Citizen About Town

By Nancy C. Arcuri, Editor and Publisher

E-mail: nancyarcuri@thecitizensvoice.net

Fax: 626-307-9081

As you know I am disappointed in Monterey Park Councilmembers Anthony Wong, Hans Liang and Peter Chan for not supporting the residents request to have Latin or Roman letters required on the foreign language business signs in lieu of English.

They instead kowtowed to the wishes of members of Asian Americans Advancing Justice and their student supporters who did not want to see Latin or Roman letters on our business signs.

I believe that Anthony Wong, Hans Liang and Peter Chan must be paying back a political debt.

What about their political debt to the voters who supported them and rallied to have them elected to office?

This first time I felt excluded based on my race and ethnicity was when most of the business signs in downtown Monterey Park were totally in Chinese in the 1980s.

These signs warned anyone who could not read them that we were not welcomed in these businesses in our hometown.  My husband Frank and I worked with Senator S.I. Hayakawa and thousands of California residents on an initiative to make English our official language.  The voters overwhelming agreed that we needed our common language to create uniformity and harmony is our state.

Monterey Park was one of the many California cities that required English subtitles on our business signs until last year when our city attorneys determined that our law maybe unconstitutional.   No one ever sued us for discrimination because of our sign law.

I have checked with the city staff and no one has applied for a business sign without English or Roman letters to date.

I am very upset to read that some of our leadership in Sacramento wants to amend our California Constitution (SCA5) to allow the state to give preferential treatment in public education based on gender and/or race.

This action if approved by the voters could reduce the number of Asian heritage students being accepted in the UC system. It could also reduce the number of students based on their gender. It could favor Latino heritage, African American heritage and Native American heritage students over Asian heritage and European heritage students based on their race and ethnicity. It could also favor men over women since the scale has been tipped and more women are now attending college.

I believe that any form of discrimination is wrong.

Our Declaration of Independence says, “All men are created equal”.

“E Pluribus Unum” describes an action: Many uniting into one. An accurate translation of the motto is “From Many, One” or Out of Many, One” – a phrase that captures the symbolism on the shield of the United States of America.

To exclude one group of people is to exclude everyone from our American dream.

Please research SCA5 and remind our leadership in Sacramento that we voted on Proposition 209 in 1996 that prohibits state institutions from considering race, ethnicity or sex in public education, public employment and contracting.

I have heard back from the San Gabriel Valley Municipal Water District that they believe Director Thomas Wong does not have a conflict of interest working with the Olson Project since they do not sell water directly to any residential customer. The water on that side of town is not from Monterey Park but the San Gabriel Water Company.

Why are our city owned properties being utilized as a parking lot and city yard considered surplus properties?

LINC Housing wants to purchase our city parking lot located at 236 South Ramona Avenue for construction of six low-income units in to heart of our civic center. This is not a good location for another housing project.

City Ventures Homebuilding, LLC want to purchase our city yard located at 751 S. Alhambra Avenue to build 25 homes on this site and pay to move our city yard to another location possibly next door to the Olson project.

This site is about seven acres so the residents will be voting on a possible zoning change to residential if the project moves forward by the developer in the future.

At the rate that Mr. Talbot, staff and this Council are declaring our city owned property surplus I expect to see most of our large parks be rated as surplus property so developers can make fast money at the expense of our city.

I propose we need to create new laws that the taxpaying voters must declare any city owned property surplus in an election since it is our hometown.

I also purpose that any sitting Councilmember or Planning Commissioner holding an active real estate license must recuse themselves from voting on any projects that they could profit from their yes votes.

Voters must be ever vigilant to protect our city, our state and our country from people who want to push their agendas that may not be best for our America.

Please study all of the issues in your hometown and speak out against any issues that you determine are not in the best interest of yourself, your family, your hometown and your country.

This is our America. We still have freedom of speech and freedom of the press.