BELLFLOWER : D.A. to Try Mediation in Election Eve Disputes

The district attorney’s office has decided to try mediation talks rather than the filing of formal charges against Bellflower City Council candidates and campaign workers involved in two conflicts just hours before the polls opened April 12.

“We think the best solution is out of the courtroom,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Greta Walker, who supervises the Bellflower office. “(Mediation) won’t solve any political disagreements, but we want people to handle things in a more peaceful manner.”

Just before midnight April 11, council candidates Joseph Cvetko, Ray T. Smith and Randy Bomgaars squared off on city streets over the distribution of last-minute political literature. Cvetko and Bomgaars filed mutual battery charges for shoving and chest-bumping, according to a sheriff’s report.

About three hours later, council candidate Art Olivier was accused of throwing a hammer at a car after the vehicle’s driver, Jason Marquez, reportedly threw a bottle at Olivier’s van.

By the time the polls closed the next evening, Olivier, Smith and Bomgaars had been elected to the council.

Disputes over the original sheriff’s report may be a subject of the mediation talks. Cvetko, who lost his bid for a council seat, disputed the account that he was cruising the streets in search of last-minute “hit pieces” when the incident occurred. Cvetko maintains that he went to a friend’s home on Faywood Street looking for one particular flyer and was parked outside when confronted by Bomgaars, Smith and Ron Schnablegger, stepson of Councilman Ken Cleveland.

Cvetko, 67, said the report cast him in a false light. “I didn’t generate this provocation,” he said. Bomgaars said later that he agreed with the police account.