Citizen About Town

By Nancy C Arcuri, Editor and Publisher

Email: nancyarcuri@thecitizansvoice.net

I addressed the Monterey Park City Council on May 4.

On April 14 Fred Sornoso resigned from the Monterey Park City Council for health reasons.

He was elected in March 2020 to serve in District Three until November 2024.

His retirement left District Three without a Councilmember.

Tonight, our Councilmembers will be making a choice to either appoint a person to serve out his term until the November 2022 election or leave his seat vacant until the November 2022 election so residents in District Three  can run for his seat.

I believe that his seat should be vacant until the November 2022 election.

Any candidates in District Three can run in the same election as candidates in District One and candidates in District Five to be held in November 2022.

In 1999 a threat from the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project forced our Council to change our city from Voting at Large to Voting by District.

They claimed 28% of our Hispanic residents could not be elected as a member of our city government.

They failed to notice that several Hispanic residents in Monterey Park were voted in to serve on our City Council, as our City Clerk and as our City Treasurer over the years as the pictures of these elected officials are shown at the entrance of our Council Chambers.

Our most famous Hispanic resident was former Mayor, former Assemblymember and former Congressman Marty Martinez who served us from 1974 to 2001.

His daughter Diane Martinez served us as an Assemblymember from 1992 to 1998.

Monterey Park’s  2020 Census Report now states that our population is 65.4% Asians, 27.4% Hispanic and 5% White.  They failed to list the percent of our Black and Native American population.

Now this Council should give special consideration to our Black and Native American residents  so they too can be elected to serve in our city government.

I was among 8 residents who asked our Council to have this vacant seat in District 3 be added to the November 2022 City Council Elections for District 1 and District 5.

Another 8 residents from District 3 wanted our Council to appoint a resident to finish Fred’s term until the November2022 Election.

Many of these speakers stated that they would not have representation with their District seat vacant.

Many of us residents knew that being forced to vote by district would  cause this misunderstanding.

All 5 of our Councilmembers vote on all of our city’s issue regardless of their districts.

Hans Liang stated that he wants the voters in District 3 to have a chance to vote in their new Councilmember in our November election. It would take too long to complete the appointment process since our November elections are just 6 months from now.

Peter Chan agreed to let the voters in District 3 vote in their new Councilmember. He and Hans were elected at large to serve all of the residents. He said the timelines are too tight for the appointment process.

Yvonne Yiu also agreed that the voters in District 3 should vote in their new Councilmember. She is not in favor of appointing a resident to serve out Fred’s term until our November elections.

Henry Lo also agreed the have a Council election for District 3 to be added to the November Council elections for District 1 and District 5. He asked about the additional cost of adding this district to our November elections.

Cindy Trang, our Deputy City Clerk stated that this addition election would cost approximately $20,000 to be added to $200,000 bill payable to Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk who handles all of our elections.

Henry Lo reminded the residents that the elected Councilmember in District 3 would have to run for re-election in 2024 again since Fred’s term was from 2020 to 2024. They would only serve for 2 years.

Peter Chan stated that District 1 and District 5 new Councilmembers would serve for 4 years and that District 3 new Councilmember would serve for 2 years.

The Councilmembers agreed to have District 3 added to the November 2022 election.

City Attorney Karl Berger told the Councilmembers that his staff would prepare their decision to be voted on at the May 18 Council Meeting.

I am very happy to report our hometown of Monterey Park is hold public events and their meeting are opened to the public.