Hernandez Retracts Her Vow, Says She Won’t Quit Council : Government: Several boisterous activists are forcibly removed from first City Council meeting since successful recall election.

Embattled City Council member Rosa Hernandez this week stated defiantly that she will not resign despite calls for her to leave office by residents who organized last week’s successful recall of the other four council members.

“I would like to make it clear, even though I am going to disappoint a lot of people, that I am not resigning,” she said to a chorus of boos and catcalls at Tuesday’s council meeting. Hernandez’s statement reversed an earlier vow she made to quit the council if her colleagues were forced from office.

The sometimes chaotic meeting was the first council session since voters on Dec. 10 overwhelmingly recalled Mayor Robert Cunningham and council members Douglas O’Leary, Allen Shelby and Letha Viles. The recall takes effect in March when another election will be held.

A boisterous group of activists arrived ready to celebrate their victory. One boy’s sign read: “We Love You Bell Gardens. We Won.” During the public comments portion of the meeting, speaker after speaker berated the council, particularly Hernandez.

But Cunningham made it clear from the outset that he was not in the mood to tolerate unruliness. “We will have no outbursts from the audience tonight,” he warned the audience of close to 100 at the William G. Ross Auditorium.

Within an hour, he had ordered police officers to remove five recall leaders and supporters.

The meeting was not five minutes old before Cunningham evicted recall activists Hank Ramey and Marie Chacon. Ramey, who had shouted barbs at the council, did not exit quietly. “We will prosecute any police officers who take people out,” Ramey threatened as he was led away.

Chacon protested that she had done nothing improper. “That’s why we are recalling you,” she shouted at the council during her escort from the building. “I can’t believe this is America,” she said outside the hall. “These people have got to be out.”

The activists started the recall movement after the council began implementing a plan to change the city’s zoning. Officials said the changes were needed to reduce housing density, improve living standards and maintain city services in tiny Bell Gardens, one of the state’s most crowded cities.

Recall leaders called the zoning policies racist and insensitive, saying the plan would force low-income Latino families from the community. They launched a voter registration drive in the overwhelmingly Latino town and campaigned to remove the council’s four Anglo members from office.

Recall leaders became outraged Tuesday when Hernandez announced her intention to stay on. Hernandez is the council’s first Latino member. The council appointed her to fill a seat that opened when council member Ron Bird moved to Utah. Her term expires in April, 1993.

“I feel that she’s a traitor to the people of Bell Gardens,” Chacon said. “She was going for the no-rezoning when they offered her a job at City Hall. And she sold out.”

The city will hold a special election March 10 to replace the four recalled council members. Three of the four seats will be on the ballot again April 14 during the regular municipal election. City Atty. Peter Wallin said the elections could not be combined because state codes set a time limit on how soon special elections must take place when a majority of council members are recalled.

Activist Alfredo Martinez said his group should have recalled Hernandez too, but they failed to include her because she had only recently assumed office. Cunningham also ordered Martinez from the meeting after he rose from his seat to cheer a council critic.

Resident Jesse Chacon singled out Hernandez too. “Rosa, I’m glad you’re not resigning because you’ll be next,” he said.

“Mr. Chacon,” Cunningham interrupted. “I said stop the personal attacks.” Jesse Chacon, too, was given an early exit.

In the past, Hernandez has taken such abuse quietly, but Tuesday she launched a feisty counterattack. She openly questioned the motives of Martinez and other recall backers, calling them landlords who feared that rezoning would cut into their profits.

She then announced her support for rent control in a city where most residents are renters. “I think that’s a desperately needed program in the city of Bell Gardens,” she said.

“They can’t call me racist,” she said outside the meeting about fellow Latinos involved in the recall. “They can’t say I don’t speak the language.

“I’m staying in office. We have unfinished business,” she added. “My first responsibility is to the community.”

After most of the recall activists had their say and departed, council members approved a $1 million loan to a nonprofit agency that has pledged to build 126 affordable housing units for low-income families. The project, still in the planning stages, would be the first product of city efforts to create affordable, higher quality housing.

Despite progress on that front, City Manager Claude Booker said much of city government would be paralyzed until new council members are elected.

Booker, a frequent target of recall leaders, said he is also worried about a witch hunt against city employees viewed as allies of the current council. “Morale is probably at an all-time low,” he said. “I think employees have a great deal to fear.

“They’ve analyzed the situation and come to the conclusion that the quality of their work doesn’t mean a thing now. If their face is the wrong color, they are out,” he said.

Recall supporter Rosa Maria Ramirez insisted that race was not an issue. “I don’t care what color you are,” she told the council. “I would not care if you were striped with yellow circles or had your heads on backwards--as long as you were looking out for us.”