Former Anaheim Councilman rips Tom Daly for being anti-Latino

It should surprise no one that Daly has a long history of being anti-Latino

Former Anaheim Councilman Richard Chavez knows what career politician Tom Daly is all about.  Chavez served on the Anaheim City Council back when Daly was the Mayor of Anaheim.

Today Chavez lit into Daly in a comment posted over at the Liberal OC blog.  Most of the Lib OC bloggers back Daly, but one of their editors, Dan Chmielewski, feels that Supervisorial candidate Lorri Galloway, who also serves on the Anaheim City Council, is a stronger candidate than Daly, who is currently the do-nothing, tax-wasting O.C. Clerk-Recorder.

The author of the post Chavez commented on, Anaheim resident Steve Perez, immediately ripped into Chavez, mentioning that Chavez was convicted for tax evasion.  That is true, but it has no bearing on Chavez’ comments, and it overlooks the fact that Chavez otherwise served his community well, both as a firefighter and a Council Member.  The man made one mistake and he paid the price for it.

Here are Chavez’ comments:I as a former firefighter and Councilmember in Anaheim will never endorse Tom Daly.

When I was the President of the Anaheim Firefighters Union, I had one conversation with Mayor Daly. In that conversation he told me that the homeless population living in motels should “be moved to Riverside somewhere.”

He refused to talk about issues regarding the firefighters. At the time we had a lack of vital safety equipment in the fire stations, which led to the death of a young firefighter; Daly refused to even return my calls to discuss fixing the problem, or discuss any issues actually. Entry level firefighters were making $10.27 an hour, it took 4 years to resolve our contract under Daly, and it was settled only after an arbitrator ruled in our favor.

Daly voted to close Anaheim’s only shelter for abuse children (Eli Home). The Anaheim Firefighters helped build the shelter. While the shelter had not had a single code violation, Daly sided with a small group that indicated the shelter “should be in Santa Ana”. The decision was heart breaking; the children and their mothers had no place to go, except perhaps back to the violence they had tried to escape. The Federal Government stepped in and overruled Daly’s decision, Anaheim was violating the rights of those children. The shelter is still open today – and saving children’s lives.

Daly had made a priority out of privatizing city jobs. Under Daly’s leadership, more good paying jobs were outsourced than ever in the history of Anaheim (read the council minutes of Jan. 5, 1993).

Daly supported bringing Walmart to Anaheim, and opposed a Latino oriented grocery story, Gigante. He had openly tried to get Gigante to open somewhere other than Anaheim, and then found a way to abstain from voting on the issue.

On the issue of diversity, Daly’s history in Anaheim was abysmal. When I was elected I was appalled by the fact that under Daly only about six people of color had been appointed to Anaheim boards and commissions; of 250 plus positions!

Worse yet, under Daly the Anaheim Police Department conducted covert investigations of Latino Community Leaders, including Amin David. Daly could have put a stop to it early; but didn’t. Again, the Federal Government found that Anaheim under Tom Daly was violating the rights of its citizens. The Federal Lawsuit was settled while I was in office.

Tom Daly was a key witness for Anaheim in trying to save the Anaheim Angels team name; he negotiated the contract that allowed the name to be changed. When asked in court (I was there) about the intent of the contract language regarding the Anaheim name, he could not physically articulate an answer. He just stammered, and stuttered. He was Anaheim’s worse witness; it was embarrassing. The case was over at that point, and L.A. is still the name of the team that plays in Anaheim.

The wreckage caused by Tom Daly is far greater than what I post here. The unfortunate truth is that most of the damage and pain caused was to those that needed him the most.

Endorsing someone simply because of politics or a title, is simply wrong.

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Richard – please contact us!  We would like to know more about your past experiences with the loathsome Daly!

In related news, Chmielewski had to admit that Daly has racked up a lot of endorsements from Republicans who supported Prop. 8!  Ruh roh!  This is due to the fact that Daly’s lame campaign is being run by uber-hater Republican John Lewis.

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