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Serving Downey and surrounding communities • Published every Friday • August 23, 2013 • Volume 1, No. 11 • DowneyCommunityNews.com
Commerce Employee Set to Cash in on City Council Relationships
Downey Mayor and Councilman Team Up on Radio Show
By Randy Economy
By Randy Economy and Brian Hews (Commerce) A group of vocal Commerce activists are criticizing a city job application process to hire a new Public Information Officer claiming that the position was essentially political payback for the current city employee, Jason Stinnett, who was a political consultant to three current members of the city council. Stinnett, who is the Acting Public Information Officer for Commerce, now appears to be on the verge of receiving a new role in the City that will pay him anywhere from $6,600 to $8,800 per month in salary as well as full time benefit package that includes medical insurance, dental, vision, and retirement. Stinnett has been a strong force in Commerce area politics for the past number of years and has worked in the past to get current city elected officials Lilia Leon, Tina Baca Del Rio, Ivan Alramirano, and Joe Aguilar into office. Stinnett in the past has also overseen a local political website www.savecommerce.org. The web site actively promoted the campaigns for Leon, Baca Del Rio, Alramirano and Aguilar, and others in the past, and criticized outside challengers who have sought public office in Commerce. “My concern is that this job is not open to anyone with better qualifications from outside of Commerce,” said Jamie Valencia a longtime community activist. “It appears more like rewarding your political friends who got you elected to office. We need someone who doesn’t have a bias view of the city.” In an interview with the Commerce Community News, Com-
See COMMERCE page 8
‘Pile Driving’ to Begin on Rosecrans, Bloomfield
Mayor Guerra had a “fun night” with Councilman Saab as guest on his new radio show. “I think we should do the show together, nice to bounce things off each other. Lots of great things happening and it was fun having so many callers,” Guerra said.
Hews Media Group Exclusive
CALTRANS: CALIFORNIA’S SLUMLORD
FRUSTRATED EL SERENO RESIDENTS CLAIM THEY HAVE BEEN FORCED TO LIVE IN “SLUM LIKE CONDITIONS” BECAUSE OF THE CALIFORNIA DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION AND, NOW THEIR RENTS ARE INCREASING 10% EVERY SIX MONTHS.
T
BY RANDY ECONOMY AND BRIAN HEWS
he California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) is known for its’ meticulous maintenance of the state’s highways, bridges and roads managing more than 50,000 miles of California’s
highway and freeway lanes, but that is not the case in the tiny neighborhood of El Sereno, where residents contend that Caltrans, who owns many of the houses in their area, is treating them like a slumlord.
Last week Hews Media Group-Community News, State Assemblyman Jimmy Gomez, and State Senator Ed Hernandez got a firsthand look
Residents and motorists along the Santa Ana Freeway (Interstate 5) South Corridor Improvement Project in Norwalk, La Mirada, Santa Fe Springs and Cerritos will be experiencing lots of “thumbing” and “pounding” this coming weekend due to ongoing intense freeway construction. Maria Raptis, a spokesperson for the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) told Hews Media Group-Community News in a statement that “an accelerated pile driving schedule” will be taking place on Saturday, August 24 and Sunday, August 25 from 5 a.m. to 9 p.m. Raptis said the project will be “driving approximately 60 concrete beams into the ground to construct the foundation for a new, wider Rosecrans Avenue undercrossing.” The work is part of the I-5 South Corridor Improvement Projects from the Los Angeles/ Orange County line to I-605 to add one HOV lane and one general purpose lane in each direction. Specifically, this weekend’s work is for the Rosecrans/ Bloomfield Bridges Project. “Normally, this pile driving operation would take nearly six weeks of daily work to complete in this construction zone with limited space and high weekday traffic volumes,” Raptis said. This weekend, two eastbound lanes and one westbound lane on Rosecrans Ave will be closed between east of Bloomfield Ave and west of N. Firestone Blvd. The schedule is as follows: Saturday, August 24 from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. (5 a.m. to 7 a.m., equipment and crane set-up). Sunday, August 25 from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. (9 p.m. to 11 p.m. equipment and crane tear-down) A flagging operation will allow emergency responders, public transportation buses and
See CALTRANS page 9
See PILE DRIVING page 9
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COMMERCE
Continued from page 1 merce City Administrator Jorge Rifa was asked if the PIO job was created “specifically for Stinnett.” Rifa paused and replied: “I understand the question. All I can tell you is it is my intention to basically put a recruitment process as requested by the city council, and I have done that.” “I will confirm that I will be responsible for deciding who lands the (PIO) job and that includes the final process,” Rifa said. Rifa did not want to elaborate on Stinnett’s employment at the City of Commerce. “I have no comment regarding Jason’s tenure other than to say he is our acting Public Information Officer.” Valencia was direct in his displeasure with Stinnett and the “back room deals that are being cut to take care of him.” Valencia said, “Jason has a bias view based upon the fact that he ran the campaigns for four current city councilmembers including Mayor Joe Aguilar, Vice Mayor Lela Leon, Councilman Ivan Alramirano, and Councilwoman Tina Baca DeRio. The public has the right to know what’s going on inside city hall and we deserve a public information officer who doesn’t have a political agenda of his own,” Valencia said. Stinnett did not return three phone calls requesting a comment for this article, and did not respond to an email sent to him this past week. Stinnett has indicated that he will be a candidate for the Central Basin Water District Board of Directors in 2014 and run against incumbent Art Chacon who is a longtime resident of Commerce. Valencia said that he is “deeply trou-
bled” by Stinnett’s planned campaign. “It is obvious that Jason is using his position to leverage his own career in politics.” Valencia also voiced his dismay regarding a recent city bond campaign that he claimed Stinnett used “heavy handed” campaign tactics. “My concern is that this past voter approved AA Bond Measure was run with taxpayer funds and that Jason had a role handling that campaign effort,” Valencia said. “I feel that employees are scared of Jason because the way he helps the city council and the city council protects him. Jason manipulates city workers,” Valencia said. Another longtime city employee who has worked for more than 20 years in Commerce, who did not want to be publicly identified for fear of retaliation said, “the city of Commerce doesn’t need a full time Public Information Officer at this time, especially someone with a track record like Stinnett. Jason is the most influential person in Commerce; he is more powerful than all five city councilmembers combined. He is going to get this job based on his political power, not because he is the qualified,” the source said. Stinnett is also listed a Vice President of the American Federation of State County Municipal Employees, District #36 for Local 773 Commerce Employees Association. A member of the union, who did not want to be named, said “Jason plays both sides of the fence. Because of Jason, we got a lousy contract for the city workers.” “Jason is the Robert Rizzo of Commerce,” one other source said. “He isn’t likeable, he is politically savvy, but just watch your wallet.”
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CALTRANS
Continued from page 1 at the “slum like conditions” that an estimated 4,000 to 5,000 residents have been forced to live in at the end of the Long Beach 710 Freeway for more than a generation now. A tightly bonded group of residents who call themselves the “No 710 Freeway Coalition,” took the group on a walking tour of their hillside neighborhood to see firsthand how they have been neglected and forced to live in “substandard living conditions” by their “landlord,” Caltrans. The group visited around a half dozen homes in the pathway of the freeway showing a wide range of problems that residents claim were “directly caused by Caltrans workers.” Some of the homes had several gaping holes in their walls, cracked or totally broken windows, uprooted sidewalks, cracked foundations, garage doors that could not be opened, and broken water pipes. One house even had a hole in their living room where you could see dirt from the ground below. Resident Carlene Ward held her newborn child of less than eight weeks in a blanket and told the group, “I am a breast cancer survivor and I have lived here for 17 years, and my house is in shambles. My plumbing never works properly. I would be more than happy to make the improvements myself, but we are not allowed to do any repairs or
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alterations without having Caltrans do them for us.” And now the residents face the ultimate insult by Caltrans; they were officially notified recently that their rent would increase an unheard of 10% every six months. For Ward and other residents who live in the impacted El Sereno community, the rent increases are “the final straw” in their battle with state officials. “Caltrans stole our homes, and now they are going to rob us blind on top of it,” said Don Jones, a community activist and area resident who has been an outspoken opponent of Caltrans for just about half of his adult life. Jones directly blasted California Governor Jerry Brown during the tour by calling him “a crack addict who is out of control.” “When does humanity come into play Governor Brown,” Jones said while wearing cowboy hat and with a “No 710” button on his lapel. Jones said his wife passed away recently and that he had to spend her final days “fighting with Caltrans.” “Jerry Brown lied to us when he said he cared about our community here, shame on him and his administration for continuing to put us through this living hell,” Jones said. The tour also stopped in front of a fenced off group of three to five small bungalow style units that residents claim have been empty for at least twenty years. The off yellow units are covered with gang graffiti and are used as “shooting galleries” for drug users. The windows are nailed shut
with plywood, the doors are sealed off, and the roofs are falling apart. “This area is not safe for the children who have to live here,” said Janice Dotson, another longtime opponent and vocal critic on how Caltrans has conducted business with this project. “It is time to start facing facts. The 710 Freeway is never, ever going to be expanded and someone needs to fix this once and for all,” Dotson said. Retaliation Mike Rivera, who has lived in one of the homes in the path of the freeway said he was concerned about “retaliation” from Caltrans officials for “speaking the truth about just how bad and corrupt” this situation has become. “We don’t want to be retaliated against by Caltrans, we want to be educated and told the truth,” said Rivera. At the time of the gathering, at least two cars marked with Caltrans logos drove by without stopping or acknowledging those present. “Look, see for yourself, these Caltrans workers could care less about our concerns. We could stand in front of their moving cars here on our street and they would probably run us over if they had the chance,” said one resident who did not want to be named. Assemblyman Gomez, who is in the middle of his first two-year term in the State Assembly, has been on record in the past as opposing the 710 Freeway expansion. “I have consistently opposed the
AUGUST 23, 2013
9
extension of the 710 freeway via a surface route or a tunnel. The proposed ‘solutions’ do nothing to solve our longterm regional transportation problem,” Gomez said. Gomez was more than “alarmed” from what he witnessed. “I had no idea the conditions were so bad here,” he said. “We have a problem here that has gone on for far too long, and now someone at Caltrans has got to be held accountable,” Gomez told residents who stood in a circle around both him and Hernandez during the tour. Hernandez has represented the area in the State Senate for the past six years, and even he admitted to HMG-CN that the neighborhood is in “substandard condition.” “This is unacceptable conditions,” Hernandez said. “It troubles me to see what I am looking at today,” Hernandez said. “I had no idea it was like this.”
PILE DRIVING
Continued from page 1 pedestrians on the Rosecrans Avenue westbound lane. Noise from back-up alarms, large hammers, and equipment and work crews and will be experienced. In other work for the I-5 South Corridor Improvement Projects: Overnight on Thursday, August 22 from 10 p.m. to 4 a.m. (Friday morning), Caltrans will close two lanes in each direction of Interstate 5 between Carmenita Road and Rosecrans Ave. in Norwalk.