Citizen About Town

By Nancy C. Arcuri, Editor and Publisher

E-mail: nancyarcuri@thecitizensvoice.net

Mitch Ing I want to thank you for being a very successful Monterey Park Mayor. You didn’t always agree with the residents, your fellow Councilmembers or the staff but you disagreed with respect. It is a very important to treat everyone with respect.

Congratulations to Teresa Real Sebastian as Monterey Park’s New Mayor! I know you will treat everyone with respect and continue to work together with your fellow Councilmembers, the staff and the residents.  We do not always agree but we all want what is best for our hometown.

Congratulations to Stephen Lam as Monterey Park’s Mayor Pro Tem! I respect your actions and opinions.  You always vote for what is best for our hometown of Monterey Park.

Congratulations to Peter Chan and Hans Liang on your re-election to our City Council! I had faith that you would win based on your overwhelming support from the taxpaying voters who wanted you to complete the Market Place, the hotels, the road repairs, laying new water and sewer lines and keep our city safe and sound.

I want to thank the Measure LL committee members and volunteers who worked very hard to keep our library opened for longer hours with more book, more computers and upgrades to the property.

We only received 60.44 % of the vote as stated by the LA County Register/Recorder. We needed 66.6% of the votes to pass the tax measure.

This Council should review other options to keep our library open like an increase in the funds from the city, put another measure on the ballot for the same tax increase or for a sales tax increase for the library at the next local election.

Congratulations to City Clerk Vince Chang and City Treasurer Joseph Leon on your re-election!

I want to thank the 5,351 voters of Monterey Park who decided that this local election was as important or more important than the November election. This election has a direct effect on our hometown.

I want to thank the other candidates who ran of City Council.  Most of you were not able to provide successful answers to the questions asked at the Meet the Candidates forum.  If you want to run for office again I strongly suggest that you attend the Council Meetings and learn the history of Monterey Park. The Historical Society and the library can provide you with assistance.

I noticed candidates Margaret Leung and Randall Avila attended the March 15th meeting.

During Oral Communication approximately 21 speakers including police officers and residents demanded the Council give the police officers a raise larger then the original 5% increase offered by the city.

To the Monterey Park Police Officers I know that your MOU was discussed in Closed Session for 11 times before this meeting on March 15th. I hope that your negotiator realized that our city’s budget only has a certain dollar amount that can be paid to your employment group.

I worked in Corporate America from July 1964 earning $65 a week until I retired in July 2011 earning $71,250 a year.  I had to pay 50% of my health insurance premiums and 100% for my family members.  My raises over the years were between 1 to 5% depending on the company’s profits.  If times were tough my salary was capped or I was laid off.

As public safety officers you are in a unique position that you cannot be laid off unless the city is forced into bankruptcy. The city can cap your salary and not fill vacant positions so you have an advantage over our residents who pay your salaries.

Thank you for agreeing to accept the city’s best offer on March 27 and to renegotiate it when the Market Place, the hotels and additional homes are completed. Our city should have more money to increase you salaries.

I understand that the Council will be reviewing it and validating it during the April 19th meeting.

Our hometown of Monterey Park may have several issues like a low sales tax base, foreign language signs in our downtown area and sky-high prices on our property but it is our home.

We must continue to work together to keep our Monterey Park safe and sound for all.

During the April 5th meeting six residents spoke during Oral Communication regarding The Cascades Waterfall.

They expressed their concerns about Equitable Vitrines, a non-profit organization from Los Angeles and their mind set to place their statue of Eve in the waterfall since they cannot remove our Athena from The Cascades Waterfall, which is a registered California State Historical site.

$400,000 of Prop A government funds were used to repair the site and to safely improve the plumbing and the electric units on the waterfall.

The speakers stated a statue placed in the middle of our waterfall would destroy the flow of the water and would present an attractive nuisance for kids and young people wanting to climb on it or graffiti it.

The city would be liable and could face numerous lawsuits for injuries suffered in that park.

Matt Connolly and Ellie Lee do not seem to care that in June 1928, Peter Snyder, a Greek immigrant, opened his Midwick View Estates in Monterey Park to sell real estate and build homes for people who wanted to move to Southern California. He built his sales office in the Spanish motif and named it Jardin del Encanto, which is a registered historical building. He also built a waterfall with the statue of Athena, the Goddess of Wisdom and War in the apex, which is a nod to his Greek heritage.

The Cascades is his work of art that should be preserved for the future and not altered to meet the needs of a few.

Altering The Cascades would be like moving Abe Lincoln out of his chair at the Lincoln Memorial to replace him with their statue of Eve or demanding that their statue of Eve replace the Mona Lisa in Louvre Museum.

Matt Connolly and Ellie Lee should know a true artist never alters or replaces the artwork of another artist.

They should also know that El Encanto and The Cascades are our public artworks displayed on El Portal off of Atlantic Blvd. in Monterey Park for everyone to enjoy.

The speakers suggested their Eve should be place in one of the other parks or

be installed in a safe location like city hall so the police department could keep an eye on it.

Better yet their Eve should be placed in the Vincent Price Museum at East Los Angeles College for art lovers to enjoy.

The City Council will discuss the proposition from Equitable Vitrines, a non-profit organization from Los Angeles during the April 19th meeting.

I believe that the Parks and Recreation Commissioners and all of our city’s commissions should know the history of Monterey Park and remember their decisions should be made on the best interest of our city.

These four commissions who voted to remove Athena based it on their egos. They should be removed from their seats before they do more harm to our hometown.

Monterey Park is a melting pot of many cultures that include Europe, Asia, Mexico, Central America, South America, Africa, Middle East, Australia, New Zealand and many other parts of our world.

Monterey Park belongs to all of us and our hometown history is very important.

Monterey Park is one of the millions of cities in our United States of America and our country’s history is very important to all of us.

We are very fortunate to live in “The land of the free and the home of the brave”.