Civic Politics in Carson Takes a Soap Opera Turn

City Hall politics in Carson has gotten so wacky that one high-ranking city official has taken to calling it Peyton Place.

Earlier this month, the mayor was arrested on charges of violating his probation when he reentered the country after two months overseas. He remains in federal custody.

A months-long debate about the hiring record of the city manager has boiled over again, prompting renewed tension among the city’s ethnic groups--and placing his job in jeopardy.

The city treasurer retired because of illness.

Finally, as the city prepared for the March 6 election of its mayor and two City Council members, the newly appointed elections supervisor quit suddenly without explanation--and then rescinded her resignation a week later. Many wonder whether the elections process will remain credible.

The turmoil has left City Hall-watchers in the South Bay city of 88,000 reeling, amazed that such a small, normally low-key area can spawn such unseemly drama.

“I think we’re at a crossroads right now,” said Helen Kawagoe, who has been city clerk for 27 years and is running for mayor. “Our image is not very good, and underneath it all, we have all these heavy-duty problems of crime and education [that] we need to focus our attention on. But we seem to get boiled up in all these issues of politics.”

Inevitably, the talk starts with the mayor, Pete Fajardo. His troubles began last summer, when he was arrested on felony charges of impersonating an attorney while working as a paralegal. He pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges of collecting attorney’s fees and received a fine and one year’s probation.

Although the probation prohibited him from traveling outside the area without a judge’s permission, Fajardo, 58, went to the Philippines on Nov. 30, federal marshals said. In January, he issued a surprising statement from the Philippines via speaker phone saying he would not be a candidate for reelection in March. He returned home in late January and was arrested Feb. 1 by marshals, who said they caught him as he was going out the back door of his home with several thousand dollars in cash, his passport and a plane ticket.

At a news conference earlier this month, Fajardo’s then-lawyer, Joel R. Bander, said the mayor had been informed by another attorney that he was permitted to leave the country. He said Fajardo was taking the ticket, passport and cash to his travel agent to change a plane ticket. Having received multiple anonymous death threats, the mayor had been frightened by the insistent knock at his door and tried to get out the back door, Bander said.

Bander said he quit as Fajardo’s lawyer because he was not paid. Fajardo’s brother, Paul Fajardo, said the lawyer was fired because his services were unsatisfactory.

At a federal court hearing last week, Fajardo denied violating his parole. Another hearing is set for Tuesday.

In his speaker-phone resignation, Fajardo said he had suffered two strokes, was under doctor’s orders not to travel and threw the door open to five rival mayoral candidates.

Technically, however, Fajardo is still a candidate. Kawagoe, the city clerk, said that she has not received his withdrawal letter and that it is too late to remove his name from the ballot.

“It’s unlikely” Fajardo will be reelected, said City Manager Jerry Groomes, adding sardonically: “If that happens, we’ll have another press conference to deal with it.”

Earlier this month, the city treasurer, Mary Custer, stepped down for health reasons, Groomes said. At a City Council meeting Tuesday, Karen Avilla, who has been deputy treasurer for 10 years, was appointed her successor--a decision that prompted cheers and music from a mariachi band in City Hall chambers.

But the meeting did not remain festive.

Discussion of whether to retain interim elections supervisor Marjorie Wahlsten--who quit suddenly this month and then took back her resignation without explanation--quickly grew heated. Race was never mentioned as a factor in her departure, but some participants grew self-conscious that the argument generally broke down along racial lines: two African American council members in favor of keeping the white elections supervisor and Filipino American City Councilman Manny Ontal adamantly against her. For many, it rekindled the memory of an unsuccessful attempt last summer to strip City Manager Groomes of his hiring power--a struggle that similarly divided city politics.

“This is embarrassing,” resident Rova Williams, who is black, said later in the discussion. “You know the [press] is going to run with it and say it’s the Filipinos and blacks against each other again. . . . Let’s stop this racial thing.”

Groomes, who is African American, is highly regarded by many at City Hall. But he has been criticized by some Filipino Americans, including Fajardo, for not hiring more Filipinos for City Hall positions, particularly at the management level.

The Groomes issue ultimately died down, but the turmoil saddened many in Carson, a city that has long prided itself on its relatively harmonious racial mix. Since it was incorporated in 1968, the city government has featured unusual racial diversity, with multiracial coalitions forming the backbone of city leadership.

Groomes has said City Hall records show he has hired a racially balanced pool of employees.

But his job again is in jeopardy because his three-year contract expires in August. When the issue was debated by dozens of residents at a Feb. 6 council meeting, most African Americans supported renewing his contract and most Filipino Americans opposed it, Kawagoe said.

“That was so sad to me,” said Pat Seals, a white resident who attended the meeting and who is active in city politics. “We had our African Americans on one side of the room and the Filipinos out in the foyer.”

On Feb. 6, African American council members Raunda Frank and Sweeney, who is running for mayor, voted to renew Groomes’ contract; Ontal voted against. City Councilwoman Kay Calas did not attend because of illness and Fajardo was in custody. City policy requires that at least three voting officials concur to approve such issues, so the item was moved to Tuesday’s meeting, only to be postponed again until March 7, the last meeting of the current council before newly elected members are sworn in.

Councilman Sweeney called for postponement “for the good of our city and the healing of our city.”

Why such turmoil in Carson? “It’s campaign season,” Sweeney said in an interview. “It’s a flat-out battle for the heart of our city.”

He added, “It’ll all be over in [a few] days. That’s all I can think of.”