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| L.A. County Assessor's Race John Wong vs. John Noguez County Assessor candidate John Wong at City of Bell's Protest. Wong breaks story that Bell pays 2nd highest taxes in L.A. County. The other Assessor candidate, John Noguez, Huntington Park Mayor who gave Bell's George Cole millions of dollars in rigged public contracts, is in hiding and not responding to inquiries about his relationship to Cole. While Noguez campaigns on a platform of fair property values, he ignores to mention that under Noguez's term in office, Huntington Park went on to hold the 6th highest property taxes in L.A. County, 4 notches below the city of Bell. , |
John Wong is mad as hell -
Wong broke the news on Monday July 26 that
Bell pays 2nd highest property taxes in L.A.
County, higher than Beverly Hills. (see Video)
Wong broke the news on Monday July 26 that
Bell pays 2nd highest property taxes in L.A.
County, higher than Beverly Hills. (see Video)
| John Wong, Nestor Valencia, Sen. Gloria Romero, Bell resident, Lt. Gov. Able Maldonado (seated), Kevin De Leon at city of Bell signing AB 900. (Photo courtesy Eric Spillman) |
| Tuesday, Sept. 14, 2010, 8:00 am, the Editor, WatchOurCity.com Kevin De Leon and BASTA try to Remove Nestor Valencia from Speaking at signing of AB 900; De Leon told Nestor to "Shut Up" Tuesday, September 14, 2010, 8:00 am The Editor, WatchOurCity.com Bell, CA - Assemblyman Kevin De Leon, author of AB 900, browbeat longtime Bell resident Nestor Valencia right before the bill signing event on Monday in front of Bell city hall. For years now Valencia has been the only voice in Bell complaining about Bell's tax issues. Lt. Governor Abel Maldonado along with State Senator Gloria Romero and Assembly member Kevin De Leon travelled to Bell city hall to sign legislation giving illegally charged property taxes back to Bell homeowners. Bell's illegally collected property taxes are a testament to the municipal management strategy as schemed by Robert Rizzo and George Cole, former city manager and former councilman, both serving since early 1980's. A strategy that was defended before live TV cameras by current city manager Pedro Carrillo. Then at Monday's bill signing event, something went wrong. BASTA and Assemblyman Kevin De Leon tried to hijack the event to get Nestor Valencia off the official list of speakers. The Lt. Governor's office responded that Nestor Valencia stays as a speaker. The Office of Lt. Governor Abel Maldonado had, over the weekend, fixed the list of speakers for the Monday signing event at Bell. BASTA was not one of the parties on the official program. Nestor Valencia, a long time resident of Bell and founder of the Bell Resident club was an invited speaker approved by the office of the Lt. Governor. Kevin De Leon is a good friend of Leo Briones who founded the 3-month old branded grassroots organization that is funded by the Bell Police Officer Association. In a speech he gave at Monday's AB 900 signing event, Kevin De Leon personally thanked BASTA and State Senator Ron Calderon for their help with this legislation. Nestor was not mentioned. Ron's Brother Tom is president of George Cole's Oldtimers foundation. Assemblyman De Leon is not exactly a champion of Bell residents. He had no involvement with Bell before. Bell is not in De Leon's district. Neither Kevin De Leon, Leo Briones or any of the Calderon's live in Bell. It is curious that Assembly De Leon thanked State Senator Ron Calderon and BASTA, as if their apologist, for their "help" with this bill. Senator Calderon co-hosted a gala dinner last Thursday evening honoring George Cole's work at the Oldtimers Foundation, a non-profit who's profit schemes are in now in the cross-hairs of the State Attorney General's office. If it wasn't for Supervisor Gloria Molina and Assemblyman Hector De La Torre who asked De Leon to sponsor this emergency legislation, Kevin would not be part of this at all. The logical and natural choice for carrying the legislation should have Hector De La Torre, not De Leon. Who knows what machinations happened behind closed doors in Supervisor Molina's office and in Sacramento to have caused to scuttled De La Torre and instead end up with the equivalent of a legislative carpetbag scheme. The choice of Kevin De Leon is not a head scratcher when the political context is taken into account: De Leon is gunning for Senator Cedillo's soon-to-be vacated Senate seat. Instantly, without lifting a finger or breaking a sweat, and without any skin in the game, or real personal or legislative precedent, Assemblyman Kevin De Leon's profile is, in theory and intent, raised a notch. But that's politics. De Leon was involved in the closed door meeting in Sacramento when he, State Senator Ron Calderon and the Latino Caucus met with Bell's city manager Pedro Carrillo and city attorney James Casso to be briefed, in secret, about the Bell situation. Assemblyman Hector De La Torre boycotted the closed door meeting due to its secretive nature. Later we learned that Carrillo and Casso, with the cooperation of the Latino caucus, in fact tried to derail De La Torre's legislation. The L.A. Weekly exposed that Kevin De Leon, a San Jose native via San Diego, was sleeping in a couch in the apartment of Gil Cedillo's Chief of staff in order to meet residency requirements when he first ran for termed-out Jackie Goldberg's Assembly seat in Echo Park. Kevin is Fabian Nunez childhood friend. Then- Assemblyman Nunez cut deals with the unions in order to get his friend De Leon elected. Recently, De Leon pissed off two branches of the same union stemming from his support of his ex-wife's campaign for a November city council seat in San Jose. De Leon has announced his intentions to run for termed-out Gil Cedillo's senate seat. Chief Communications officer for State Senator Gil Cedillo is Conrado Terrazas who worked for Bell's former mayor George Cole's Oldtimers Foundation and was Cole's treasurer for his campaigns. Terrazas also was Huntington Park mayor John Noguez's campaign treasurer during the 2003 and 2007 city council campaign, according to public records on file in Bell and Huntington Park city clerks' offices. While Bell has the 2nd highest taxes in L.A. County out of 88 cities, Huntington Park is only 4 notches down from Bell, holding 6th place. De Leon's best friend, the disgraced former speaker Fabian Nunez, came down to Huntington Park to personally campaign for John Noguez's city council race in 2003 and 2007, calling Noguez and his then-fellow councilman Edward Escareno "men of honor". Escareno was later convicted of "Grand Theft of public funds", a felony. For De Leon to come to Bell and push around, brow-beat a high profile resident most responsible for exposing Bell's tax issues, then to actively hijack the AB 900 signing event and suppress Nestor's participation in Nestor's home turf, is disturbing, unfortunate and only served to cheapen and degrade any notions of goodwill Assemblyman Kevin De Leon intended to deliver along with refunds in AB 900. |
| Francisco Leal funding San Jose City Council candidate, Kevin De Leon's ex-Wife Tuesday, September 14, 2010, 8:00 am The Editor, WatchOurCity.com Kevin De Leon's former wife is running for San Jose City Council this November. San Jose local media has reported that Huntington Park's $630,000 city attorney Francisco Leal is funding De Leon's wife. Kevin De Leon is a native of San Jose. |
