Latino Panelists Say Bell Gardens Recall Will Spark Decade of Change : City government: Academic forum debates the significance of the unprecedented voters’ revolt.

The unprecedented recall of four Anglo City Council members in the overwhelmingly Latino city of Bell Gardens will spark a decade of political change throughout Southeast Los Angeles County, according to a panel of Latino leaders.

They predicted that the successful revolt by the city’s voters will encourage Latinos in other cities to demand representative leadership.

“The bottom line is that (in Bell Gardens) we saw a group of people identifying an issue and going after it,” Huntington Park Councilman Luis Hernandez said. “What they did is going to recur in the Southeast from here to the end of the ‘90s.

“We are going to see a complete shift in the area in terms of representation,” added Hernandez, one of the first Latino council members in Huntington Park, which is 92% Latino. “The Southeast area is going to be one explosive area.”

Hernandez was one of the panelists Saturday at a Loyola Marymount University academic forum organized to debate the role of Latinos in local government in the wake of the Bell Gardens recall.

The four Anglo Bell Gardens City Council members were ousted after they approved a zoning map that critics said was designed to drive Latinos from the city. The fifth council member, Rosa Hernandez, was not recalled but has faced mounting criticism from recall organizers who say she has turned her back on the Latino community.

Another forum panelist, government affairs consultant Xavier Hermosillo, described the recall as a “miracle” achieved by Latino “factory workers and housewives.” Hermosillo also is chairman of NEWS for America, a new organization dedicated to the political and economic empowerment of Mexican-Americans. NEWS for America has been quick to herald the recall as the start of a new Latino political movement that will sweep the predominantly Latino Southeast cities of Bell Gardens, Maywood, Cudahy, Bell, Huntington Park, South Gate and Vernon.

However, panelist Thomas Calderon questioned the significance of the recall and challenged claims that the effort stemmed from a grass-roots movement of impoverished Latinos tired of ineffective and sometimes racist Anglo leadership.

“Some say it was a victory for Hispanics. I don’t think so,” said Calderon, who works as a consultant for the city of Bell Gardens.

Calderon characterized the recall as a “blatant power grab” by absentee landlords who feared that the planned zoning changes would lower property values. The absentee landlords provided most of the funding for the recall, he said.

Calderon also added that he believes--with the appointment of Councilwoman Rosa Hernandez--that Latinos are beginning to gain more representation in the city, and that because 88% of the town’s residents are Latino “eventually, within four to six years, that council would have been all Hispanic.”

Calderon’s remarks visibly angered consultant Hermosillo.

“I don’t want to hear all this crap about eventually, in four or five years (we would be the majority); the fact is we’ve waited too damn long already,” Hermosillo shouted at Calderon. “No one will give you power. You have to take it. And the Latinos in Bell Gardens are taking it. . . . We can’t be the back-seat drivers anymore. We own the damn dealership; we ought to be able to drive our own cars.”

Other panelists included San Gabriel City Councilman James Castaneda, Pomona City Administrator Julio Fuentes and El Monte City Councilman Julio Pardo. Rodolfo Garcia, a leader of the Bell Gardens recall, was scheduled to participate, but did not attend.

Castaneda said he believes the recall was good because a majority of the population in Bell Gardens is Latino, but he warned that once Latinos gain office they must not ignore the concerns of Anglos and other non-Latinos.

“Once we as Hispanics have reached parity, and there is no question that we are going to, we have to be careful not to turn the tables around,” Castaneda said. “We live in a diverse community, and we must represent the entire community.”