Citizen About Town

By Nancy C. Arcuri, Editor and Publisher

E-mail address: nancyarcuri@thecitizensvoice.net

FAX: (626) 307-9081

The Monterey Park Council Meeting on November 17 had two interesting items on the agenda.

Item #19 Councilmember Frank Venti had invited DA Rusty Moore and Detectives Boyd Zumwalt and Ray Lugo to make a presentation on the Linda Kay Hesse murder investigation a week before Thanksgiving.  He was not showing respect for her family and friends by his effort to rehash the tragedy for everyone who watched this meeting.

Mr. Venti presented proclamation to the three men.  Then he and Randy Reyes began their tirade against former Councilmembers and employees.

Thomas Himes, a reporter for the San Gabriel Valley Tribune and the Pasadena Star New and Watchara Phomicinda, a staff photographer were in attendance.  Mr. Venti uses these newspapers to make his points of view newsworthy. The story made the front page of these papers above the fold on December 3 and 4.

Ms. Hesse’s murder is a tragedy but she is not the only victim of a violent death in our city.  Our police and fire personnel are first on the scene when they receive the 911 calls.  The police department notifies the Sheriff’s Department whose murder investigation team handles the cases.

Mr. Venti has allowed his friendship with Mr. Reyes to cloud his good judgment by making this case city business. They have used our Council Meetings to discuss many points of the investigation that they did not agree with and pointed fingers of blame towards many of our employees who responded to this tragedy.

Although the shooter, Juan Uitz, a Lomas gang member has been convicted of Ms. Hesse’s murder. The first trial ended with a hung jury and the second trial had a juror who knew more about the case then they should have. The DA finally did get a conviction.

I spoke to DA Rusty Moore the next day because his presentation had a few loose ends for me.  Two other gang members were involved. A young man named Javier Renteria was seen speaking to the officers on a video tape with very poor audio quality and another young man, the driver were mentioned in the DA’s presentation.

I wanted to know if they were awaiting trail or have they been convicted for their part in this crime.

Mr. Moore said Javier Renteria had made a deal with his office and testified again Mr. Uitz.  No charges were brought against the driver, as they had no evidence against him. Javier’s testimony could not be used to arrest the driver so he has never been charged for participating in this crime.

DA Moore did tell me that neither he nor his office was there to make political statements against any past or present Council or Judy Chu.  He was upset that Mr. Venti used him to score political points.

It is time for Mr. Venti and Mr. Reyes to let Linda Kay Hesse rest in peace.

The holiday season is emotional enough for her family and friends without them having to relive this tragedy.

Item17 Solid Waste Ballot I participated in a survey that was based on Monterey Park’s spending habits. I was lucky enough to receive copies of the tallied survey results, which I shared with Council.

The main question was did I agreed or disagree with the Council option to put this ballot measure requiring all future Councilmembers send solid waste contracts out to bid.

I do not agree with spending $5,000 to $10,000 on this ballot measure. The city is having financial issues. $2.5 million is our reserve funds based on staff’s financial report of September 2010. Council has already spent $20,000 and $80,000 of our tax dollars auditing Athens trash contract.  No wrongdoing was discovered by the outside auditors.

Council is elected to office by the residents to make business decision for us.  To require our trash contracts to go out to bid every five years is irresponsible. Staff spends time and parc aquatique gonflable money on creating RFPs. A waste hauler spends money to purchase special equipment to complete the job as required.

Any contract should be written for eight to ten years to provide a reasonable rate of return for the service provider and a cost break for the residents.

Our contract with Athens is up for renewal in 2017. The contract does require that the next waste hauler contract must go out to open bid.

I had spent $140 for a bin as I am uncluttering my home and I ordered a second 96-gallon trash bin for weekly use. I always received wonderful service from Athens.

Council voted to have this measure BB on the March 2011 ballot.

Anthony Wong and David Lau voted for the ballot measure because they did not want their NO vote to cause additional bulling by the Council majority.

I joined with four other concerned residents in Monterey Park on the Ballot Argument against Measure BB as it wastes our tax dollars to have a ballot measure on a non-issue. The Athens contract currently has a clause that requires the contract to go out to open bid in 2017 when it expires.

Many elected officials across the United States did not listen to the voters and spent our tax dollars foolishly. They were voted out of office. We should save money and wait until 2017.

I spoke during Oral Communications:

We are entering into the holiday season and our city is in shambles. We have a Council majority using our time and tax dollars to carry out their own personal vendettas against their fellow Councilmembers, our employees, our business owners and our residents.

We have $2.5 million dollars in reserves as reported at the end of September.  That money will not stretch much further to cover all of our expenses.  Our city does not have a large sales tax base because of past Councils wanted to keep us a bedroom community.  We are fortunate to have utility taxes and property taxes to help support our hometown.

We are entering an uncertain future and need to work together to hire the best city manager, police chief, fire chief and other department heads.

We need experience people to enrich the future of Monterey Park.

We do not need former Alhambra Councilmember Paul Talbot, an insurance agent by trade to be our city manager. He is a friend of the Council majority.

Mr. Talbot is a founder of Gateway Consultants, who recommended Edgewood Properties as the new developer of the Market Place. This is one of his many conflicts of interest. The FPPC said he could not participate in the Market Place discussions. This shopping center is the number one project that can save our city by providing much needed sales tax.

We need an experienced city manager who can bring our city into the future with a good financial base and shopping for everyone.

We must demand that this Council majority stop their nastiness. It is time to put the city’s business first.

We have a city to manage and must work together to improve the future of our hometown.

On November 22 the Council majority Frank Venti, Betty Tom Chu and Mitch Ing voted to hire Paul Talbot as our city manager. He has a 12-month contract for $165,000 a year plus benefits.  The FPPC has ruled that Mr. Talbot cannot make a decision for a year about any redevelopment projects, as he was a consultant on the Market Place project.

The city has requested the FPPC make another ruling if Mr. Talbot can work on any of the other redevelopment project in the city.

Anthony Wong and David Lau voted against Mr. Talbot based his lack of experience as a city manager and his conflicts of interest.

Based on the Council majority’s decision Monterey Park is beginning to look a lot like the city of Bell where conflicts of interest paid certain city officials exceptional well.

I hope Santa has these people on his Naughty list and brings them coal for Christmas.

The Christmas Season is a time of good will towards all.

May you and your loved ones have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!