Within the everlasting spinning wheel that’s political scandal in southeast L.A. County, the ticker is now on Huntington Park — and it seems to be prefer it’ll be caught there for some time.
The blue-collar, overwhelmingly Latino metropolis faces a lawsuit by former Councilmember Esmeralda Castillo, who alleges she was illegally removed in February within the wake of an investigation that decided Castillo didn’t stay inside metropolis limits and was thus ineligible to serve. Mayor Arturo Flores is battling a recall by opponents who declare on social media he’s a “reckless alcoholic” and abuses ladies whereas providing no proof to again up the scurrilous claims.
His predecessor, Councilmember Karina Macias, wakened on Feb. 26 to the sound of L.A. County district legal professional’s workplace investigators outdoors her condominium with a search warrant as part of Operation Dirty Pond. That’s an investigation right into a proposed $25-million aquatics heart for Salt Lake Park that was first introduced in 2019 however up to now has nothing to point out besides half a soccer area and a fenced-off area of dust and dying grass. Additionally served had been Councilmember Eddie Martinez, two former council members and Metropolis Supervisor Ricardo Reyes and even Huntington Park Metropolis Corridor, which noticed yellow warning tape block off the entrance entrance as investigators carried out proof.
Then there’s longtime Metropolis Atty. Arnold Alvarez-Glasman, who resigned during a special council meeting in early March simply two days after the Operation Soiled Pond raids. He claimed that Flores and his council allies had made his job “unreasonably troublesome.”
Is it any marvel that Metropolis Council conferences these days simply dissolve into much more municipal desmadre?
Whereas malfeasance in politics occurs in all elements of Southern California, the extent of skulduggery, and typically outright thievery, by council members in southeast L.A. County cities over the previous three a long time has made this space’s politics notorious. There was South Gate, the place former Mayor and Treasurer Albert Robles was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison in 2006 on corruption prices and an elderly council member survived a gunshot wound to the head in a case that was never solved. Bell, the place 5 former council members and two metropolis staffers had been convicted within the mid-2010s of fleecing residents for decades.
It’s native politics as Wrestlemania.
Huntington Park was presupposed to be completely different, a metropolis the place a brand new era of politicians who helped to take out the earlier baddies repeatedly reassured the general public they might break the corruption cycle. That’s what they told me last year, after I did a sequence on the historical past of Latino politics in Los Angeles.
Effectively, right here we’re.
On the April 7 assembly, Flores bragged that he wore Macias’ vote in opposition to him to succeed her as mayor “like a badge of honor as a result of I undoubtedly don’t need [her] help,” which the viewers reacted to with groans and mutters of “Oh, God.”
Just a few weeks later, as Nancy Martiz was being sworn in to fill Castillo’s former seat Macias targeted on her cellphone like somebody ready for an Uber trip.
“Your background is simply corruption,” Rudy Cruz informed the council on the April 7 assembly in the course of the public feedback part. “It’s like oysters to a rock. It’s arduous to get them off.”
Afterward, I requested him if he thought Flores’ ascension represented a contemporary begin for Huntington Park. The 48-year resident laughed.
“There’s others, ready like vultures for an animal to die,” Cruz replied. “Right here [in Huntington Park], the immoral turns into ethical, the unlawful turns into authorized.”
An unfinished pool venture in Salt Lake Park in Huntington Park. It’s the topic of an ongoing L.A. County district legal professional’s investigation in allegations of misuse of tens of millions of {dollars} in public funds.
(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Occasions)
I interviewed Flores and Macias on the website of their option to dimension them up and determine who got here off as truthful and who was stuffed with it. The loquacious Flores, a self-admitted “peleonero” — a fighter — who’s serving his first full time period, confirmed as much as Salt Lake Park in a Carhartt jacket embroidered with the town seal and his identify. Macias, calm and wearing a modest black shirt and denims, picked a Mexican ice cream store the place she slowly loved a scoop of rocky highway inside a waffle cone.
Each are youngsters of Mexican immigrants who grew up in blue-collar neighborhoods — Flores in South L.A., Macias in Huntington Park. They’ve labored in jobs that require selflessness and a spotlight to element — Flores was a Marine bomb canine coach with excursions in Afghanistan and Iraq, whereas Macias turned a full-time caretaker for her dad and mom. They had been former political allies who beforehand labored on political campaigns for Efren Martinez, the southeast L.A. County energy dealer who lost an Assembly race last year and whose residence and consulting enterprise had been additionally searched as a part of Operation Soiled Pond.
“That is the Karina Macias legacy, you understand?” the 36-year-old Flores informed me as we walked round Salt Lake Park. Folks jogged across the fenced-off lot, which was as soon as a skating park. “It’s a failed pool venture riddled with inconsistencies, riddled with questionable acts and questions of legality and incompetence.”
Huntington Park Mayor Arturo Flores at a metropolis council assembly at Huntington Park Metropolis Corridor on April 7, 2025.
(Eric Thayer/For The Occasions)
“They’re [Flores and his allies] placing a grey, darkish cloud on one thing that may change the lives of the group,” Macias, 38, replied after I shared his ideas. She has sat on the Metropolis Council since 2013. “There was no wrongdoing or issues being hidden or cash misspent or being stolen. What he’s saying, there’s nothing of that, you understand?”
Each used “?” rather a lot in our conversations, like several typical Latino Angeleno. Each declare the “group” is behind them and welcomed any and all scrutiny.
“I’m not panicking, you understand what I’m saying?” the 36-year-old Flores boasted. “I’m cool like a cucumber.”
“In the event you don’t have enemies, then you definately’re not pushing the buttons or attempting to do good for the group,” Macias, 38, supplied with a touch of pleasure.
This isn’t her first brush with scandal. In 2017, the D.A. investigated and ultimately cleared her for elevating cash for an Efren Martinez Meeting marketing campaign from firms that sought to do enterprise with Huntington Park.
This time round, Macias offered me with a folder of paperwork that included a timeline of the Salt Lake Park aquatic heart full with all of the council votes in its favor, together with a 2023 movement that gave Huntington Park’s metropolis supervisor the authority to execute all contracts related to the venture. Among the many sure votes then? Flores.
“The mayor determined simply to make one thing out of nothing as a result of he’s recognized concerning the venture for the reason that time that he began,” Macias stated matter-of-factly. Afterward, as we walked down Pacific Avenue and she or he handed me her enterprise card, she observed it was outdated.
“It nonetheless says mayor,” Macias stated, a small smile on her face. “Don’t inform the mayor.”
Huntington Park Councilmember Karina Macias stands in entrance of one in every of many storefronts open for enterprise in downtown Huntington Park on April 25. Macias can also be the previous mayor of Huntington Park.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Occasions)
Flores handed me no paperwork, however one thing maybe extra highly effective: a confessional.
After working in L.A. County politics for a decade, together with serving as a physique man for Antonio Villaraigosa during his failed gubernatorial campaign, Flores moved to Huntington Park in 2018.
“I’m not going to say there wasn’t a political ambition there,” he admitted.
He helped on the profitable 2020 Metropolis Council campaigns for Eddie Martinez, Graciela Ortiz, and Marilyn Sanabria; the latter two additionally noticed their residences searched as a part of Operation Soiled Pond. Flores stated they and Macias initially offered him on the Salt Lake Park pool venture.
“I felt impressed. I assumed it was a phenomenal factor,” he stated. “I’m like, ‘That is what we’d like. Latinos want this.’ Why can’t we now have good issues in our communities, proper?”
They informed him that criticism by watchdogs had been simply “los haters.” However Flores stated his perspective modified as soon as he was appointed to the Metropolis Council in 2022 and he went to Metropolis Corridor throughout a rainstorm.
“The workers had 30-gallon trash cans stuffed up with water. There’s mould on the partitions. The roofs are leaking. I went to the town supervisor’s workplace and I stated, ‘Hey, like, you understand, excuse my French, however what the f—’s happening right here?’”
The following hearth hose of allegations he unleashed throughout our hourlong chat appeared haphazard in comparison with Macias’ measured responses. Humblebrags by Flores like “Each time that they’ve tried to maneuver in opposition to me, they’re met with an insurmountable response as a result of I’ve already anticipated that that’s their techniques” sounded just like the phrases of somebody asking to be hoisted by their proverbial petard.
However Macias did herself no favors when she insisted Efren Martinez had “zero involvement with” the Salt Lake Park pool venture. One of many shoppers he listed on marketing campaign disclosure varieties for his failed 2020 Meeting race was the development firm whose house owners noticed their residence looked for Operation Soiled Pond as nicely.
Flores and Macias had been each nice until the topic was one another. They struck me as earnest about bettering Huntington Park and assured they’re harmless of what opponents declare about them.
However one in every of them needs to be incorrect, proper?
As a tiebreaker, I referred to as up former Assemblymember Hector De La Torre, who entered politics 1 / 4 century in the past to assist cleanse his hometown of South Gate. He’s now govt director of the Gateway Cities Council of Governments, which advocates for 27 cities stretching from Montebello to Lengthy Seashore to Cerritos and all of the southeast L.A. County cities, and has labored with Flores and Macias in that capability.
De La Torre praised each of them for his or her “dedication” to raised Huntington Park, and urged they let Operation Soiled Pond investigators do their job. However in a wearied tone, he informed me “in SELA, typically it isn’t about somebody eliminating corruption and cleansing up the town.” (SELA is the nickname for southeast L.A. County.)
“Typically, it’s two completely different factions, each as shady as the opposite,” he stated. “And the swings are usually not from corruption to good authorities; they’re from one kind of corruption to the opposite.”
