| Election Watch 2007 Herod's Law (La Ley De Herodes) In Huntington Park The Editor, WatchOurCity.com Posted Wednesday, February 28, 2007 Huntington Park, CA - Cheers go to Huntington Park Councilwoman Elba Romo, a Stanford University graduate and science teacher at a local high school, for her courage and ethical concerns to expose the downright corruption in Huntington Park city hall led by a corrupt mayor, a corrupt city attorney and a corrupt majority city council. Huntington Park is the next South Gate, but this time, Sacramento Politicians are invited to the party. Councilwoman Romo's courage to confront corruption head on has left her no choice but to endorse the opposing candidate slate of Guevara, Martinez and Amezquita. For the record, WatchOurCity.com has taken Romo to task in past reports where her public actions were put to scrutiny (see report).. Now, WatchOurCity.com applauds her for making a public statement through her endorsements of a clean candidate slate. Through Councilwoman Romo's endorsement, she exposes the corruption of Mayor John Noguez and his council slate of Ofelia Hernandez and Mario Gomez. Romo is reportedly sick of the corruption and deceit. Can't we all just get along? Not if your chimichanga depends on it. The public record shows that all of Rosario Marin's friends and campaign donors have been recipients of lucrative city contracts or have been on the receiving end of free city grants worth $50,000 annually, like Vicente Ortiz with his META 2000 El Grito event. Are your children getting $50,000 in soccer or baseball uniforms or reduced park fees? Worst of all, the free city grants go to wealthy business men who do not live in the city and have million dollar homes in Downey, in Hancock Park or elsewhere. How do you clean up city hall? WITH YOUR VOTE! Vote on March 6, 2007. Your vote can make a difference to end corruption in the cities of Huntington Park, Bell, Maywood and Cudahy. Find out about all the hypocrisy of Mayor John "Juan" Rodriguez Noguez, whatever his real name is, by entering WatchOurCity.com and reading three years worth of reports about his reign of corruption. Corruption affects you the resident in the pocket book, it affects you with less services for your children, it affects you with higher city tax rates and higher fees for your children to play in the city's park baseball league. Noguez, Ofelia and Mario voted to increase little league baseball fees by 100% from $30 per child to $60 when they first were elected. The increase in fees was meant to offset the $50,000 dollars city council gave gratis to their buddies for the 1-day El Grito event at the same park. So much for Noguez, Ofelia and Gomez looking out for your children. Your children do not matter to Noguez and lackey team. Next time you get you cell phone bill, check how much the city takes a cut from your payment, all the while city council members are giving the money away to their campaign contributors......YOUR MONEY!......and not giving back much to you, your child or your family in city services. The city attorney whom was voted in secret by John Noguez's city council, lives in a multi-million dollar mansion in Hancock Park and is charging the city close to $80,000 per month. That is more than triple the $25,000 maximum allowed by Leal's city attorney contract (click to see copy of city attorney contract), but John Noguez allows him to get away with it. These are public funds for city services, not meant to enrich the friends of John Noguez. If you are wondering who's paying for all those "NOGUEZ, GOMEZ, HERNANDEZ" signs all over the city, wonder no more.......it is your own money! That's how corruption works: I give you a lucrative public contract that enriches you, a contract that is non-competing, and you turn around and fund my campaign with thousands of dollars, some of the funds are easily laundered and are not reported. It's called "PAY FOR PLAY", and it is illegal and a felony. Noguez has a knack of getting away with these schemes, aided and abetted by his sidekick corrupt attorney Francisco Leal. The city clerk, who is supposed to serve the public interest has a mom who is being paid for campaign services by John Noguez. Can we expect the city clerk to turn the other way with dirty tricks by John Noguez on election day? Let's hope the city clerk will not be derelict in her duties. The election is contentious and dirty. How dirty? Just ask John Noguez and his campaign manager, Mario Beltran, a council member from neighboring Bell Gardens. Beltran used to be a field rep for State Senator Gil Cedillo and Assembly member Judy Chu. John Noguez must be worried about loosing the election. How worried is John Juan Rodriguez Noguez, whatever his name is? During the 2003 elections, Noguez did not send out one dirty hit piece. There was no need to. The election was his to take with the help of $125,000 in campaign contributions. And those contributions were extremely hyper profitable, beating any returns that Wall Street's best insider deals could ever offer. In the case of the city attorney Francisco Leal, a contribution of $4,000 to Ofelia and Noguez's campaign nets Leal a virtually criminal 7,500% return on investment. In the case of George Cole, city of Bell's council member and director of the Oldtimers Foundation, his contribution of $3,500 to Noguez yields a nearly $4 million contract with an ungodly astronomical return on investment of 111,428% (Click to see PDF copy of transportation contract). It seems that city attorney Francisco Leal cannot compete in the open market for city attorney services, so he exclusively targets corrupt council members like Noguez and team in Huntington Park, Maywood, Cudahy and Lynwood who seem to always give Leal exclusive lucrative contracts in secretive close door sessions where nobody's watching. You don't have to imagine what those elected officials get in return: it's in their publicly available campaign statements. Leal is like a vulture circling around his exclusively monopolized territory of corrupt cities waiting for fresh meat and carcas. Now, Noguez is so desperate that he's sent not one, not two, but three separate dirty campaign pieces. How desperate is Noguez about winning this time around? He's making slanderous and bald out lies about his challengers. The lies: 1. "Linda Guevara does not live in the city". 2. "Guevara and Martinez went to his mother's convalescent home to deceive her". This was completely fabricated by Noguez. He could be sued for making such slanderous statements. 3. Guevara voted to increase trash rates. In fact, the public record shows that the current 10 year trash contract was voted on in April of 2003, one month after Noguez, Ofelia and Mario are elected. Why does Noguez lie and make such slanderous comments? A desperate man, Noguez sees his chances for reelection are in trouble. Then Noguez sends out a dirty hit piece showing challenger Linda Guevara as a criminal who was convicted for not living in the city. It was John Noguez who did not live in the city when he first ran for public office. Just ask ex-State Senator Martha Escutia as shown on her state campaign filing statements, or just pull-out a public record from the County's Business Records, with both showing that Noguez had an address in the nearby city of Montebello, this even while Noguez was Huntington Park's city clerk. John Noguez had a campaign manager and roommate in ex-councilman Edward Escareno in 2003. Escareno was convicted in December of 2005 for grand theft of public funds. John Noguez, Ofelia Hernandez and Mario Gomez made sure to keep it a dirty little secret, but WatchOurCity.com broke the story, then, La Opinion Newspaper picked up the story with a headline "CORRUPCION EN HUNTINGTON PARK". Noguez, Beltran and their campaign donors have a huge uphill battle ahead of them with this campaign. From all indications, folks are tired of the John Noguez hypocrisy, corruption and outright lies. They are really angry that John is putting in a city ordinance to bring in adult entertainment and gambling all the while he takes pictures with children and families and senior citizens. And Noguez does not care about senior citizens either. The only time they ever see any senior citizens is during photo op time when campaign season rolls around. Noguez, Ofelia and Mario could care less about the senior citizens in this city. A clause in the trash contract was kept very hush by the trash company and city council. The hidden Trojan Horse clause was meant to actually help senior citizens with a 10% reduction in their trash bill. Current city candidate Linda Guevara, an ex-council member, was responsible for attaching that Trojan Horse clause to benefit senior citizens when she was in city council. In fact, Noguez's friend, the city clerk, can attest to the fact that up to one week ago, the city never made an effort to advertise the 10% trash fee reduction program until Linda Guevara brought it up to the city's finance department. Expect more bald out lies as desperate measures from the Noguez corrupt and dirty machine, supported, aided and abetted at the highest levels of the State Legislature's Latino Caucus. Noguez proclaims that he is being groomed to take over the Assembly seat from Speaker Fabian Nunez when he's termed out of the Assembly in 2009. See Mexico's Film "La Ley De Herodes" (Herod's Law). Art imitates life: the more corrupt you are, the higher the political office you will obtain. Herod's Law, La Ley de Herodes. May the public benefit be served by the best and brightest that this and surrounding communities have to offer. Elected officials like Elba Romo and her endorsed slate represent a good example of the best and brightest from our communities. The People's editor WatchOurCity.com |
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