5 Anglos on Council Call Torres a ‘Racist’ : Politics: His remarks about nature of the Bell Gardens legislative body turn up the heat in the 1st Supervisorial District race. Lawmakers had endorsed Calderon in the contest.

The five members of Bell Gardens’ all-Anglo City Council on Thursday called state Sen. Art Torres a “racist” because he said the council does not properly represent the overwhelmingly Latino community.

In an open letter to Torres, the council members demanded an apology for the remarks, made during a heated council meeting at which a controversial overhaul of city zoning laws was being considered.

Torres told the council: “The nature of the scope of the people that I see in front of me (on the council dais) doesn’t reflect the population which lives within the city of Bell Gardens. . . . We need to organize better to make sure that we have people that look like me sitting up there.”

Torres (D-Los Angeles) is a candidate for Los Angeles County supervisor. All five council members who signed the letter accusing him of racism had earlier endorsed one of Torres’ rivals in the election, state Sen. Charles M. Calderon (D-Whittier).

Torres said Thursday that he was merely making an observation on the political reality of Bell Gardens, located in southeastern Los Angeles County. Although Bell Gardens is 85% Latino, it has never elected a Latino City Council member.

Denying that his remarks were racist, Torres said: “I have nothing to regret.”

In their open letter to Torres, the council members called the state senator’s remarks “morally repugnant.”

“Your statements call into question your ability to serve the many diverse cultures contained in the 1st Supervisorial District,” the letter said.

The controversy is an illustration of the continuing political fallout from the rapidly changing demographics of southeastern Los Angeles County, where Latinos are now a majority in several cities.

The Jan. 22 supervisorial election was ordered by a federal court judge who found that the all-Anglo Board of Supervisors had drawn district boundaries to discriminate against Latinos. The judge created a new 1st District with a 70% Latino majority.

In September, three Bell Gardens residents filed suit against the city in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, charging that the citywide election system is racially biased.

Once a semi-rural bedroom community of Anglo Midwestern migrants, Bell Gardens has seen its Latino population skyrocket in the last two decades. The city of 42,000 people now is one of the state’s most densely populated communities.

In a City Council election last April, two defeated Latina candidates found the largest obstacle to their election was not their Anglo opposition but Latino voter apathy--Bell Gardens has one of the lowest Latino voter registration rates in the county.

In response to the accusations, Torres acknowledged that the council members were not entirely to blame for the Latinos’ lack of representation. Latinos, he said, have “only themselves to blame” for their absence in city government.

The controversy began when Torres addressed a Dec. 17 council meeting packed with 600 residents, most of them Latinos. The council voted at the meeting to approve new zoning laws aimed at reducing the population by ridding the city of many apartment buildings.

More than 3,000 properties will be affected by the zoning change, scheduled to go into effect in 20 years. Some residents will be forced to move to make way for new commercial and industrial districts. Most of those displaced will likely be Latinos. Many have charged that the council is trying “to drive (Latinos) out of town.”

Council members Ronald Bird and Robert Cunningham said their accusations against Torres were not intended to influence the Jan. 22 supervisorial election. Still, they sent copies of the letter to the 19 city councils in the 1st District.

State Sen. Calderon appeared eager to take political advantage of the controversy. He called upon Torres to apologize.

“I think that was clearly a racist remark,” Calderon said. “Sen. Torres can disagree with the policy issues, but to say the council is acting based on race is completely irresponsible.”