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Yahoo
01-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Arellano: In this city, politics feels like Wrestlemania. Who should we cheer?
In the eternal spinning wheel that's political scandal in southeast L.A. County, the ticker is now on Huntington Park — and it looks like it'll be stuck there for a while. The blue-collar, overwhelmingly Latino city faces a lawsuit by former Councilmember Esmeralda Castillo, who alleges she was illegally removed in February in the wake of an investigation that determined Castillo didn't live within city limits and was thus ineligible to serve. Mayor Arturo Flores is battling a recall by opponents who claim on social media he's a 'reckless alcoholic' and abuses women while offering no evidence to back up the scurrilous claims. His predecessor, Councilmember Karina Macias, woke up on Feb. 26 to the sound of L.A. County district attorney's office investigators outside her apartment with a search warrant as part of Operation Dirty Pond. That's an investigation into a proposed $25-million aquatics center for Salt Lake Park that was first announced in 2019 but so far has nothing to show except half a football field and a fenced-off field of dirt and dying grass. Also served were Councilmember Eddie Martinez, two former council members and City Manager Ricardo Reyes and even Huntington Park City Hall, which saw yellow caution tape block off the front entrance as investigators carried out evidence. Then there's longtime City Atty. Arnold Alvarez-Glasman, who resigned during a special council meeting in early March just two days after the Operation Dirty Pond raids. He claimed that Flores and his council allies had made his job 'unreasonably difficult.' Is it any wonder that City Council meetings nowadays easily dissolve into even more municipal desmadre? Read more: 'It's a tale as old as time': Huntington Park residents lambaste leaders over corruption probe While malfeasance in politics happens in all parts of Southern California, the level of skulduggery, and sometimes outright thievery, by council members in southeast L.A. County cities over the past three decades has made this area's politics infamous. There was South Gate, where former Mayor and Treasurer Albert Robles was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison in 2006 on corruption charges and an elderly council member survived a gunshot wound to the head in a case that was never solved. Bell, where five former council members and two city staffers were convicted in the mid-2010s of fleecing residents for decades. It's local politics as Wrestlemania. Huntington Park was supposed to be different, a city where a new generation of politicians who helped to take out the previous baddies repeatedly reassured the public they would break the corruption cycle. That's what they told me last year, when I did a series on the history of Latino politics in Los Angeles. Well, here we are. At the April 7 meeting, Flores bragged that he wore Macias' vote against him to succeed her as mayor 'like a badge of honor because I definitely do not want [her] support,' which the audience reacted to with groans and mutters of 'Oh, God.' A few weeks later, as Nancy Martiz was being sworn in to fill Castillo's former seat Macias focused on her cellphone like someone waiting for an Uber ride. 'Your background is just corruption,' Rudy Cruz told the council at the April 7 meeting during the public comments section. 'It's like oysters to a rock. It's hard to get them off.' Afterward, I asked him if he thought Flores' ascension represented a fresh start for Huntington Park. The 48-year resident laughed. 'There's others, waiting like vultures for an animal to die," Cruz replied. "Here [in Huntington Park], the immoral becomes moral, the illegal becomes legal.' I interviewed Flores and Macias at the site of their choice to size them up and decide who came off as truthful and who was full of it. The loquacious Flores, a self-admitted 'peleonero' — a fighter — who's serving his first full term, showed up to Salt Lake Park in a Carhartt jacket embroidered with the city seal and his name. Macias, calm and dressed in a modest black blouse and jeans, picked a Mexican ice cream shop where she slowly enjoyed a scoop of rocky road inside a waffle cone. Both are children of Mexican immigrants who grew up in blue-collar neighborhoods — Flores in South L.A., Macias in Huntington Park. They have worked in jobs that require selflessness and attention to detail — Flores was a Marine bomb dog trainer with tours in Afghanistan and Iraq, while Macias became a full-time caretaker for her parents. They were former political allies who previously worked on political campaigns for Efren Martinez, the southeast L.A. County power broker who lost an Assembly race last year and whose residence and consulting business were also searched as part of Operation Dirty Pond. 'This is the Karina Macias legacy, you know?' the 36-year-old Flores told me as we walked around Salt Lake Park. People jogged around the fenced-off lot, which was once a skating park. 'It's a failed pool project riddled with inconsistencies, riddled with questionable acts and questions of legality and incompetence.' "They're [Flores and his allies] putting a gray, dark cloud on something that can change the lives of the community," Macias, 38, replied when I shared his thoughts. She has sat on the City Council since 2013. 'There was no wrongdoing or things being hidden or money misspent or being stolen. What he's saying, there's nothing of that, you know?' Both used 'You know?' a lot in our conversations, like any typical Latino Angeleno. Both claim the 'community' is behind them and welcomed any and all scrutiny. 'I'm not panicking, you know what I'm saying?' the 36-year-old Flores boasted. 'I'm cool like a cucumber.' 'If you don't have enemies, then you're not pushing the buttons or trying to do good for the community,' Macias, 38, offered with a hint of pride. Read more: Huntington Park was promised a $24-million pool complex. It was never built. Where did the money go? This isn't her first brush with scandal. In 2017, the D.A. investigated and ultimately cleared her for raising money for an Efren Martinez Assembly campaign from companies that sought to do business with Huntington Park. This time around, Macias presented me with a folder of documents that included a timeline of the Salt Lake Park aquatic center complete with all the council votes in its favor, including a 2023 motion that gave Huntington Park's city manager the authority to execute all contracts associated with the project. Among the yes votes then? Flores. 'The mayor decided just to make something out of nothing because he's known about the project since the time that he started,' Macias said matter-of-factly. Later on, as we walked down Pacific Avenue and she handed me her business card, she noticed it was out of date. 'It still says mayor,' Macias said, a small smile on her face. 'Don't tell the mayor.' Flores handed me no documents, but something perhaps more powerful: a confessional. After working in L.A. County politics for a decade, including serving as a body man for Antonio Villaraigosa during his failed gubernatorial campaign, Flores moved to Huntington Park in 2018. 'I'm not going to say there wasn't a political ambition there,' he admitted. He helped on the successful 2020 City Council campaigns for Eddie Martinez, Graciela Ortiz, and Marilyn Sanabria; the latter two also saw their residences searched as part of Operation Dirty Pond. Flores said they and Macias initially sold him on the Salt Lake Park pool project. 'I felt inspired. I thought it was a beautiful thing," he said. "I'm like, 'This is what we need. Latinos need this.' Why can't we have nice things in our communities, right?' They told him that criticism by watchdogs were just 'los haters.' But Flores said his perspective changed once he was appointed to the City Council in 2022 and he went to City Hall during a rainstorm. 'The staff had 30-gallon trash cans filled up with water. There's mold on the walls. The roofs are leaking. I went to the city manager's office and I said, 'Hey, like, you know, excuse my French, but what the f—'s going on here?'' The subsequent fire hose of allegations he unleashed during our hourlong chat seemed haphazard compared to Macias' measured responses. Humblebrags by Flores like 'Every time that they've tried to maneuver against me, they're met with an insurmountable reaction because I've already anticipated that that's their tactics' sounded like the words of someone asking to be hoisted by their proverbial petard. But Macias did herself no favors when she insisted Efren Martinez had 'zero involvement with' the Salt Lake Park pool project. One of the clients he listed on campaign disclosure forms for his failed 2020 Assembly race was the construction company whose owners saw their residence searched for Operation Dirty Pond as well. Flores and Macias were both pleasant unless the subject was each other. They struck me as earnest about improving Huntington Park and confident they're innocent of what opponents claim about them. But one of them has to be wrong, right? As a tiebreaker, I called up former Assemblymember Hector De La Torre, who entered politics a quarter century ago to help cleanse his hometown of South Gate. He's now executive director of the Gateway Cities Council of Governments, which advocates for 27 cities stretching from Montebello to Long Beach to Cerritos and all the southeast L.A. County cities, and has worked with Flores and Macias in that capacity. De La Torre praised both of them for their 'dedication' to better Huntington Park, and urged they let Operation Dirty Pond investigators do their job. But in a wearied tone, he told me 'in SELA, sometimes it isn't about someone getting rid of corruption and cleaning up the city." (SELA is the nickname for southeast L.A. County.) 'Sometimes, it's two different factions, both as shady as the other," he said. "And the swings are not from corruption to good government; they're from one type of corruption to the other.' Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Yahoo
25-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Huntington Park City Council fills seat of former member suing over her removal
The Huntington Park City Council has chosen a local civil service commissioner to replace former Councilmember Esmeralda Castillo, whose seat was declared vacant after a probe determined she was not living in the city. Wednesday's appointment comes several days after a California appeals court issued a stay on a Los Angeles Superior Court judge's restraining order that had prevented the city from filling the seat. Castillo requested the restraining order as part of a civil lawsuit she filed against the city in February, in which she claims she was illegally removed from office. Her attorney, Albert Robles, said he was not surprised about the appointment — and claimed the city was violating his client's due process rights. 'Judge Barbara A. Meiers of the Los Angeles County Superior Court directly and unequivocally cautioned the City Council not to appoint a replacement and if they did so, it would be 'at their own peril,'' he said in a written statement. 'Yet despite this judicial warning, and despite multiple members of the public attempting to alert the City Council during public comment, they proceeded in known defiance.' Read more: In scandal-plagued Huntington Park, the abrupt ouster of a council member raises alarms Huntington Park officials said they're committed to due process and transparency. They also say they respect Castillo's right to seek judicial review of the council's decision. 'However, it is important to clarify that the council's action to declare the seat vacant was taken in accordance with longstanding state and municipal laws, which require elected officials to live in the city while serving in public office,' the statement read. "This determination followed public complaints and an independent investigation conducted by the Huntington Park Police Department. The investigation — based on documentation, verified evidence, and witness statements — substantiated that the former councilmember no longer resides in the [city]." By appointing a new council member, Huntington Park Mayor Arturo Flores said the city was upholding its laws and the interests of its citizens. 'Any attempt to discredit this legal process is an attack on our democratic institutions and we must not stand for it,' he said. At least 29 candidates sought to fill the vacant seat. The council's eventual pick was Nancy Martiz, a member of the Huntington Park Civil Service Commission that advises the city on equitable hiring practices. Her biography posted on the city's website says she "brings a strong community foundation and over 15 years of public and private sector experience to the Council." Martiz, according to the city, graduated from South Gate High School in 2004 and holds a double bachelor's degree in government and American studies from Smith College. She also earned a master's degree in public administration and policy from Cal State Long Beach and has worked for the South Gate city attorney's office and Los Angeles mayor's office, according to her bio. Martiz could not immediately be reached for comment. Her appointment is the latest wrinkle in the ongoing legal dispute over Castillo's controversial removal from office on Feb. 18, when the results of the city's residency investigation were revealed to civic leaders in a closed-door meeting. The council subsequently declared her seat vacant on Feb. 24 and sought candidates to replace her. Two days later, investigators with the L.A. County district attorney's office executed search warrants at the homes of then-Mayor Karina Macias, Councilman Eduardo 'Eddie' Martinez and City Manager Ricardo Reyes. Search warrants were also executed at the homes of two former council members, a contractor and a consultant. The warrants were part of what's been dubbed Operation Dirty Pond, a probe into the alleged misuse of taxpayer funds allocated for a $24-million aquatic center that hasn't been built. No one has been charged. Read more: Huntington Park was promised a $24-million pool complex. It was never built. Where did the money go? Robles said Castillo's removal was not only unlawful but politically motivated, because she had filed a formal complaint with the city against three council members and the city manager. 'Here, defendants not only acted as judge, jury and executioner, but to further highlight defendants' self-directed unjust political power grab, [they] also conducted the investigation,' Castillo alleged in her suit. Andrew Sarega, the attorney who was hired to oversee the city's inquiry, said Huntington Park police investigators looked into Castillo's residency months before she filed her grievance. He said a complaint was also filed in August with the L.A. County district attorney's office, which declined to take the case after it determined the issue was a civil matter, not a criminal one, according to an email obtained by The Times. Huntington Park authorities say they launched their investigation into Castillo in November, after the city manager received complaints alleging she was not living in the city. Read more: 'It's a tale as old as time': Huntington Park residents lambaste leaders over corruption probe The investigation included surveillance, court-approved GPS tracking and search warrants at Castillo's Huntington Park apartment and her parents' home in South Gate. Investigators also interviewed five witnesses, including Castillo, according to Sarega. He said investigators tracked Castillo's vehicle for a month in January and found that she had only stayed at the Huntington Park apartment once. Someone else was living there, but Castillo had mail sent there, too, Sarega said. Robles said his client had been caring for her ailing parents while maintaining a full-time residence in Huntington Park, which he said is permitted under state and city election laws. Meiers, the Superior Court judge, issued a restraining order against the city on April 4 — prompting officials to file an appeal. California's 2nd District Court of Appeal granted the stay this week, just days before the city's 60-day deadline to fill the seat and avoid what would have been a costly special election. Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
