The two recent articles by a couple of young Anaheim residents, (see here and here) criticizing the lack of accomplishments of what they expected from the current city council majority, were an abrupt call for those of us who worked hard for this new council.
One of the criticisms is the “empty promises” made. The question then for me was what were the promises, so I pulled the statements of the two candidates elected to the “people’s council”:
Jose F. Moreno
“I would be honored to have your vote as I seek to bring the focus of city hall back to serving the residents of Anaheim.
As your councilman, I will support prioritizing Anaheim’s general fund dollars for our parks,community centers, street repair, and community policing. I will work hard to make Anaheim known for beautiful neighborhoods, thriving local businesses and great attractions.
I will work with Mayor Tom Tait to prioritize our budget for the benefit of residents, not special interests.
Let’s move our city away from policies that give away millions in general fund revenues to a few hotel developers and corporate interests. Let’s restore better quality of life investments in our neighborhoods.
We can humanely solve our city’s homeless crisis. I support Anaheim police officers’ community policing efforts that bring people together. Let’s build on the culture of kindness and fairness to help our neighborhoods thrive.
Our neighborhoods and families are the foundation of Anaheim. Join our push to bring neighborhood voices back to City Council! “
Denise Barnes
“I am a small business owner with an accounting background who will advocate for sound fiscal policies that protect the city’s general fund for its primary purpose: our residents’ interests, not corporate interests.
I would be honored to have your vote to be your voice at city hall. Let’s bring needed street repairs, wellmaintained parks, and more community policing to West Anaheim. Let’s solve the homeless situation effectively and humanely. Let’s continue to revitalize Beach Boulevard with upscale shops and outdoor dining.
I am proud to be endorsed by Mayor Tom Tait. I will work alongside him to promote transparency, honesty and integrity at city hall, and oppose tax giveaways that benefit wealthy hotel developers at the expense of the people of Anaheim.
I humbly ask for your vote to help make the needs of our residents the city’s top priority.”
The primary promise is the change of the city’s general funds use, from overwhelmingly supporting corporate interests to maintaining and improving neighborhoods. As much as SOAR supporters blanketed the city with glossy flyers about the benefits of the subsidies given to Disney and wealthy hoteliers, the reality is that most of the city did not substantially benefit.
The change of the use of this very important budgetary tool, the general fund, is being implemented and as expected, it is fought by the council members who are now in the minority.
The other relevant promise is to solve the homelessness crisis in the city. This goal is to a large extent being hampered by another promise: listening to the residents. In my district there is a still a strong opposition to locally address the homeless crisis, which includes maintaining the camping ban. I questioned the “City of Kindness” moniker earlier in the process of establishing the shelter (see here), not because the residents and city officials are mean people but due to the inadequate policy and/or explanation of the need to have the type of shelter that became Bridges at Kraemer.
I think that the council majority has had a clear agenda on the most relevant issue, the one with the most impact in the future direction of the city. The other urgent issues are being addressed within the pressure of the multiple and sometimes conflicting interests and concerns of the city residents, and the county government influence.
Have we had a revolution in Anaheim? Yes and No. The districts election was a revolutionary change for our standards. There is a much better participation and representation of the neighbors in the city affairs, and the basis for a “good government”, transparent and accountable are being established. This important improvement does not, and didn’t, necessarily mean a revolution in the sense of accomplishing economic and social justice.
The long term impact of the riots and the anti police-brutality reform movement have not produced the desired results yet. The violence provoked by the police killings and the reaction of the affected population did not constitute a revolution in profound sustainable terms. It didn’t immediately change the racist and repressive culture of the police department, its disregard for civilian oversight.
The leaders of the Latino community are blamed again for this failure. I give them the benefit of the doubt as to what their interactions with then police chief Welter were. If I recall correctly, Amin was participating with Welter in a police-community task force before the riots, they had a dynamic already that could eventually have changed the police outlook. I can see why Jose tried to mend fences between Welter and Donna, to advance the police reform credibility, especially when Donna had become one of the leading spokepersons of the reform movement.
Symbolisms, marches, vigils, memorials, are important, but if a defiant movement does not get politically organized, and does not develop the capacity to affecting changes, then we perpetuate the policies that keep vulnerable communities marginalized. Donna took an important step running for council, but the results unfortunately pointed out how much work needs to be done. After all these years since the riots, we have a dear community activist saying : “Some people say the protests was because of race. This had nothing to do with race. This was a community letting the cops know that did something bad and that we’re watching them…We have to move forward together.” (See here.)
Ricardo–
Donna was just getting to know people in October 2012 when she felt disgusted by Moreno’s gesture. She wasn’t a “leading spokesperson of the reform movement” back then. What exactly was there to “mend” between grieving families and Chief Welter, especially at that time? Ask the grieving families. They’ll tell you.
You and Gustavo already knew Donna before her son was killed, as I understand it, but — having met her only in the wake of the shooting — as I recall she was not merely “just getting to know people” by October 2012, but by then had already been appearing at protests and rallies.
Picking out several early OJB posts we published in protests in Anaheim from July and the first week of August, I seem to recall Donna already being known by and involved with people in the movement and someone (though she was still in shock and grief) from whom one could seek comment (along with Theresa Smith and Genevieve Huizar.)
I would have called her a “leading spokesperson” if only because she not only was willing to talk, but because she was more entitled to talk about what was happening than all but a few people. As a grieving mother, she would have had a strong say facilitating or inhibiting on any substantive efforts towards reconciliation. I don’t know what Dr. Moreno was trying to achieve in his public call for reconciliation at the time, or whether he feels he had any success with it. You’re a reporter — have you asked him?
Gabriel
I used this definition of mending fences:
To improve poor relations, especially in politics
The issue is not so much the description of historical events but their context and their relevance for today’s and future actions.If the grieving mothers were not ready, then it was a bad call. It is obvious that they’re now ready.
I pointed out the experience of other mothers who converted their pain into action in this post:
http://www.orangejuiceblog.com/2014/08/grandmothers-and-state-terrorism-mothers-and-police-brutality-a-shared-pain/
I didn’t know Donna before the riots. She was Gustavo’s Facebook friend but he didn’t know her in person either. She wouldn’t agree with what both you and Ricardo have imposed on her. I know this from many previous conversations about that summer. The only mother who had her teeth cut as an activist at the time was Theresa Smith. I know all the victim families quite well, now. Ninety-nine percent of them hated that stunt, one refused to stand. Reconciliation during an open question of injustice? This wasn’t a beer summit. People are dead. Sectors of the ruling class know that Moreno and Quezada are useful Mexicans to have in keeping their people down. And you don’t know shit, as usual, Bloviator.
I was posting my response to your first comment while this one came up. I’m not imposing anything on Donna, I just gave my interpretation of the attempt to bring the parties together.
Sectors of the ruling and non-ruling classes think that these type of discussions
are keeping our people down.
I talked to Donna about this and you’re right about the timeline of her personal participation. My error.
I don’t know what Dr. Moreno was doing when he called for reconciliation that day except for — obviously — trying to get Chief Welter (and through him the APD) to focus on the human costs of their policies upon decent people. Did that mean using the mothers of the dead as tools, to their own discomfort? Maybe in this case it did.
But let’s presume the worst: is that the least bit unusual among revolutionaries and even more moderate civil rights leaders? No, it isn’t. “The Greater Good” has been used — with less justification — to trot victims out for the public relations value of their stories all the time.
Why, even crusading journalists have done this consistently, Gabby. Name a warrior for justice you admire, and there will likely be a moment where they wrote a story, revealed a source, or called for some action without what we’d consider decent human concern for the feelings of those whom their using as tools.
How long do you thing it would take me to find an example at the Weekly itself of someone being used instrumentally, without appropriate human regard for them, or order to make a point? Zero seconds, actually: I already have an example in mind, which I’ll save for rebuttal.
It’s one of the tools of the trade, dear keyboard warrior, like exaggerating the number of family members of victims of violence who expressed disagreement with Theresa Smith’s position in November 2012 to a high enough number so that one can blurt out “ninety-nine percent” as their proportion.
(Really? Name those 99. But be careful — if you do, you’re using them instrumentally. And, worse, it would be for the purpose of vanity — your worst vice as a writer and activist — rather than, as Dr. Moreno did in the worst case, as an improvised stab at trying to unfreeze the heart of a police chief whose “troops” were out of control.)
“Sectors of the ruling class” have already made clear how they feel about Dr. Moreno by spending obscene amounts on money in a City Council district race to defeat him. They don’t seem to be doing much of anything to muffle YOUR voice, by contrast. I suspect that they think that — between Moreno and you — you are by far the more “useful Mexican.”
You’ll disagree, as the selflessly nobly crusading journalist that you believe you are — but that’s just more vanity.
Don’t worry, Bloviator. You can keep sticking your head in the sand. One sentence about your error. Bloviations about everything else.
I gave Donna Acevedo voice to speak about the stunt in my retrospective. It was a sentiment shared by almost everyone else at the table that night. One person refused to stand. God bless her. And here you are, spinning away for your hero.
Don’t worry. Another dead brown body will collapse to the pavement at the hands of police. And Moreno can’t be bothered with it. He has future elections to consider.
Ricardo–Las Madres de la Plaza de Mayo say “Nunca Mas!” to their injustice. Los Amigos says “Let’s move forward together.” Hell, las madres marched just this May and proclaimed no reconciliation and no forgiveness, adding only their children could offer that and they’re not here. And since you bring South America in for an analogy, who’d have members of the DINA stand with the mothers of the desaparecidos?
“Nunca Mas” is a demand everywhere where atrocities occurred. However, the magnitude of the human rights violation in South America, and the strength of the anti-dictatorial movements over there makes the situations and response much different.
No forgiveness does not exclude reconciliation. There has been a reconciliation process expressed in the re-establishment of democratic governments and in bringing the responsible of atrocities to justice.
With all due respect, the magnitude of human rights violations is often measured in direct proportion to whether it’s your kid in a casket or someone else’s. The number of victims isn’t always the marker for magnitude.
….and once again we are speaking of these mothers as if they can’t read this. Either they can weigh in on their own or we leave them out, but we have no business imposing sentiments upon them in the absence of their own very capable input. Other than that, a very thought provoking article Ricardo, I wish you would write more often.
My apologies that my point about the comparison of both the repression level and ability to fight back came across as a marker of measuring the pain.
Ricardo–I once considered that. But the daughter of a political prisoner in Argentina told me it’s all the same that summer. I’ll take her word for it.
Cynthia–I only bothered with comment at the behest of a mother. No imposition. Just support.
*As the uninvited interlopers in this discussion….just a simple evaluation: “When elected cease to be caring or engaged in corrective action,……that is the calling card for change.”
Sometimes the tragedies in life blot out the sun and the wisdom. Sometimes people learn, change and grow and try to become more helpful and more willing to expend themselves with time and energy to correct the problems at hand.” Obviously, this concept can easily be discounted as pure sophistry by those with a negative spin on life. However, we should all try to be more optimistic and follow through with a thorough review of the actions of the electeds and purported to be in charge of the leadership.
Sad things happen to good people all the time. Sometimes these events act as lightning rods……as in the case of Kelly Thomas or Trayvon Martin. Did we get the results we wanted from both of these events? Probably not……but those names will remain indelibly in our hearts and minds – and perhaps the next time…….the criminal justice system will stand on the right side of the issue and along with those seeking re-election campaign funds.