SOUTH EL MONTE : Recall Effort Targets Card Club Supporters on Council

Three South El Monte council members who put a card club proposal on the ballot last August now face a recall drive by the club’s opponents.

Mayor Alvira (Vera) Valdiviez, Councilman Arthur Olmos and Vice Mayor Albert G. Perez were served with notice of intent to recall before the Feb. 2 council meeting by Elaine Trahan. Trahan led the successful drive to defeat the club, which was voted down by a 3-1 margin.

“They have effectively become a three-vote lock on the council who ignore the wishes of the people,” Trahan said. “We hoped they’d changed their mind after the card club fiasco, but nothing has changed.”

Councilmen Joseph. J. Gonzales and Jerry Salas are not targeted by the recall effort. Both opposed the card club and have criticized their colleagues on the five-member council. The city has nearly 21,000 residents.

But Olmos said that, far from going against the will of the public, the council majority asked the people to call the shots on the card club.

“With the card club, all we did was put it to a vote of the people. That is not grounds for a recall,” Olmos said.

The notice of recall drafted by former Mayor John D. Gonzales, father of Joseph, lists various reasons for the drive: failure by the council members to recover the full cost of the special election on the club from its prospective owners, the three members’ support for a single trash hauler, extending current council members’ terms without a public hearing, and the continuous three-vote bloc.

Olmos said the council extended its members’ terms to time its elections according to what most other cities were doing, to avoid overlapping with presidential primaries, and went to a single trash hauler in order to save money. Now, he said, 132 senior citizens get free rubbish pickup and, he claims, most residents now pay less for the service.