Latinos Cry Foul as Council Snubs Espinosa

Angering Latino activists who called the move divisive, the Santa Paula City Council has picked Councilman Ray Luna for mayor over veteran Councilwoman Laura Flores Espinosa, who has been criticized for supporting a federal voting-rights lawsuit against the city.

Dozens of residents stormed out of the council meeting after Monday’s 4-1 vote in support of Luna, a Ventura firefighter who had served as vice mayor. The first-term councilman also is Latino, but he has neither courted nor received support from the activist community.

In Espinosa’s seven years on the council, she has never been mayor, a ceremonial post traditionally rotated among the five-member board. After choosing Luna as mayor, the council unanimously elected Espinosa vice mayor, and Luna pledged to support her mayoral bid next year, assuming she is reelected.

Nevertheless, Espinosa’s supporters said Luna’s election ended any trust that had been building between the city’s working-class Latino population and its white establishment since the federal lawsuit over Latino voting rights was settled by the city earlier this year. Two-thirds of the city’s 29,000 residents are Latinos.

“The white [establishment] in Santa Paula has spoken again,” said Denis O’Leary, deputy district director of the League of United Latin American Citizens.

Luna, 53, said after the meeting that he will represent all residents as mayor. “There’s no reason why we can’t all work together and get along together.”

After voting against Luna, Espinosa pledged to work with the new mayor. But she said he would not be universally accepted. “It definitely puts a dent in the spirit of unity that many people, both Anglo and Latino, have been working toward.”

Luna found it difficult to relish his victory. He was grim as he took the gavel, and his first act in office was to call for a five-minute break so he could compose himself.

After the meeting, he said he voted for himself because it would have been disruptive to break the tradition of elevating the vice mayor to mayor.

Espinosa, however, said Tuesday that although she had earlier served as vice mayor, she has never been elected mayor.

“I cannot fix problems that happened in the past,” Luna said. “I can’t close the door on one problem and open the door on another problem.”

Before Luna’s election last year, Espinosa was the sole Latino on the council. She also was the sole supporter of the Department of Justice action. The lawsuit was settled when the city agreed to let voters decide in an upcoming election whether they want a district system, which some advocates say would empower Latinos more than the at-large system. Espinosa’s rivals on the council had said the at-large system was fair and painted Espinosa as a divisive force.