South El Monte’s housekeeping mayor

Over in South El Monte, members of the City Council have found something truly novel to fight about: Some think the mayor, Blanca Figueroa, has moved into her office, ditching her woebegone house and making herself far too at home at City Hall. They’ve gone so far as to institute a curfew to force her out of the building by 11 p.m. Figueroa denies that she’s camping out, says her house is just fine and maintains that she’s just putting in more than her share of hours on behalf of taxpayers. We’re not going to resolve this peculiar debate, but the participants give away plenty about themselves by the way they are handling it.

Councilman Hector Delgado complains that the mayor’s office -- which has a refrigerator, a microwave, some fish tanks and other tchotchkes -- does not look like a place of business. He maintains that surveillance tapes have caught Figueroa eating and watching TV. And his coup de grace: He says she must be living at City Hall because her house is unlivable. Why? It lacks heat and air conditioning, he says.

Let’s take those one at a time. A cluttered office, even one with Figueroa’s admittedly homey extravagances, hardly seems evidence of squatting. A Southern California home without air conditioning might be uncomfortable, but plenty of us live without it. And though not having heat this month would have been tough, would it really render a place in South El Monte unlivable? We’ve been by Figueroa’s house, and it’s hardly opulent, but it looks livable to us. And as for the surveillance tape, what kind of security are they running in South El Monte these days?

But if Delgado’s charges are a little flimsy, the mayor’s response doesn’t do much to inspire confidence either. Figueroa insists that she’s working day and night for a community eager for leadership. But then, in an interview with The Times, she described her office this way: “It’s my home away from home. I put on my slippers, put my hair up. It’s comfortable.” A little advice, mayor: If someone accuses you of living in your office, don’t talk about padding around it in your slippers unless you intend to plead guilty.

And, finally, Figueroa has an unsettling habit of discussing herself in the third person, as in, “The mayor’s work is never done.” Now that’s something to worry about.