Councilwoman Says She'll Quit If Recall Ousts Others

By TINA GRIEGO

Dec. 8, 1991 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

Rosa Hernandez, the city’s sole Latino City Council member and the only one not facing a recall, said she will resign if her four Anglo colleagues are booted from office during a historic election Tuesday.

In a recent interview, Hernandez said she does not believe she can work with leaders of the recall movement, or their supporters, who are seeking to remove four council members they say have failed to respond to the largely minority community.

“I would rather have this council stay than have this group come in and take over,” Hernandez said. “If they pull this recall off, I don’t know what is going to happen to Bell Gardens. It’s a scary feeling.”

Members of the recall committee, most of whom are Latino, said they were happy to hear that Hernandez would resign if the recall succeeds.

“That’s fabulous,” said Maria Chacon, a recall committee leader. “It is the best thing she can do. She should have done it a long time ago.”

Voters will decide whether to sweep from office council members Robert Cunningham, Allen Shelby, Letha Viles and Douglas O’Leary, and fill their seats by special election or by appointment.

Council critics have accused the Anglo leaders of ignoring residents’ concerns about housing, economic development and what they refer to as citizen’s rights. About 90% of Bell Gardens residents are Latino, but most of the city’s top officials are Anglo.

All four targeted City Council members have denied any wrongdoing. They say the recall effort is being led by out-of-town landlords who fear the council’s tough housing rehabilitation codes and its plans to place limits on the number of homes that can be built within the city.

Hernandez has spent days campaigning on behalf of her four colleagues, urging residents to vote “no” on the recall. Such commitment may seem odd coming from a woman who once was one of the council’s harshest critics, but Hernandez has seen a lot since she was appointed to office last April.

As the city’s first Latino City Council member, she has found herself in the political predicament of working with council members she once labeled as arrogant, alienating some Latino activists who had been her comrades.

“It was very hard on me, very hard on my family, especially in the beginning. It still hurts,” Hernandez said, wiping tears from her eyes. “I thought, ‘Why should I go through this?’ But I can’t close the door on the people who need me.”

Born March 23, 1952, in Tijuana, Mexico, Hernandez came to California when she was 16. In 1986, eight years after she moved to Bell Gardens, she joined the city’s Neighborhood Watch committee and was inspired to run for the City Council in April, 1990. Both she and her running mate, Josefina Macias, waged a vocal campaign, blasting the council as arrogant and uncaring. Both lost.

Shortly thereafter, she and Macias parted ways. Macias joined a group of more vocal, aggressive City Hall critics whose tactics Hernandez repudiated as disrespectful, heavy-handed and inflammatory.

When Councilman Ron Bird left the council to run a funeral home in Utah, Hernandez was appointed to fill his unexpired term. And her political dilemma began.

Within weeks, city officials were remarking privately that Hernandez had “gotten smart” and was willing to put aside her initial distrust of the Anglo establishment to solve city problems. The council’s Latino critics were accusing her of “selling out” to the Anglos. “These are your people; help them” became a common refrain by critics.

“She could have showed the community that she supported us if she had just spoken out once against the council,” said Rudy Garcia, director of the Bell office of the League of United Latin American Citizens, which has taken an active role in the recall. “She hasn’t said anything. But, you know, she made her deal; she got what she wanted.”

Hernandez’s impeccable style of dress and reserved manner give her an aristocratic air. She rarely smiles, and she says little without careful thought. Her quiet demeanor has been one source of her problems, leaving the impression that she is anything but a fighter. During nearly all council meetings she sits impassively, often looking down at her agenda. Even when she is baited, her face never loses its serious, guarded expression, and she refuses to respond.

“I fight when it is necessary to fight,” Hernandez said. “I’m not a loud person. I don’t like to argue. I don’t think it is necessary to embarrass anyone. I don’t think that fighting with the council would help, it would just be an act to impress the people, and that’s not what I’m about.”

Whereas recall committee memmembers have stormed council meetings, held news conferences and scorned city officials as “liars” and “racists,” Hernandez takes a more subtle approach to work with the system, not against it.

She said she decided to work with city officials when she saw that at least a few administrators were trying to reach the Latino community. But, she said, some Latinos were unwilling to listen and were, in fact, deliberately agitating many residents. Latinos who tried to work with city officials were immediately labeled “coconuts” (brown on the outside, white on the inside) by other Latinos, she said.

Hernandez says her job is not to represent the city’s Latinos, but all of its residents. Her approach has won her many loyal supporters, Latino and Anglo alike, but council critics say it is too late for diplomacy.

Hernandez and her supporters disagree. She said she has helped council members to open their eyes to the needs and wants of the community. She said she persuaded the council to hire school crossing guards, a request by many parents that had long been deemed unnecessary by city officials. She said she forced them to rethink various aspects of a controversial plan to limit the number of homes that can be built in the city--a plan that sparked the recall movement.

Hernandez points to an experience at a community event shortly after she was appointed.

“I was helping out, cutting cake and handing it to the people, and one of the council members came to me and said ‘What are you doing? You’re on the City Council now. You shouldn’t be doing that.’ ” Hernandez recalled.

“I said, ‘It’s OK, I don’t mind,’ and the council person stood there just staring at me. And then, after a few minutes, he came over and he started helping out.

“I really think I have helped improve the communication between the council and the community. We still have a long way to go, but things have improved a lot.”

ROSA HERNANDEZ

Age: 39

Time in office: 8 months

Term expires: April, 1993

City resident: 13 years

ALLEN SHELBY

Age: 53

Time in office: 10 1/2 years

Term expires: April, 1992

City resident: 53 years

ROBERT CUNNINGHAM

Age: 68