Citizen About Town

By Nancy C. Arcuri, Editor and Publisher

E-mail: nancyarcuri@thecitizensvoice.net

Fax: 626-307-9081

My hometown of Monterey Park is suffering from the “Groundhog Day” syndrome.

We have had three elections on the fire department issue, two long drawn out discussions on the business signs and another discussion on using city property at our civic center for housing.

On July 17 the City Council majority adopted the Special Election Results: 64.1% or 4,102 NO votes to 35.8% or 2,290 YES votes for County Fire.

Many of the residents who voted yes did so on their vote by mail ballots before they knew all of the facts on the issue.

During the July 17 Council Meeting I stated during Oral Communications it has been two weeks since 64.1% of the residents voted NO on FF to keep our fire department and our advanced life support paramedics in town.

City Hall received many complaints about the questionable actions of our firefighters and their union supporters.  Since they were off duty the city will not hold their actions against them.

The District Attorney’s office is investigating the five complaints on possible election fraud.

Residents, police officers and general employees expect the firefighters who forced this $100,000 election on us to provide all of us a heart felt apology. They should be the first ones to extend the olive branch to help repair the damage their actions have caused our hometown.

If you witness any ill will from the firefighters towards residents, police officers and general employees while the firefighters are on duty please report them to the city manager. Their actions do have consequences.

The $100,000 election costs should be donated by the firefighters to our local charities since they do not have to pay the city back for this expense.

We are going to revamp our fire department so town hall meetings for the residents should be set up long before the contract renewal in 2014.  We can keep our fire department and control our fire department expenses too.

Since our current fire chief stated many times during the Ad Hoc Committee meetings that he would be retiring by the time this is all settled.  It has been settled by the voters so when is Jim Birrell’s retirement date?

We need to hire our new fire chief from outside of our department and the county fire unions.

Monterey Park residents, police officers and general employees demand respect from our firefighters.

If the firefighters want to work for another agency then apply for a job with that agency.

Hundreds of qualified candidates are looking to work in the Monterey Park Fire Department so replacing our firefighters will not be a problem.

Item 9 on the agenda was requesting a code change to require business signs for non-residential properties be changed from English to the Modern Latin Alphabet.

I reminded the Council that English was voted as the Official Language of California in November 1986. Yet our city attorneys decided that requiring English subtitles on Monterey Park business signs did not meet constitutional requirement on sign regulations.

Since English seems to be a dirty word we are requiring Modern Latin Alphabet signs be used in place of English signs.

The Modern Latin Alphabet is the most widely used alphabetic system in the world and is also the standard scrip of the English language.

So now our city will require Modern Latin Alphabet signs be used describe the business that will read just like the English signs.

I am so glad that I was required to learn Latin in high school.

I can only remember one Latin word “Luna” which means moon and sometime is used to describe lunatics.

This is crazy to change the words from English signs to Modern Latin Alphabet signs.

English is the business language of the world.

The Council agreed to this change and approved the first reading of the new law.

Item 11 on the agenda was for the Council to consider approving a site for a low to moderate housing project on city property to spend our CHDO’s government funds before they expire in July.

I addressed the Council that many residents do not want to have our city civic center be used for a housing development when parking is an every day problem at City Hall and the library.

Taking our precious parking lot to build a six unit building will not improve our civic center.

The TELACU project was built on city property that was to be used to expand our library with additional parking.

The new addition to the library was more costly as the building was built with a second story and not as a one story as the originally planned.  Parking is still an issue, as we do not have enough parking around our civic center.

The Council will have to approve the parking lot project for LINC Housing Corporation or the OLDTIMERS Housing Development Corporation project located at 429 E. Graves to protect approximately $834,833 in HOME funds by July 31.

MERCI’s boardmembers have requested that the city manager, the economic development department and Councilmembers check with HUD to see if the HOME/CHDO funds can be reassigned to another affordable housing project.

MERCI is short $500,000 to complete their project. $834,833 in HOME funds could be used to reimburse MERCI for the money they spent on the Duce House, a home for six developmentally disabled residents.

Please consider voting to provide MERCI with additional financial help.

Staff explained that these funds could not be used for MERCI’s project.

Mayor Teresa Real Sebastian requested staff to have a meeting with the MERCI Board to discuss the city helping MERCI with other government funds.

Council approved the parking lot project subject to meeting all of the government requirements that include a zoning change. It the project cannot be completed then the funds would have to be returned to the federal government at a later date.

I believed that the Council should have spent these 2007 funds long before the expiration date and not be rushed by staff to make a “fly by the seat of their pants” decision.

Also on the agenda was item 7 to award a contract on the Spirit Bus to Transportation Concepts. Council voted to get additional information and bring the issue back at a later meeting.

Councilmember Mitch Ing read into the record some old issues between former Councilmembers Fred Balderrama and Frank Venti regarding the original Transportation Concepts contract for the Spirit Bus service.

During the August 7 meeting I addressed the Council during Oral Communications.

I am providing additional information to Mitch Ing’s comments about Item 7 regarding the new contract for the Spirit Bus during the July 17 meeting.

It is true that Transportations Concepts was awarded the contract from July 2001 to June 2004. It is true that former City Attorney Tony Canzoneri discovered an undisclosed error in the first bidding process and tossed out those bids.  He requested new bids for the contract. It is true that former Councilmember Fred Balderrama worked for another division of the same parent company at that time.  It is true that former Councilmember Frank Venti sued Fred Balderrama and the city over this contract.

What Mitch Ing failed to advise the Council and City Attorney Mark Hensley is Mr. Canzoneri ruled that state law allows a sitting Councilmember to earn a living while in office. A judge tossed out Mr. Venti’s lawsuit against Mr. Balderrama stating that a sitting Councilmember could not sue another sitting Councilmember. The city attorneys successfully defended Monterey Park against Mr. Venti’ s lawsuit. The court ordered Mr. Venti to pay all of the legal fees and court costs.

It is true that Mr. Balderrama filed for bankruptcy after his restaurant The Brave Bull that specialized in buffalo meat failed in the Mission District of San Gabriel.

Did you know that Mr. Venti and his partners allowed their Monterey Views housing project in Monterey Park to go into foreclosure?  The new owners asked the sitting Council to allow tandem-parking garages so they could complete the project and sell the homes.

Did you know that Frank Venti was a Boardmember of Golden Security Bank when the Feds forced their loan department to close for making questionable real estate loans? Mitch Ing lost his job when his department was closed. The Feds forced the sale of Golden Security Bank to another institution.

This information is a matter of public records.

Item 3 was the second reading requesting a code change to require business signs for non-residential properties be changed from English to the Modern Latin Alphabet.

All hell broke loose as some of the Chinese and American news media believed that our business signs would be in Latin or in English only.

This battle was waged in the early 1980s when former Councilmember Lily Lee Chen told the Chinese business owners that they could have Chinese language business signs.  She also told the Americans that the signs would also be in English.

Of course that did not happen so many of the residents spoke at the Council Meetings asking for English subtitles on the signs so we could still shop and spend our money in our hometown.

The sitting Council did not listen to the residents and called us racists for requesting English on the business signs.

We gathered thousands of signatures on our petition asking for English on the Chinese business signs.  The Council refused to accept our petition.

This issue caused international news media attention since Monterey Park was called the First Suburban Chinatown.

Former State Senator S.I. Hayakawa called us and requested our help on Making English the Official Language of California.  He stated then the local government would be required to have English subtitles on the business signs.

In 1986 the voters approved English as our official language.

The city government then required English subtitles on the business signs for health and safety reasons so anyone could call 911 for police and fire services.

Some up and coming politicians called this issue English Only so they could pander to ethnic voters.

What the foreign language business signs did to Monterey Park was to force many American businesses to flee the city since they were not able to meet their bottom lines in a Chinese language ghetto.

Some of the new landlords also raised the rents too high for American businesses.

It is a hard sell to brand named businesses that Monterey Park residents of all ethnicities would be very happy to shop in their stores.

The residents hope the new commercial developments will offer brand name shopping for everyone.

We need sales tax dollars as well as our property tax dollars to keep Monterey Park a wonderful city to call home.

Eight residents spoke on the issue. They all wanted English to be included in our business signs.

Councilmembers agreed to have this issue tabled until the October 2 meeting.

So history continues to repeat itself in Monterey Park just like to movie “Groundhog Day”.

We need to move Monterey Park forward towards the future.

Item 8 2012-2013 Annual Investment Report

Tonight this Council will be making a financial decision that will affect our financial future.  You are being asked to change our investment policy to allow more risky investments of our hard earned tax dollars.

LAIF or the Local Agency Investment Fund guarantees all of our funds invested with them are backed 100% by the State and can be withdrawn with a 24-hour notice without penalty.  Currently we have $51,556,401 invested with them, which is the bulk of our assets.

We do have CDs worth $4,729,000 and other collateralized savings funds worth $20,112,716 invested in other financial institutions, which are guaranteed by our federal government.

Now you are being requested to change our investment policy to allow risky investments in the stock market under the guidance of the County Treasury Pool.

I recall that Orange County risked their funds playing the stock market and were forced to file bankruptcy.

Our sister city of Montebello has problems with their current investments.

Monterey Park residents are conservative and are not willing to risk losing any of their assets as stated by 64.1% of the voters in the July election.

We expect our city and our money to be kept save and sound by our elected officials, city manager, city attorney and staff.

Please do not risk our financial future by voting to change our safe and sane investment policy.