence.''
Because he is also a Montebello City Council member, his office often receives mailed requests to donate to political campaigns, and it is up to each individual to decide whether and how much to give, he said. Those who donate receive no benefit and incur no penalty if they don't give, he said.
No employee is reimbursed for a political donation, he said, declining to say how much he pays his secretary and paralegals.
According to campaign finance reports, none of his office staff has donated to any sitting council members of Montebello, where Alvarez-Glasman has held office since 1985, or Pomona, the other community he represents as city attorney.
Long Beach Press-Telegram, June 20, 1995
Program Benefits; Mayor Buys In--Literally--To Aid Plan for First-Time Home Buyers
By Sharon Hormell
SOUTH GATE, Calif--The city has a kitty of $1.12 million to lend interest-free to 25 first-time home buyers, and the short list of people who seized the opportunity includes a bachelor high school science teacher, a two-income family of five and Mayor Albert Robles.
"It's a great program," said Robles, 29, whose $28,000 junior high school teacher's salary plus $10,000 mayor's pay qualified him as just the kind of moderate-income, first-time home buyer the program was intended to help when he and the rest of the City Council approved it last July.
He has opened escrow on a $140,000 townhouse on Karmont Avenue on the city's east end. If his loan application is approved, he stands to get a no-interest "silent second" mortgage of up to $40,000 that need not be repaid until the home is sold, transferred or occupied by somebody else.
Thus, the price of his new home would be reduced by the amount of the silent second mortgage, making it easier for him to qualify for a regular bank mortgage to finance the balance.
There is enough money in the program, depending on the needs of each borrower, to fund about 16 loans of up to $40,000 for moderate-income home buyers.
That would describe Mark Trepanier, to whom teaching is like a religious calling.
Although the wages are higher than the priesthood's traditional vow of poverty, his salary as a South Gate High School science teacher just wasn't enough to buy a house.
Until now. As one of a handful of moderate-income people to qualify for "silent second" mortgages, he was able to buy a house in South Gate's Hollydale neighborhood.
"I wanted something with two bedrooms, nothing fancy, just something with a nice yard, because I like gardening," said the 36-year-old bachelor, who lives with his cat, Booger.
Now, as he waits for the spring planting season, he plans his garden and enjoys his newfound status as a homeowner.
"I really feel like I'm part of the community," he said, "a citizen of South Gate."
Another nine loans of up to $50,000 are destined for low-income households like that of Griselda and Rafael Rodriguez.
Their home ownership plans seemed dashed when an unexpected third pregnancy ate up their savings.
But Rafael suggested they apply for the home buyer assistance program he saw reported in a newspaper.
Griselda told him, "That's a bunch of baloney; I don't believe it," but they applied anyway, and were accepted into the program for low-income, first-time home buyers, eligible for a silent second mortgage of up to $50,000.
To house their three growing boys, they found a two-bedroom house with a den that could be converted into a third bedroom about a block from the Tweedy Boulevard commercial district. They moved in Dec.4.
"The first thing we did was give thanks to the Lord, and we laughed, remembering the first time I told my husband, 'No, no, and no,' " Griselda Rodriguez said. "Because now he says, 'You see, you see?' And he's happy."
Robles and the city's four other council members approved the program last July, which increases by a fraction of 1 percent the number of South Gate homeowners.
The Community Development Department drafted the loan program to comply with state laws requiring that one-fifth of the proceeds of the Redevelopment Agency be spent increasing the city's stock of low- to moderate-income housing.
South Gate's entire $680,000 housing set-aside account is being spent on the Homeownership Assistance Program, along with $440,000 in federal money earmarked for first-time home buyers.
City Attorney Arnold Alvarez-Glasman said that even though Robles voted to create the home ownership assistance program, he was free to apply for its benefits as long as he was treated like every other applicant.
"There isn't a conflict (of interest) if the mayor is participating in this process," Alvarez-Glasman said. "He's having to go through all the same hoops as everyone else."
Although the program's money will be distributed on a first-come, first-served basis, no qualified person who has applied has been denied money yet, said Community Development Director Andy Pasmant.
Several people have been disqualified because their earnings are too low, their pre-existing debt is too high, or their credit record is poor.
The intent of the program is to increase the number of owner-occupied houses in the city, Pasmant said.
Although 25 is a very small percentage of the 22,000 households in the city, "it's 25 more than last year," Pasmant said.
Nearly half of South Gate's dwellings are owner-occupied, about the same percentage as the county average, the 1990 U.S. Census said, but that rate is lower than the national average of 64 percent and the state average of 56 percent.
The median value of South Gate owner-occupied homes is about $161,900 in this 86,284-population city, where the median household income is about $27,279.
Chicago Tribune, February 5, 1995
Political Allies at Issue in Bid to Unseat Soto; Campaign: The Councilwoman Says Her Opponents Want to Return Control to the Old Boy Network. Challengers Question Soto's Ties to Ousted Councilman C. L. (Clay) Bryant
By Mike Ward, Times Staff Writer
POMONA -- In the midst of her first reelection campaign, Councilwoman Nell Soto says she's still a valiant enemy of the Old Boy Network.
Her opponents in the March 5 election, however, seem more concerned about her friends, who they say include special interest contributors and recalled Councilman C. L. (Clay) Bryant.
Neither the Old Boy Network nor Bryant is on the ballot, of course, but they have emerged as the prime campaign targets.
Soto, 64, said her opponents are bent on returning Pomona to the control of the people who nearly ruined it, the group she has dubbed the Old Boy Network.
"The people who are supporting my opponents are those people who have been kicked out of City Hall, the old leeches, the old hangers-on, the people who have gotten rich off Pomona taxpayers," she said.
Meanwhile, Robert Jackson, a 33-year-old teacher who has become the most aggressive campaigner among her three opponents, said the removal of Soto from office is the logical follow-up to the recall of Bryant, her political ally on the council who was ousted in June.
"She was and is the other side of the Clay Bryant coin," Jackson said. "We must rid ourselves, as we did of Clay Bryant, of those responsible for the turmoil this city has faced."
Both Jackson and another candidate, Timothy Smith, a 41-year-old air-conditioning technician, have accused Soto of catering to special interests. Smith said Soto has given the city "the worst representation in recent history" and "has been a constant source of embarrassment."
Jackson and Smith are appealing to the same block of voters: those who advocated Bryant's recall. Bryant was targeted in part for his role in effecting wholesale change at City Hall, including the firing of a city administrator and police chief and the ouster of other key officials.
The fourth candidate in the race, Reyes Rachel Madrigal, a 57-year-old associate professor at Mt. San Antonio College, is trying to remain above the fray. She has avoided criticizing Soto directly, saying only that "the image of Pomona has suffered as a result of the infighting that has occurred."
Madrigal and Soto are Latinas in a district whose population of about 22,000 is estimated at 43% Latino.
Soto won election to the council four years ago and in 1989 forged a "new majority" with Bryant and Councilman Tomas Ursua that remolded city government before the coalition fell apart, first with a split between Ursua and Bryant, and then with Bryant's recall.
Soto said the political turmoil has produced positive changes, including a new city staff that is more responsive to citizens. "Sure, there's been a lot of bickering and you know why?" she said. "Because change is hard to come by. . . . Change is hard to accept by those who have been in power for the last 30, 40 or 50 years."
Soto was born in Pomona and counts her great-grandson as the ninth generation of her family to live in the city. As she was growing up, she said, Pomona was a segregated town, with Latinos barred from the municipal pool except on days set aside for them, exiled to a special section at movie theaters and excluded from living north of Holt Avenue.
Discrimination and growing up poor shaped her politics and her attitude toward the Pomona establishment. Active in the Democratic Party most of her life, she helped her husband, Phil, win election to the state Assembly in the 1960s, and she ran campaigns for other politicians before winning a seat herself on the Pomona City Council in 1987.
She knows many city officials throughout the region because of her job as local government and community affairs representative for the Southern California Rapid Transit District. Through her contacts in city government, she recruited the current Pomona city administrator, Julio Fuentes, and other newcomers who have filled key positions in the city.
Soto lists among her achievements the formation of a community group to fight gangs, the initiation of a volunteer mounted patrol and a mobile substation for the Police Department, and the installation of new playground equipment in neighborhood parks in her district.
Both Jackson and Smith have accused her of siding with special interests, such as billboard companies and gambling club promoters, and have criticized her vote for a motel project on Holt Avenue.
Jackson has strongly criticized Soto for accepting nearly $3,000 in campaign contributions from the billboard industry and $1,000 each from City Atty. Arnold Glasman and Miller & Schroeder, a bond consulting firm employed by the city.
Jackson said the donations represent a conflict of interest because Soto voted to hire Glasman and the bond firm and has been backing a proposal that would allow billboard companies "to keep their dilapidated eyesores in our city."
Soto said there is no conflict of interest because she promises nothing in return for contributions. For example, she said, she has never voted to increase the number of billboards but favors allowing sign companies to replace some aging billboards with new ones on the outskirts of Pomona.
Both Jackson and Smith have assailed Soto for voting last year to put a measure on the ballot to legalize card clubs. The council withdrew the measure after a barrage of protests from residents.
Soto said her opponents have wrongly accused her of favoring casino gambling. Soto said she voted to put the measure on the ballot only because she believes residents have the right to make that decision. She said revenue from card clubs, such as those in the City of Commerce and Gardena, could produce enough money to enable Pomona to cut or eliminate its unpopular and relatively high tax on utility bills.
Smith and Jackson said they strongly oppose card clubs in Pomona.
Jackson, a veteran of the Marine Corps, holds a teaching credential from Cal State Dominguez Hills and has lived in the city for 12 years. He teaches at a Pomona junior high school.
Smith, who has lived in Pomona 19 years, said he offers voters independence without ties to any group. "I think we're ready in Pomona for a new politics," he said.
Madrigal, who has lived in Pomona more than 30 years, teaches Spanish at Mt. San Antonio College. Her varied background includes work on farms and factories and as a teacher and school administrator. She holds a doctorate in education from Claremont Graduate School.
She said the current council has been quarrelsome and indecisive. She said she can make difficult decisions and would work diligently to bring harmony to the council.
The 1st Council District takes in the central portion of the city west of Garey Avenue and south of the San Bernardino Freeway. The March 5 election will be the first in Pomona in which voters choose council members by district. If no candidate receives a majority of the votes, the top two finishers will meet in a runoff April 16.
