Citizen About Town

By Nancy C Arcuri, Editor and Publisher

Email: nancyarcuri@thecitizensvoice.net

Now that all of the ballots have been counted in Monterey Park’s General Election, we have Thomas Wong as Councilmember in District 1, Jose Sanchez as Councilmember in District 3, Vinh Ngo as Councilmember is District 5, Maychelle Yee as our City Clerk and Amy Lee as our City Treasurer.

The City Council and City Clerk certified our Election results on December 7^th.

The newly elected officials took their Oath of Office at the same meeting.

I did not vote for Teresa Real Sebastian, Maychelle Yee or Amy Lee because they did not respect the decisions of Councilmembers Henry Lo, Hans Liang, Peter Chan and Yvonne Yiu on their action taken to use the eminent domain process on the Goodview property that is sliding down on to Garvey Avenue.

They declared that our city did not have money in our budget to shore up the hill to prevent a mudslide that may have injured or killed people and destroyed private property.

Karl Berger and Ron Bow explained to the residents and staff members why the city could use the eminent domain process for the health and safety of people driving on Garvey and walking down the street.

All of the documentation on this issue can be found on the city’s website.

The developers failed to meet their legal obligations to secure the hillside as they had agreed to in documents they signed with the city.

The city has already began working to shore up the hillside at our own expense.

The city has already began taking legal actions against the developers and will receive funds from them to pay for our expenses on this project.

Maychelle Yee has been known to yell and to slander Councilmembers during Oral Communications if she or her friend Teresa Real Sebastian did not like their decisions on several city issues.

Now she is our city clerk so she will have to show respect to all of our Councilmembers, staff members and the residents.

Teresa Real Sebastian did not win a Council seat in District 5.

Life is full of ironies as she was one of the four Councilmembers who decided to place term limits on the ballot for voter approval.

The voters decided to restrict our elected officials to serve only 8 years in office. They can sit out a 4-year term and then run again for office as a Councilmember in their district or as our City Clerk or as our City Treasurer.

The greatest irony is she was all for voting by districts to give Hispanics a better change to win a seat on our City Council.

Teresa Real Sebastian ran for Council is District 5 and lost to Vinh Ngo.

So much for her great plans to win a seat on our City Council in District 5. I live in District 5 and most of my neighbors as Asian.

Remember that in the 1980s Monterey Park was called the First Suburban Chinatown.

Our city has thousands of good residents and employees that all work together for our hometown.  We are indeed blessed to have so many people who love our Monterey Park.

At the December 7^th Council Meeting the Council Chambers were filled by family members of the newly elected Councilmembers and City Clerk as well as friends, supporters and our city staff.

Maychelle Yee was absent due to the Virus so she attended the meeting by Zoom. She plans to attend the December 21^st meeting to introduce her daughter and give her remarks.

I hope that our ongoing meetings will be respectful as several residents have been complaining about the verbal assaults against our elected officials and staff members.

Hopefully people will agree to disagree with respect since violence now seems to be the normal answer between people who disagree with each other.

Wishing you and your family a very Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah  and a Happy New Year!