Bell Gardens Elects Recall Leaders to Council

Four candidates who led the successful recall of four Anglo City Council members in Bell Gardens, which has a majority Latino population, were swept into office Tuesday amid cheers, tears and promises that they would be more sensitive to the community.

The election of Josefina Macias, Frank B. Duran, Rodolfo Garcia and George T. Deitch ends three decades of an Anglo majority on the five-member council.

Until last year, the blue-collar city of 43,000 had never had a Latino council member. Rosa Hernandez was appointed when veteran Anglo Councilman Ron Byrd retired.

“This is a turning point,” said Macias, 40, an attendance supervisor in the Montebello Unified School District. “It proves the community can get together to fight for justice.”

Buoyed by an unprecedented absentee-ballot vote, the successful candidates easily won election by margins of about 2 to 1.

In a town where candidates typically spend less than $1,000 to win a seat on the council, more than $50,000 had been spent by all 10 candidates by late February--most of it by the No-Rezoning Committee, which led the recall in December.

Last weekend, campaigning reached fever pitch. The No-Rezoning Committee led a convoy of horn-honking, sign-waving supporters down the town’s main thoroughfares. The 10 candidates and their troops of volunteers tramped through neighborhood after neighborhood, urging residents to vote.

The campaigning has gone on in Bell Gardens since last summer, when the No-Rezoning Committee launched its drive to rid the city of the four Anglo council members, whom they charged were arrogant and insensitive to a community that is 88% Latino. The group registered hundreds of voters and urged others to become citizens.

In December, voters recalled Mayor Robert Cunningham and council members Allen Shelby, Letha Viles and Douglas O’Leary.

Latino activists have said what has happened in Bell Gardens is the start of a movement to have Latinos better represented on government bodies in heavily Latino southeast Los Angeles County.

The campaign to replace the ousted four council members has focused on such issues as rent control, improving communication between City Hall and the rest of the city, term limitations, child care and improved police protection.

The city may not have seen the last of the recalled council members. In April, three council seats will be on the regular municipal election ballot, and ousted members Shelby and O’Leary already have announced they will try to recapture their positions.

BELL GARDENS ELECTION

Ten candidates competed in Tuesday’s special election to replace four City Council members recalled last December.

City Council

Five of five precincts reporting * The top vote-getter wins a term that expires April 14, 1994:

CANDIDATE VOTE % Josefina (Josie) Macias 1,255 63.5 Juan (John) Sanchez 437 22.2 Jesus (Jess) Zuniga 283 14.3

* The top three vote-getters win terms that expire April 14, 1992:

CANDIDATE VOTE Frank B. Duran 1,284 Rodolfo (Rudy) Garcia 1,269 George T. Deitch 1,247 Richard Webb 751 Yolanda Quintana 660 Danny Rico 556 Victor Vaillette 98