Birth of a Machine
Maywood mayor’s recall victory means big things from a small town
Nepotism is now against the law in Maywood. Cronyism, on the other hand, seems just fine.
Despite allegations of corruption, Maywood Mayor Felipe Aguirre – an immigrant’s rights advocate and emerging political star – and his two City Council allies brushed aside recall and possible political extinction last week to further consolidate their power in the tiny city of Maywood.
That may not seem like much. Maywood is a backwater L.A. County city whose residents are more likely than your average American to be poor and born elsewhere. But Aguirre – with his sensitive touch where immigrant rights, the environment and, most important, raw power are concerned – has become a regional and even national player.
His victory last week was a blowout. He beat the recall 57 to 43 percent, and then celebrated as local voters approved his ethics reform measure raising standards for Maywood’s police chief and outlawing nepotism in city government. Measure M, as it was called, is a political fuck-you to Aguirre’s council rival, Thomas Martin, whose father is on the city payroll as a consultant.
Like Barack Obama, Aguirre has a gift for embracing the self-promoting cause célèbre. In 2006 he declared Maywood a “sanctuary city” for the undocumented, and then appeared on TV and in daily papers across the country to defend his decision. He has taken up several progressive environmental causes, most notably the quality of Maywood’s drinking water, notorious for emerging from the tap in colors worthy of a crayon box. As a board member of the Gateway Cities Council of Governments – an association of leaders from cities along the I-710 corridor – Aguirre has made a name for himself advocating air pollution clean-up on the packed trucking route.
That sort of activity has earned him powerful friends. In 2007, the Los Angeles Chapter of the California League of Conservation Voters, along with the Service Employees International Union, helped raise $15,000 for the campaigns of Aguirre allies Ana Rizo and Veronica Guardado. Last week, after Aguirre and company claimed victory in the recall, the CLCV published an article on their Website touting: “The Good Guys Win Again in Maywood.”
In reality, things are a little more complicated.
Aguirre’s bitter rival in Maywood city politics, Thomas Martin, was an ally on the 2006 city council that helped Aguirre end the city’s predatory car-impound policy – one that many say was intended to benefit Maywood Club Towing, a major campaign contributor to certain council members.
At the time, Martin’s father, Tomas, a former Maywood mayor himself, served as a political advisor to Aguirre. When city council elections were held in 2007, Rizo and former Maywood police commissioner Ramon Medina were supposed to run on Aguirre’s ticket. Then, Aguirre and Martin the senior had a falling out – sources close to the campaign say Martin doubted a woman could run for and win a council seat in Maywood. Aguirre dropped Medina, picked up Guardado, hired a new political consultant, Leonardo Vilches, and proceeded to stomp his former allies in the election.
Medina and Ray Lopez, who were on the losing end of that election, were also Aguirre’s primary opposition in last week’s recall. That may be an indication that the recall was more about personal politics than moral indignation over the mayor’s behavior.
Likewise, the passage of the not-so-subtly titled Measure M (as in “Martin,” perhaps?) was likely Aguirre’s attempt at political payback – its nepotism clause stripping Martin’s father of his city consulting gig.
But while Measure M was a public slap in the face of the Martin family, it did nothing to address the fact that Aguirre has been steering city funds toward himself and his friends.
As City Beat reported in the run-up to the recall, Aguirre has accepted $95,000 in city money to refurbish his business and home since taking control of the mayor’s office. City checks from Maywood’s Commercial Façade Program were supposed to have been made out to V and M Ironworks, the contractor who performed the work; instead, even Aguirre says, they were improperly made out to his business partner, Hector Alvarado. How that violation of city policy happened remains a mystery. Also a mystery is how the money was spent: our request for an itemized bill has so far turned up nothing. At his office, Maywood Planning Commissioner David Mango sent an aide to tell me that Mango was “too busy” to comment. At press time, a week later, he was still too busy.
On top of that, City Beat has discovered that Aguirre’s political advisor Vilches and Union de Vecinos, his Boyle Heights-based nonprofit advocacy group, have been the beneficiaries of nearly $35,000 in city contracts to perform lead abatement surveys. Vilches also happens to be a Maywood city employee – working as a translator for City Council meetings.
Aguirre’s questionable relationships extend beyond Maywood. This past fall, Aguirre and his council allies attended several Southeast DemsUnited events for the Obama campaign. Aguirre and state senator, and California Latino Caucus chair, Gil Cedillo, were the featured guests. Those events were organized by Cedillo’s troubled protégé, Bell Gardens councilman Mario Beltran – who, as Jeffrey Anderson documented in both City Beat and the L.A. Weekly, has had repeated run-ins with the law. Perhaps most infamously, Beltran was convicted of filing a false police report last year after a wild night with a downtown prostitute. Shortly thereafter, Los Angeles County District Attorney spokesperson Sandi Gibbons told Anderson that Beltran was under investigation by county and state D.A.’s offices, as well as the FBI, for his involvement in a crooked towing scheme.
None of that seemed to matter last Tuesday, when Aguirre looked untouchable. Having successfully throttled the small town’s old guard as well as its recall effort, his star is now free to continue rising unabated. And despite the fact he’s in far-off Maywood, you won’t need a telescope to see him.
Published: 12/18/2008
DIGG | del.icio.us | REDDIT
