Once-Outsider Lopez Feeling Inside’s Heat

Nativo Lopez called me last week on his cell phone, the roar of traffic in the background. The more we talked, the more he sounded upset, even breathless.

The silver-haired Latino leader has had a rough few weeks. In November, he barely won reelection as a Santa Ana school trustee, clinging to a seat on a board that made local history by becoming all-Latino.

No sooner was his dream of full representation realized than the bruising reality of politics spoiled the celebration. Nativo and his liberal board majority immediately came under fire for campaign fund-raising tactics that smacked of conflict of interest--taking contributions from architects up for new construction contracts.

The tactic may have been shameless, but it was not illegal. Nativo says it’s just politics as usual. And who can contradict him, considering the millions in special-interest dollars greasing government from City Hall to Capitol Hill?

Let the politico who takes no cash cast the first clean stone.

“You do what you gotta do,” says Nativo, huffing and puffing into the phone. “At the end of the day, is it right? Well, I’m still here.”

Therein lies the paradox of Latino empowerment. To win, Latinos must play that dirty money-grubbing game. But if they play too well, they stand to lose the moral authority that gave them power as champions of the outsiders.

Few issues are more urgent for the crowded Santa Ana school district than school construction and modernization. Yet, critics charge that Nativo and his cohorts were willing to delay projects, ostensibly to increase the pool of minority architects.

The Powers Behind Bond Measure

They claim the school board’s handling of the architect selection process--formerly handled by staff--cost the district the chance to get matching funds from the state and thus stalled the renovation of school facilities. Supt. Al Mijares strenuously denies the allegation, which he considers an unfair attack on the district’s fiscal integrity, not to mention his own. But even he had to admit the board’s actions delayed the timetable for campus renovations.

I can’t believe that Lopez or fellow trustee John Palacio would deliberately ignore the needs of a district where they enrolled their own children. (In fact, Palacio has a reputation of being pushy with maintenance employees.) The two actually deserve credit for selling taxpayers on the $145-million bond measure that provided local construction funds to begin with.

To defuse potential anti-immigrant sentiment, they decided to lie low during that 1999 campaign, relying on non-Latino leaders to promote the measure among white voters. Ironically, the success of their stealth strategy in raising that bond money has opened the door to public attacks on how they’re spending it.

That, too, is politics. Score one for critics who created the impression that Nativo, et al., care more about their own careers than about the speed of school renovations. Nativo must plead guilty to one big political no-no: leaving himself wide open to such attacks.

Hindsight, as they say, is 20-20. The whole board agreed to get more directly involved in the architect selection, the move that delayed the projects because architects must be selected before applying for state matching funds. Even former board member Audrey Yamagata-Noji, one of Nativo’s critics, now concedes that “Everybody knew we weren’t going to get all the (matching state) money,” partly because deadlines were too tight. But if the board had not dragged its feet, she added, “We could have had some projects.”

Right. And that could have made the board look smart, rather than inept.

Politics is about appearances.

I know better than to believe everything people say about Nativo Lopez, a lightning rod for allegations that never seem to pan out.

Take the whole, hysterical furor over alleged voter fraud four years ago, after Nativo first won his school board seat. That should have been his shining moment as a civic leader, crowning more than a decade of radical advocacy for immigrants and the poor.

Instead, he was turned into an enemy of the state, accused of some sort of scheme to get noncitizens to vote. The scandal was sparked by former Congressman Bob Dornan, the original “sore loserman” who was narrowly defeated by Loretta Sanchez that same year.

Though he didn’t have a single hanging chad of evidence of electoral crimes, B-1 Bob managed to whip up a witch hunt against Nativo and newly enfranchised Latino voters. After a year, the hunters had found no witches and they went home.

Nativo emerged convinced that his conservative enemies would do anything to destroy him. And he never forgave the press, especially the Los Angeles Times, for its part in pursuing the accusations, which later proved groundless.

Now, he believes, the paper is after him again.

“The Times has a fixation with me,” he said, breathlessly. “Coming on the heels of that [previous] experience, I have a jaundiced view of its ability to be fair.”

I have to agree that the press went too far with that voter-fraud fiasco, and I can even understand how Nativo might think The Times was being manipulated by Dornan and the Republican Party.

But that was then, and this is now.

Nativo is no longer just a partisan advocate who can claim he’s being persecuted for his ideology or his ethnicity. He’s now a public servant who is fair game for scrutiny in all his official actions.

It’s time for him and his defenders to stop blaming their enemies and the media. After years of railing at the Establishment, Nativo and his allies must now perform, not complain. They can no longer demand better schools; they must provide them.

In politics, excuses don’t play well.

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Nativo argues that Latinos are stereotyped as devious and sinister. Even journalists, he argues, “are culturally trained to see themselves as superior beings,” quick to presume guilt when a Latino politician stands accused.

That’s a stretch. But assume he’s right. Doesn’t that place a higher ethical burden on Latino officials? Shouldn’t they avoid doing anything to confirm the stereotype?

For that reason, Nativo and his allies should embrace the proposal to adopt new ethics standards for the Santa Ana school board. When they look good, the whole community looks good.

As for the press, Nativo says the only scrutiny he doesn’t like is the “inordinate and unbalanced” kind he thinks he’s getting.

“No way do I want anybody at The Times to feel that I want to be held above that (normal press) scrutiny,” Nativo said. “That’s life. The best thing you can ask for is fairness.”

So why the labored breathing during the interview?

Nativo laughed. No, he wasn’t fuming. He was just out of breath from talking while taking his regular walk around Mile Square Regional Park. Still, he doesn’t deny feeling tired of being a target.

“The cross is getting heavy, man,” he said.

Agustin Gurza’s column appears Tuesday and Saturday. Readers can reach Gurza at (714) 966-7712 or agustin.gurza@latimes.com