In scandal-plagued Huntington Park, the abrupt ouster of a council member raises alarms
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In February, the Huntington Park City Council met behind closed doors to discuss a seemingly routine item on their agenda — potential litigation the city was anticipating.
Everyone on the council was allowed to attend the meeting but one — then-Councilmember Esmeralda Castillo. Barred from the closed-door discussion, the 22-year-old was later seen on camera picking up her things from the dais and making a quiet exit.
When the council met again a week later, Castillo was no longer listed as a member. On the agenda instead was an item to fill her seat.
As Castillo would come to learn, the city had quietly launched an investigation to determine if she was a city resident and concluded she was not, kicking her off the council — all without her knowledge.
While residency requirements for municipal seats are common, Huntington Park’s move to investigate one of its own council members, then remove her unilaterally, is virtually unprecedented, experts say.
“I’ve never heard of a city doing it that way. There’s always someone complaining to the district attorney, usually from an opponent,” said Steve Cooley, who oversaw about a dozen residency cases during his time as Los Angeles County’s top prosecutor.
Two weeks ago, in response to a lawsuit filed by Castillo against the city, the council and the city manager, a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge issued a temporary restraining order preventing Huntington Park from filling the vacant seat.
Castillo’s removal from office has angered residents in this scandal-plagued city. Amid the ongoing legal fight to regain her seat, several current and former council members are embroiled in a corruption probe with the district attorney’s office over the alleged misuse of public funds.
On Feb. 26, D.A. investigators executed search warrants as part of “Operation Dirty Pond,” a probe into the alleged misuse of taxpayer funds allocated for a $24-million aquatic center that hasn’t been built. No one has been charged.
The search warrants were executed at the homes of then-Mayor Karina Macias, Councilman Eduardo “Eddie” Martinez and City Manager Ricardo Reyes. Search warrants were also executed at the homes of two former council members, a contractor and a consultant.
Altogether, the turmoil is making Huntington Park residents weary.
“I feel sad, defrauded, angry and powerless,” said Maria Hernandez, 50, a longtime Huntington Park resident who attended the court hearing two weeks to support the former councilwoman.
Castillo declined to be interviewed for this story, but her attorney, Albert Robles, said his client has been caring for her ailing parents while maintaining a full-time residence in Huntington Park, which he said is permitted under state and city election laws. He said Castillo’s removal was politically motivated.
“Here, defendants not only acted as judge, jury and executioner, but to further highlight defendants’ self-directed unjust political power grab, [they] also conducted the investigation,” Castillo alleges in her suit.
The city notified Castillo via letter she’d been investigated and removed from the council as a nonresident but did not allow her to attend the Feb. 18 closed-door meeting when the results of the probe were discussed, Robles said. He claimed it was retaliation for Castillo accusing the members of bullying and harassment in a formal complaint to the city in January.
But Andrew Sarega, whom the city hired to oversee its investigation into Castillo, disputed those claims and said the probe into Castillo began months before she filed her grievance.
He said a complaint was filed in August with the district attorney’s Public Integrity Division, which looks into criminal allegations made against public officials.
According to an email obtained by The Times, the D.A.’s office declined to take the case, saying the matter was civil, not criminal. That put the case back in the lap of Huntington Park authorities, who looked at the city’s municipal code that says when a mayor or council member moves out of the city or leaves office, their seat “shall immediately become vacant.”
“It doesn’t say you have to go to court, you don’t have to do X, Y and Z; that’s what the black letter law says,” Sarega said. “And so, based on the investigation and everything that had been discovered that seat was deemed vacant.”
Scott Cummings, a UCLA law professor who teaches ethics, said although the council’s actions may not have been best practice, it appears legally sound.
“It was her action that created the vacancy and the city council had no obligation to vote on anything necessarily because it’s an automatic trigger,” he said. “But it all boils down as to whether or not it’s true, and it does seem like a full investigation with transparency is in order.”
Cooley, who created the D.A.’s Public Integrity Division that looks into potential wrongdoing by public officials, agreed with Cummings and said local and state prosecutors should take up these cases to combat the appearance of conflict.
The city launched its investigation into Castillo in November, after the city manager heard multiple complaints alleging Castillo did not live in the city, Sarega said.
The investigation included surveillance, court-approved GPS tracking, and search warrants at her Huntington Park apartment and parents’ home in South Gate. Investigators also interviewed five witnesses, including Castillo, according to Sarega.
He said investigators tracked Castillo’s vehicle for a month in January and found that she had stayed at the Huntington Park apartment only once. Someone else was living there, but she had mail sent there too, Sarega said.
The Times visited the former councilwoman’s apartment for several days in February with no one answering the door. Most neighbors in the area said they had not seen Castillo when shown photos of her.
Robles, Castillo’s attorney, disputed the city’s allegations.
In a declaration to support the restraining order against the city, Castillo wrote that she moved into the Huntington Park apartment near Saturn Avenue and Malabar Street after the owner of the house her family was renting planned to use it for their own family.
“My neighbors across the street,” she wrote, “whom I have known most of my life and considered family, offered to allow me to stay in a room in their home, until I could afford my own apartment.”
She wrote that her parents moved to South Gate, where she started visiting frequently because her mother’s health had worsened, requiring more visits to a physician and a specialist. She said that included overnight stays.
Robles said regardless of which city his client lives in, she was never given due process guaranteed under California law.
He worried that a ruling against his client could set precedent for cities across the state that may take similar actions when dealing with cases in which an elected official is being accused of not living in their city.
“If you don’t think other cities are going to do it, you’re mistaken,” he said.
