Los Angeles County wants no role in deciding the fate of a Pico Rivera City Councilman who lambasted members of the U.S. military in front of a room of high school students.
With frustrations over Gregory Salcido’s continued presence on the council growing, residents and veterans groups have asked city officials to turn to the county for help. City staff was recently directed to look into the possibility, but the county has all but declined.
“We have no reason to believe the county has any precedents that would allow us to conduct a municipality’s recall election, nor do we see any evidence that we need to do so at this time with this specific recall attempt,” wrote Chris Reynoso, a spokesman for the County Clerk’s office, in response. “Recall attempts are time-consuming because there are many steps to the process, and along the way errors can be found and corrected or the process must begin again, which is not unusual.”
Pico Rivera is discovering that the hard way. The man who started the recall effort against Salcido has been rebuffed a number of times for errors. When attempting to get clarity on those errors, he says he’s often met with no response at all because the city doesn’t want to appear to be giving advice.
“I understand your office can’t offer advice to the recall, but not all questions are requests for advice,” said Raul Elias at Tuesday’s council meeting. “You cannot reject my petition with poorly worded or vague statements and not answer questions on what the statement means, and refuse my questions as ‘seeking your advice.'”
“Many residents can interpret this communication problem as intentionally attempting to delay the recall process, but I trust in Mr. Glasman’s professional and legal reputation to currently regard this as a correctable communications problem and not a delay tactic by the general counsel,” he said.