| Campaign 2007 Watch Mayor Noguez Thinks You're Stupid The Editor, WatchOurCity.com Posted Thursday, January 4, 2007 Huntington Park, CA - City residents will wake up on March 8, 2007 to a crude and raw reality: they just re-elected a very corrupt bunch of hungry, and underemployed elected officials. The three incumbents are running as a slate against three independent contenders. Mayor John Noguez, Council members Ofelia Hernandez and Mario Gómez are up for re-election. They ran as a slate in 2003. Their campaign manager, Edward Escareno, was also the mayor at the time. A little known fact about their 2003 campaign manager Edward Escareno: he was “quietly” convicted of “Grand Theft” of public funds in December 2005. Neither the DA’s office nor Escareno’s team in City council made a peep about the conviction. And their campaign manager’s conviction would have remained a deathly secret had it not been for this website watching and listening to anonymous tips. Not even the L.A. Times has, to this day, reported on the conviction of this slate’s campaign manager. However, Escareno's conviction made the front page of the Spanish daily newspaper La Opinion on January 18, 2006 with a headline that read "Corruption in Huntington Park". Oh, and they received historically unprecedented campaign contributions in 2004 totaling $125,000. According to public records, on the eve of election day alone, the slate of Noguez, Hernandez and Gómez received over $62,000 in “Non- Monetary” contributions in the form of “literature” and the like. Want to find out how campaign contributions are laundered without a trace? Just ask John Noguez and Edward Escareno. But here's a clue, it helps to have a friend inside a bank or a friend with a check cashing place. Check cashing places are the business vehicle of choice for drug cartels to launder money. They are also the choice for corrupt public officials. Huntington Park has several prominent check cashing businesses. One of them in particular whose owner is a good friend of Mayor John Noguez and Rosario Marin, is a founding member and head of the secretive Hispanic business group META 2000 based in Huntington Park that is much favored by John Noguez, and he even showers them with $50,000 grants, no strings attached. The $62,000 last minute campaign contribution amount was given by five individuals alone with a curiously confident and high regard for the return on investment potential of their hard earned money; they included: Leonardo’s Casino, several owners of Tacos Mexico, one of them a bachelor living with his mother here in Huntington Park and the then-lover of John Noguez (for the record, Noguez now sports a different gay lover, as advertised in his recent 2006 Christmas cards). The Three Incumbents Noguez, the current mayor, is an openly gay elected official and spearheaded two new city ordinances to make it easier for a campaign donor to 1) allow adult entertainment in his place of business, and 2) build a new card club casino to allow gambling within city limits. Both ordinances would benefit his largest campaign contributor, Leonardo’s Night Club on Alameda Street. The other, Ofelia Hernandez, is the city’s education czar yet does not possess a high school diploma, let alone speak standard LAUSD English. Ofelia has been gainfully unemployed for most of her adult life (editor's note: a "community activist", as Ofelia labeled herself before holding her city council seat, is not generally considered as being gainfully employed). The last one, Mario Gómez, well, he’s got his wife to work for him since stay at home dads are important in this community of hard working blue collar immigrants. The fact that his mother owns a company that recycles paint does not make a stay-at- home dad a businessman, as Mario claimed he was on his candidate's statement during the 2003 elections. He deceived the voters, just like his campaign manager, the convicted Edward Escareno, who stated in his 2001 candidate's statements that he too was a businessman; in fact, the disgraced Escareno has never owned a business, and there is no public record of him ever registering as a business of any kind. Escareno too deceived the voters in 2001. Rosario Marin was Escareno's top endorser during his campaign. Marin knew that Escareno was not a businessman. She also knew that Escareno was unemployed. She knew this, but endorsed them anyway. Marin lied to the voters. She had something to gain. The best deceit perpetrated not just on the voters here in Huntington Park but in the entire State of California was tried by the political mentor to them all, Rosario Marin, former U.S. Treasurer, ex-councilwoman here and now head of the California Consumer Affairs Division. Rosario thought she too could deceive voters by claiming she was a businesswoman on the ballot during the 2004 primaries as she intended to challenge Senator Barbara Boxer for the U.S. Senate seat ("Adios, Boxer" was her cute and quaint but loosing Latino themed campaign slogan). Marin learned first hand while being a Huntington Park councilwoman that you can deceive all of the voters all of the time and nobody will bother to check the facts. Rosario taught her mentors well. One little problem for Rosario was when someone did bother to check her claim of being a "Businesswoman". Rosario was sued in Sacramento Superior Court to prevent her from using and printing the title on the California primary ballot. The judge ruled that, in fact, Rosario Marin could not use the term "Businesswoman" on the ballot since it serves to deceive the entire California voter population. Darn, but it works so well in Huntington Park, where Rosario still lives and controls John Noguez and his slate. On March 15, 2007, WatchOurCity.com will turn three years old. The very fist report this website posted was the exorbitant travel and cell phone expenses that John Noguez, Ofelia Hernandez and Mario Gómez gave themselves, in efforts led by their campaign manager, fellow council member and then mayor, now convicted felon, Edward Escareno. Back then, in the early pioneering days of WatchOurCity.com’s reporting debut, city council had a paltry $4,000 each for travel expenses. And that was under Escareno. Now, Noguez and team have quietly voted themselves a travel allowance of $10,000 per year per council person, a 150% increase. That's $50,000 in travel expenses that they have given themselves from public funds. But John Noguez thinks we are stupid. The Challengers The three contenders, all long-time residents and graduates from Huntington Park High School, are a ragged bunch. They have no funds. They don't want to team up. They have no campaign manager and they have no chance in hell of winning either. They are too clean and mean well and worst of all, they are genuinely interested in the public benefit. Efren Martinez, Valentin Amezquita and Linda Guevara are the three candidates challenging the Noguez Slate. Efren is young, a U.S. Marine with service stints in Africa and the Middle-East under his belt. His youthful looks bely his tough businessman’s acumen and a military experience that would mature a boy into a hardened man in a matter of days. Efren ran an unsuccessful campaign during the 2005 elections. Amezquita, a USC graduate with a Biology degree, was a council candidate against the Noguez-Escareno machinery in 2003. His $25,000 spent versus their $125,000 earned him a close fourth place, within about 200 votes of a council seat then. Valentin ran a popular campaign but was no match for the special interest money pumping into Noguez’ campaign coffers. And there were the dirty tricks played on Valentin’s campaign team. One of the most egregious of dirty tricks played against Valentin was an inside job, quite literally. At 8:00 a.m. on election day, March 6, 2003, Amezquita’s telephone bank of 8 lines for his get-out-the-vote campaign mysteriously was shut down. A few calls to the phone company revealed that someone in Pacific Bell’s four story building on the corner of Saturn and Santa Fe manually switched off all of Amezquita’s telephone lines. They all went dead. Curiously, after the elections, late filings of campaign statements by Mario Gómez revealed a little noticed contributor that jumped out the page: the job description for the contributor was listed as “Pacific Bell manager”. Linda Guevara. Yeah, that Guevara, the one that was tried by the DA’s office and convicted for not living in the city while she served as a councilwoman here. For the record, Linda Guevara has provided public records to WatchOurCity.com. The main accuser in Linda’s case was Rosario Marin, who is the den mother of Huntington Park politics, is mentor to John Noguez and Edward Escareno and is good friends with Steve Cooley, District Attorney. Rosario Marin endorsed and actively campaigned for the incumbent slate in 2004. Curiously, right after her slate is sworn in as the majority three votes in city council, Marin's friends started to get lucrative city contracts such as city attorney Francisco Leal, George Cole, Vicente Ortiz and Victor Caballero. Millions of dollars, here folks. All Marin's friends. In October 2002, Huntington Park Council woman Linda Guevara was convicted of lying about living in the city. The District Attorney's case acted on a tip to investigate Guevara. Rosario Marin, then a council colleague of Guevara's and friend of D.A. Steve Cooley, assisted the D.A.'s investigation according to court documents on the case. Then on 4-24-06, the L.A. County Superior Court took action and filed documents terminating Guevara's probation. Linda's conviction was expunged. In other words, Linda Guevara is no longer a convicted felon. Guevara was a good elected official. But she is also a mother. One of her sons was diagnosed with a learning disability. Any good mother would do anything to attend to the needs of her son. While Linda lived in Huntington Park, her husband and son lived in Downey to facilitate admittance to Downey's school district which offered a classroom environment geared to the special learning needs of students like Linda's son. Rosario Marin knew this about Linda's son. Rosario Marin has a child with Downs Syndrome. But Linda did not vote for Rosario's pet projects and before you know it, Linda is placed under house arrest by Rosario's good friend and fellow Republican Steve Cooley. Public records suggest that John Noguez did not live in Huntington Park when he ran for office. But he was Rosario's protege and, by all indications, was protected. Rosario Knew that John Noguez was actually living in nearby city of Montebello, but surely counseled him on the fine points of carpet bagging. Guevara's 2002 conviction was announced by the D.A.'s office to all local media outlets, including The L.A. Times. On the heels of Linda's conviction, Huntington Park's ex-Mayor Edward Escareno noted "finally, we are rid of corrupt officials". That's funny, because on December 20, 2006, Escareno plead guilty to "Grand Theft" and was quietly convicted. Escareno's conviction was evidently kept a secret by Huntington Park's city council and by the D.A.'s office. No media outlet was informed, not even the L.A Times. Another clarification: Guevara was not convicted for stealing public funds. By all accounts on the public record, including the judge who sentenced her to house arrest, she was an able, capable and competent public official who always had the public benefit in mind. And Guevara currently works as an office manager in a local law office. Noguez Thinks You're Stupid For maximum entertainment value, we like our politicians dirty and corrupt, uneducated, unemployed and gay. By the way, there is nothing wrong with John being gay, unless he pushes agendas that are anti-family friendly. There is plenty wrong, however, with mayor Noguez being corrupt , supporting city ordinances allowing adult entertainment and gambling business that are patently as anti-family as any city can get. Contrast Noguez's rush to enact an ordinance allowing adult entertainment in Huntington Park, at the same time that neighboring South Gate is rushing to kick out its only adult entertainment business. Shame on all the women in city council, including Mario Gomez, for going along with the anti-family agenda that John Noguez pushes. And they proclaimed to be such good Catholics in their campaign literature, even showing campaign pictures with priests and images of St. Mathias Catholic Church. Even John Noguez proclaims himself a cross-bearing Catholic in an online gay journal L.A. Pilot: "I am Catholic, but I believe that in the end the Lord made me who I am and he sent me to this community to remind everyone that we are children of God. The Lord put me in this role and for whatever reason, he is making me carry this cross,” said Noguez. God sent him to this community, folks. Political science students call it carpet bagging. Noguez did not actually live in Huntington Park even as he ran for city council in 2003. In order to qualify for residency, Noguez hurried up to buy a four-unit apartment complex. Escrow closed on November 23, 2002, less than 30 days before Noguez files his candidate papers to run for city council, this according to public records. But Noguez thinks you are stupid. Watching Noguez and his lackey slate is like watching the famous Mexican midget bullfighter-wrestlers: you know you’ll get your Peso’s worth and more in laughs, plus you get to satiate your morbid curiosity of simultaneously staring and laughing at midgets. What’s the point in having good guys up running city council? All they’ll do is look after the public benefit and responsibly watch how millions of dollars in public funds are spent, while putting million dollar contracts out to competitive bidding instead of merely giving them to campaign contributors and friends or just giving contracts away in closed door session, like the current city attorney’s contract. That’s boring. What’s the fun in that? There is no drama, no entertainment value. Worst of all, good guys will deprive us, the residents, of the titillation factor and raw telenovela high drama we crave, like a bad freeway car wreck where you look away but the morbid factor makes you want to look, nevertheless. We want to hear Mayor John Noguez say that he wants to marry another man, as he was quoted in Adelante Magazine, a Gay-Lesbian publication. We don’t want to be deprived of morbidly gawking when a respectable gay councilman is charged with corruption for giving away public funds to friends and campaign donors or shaking down developers of a charter school for campaign contributions in exchange for project approval as is alleged of John Noguez. He thinks you are stupid. And you’re just entertaining yourself watching him, like the midget wrestlers. |
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