Analysis: Sparks fly at council debate

DOWNEY — At two hours and twenty-eighty minutes after its scheduled 6 p.m. start time on October 1st , the Downey City Council Candidates Forum drew to a close, ending one of the most spirited and free-wheeling debates the city has known in several election cycles.         

Co-presented by the Downey Chamber of Commerce and the Downy Patriot, 9 aspirants  for either election, or, in the case of Mayor Blanca Pacheco, re-election to the city council, shared Zoom box-space to take their positions on rent forgiveness, de-funding the Downey Police Department, time allowed public speakers at city council meetings; air pollution, rejuvenating downtown Downey, and to make the case for themselves as the best person for the job. If memory of the Trump-Biden debacle of two nights earlier hung over the proceedings at first, veteran KCBS and KCAL news anchor Dave Lopez set down a 90 second rule for personal comment right away and rigorously stuck to it, thus ensuring a reasonably civil and orderly function that didn’t feel that it took up the amount of time it did. Still, by evening’s end, it wasn’t clear that everyone was ready for primetime civic governance.

In certain respects, the rules of engagement that normally apply to debate; that is, the statement of one’s position on an issue, supported by facts, logic, example and argument, didn’t always hold. Sometimes candidates showed questionable judgment or didn’t always make compelling arguments for their cause.

The first question, submitted beforehand by the public, dealt with one of the most controversial and heated issues the city has faced in recent years, when  in late 2019 rent forgiveness proponents, facing eviction from Eden Roc apartments, spilled out through the council auditorium, gesturing, shouting, and angrily remonstrating in an effort to intimidate the city council into compliance with their demands. Some even stood with bullhorns outside the homes of council members, for the same reason. If for most of its history Downey has been a notably quiet, even staid city, this was one topic that seemed to reflect one of the notable and widely acknowledged developments of our time: the breakdown of civil discourse.

Initially this pitted activist and self-described president of the Downey Tenants Union, Alexandria Contreras, against Mayor Blanca Pacheco, in the District 1 race.

“I am a renter here in the city of Downey, Contreras said. “I know how difficult it can be for working class families, even lower middle income families, to thrive and survive during the pandemic.” She implied that the city’s reluctance to protect renters and homeowners constituted “moral neglect”

Pacheco countered that the city’s $700,000 set aside for financially distressed renters and homeowners indeed stood as a moratorium.

Later, when the subject came up again, she mentioned how , as a lawyer, she felt obliged to help the mom and pop business owners who bought and rented properties and as landlords suffered painful financial reversals when renters stopped paying.

Contreras answered by objecting to a $2 million budget allocation to the Downey police. This was not politique. In Downey, It’s virtual sacrilege to criticize the devout sentiments accorded the police, which border the idolatrous. Contreras also made use of an activist mantra in a casual reference to “Police brutality.`” She did not offer  confirmed report or published statistics to make her case.

Later she made a potentially slanderous and explosive charge of sexual harassment and assault in reference to city manager Gilbert Livas, who so far has maintained a spotless reputation for probity and conduct while in office.

This may have to do with an incident, recently reported in the Cerritos News, in which a man physically assaulted a female panelist during a meeting of the Water District, which has been the subject of recent reports on dubious financial dealings. District 3 candidate Catherine Alvarez later echoed Contreras’ assumption, seemingly unaware of the potentially career-ending gravity of the allegation.

Contreras was later corrected.

Another hot topic in the debate dealt with the amount of time allotted member of the public when they step up to address the council.

For years it stood at five minutes, but the shadow of Armando Herman must have stalked the proceedings. For many months Herman, who appears to suffer from coprolalia, has shocked council members and city staff with outbursts of nonstop obscenity, most notably hurling the F-bomb at Mayor Rick Rodriguez immediately after Rodriguez cautioned the audience against use of obscenity or abusive language.

The city eventually lowered the allocation to three minutes and looked silly doing so, by citing the limit as the one used by adjacent cities. This after repeated crowing about Downey’s elevated status e as a step-up city in the region—another item of holy writ by locals.

Both Alvarez and Juan ”Joey” Martinez of district 5 considered the cut an abridgment  of First Amendment rights. Mario Trujillo, also running in District 5, alleged that some of those abusive speakers were “Making a mockery of our democracy.”

Then they got into it. Martinez Criticized Trujillo as someone who, as a  downtown business owner, would invite conflict of interest charges were he elected. This seemed a good point.

Fernando Vasquez was part owner of the restaurant-night club Mi Cielo on the corner of 2nd and Downey Avenue, and as Downey mayor had to recuse himself from voting on any issue pertaining to the area, thus making himself, in effect, a permanent lame duck figure.

Trujillo had the line of the night after conceding Martinez’ charge that he’d been cited for violating a city noise ordinance.

“It’s the height of audacity for you to criticize me for noise when you show up at my door with a bullhorn!” he exclaimed.

One topic integral to the life of a city that never came up was culture. Among cognoscenti, Downey has never lived down its shameful treatment of the historic Downey Art Museum, the first of its kind in Los Angeles County, and for Pacheco to cite the refurbishing of the Downey Civic Theater as one of her achievements failed to acknowledge that nothing goes into it except mostly one and done B-level traveling acts, the occasional art exhibit, and a struggling symphonic orchestra.

And the theater is expensive to run and maintain. Downey has no resident theater group, no professional dance company, no resident troupe of actors, writers and designers to delight and inform local audiences and give them a sense of place and identity beyond Downey’s civic institutions and noteworthy service organizations Without the civilizing influence of a  robust arts tradition and consciousness, the city of Downey, built by American aviation, has for too long demonstrated sleepy cultural complacency.

Eric Pierce, District 3, came up with one of the best lines: “I wasn’t born in Downey, but I got here as fast as I could.”