COVER STORY : A Battered Body Politic : Controversy, Infighting Characterize Elections in Hub Cities

Picture a red-white-and-blue sort of ribbon-cutting ceremony, the type held in towns everywhere. City council candidates nod approvingly during the dedication of a new sports program at the youth center. Parents and their children mill about, sharing hot dogs, sodas and the latest gossip.

Suddenly, good manners dissolve and one candidate allegedly shoulder-slams another’s16-year-old cheerleader daughter. Assault charges are filed with the police department and the two candidates, former political allies, go to court. One candidate seeks a temporary restraining order. The other tells the judge the incident is imaginary.

Welcome to election season in Southeast Los Angeles County, where politics as usual is anything but.

From Vernon to South Gate, from Huntington Park to Bell Gardens, local politics in the area known as the Hub Cities is often a hubbub of conflict and scandal. Even to a jaded electorate that has come to expect political infighting and allegations, the consistent record of controversy in the densely populated 12-square-mile area stands out.

Consider recent history in Bell Gardens. In addition to the alleged assault on a candidate’s daughter, there have been two recall campaigns launched in the past three years, closed session chair-throwing, allegations of voter fraud after the last two elections, and a council member fined $1,500 by the Fair Political Practices Commission for illegally casting a vote.

More recently, incumbent Josefina (Josie) Macias alleged that she received threatening letters and that her husband was run off the road by her opponents’ supporters. Allegations of jobs and scholarships offered in return for votes and accusations of other political dirty tricks abound.

Police Chief Andy Romero has told council members that he has turned so many city investigations over to the district attorney, the office is overwhelmed.

Things have gotten so bad that “people feel embarrassed” to admit they live in Bell Gardens, said Councilwoman Rosa Hernandez, who is seeking her second term.

“When people ask where they live, they say: ‘A little place near Downey.’ ”

Some say Bell Gardens politics is still recovering from the animosity created by the historic 1991 recall campaign that ousted four white council members and gave the city its first Latino council majority. But while the recall may have focused a media microscope on that city’s political blemishes, it is not the only place in the area where politics is said to be, if not dirty, in need of a good dusting.

* In tiny Cudahy, where a half-dozen recall campaigns have been launched in as many years, one finally reached the ballot last year. Councilman John O. Robertson survived a recall effort organized by his four council colleagues only to become an issue in this year’s election--and he isn’t even a candidate.

Robertson and two other men agreed to pay a $39,000 settlement in October after being named in a civil suit alleging that they misused funds from the Hub Cities Consortium, a regional job training program. But the defendants missed the December payment deadline and fees now amount to about $55,000. Robertson backs two council candidates who, some fear, if elected would vote to have the city pay his debt. Robertson asserts no fraud was found and it is the city’s legal responsibility to support him.

* In Huntington Park, Councilman Luis M. Hernandez, running for his second term, still owes the Fair Political Practices Commission $10,000 from more than $20,000 in fines for violations he racked up during two other campaigns. The FPPC charged Hernandez with 11 violations of campaign disclosure practices in two campaigns, which it said “denied the public important information” before the two elections. The fines, Hernandez said, are “merely a smudge on my record rather than something that should take me out office. We feel we were fined substantially for first-time offenders.”

Meanwhile, Hernandez ally and political newcomer MariCarmen Medrano has asked the district attorney to investigate alleged fraudulent use of absentee ballots in the city.

* In South Gate, candidate Ted Moore, a vocal council critic who was summarily dismissed from the planning commission this year, temporarily vanished. Moore, who many depended on as council watchdog, filed candidate’s papers and then disappeared without notifying the city. After some investigative work, officials determined that he had sold his house. Moore was missing for several weeks before he called City Clerk Nina Banuelos to inform her he was in Las Vegas and insisted he was still a candidate. He still has yet to surface in South Gate.

The eight-city region that lies southeast of Downtown Los Angeles--Bell, Bell Gardens, Cudahy, Commerce, Huntington Park, Maywood, South Gate and Vernon--is a residential landscape characterized by single-family homes, card casinos and factories. Settled by Midwesterners and Dust Bowl refugees who sought a better life in California, the area was until the 1970s a middle-class white community where bustling industry backed up to thriving neighborhoods.

Within the past 20 years, the Southeast area has become a first stop for Latino immigrants and one of the poorer, more overcrowded regions in the state. Between 1980 and 1990, the population in Southeast cities grew by up to 33% and most of the newcomers were Latino. During the same period, heavy industry and some of the area’s largest employers, such as General Motors, moved away, leaving toxic waste sites to clean up and thousands of people unemployed.

If political instability and malfeasance in the area appear epidemic, the turbulence is no mystery, experts say. Local politics are a reflection of the demographic and economic upheaval in the area.

“It’s a really tough time to be councilman in one of these Southeast cities,” said political scientist Fernando J. Guerra, who heads the Chicano studies department at Loyola Marymount University.

“The demographic shift is understated and understudied in the Southeast,” Guerra said. “The area has gone from 95% white to 80% and . . . up to 95% Hispanic. The area has deindustrialized and the tremendous transition that is occurring creates instability and political insecurity. . . . Until the late 1980s, the councils weren’t representative, but they were stable.”

Despite the overwhelmingly Latino population, five of the eight city councils still have white majorities. But whether political representation of Latinos has come with a jolt, as in Bell Gardens, or more gradually, as in Huntington Park, all the local city councils have begun to reflect their changed constituencies.

Anyone who assumed that Latino representation would mean harmony was sorely disappointed to see the Bell Gardens council break into bickering so fierce that two members now rarely speak. In Huntington Park, the Latino majority does not vote as a bloc. In fact, Councilman Hernandez’s campaign rhetoric targets incumbent Raul Perez, also seeking his second term.

Such disagreements shouldn’t surprise anyone because “Latinos cannot be identified as a political entity” any more than whites or African Americans, said David Hayes-Bautista, director of the Alta California Research Center, a Los Angeles think tank that studies Latino issues.

The difference, Hayes-Bautista said, is that in many cases the new crop of Latino council members has been ill-prepared to lead.

Historically, California’s Latino community has had few institutions to nurture leadership, Hayes-Bautista said. Unlike the African American community, where churches and black colleges and universities have provided stages to test aspiring leaders, few Latino leaders enter the political arena with experience; thus, they are making their mistakes in the harsh public limelight.

Economic hard times have made the transition from white to Latino control even more difficult. Latinos elected to represent the concerns of working-class and poor constituents have had to impose utility taxes, assessments and budget cuts to steady sinking city budgets.

“You have representation in those communities now, but (new Latino leaders) need to deal with very real problems there,” said Larry Berg, director of the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics at USC. “They’re at a distinct disadvantage because they don’t have the resources to do it.”

Candidates and incumbents acknowledge that council battles in the Southeast area have contributed to the region’s turmoil.

Huntington Park Councilman Raul R. Perez said city councils should use political appointments and other means to nurture potential leaders.

“For a long time I criticized the council because they didn’t prepare anyone to take over when they left,” said Perez, who is seeking his second term. “I appointed a couple of people (to commissions) who are running against me now, but I can’t criticize them because they have to cut their teeth somehow.”

In Bell Gardens, council challenger Maria Victoria Martinez has included parenting, leadership and citizenship classes in her platform. Residents need to take responsibility for the community and help keep their leaders accountable, she said.

“So many people here are new immigrants and they aren’t used to speaking out and taking leadership roles,” Martinez said.

Voter apathy and a large non-citizen population play a role in lack of accountability in the area, observers said. About 40% to 50% of residents in the Southeast cities are not U.S. citizens, according to the 1990 Census. Of those registered to vote in the 1990 Bell election, 16% turned out. The 1992 election was canceled because the incumbents drew no challengers.

Lack of media coverage is also a problem in the area, said Gregory Rodriguez, a researcher with the Alta California Research Center, who has studied the Southeast region. The South Gate Press and other local newspapers stopped publishing by 1992, creating a communication gap between city officials and residents.

“Politics becomes irrelevant because no one knows what’s happening,” Rodriguez said.

City council candidates rallied some voters in 1992 by making race and representation into campaign issues. This year, 35 of 53 candidates are Latino, bread-and-butter issues such as accountability and crime are back in vogue, and some question whether having Latino leaders has made a difference.

In South Gate, where the council still has a white majority, “some people say it should be a Latino council because the majority of us are Latino,” said Victorio Gutierrez, a South Gate High School teacher. “But it doesn’t matter if you’re white, pink or blue, you still need to be accountable. . . . It doesn’t matter who gets in as long as they listen to the people.”

In Bell Gardens, home of what some called a Latino revolution, voters “are ashamed” of their Latino leaders, said a longtime resident who would identify himself only as Ramon. “They say we have Latinos in there, but it was better the other way.”

But even dogged Bell Gardens critics, such as former council candidate Victor Vaillette, said the leadership has matured and members have overcome initial gridlock to enact innovative policy.

Recent approval of a city-sponsored student loan program and support for a badly needed family health clinic demonstrate the council is capable of proactive policy that addresses some of the community’s more pressing concerns, Vaillette said.

Having Latinos on the council has encouraged Huntington Park residents to participate in city meetings and programs, said Rudy Griego, a Huntington Park businessman and former Chamber of Commerce president.

“Latino leaders make (residents) want to vote and feel (the city) is theirs,” said Rodriguez of the Alta California Research Center. “That will translate eventually into better government.”

The fact that the Southeast cities worked together to bring a branch of East Los Angeles College to Huntington Park is also an example of Latino leaders having an impact in the region, said Assemblywoman Martha M. Escutia (D-Huntington Park).

“I frankly don’t think that would have happened without Latino leaders on the councils,” she said.

Election officials in many cities said the campaigns this year have been relatively calm despite some requisite sign-stealing and name-calling. Still, fierce battles are being waged in Huntington Park and Bell Gardens, among other places.

Huntington Park Councilman Luis Hernandez and maverick MariCarmen Medrano have faced off against incumbent Raul Perez, former state legislative aide Rosario Marin and real estate agent Jessica Maes. There, camps are trading allegations of voter fraud and misinformation.

In Bell Gardens, opponents of challenger Maria Chacon allege that her camp is using bribery, intimidation and fraud to win the election, charges that Chacon vehemently denies. Chacon, a catalyst in the 1991 recall movement, has split with incumbent Josie Macias and teamed on the ticket with Planning Commissioner Ramiro Morales.

Candidates in Maywood, Bell Gardens and Huntington Park are among those pushing residents to vote by absentee ballot and hoping to lock up their victories before Election Day. Maywood City Clerk Samuel A. Pena said he has had more than 800 requests for absentee ballots in a city where only about 1,200 voted in the previous municipal election. Large numbers of candidates--11 in South Gate and nine in Huntington Park--also have complicated the races and are certain to make them closer, officials said.

While the beleaguered councils stumble into maturity, real stability in the Southeast area could be a long time coming, Rodriguez said. In Bell Gardens, officials have estimated a 30% transience rate in the city and less than 25% of the 42,000 homes are owner-occupied, numbers that illustrate the instability of the population.

As long as the Southeast region remains an entry point for new immigrants--a highly mobile population--community leaders need to find ways to incorporate non-citizens into the political life of the city, Rodriguez said.

He pointed to a Bell Gardens student loan program--which requires parents to remain in the city while students are accepting city money and includes a community service component--as an innovative example of programs that can encourage residents to stay put and become citizens.

“(The Southeast area) is at a nascent stage, but it will coalesce and get past the chair-throwing,” Rodriguez said. “I don’t think you can categorize these cities by allegation and indictments. This is only a snapshot in time and it will pass.”

Tuesday’s election is not expected to be a major turning point for the Southeast area, but another small step in the area’s maturation process. If the region can overcome its growing pains, Rodriguez said, it has the potential to become a regional political power to be reckoned with.

“We will bring pride back to the city of Bell Gardens,” Councilwoman Hernandez stated at a recent council meeting. “We just need to survive this period.”