Comments to the City Council, 24 January 2006

[A very slightly edited version of my comments to the City Council on 24 January 2006.  I've also sent them to the Pasadena Start-News and the San Gabriel Valley Tribune.  Not counting on seeing them there, though].

Thank you, Jay Imperial for postponing the recall election. Thank you for giving us another compelling reason why you should be removed from office. The transparent, self-serving nature of your suit, and the votes of yourself and Councilmember Taylor to cancel a recall election that you did not have the legal authority to cancel, speaks volumes about your ego and your ethics.

Nobody is fooled by your attempt wrap yourself in the Voting Rights Act. During your tenure, this city has failed to provide adequate translators at polling places, failed to provide adequate copies of translated instructions and voting information at the polling places, failed to translate and mail out sample ballots in a timely manner, and failed to publicize elections in the non-English-speaking community. And that is why the U.S. Department of Justice had to come to town last summer to force the city into a consent decree. You are no friend of the non-English-speaking working class of Rosemead, and you’re no friend of the Voting Rights Act.

[Comment: The DOJ complaint can be read here: http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/voting/sec_203/documents/rosemead_comp.pdf

The consent decree can be read here:

http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/voting/sec_203/documents/rosemead_cd.pdf]

Your federal suit was filled with half-truths and innuendo. Ms. Lee’s pleading, for example, implied that she was spoken to only in English by SOC volunteers. She neglected to note the presence and participation of a Chinese translator who told her in no uncertain terms that the petitions she was presented with were to remove two city council members who together had been in office for some sixty years. She neglected to note that our volunteers were perfectly willing to leave, and return when her son was present. She neglected to note that she stopped the SOC volunteers from leaving, and signed the petitions voluntarily. She neglected to mention that she later filled out a "PRIDE" card to have her name removed from the petition rolls. In short, she neglected to mention that she suffered no actual harm at all in this petition drive.

Similarly, in Mr. Imperial’s pleadings, he acts as though the city council’s actions to cancel, then reinstate the election were things that just happened to him. He doesn’t say that it was he and Mr. Taylor that called upon the council to illegally cancel the election on December 5^th, he and Mr. Taylor that then cast illegal votes to cancel the election, and he and Mr. Taylor that again cast illegal votes to keep the election from going forward on December 16th.

Given all of this misleading evidence, I can hardly blame a judge for thinking that something fishy was going on in Rosemead. And if time were not a factor, I would be thrilled to watch Mr. Imperial and Ms. Lee be placed under oath, where they would then need to either perjure themselves or admit that they suffered no material harm in this recall process. But waiting for the legal process to resolve itself would mean letting Mr. Imperial serve out his term. And by his actions over the past few months, he has shown himself to be woefully unqualified to hold elective office.

The first time SOC went into Rosemead to gather petition signatures, we got about 2,600 signatures for the referendum. The second time, we got 4,800 for the recall. I’m sure that after the events of the past month, there’s no doubt that if we wanted to, we could increase our total, again.

So, Mr. Imperial, thank you for your help in this recall effort.