In February, the Huntington Park municipal council met in camera to discuss an apparently routine article on their program – potential litigation that the city provided.
Everyone on the council was authorized to attend the meeting, but one – then the coucilmember Esmeralda Castillo. Barraillé de la Discussion on camera, the 22 -year -old was later seen at the camera, picking up her platform affairs and making a quiet outing.
When the council met a week later, Castillo was no longer listed as a member. On the agenda, there was an article instead to fill out its seat.
As Castillo came to learn it, the city had quietly launched an investigation to determine if she was a resident of the city and concluded that she was not, giving her a kick of the council – all without her knowledge.
Former advice from Huntington Esmeralda Castillo Park.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
Although the residence requirements for the municipal seats are common, Huntington Park’s decision to investigate one of its own members of the Council, and then delete it unilaterally, is practically unprecedented, according to experts.
“I have never heard of a city to do it in this way. There is always someone who complains about the district prosecutor, generally an opponent,” said Steve Cooley, who supervised a dozen residence cases during his time as the main prosecutor of Los Angeles.
Two weeks ago, in response to a trial brought by Castillo against the City, the Council and the Municipal Director, a judge of the Superior Court of the County of Los Angeles, made a temporary prohibition prescription preventing Huntington Park from filling the vacant seat.
The withdrawal of Castillo from his duties has angry the residents in this city practiced by scandal. In the midst of the current legal struggle to regain its headquarters, several current and former members of the Council are involved in a corruption survey with the District Prosecutor’s Office concerning the alleged abusive use of public funds.
On February 26, AD investigators carried out search mandates as part of “Dirty Pond Operation”, an investigation into the alleged abusive use of taxpayers allocated to an aquatic center of $ 24 million that was not built. No one has been charged.
The search mandates were executed at the home of the mayor of the time, Karina Macias, the municipal councilor Eduardo “Eddie” Martinez and the municipal director Ricardo Reyes. Search mandates were also executed at the home of two former members of the Council, an entrepreneur and a consultant.
In total, turmoil makes Huntington Park residents tired.
“I feel sad, defrauded, angry and helpless,” said Maria Hernandez, 50, a long -standing resident of Huntington Park who attended the hearing of the court two weeks to support the former advisor.
Castillo refused to be interviewed for this story, but his lawyer, Albert Robles, said that his client took care of his sick parents while retaining a full -time residence at Huntington Park, who, according to him, is authorized by the electoral laws of the States and the City. He said that Castillo’s withdrawal was politically motivated.
“Here, the defendants have not only acted as a judge, jury and executioner, but to highlight more the unfair political power of the defendants, (they) also carried out the investigation,” said Castillo in his pursuit.
The City informed Castillo by letter that it had been the subject of an investigation and was withdrawn from the Council as a non-resident but did not allow it to attend the meeting on camera on February 18 when the results of the investigation were discussed, said Robles. He said it was reprisals for Castillo accusing members of intimidation and harassment in an official complaint in the city in January.
But Andrew Sarega, whom the city hired to supervise its investigation into Castillo, challenged these complaints and said that the Castillo probe began months before depositing its grievance.
He said that a complaint was filed in August with the District Prosecutor’s integrity division, which examines the criminal allegations against civil servants.
According to an email obtained by the Times, the DA office refused to take the case, saying that the case was civil, not criminal. This put the case back in the knees of the Huntington Park authorities, who examined the city’s municipal code, which says that a mayor or a member of the council leaves the city or leaves their duties, their headquarters “will become immediately vacant”.
“This does not say that you have to go to court, you don’t have to do X, Y and Z; this is what the law on black letter says,” said Sarega. “And therefore, on the basis of the investigation and everything that had been discovered that the seat was deemed vacant.”
Scott Cummings, a UCLA law professor who teaches ethics, said that although council’s actions were perhaps not the best practice, it seems legally healthy.
“It was his action that created the vacancy and the municipal council had no obligation to vote on anything necessarily because it is an automatic trigger,” he said. “But everything comes down to knowing whether it is true or not, and it seems to be a complete investigation with transparency is in order.”
Cooley, who created the DA public integrity division which examines potential reprehensible acts by civil servants, agreed with Cummings and said that local and state prosecutors should resume these cases to combat the appearance of conflicts.
The city launched its investigation into Castillo in November, after the municipal director heard multiple complaints alleging that Castillo did not live in the city, said Sarega.
The survey included surveillance, monitoring of GPS approved by the court and searching mandates in his Huntington Park apartment and the parents’ home in South Gate. Investigators also interviewed five witnesses, including Castillo, according to Sarega.
He said the investigators followed the Castillo vehicle for a month in January and discovered that she had stayed at Huntington Park’s apartment only once. Someone else lived there, but she also sent mail there, said Sarega.
The Times visited the apartment of the former advisor for several days in February, no one responding to the door. Most neighbors in the region said they hadn’t seen Castillo when they showed photos of it.
Robles, the lawyer of Castillo, challenged the allegations of the city.
In a declaration to support the prohibition prescription against the city, Castillo wrote that it moved into the Huntington Park apartment near Saturn Avenue and Malabar Street after the owner of the house of his family rented to use it for their own family.
“My neighbors on the other side of the street,” she wrote, “that I know most of my life and envisaged family, proposed to allow me to stay in a room in their house, until I can afford my own apartment.”
She wrote that her parents moved to South Gate, where she started to visit frequently because her mother’s health had worsened, requiring more visits to a doctor and a specialist. She said it included night leftovers.
Robles said that whatever the city in which its client lives, it has never been offered to regular procedure under Californian law.
He feared that a decision against his client could create a precedent for state cities that can take similar measures when they deal with cases in which an elected official is accused of not living in his city.
“If you don’t think other cities will do it, you are wrong,” he said.
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