No Gardens of Eden : Empty Coffers, Political Feuds Make Idyllic City Moniker a Misnomer

Perched on the southeastern fringe of Los Angeles County, Hawaiian Gardens is a city with an idyllic name and an increasingly rocky existence.

This square-mile, largely Latino, working-class community of 14,000is faced with a budget deficit of $1.5 million. While that might seem small in comparison with Los Angeles County’s $1.2-billion shortfall, it was enough to put today’s city payroll in jeopardy until officials could scrape together enough county funds with which to pay their employees.

In addition to more money, the city needs a new top administrator. The City Council, which has been feuding over a number of issues, fired the city administrator Wednesday night, the latest development in the political upheaval that has scandalized the city for almost a decade.

A day earlier, City Atty. Maury O’Shea, who had held that job for 17 years, beat the council to the punch and resigned after he received notice that he would be fired.

The city’s 134 employees were told Wednesday in a memo from the city administrator that they would not receive bi-monthly checks today. City officials scrambled Thursday to collect $650,000 owed Hawaiian Gardens by the county, $250,000 of which can be used for general fund purposes such as payroll. Employees will now be paid Monday, but it is unclear whether the city will be able to pay them two weeks from now.

The city’s deficit has been building gradually for several years. Creation of a police department six months ago at a cost of $2.1 million a year--$500,000 more than the city was paying the county Sheriff’s Department to patrol the community--has made an already bad financial situation worse. A 6% utility tax, set up to help finance the department, has yielded little revenue because many residents are so poor that they are exempt.

“We were having problems to begin with, and then we took on this added expense,” said City Councilman Lupe Cabrera, one of two council members who voted against starting the department because of the costs involved. “I love the Police Department, we all love the Police Department, but we’ve gone in way over our heads.”

The city is largely residential, with much of its housing stock in disrepair. A small commercial strip that runs along Carson Street is dotted with vacant storefronts and empty lots.

Hawaiian Gardens has been in debt for approximately six years, but city officials have never managed to agree on a corrective strategy.

City Council elections have continually been marred by allegations of threats, voter fraud and other misconduct, and political upheavals and power plays are common.

In firing City Administrator Nelson Oliva, council members blamed him for being unable to help them balance the budget and said they needed someone with fresh ideas. Artesia City Administrator Paul Phillips has been appointed to serve in the interim while they seek candidates.

Oliva says he was singled out because his budget proposal--which called for laying off 19 city employees and taking other cost-cutting measures intended to save $1.2 million--was seen as too drastic by some council members.

“Their approach is to get rid of the messenger,” Oliva said after learning of his termination. “They are just in total denial.”

Council members are considering several ways to solve the financial problems.

Some, such as Mayor Robert Canada and council members Cabrera and Robert Prida, do not want to fire workers. As an alternative, they have suggested reducing employee wages and hours.

But 10-year council veteran Kathleen Navejas, who as mayor last year successfully lobbied to form the Police Department, believes that personnel cuts can be made in the Recreation Department.

“The biggest drain on our city is recreation,” Navejas said. “We have 33 paid full- and part-time positions, and only 20 cops. I say scale down recreation by half a million, and recruit volunteers.”

Assistant City Administrator Leonard Chaidez said city officials are trying to determine if emergency funds can be used to continue compensating employees in the near future.

Council members are reluctant to talk about the possibility of eliminating the Police Department, which has won them praise from residents who fear violent gangs and who had sometimes complained about slow response from sheriff’s deputies.

In the meantime, many police officers are disgruntled.

“I don’t know what to tell the guys,” said Officer Tom Martin, president of the city’s chapter of the Police Officers’ Assn. Martin helped recruit officers after he resigned from Huntington Park’s police department to join the new force.

“We were not told the city was in debt,” Martin said. “We were told they had money to pay us.”

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(Valley Edition, B9) Troubled City

Political scandals and budget problems continue to plague Hawaiian Gardens, a one- square-mile city of 14,000 on the southeastern fringe of Los Angeles County.