Will the ugly political atmosphere in San Benito County stop
when the highly-orchestrated efforts by sore loser Art Cantu,
wannabe elected official Ignacio Velazquez and the brave anonymous
members of Los Valientes
– and their continual calls for District Attorney John
Sarsfield’s recall – ends in failure?
By Paul Grannis
Will the ugly political atmosphere in San Benito County stop when the highly-orchestrated efforts by sore loser Art Cantu, wannabe elected official Ignacio Velazquez and the brave anonymous members of Los Valientes – and their continual calls for District Attorney John Sarsfield’s recall – ends in failure?
From day one, these people scorned, chastised and placed enormous political roadblocks in Sarsfield’s way, preventing him from efficiently executing the job he was elected to do. While the first recall of Sarsfield was failing, someone stooped so low as to poison his pet dogs only to terrify his young family. So, one has to ask, will recalls along with violence become the vehicle to launch never-ending witch hunts to oust elected officials that don’t agree with this good ol’ boy network?
In an effort to stop these senseless recalls, I suggest that we as a county break away from that good ol’ boy network and seek the moral high ground. Our Board of Supervisors should ask for resignations of elected officials based on their own admissions and factual criminal activities.
It’s time the Board of Supervisors governs as an elected body and becomes the solution, not the problem. It’s time they mend this division within the community by saying they will not accept inept or corrupt elected officials to hold office.
Starting the list is of people to lose their jobs is head Elections Official John Hodges. Asking John Hodges to resign is difficult because I really like the guy. But John, as head of the county elections department, was derelict in his duties, as he showed when he acknowledged his department advised Ignacio Velazquez to turn in absentee ballots, a violation of election laws. The California Secretary of State report found that the Election Department had counted several votes from outside the voting districts, in addition to the several votes that a Santa Cruz County investigator discovered had been illegally accepted. Adding insult to injury, the Elections Department was sued in federal court by the United States Justice Department for violations of federal voting rights laws.
Second on the list is Supervisor Jamie De La Cruz. Asking De La Cruz to resign speaks for itself. De La Cruz has shown a pattern of criminal behavior. De La Cruz was formally charged in late 1998 for domestic violence. In criminal court, he enrolled in a domestic violence counseling program for one year and completed it.
Then an independent investigator from the Santa Cruz District Attorney’s Office conducted an investigation into the voting irregularities from the March 2004 primary. His report found a variety of violations, committed by De La Cruz, Velazquez and the Election Department.
De La Cruz was charged with essentially three violations: filing false documents in October ’03, illegally accessing the voter database to look up where the investigator lived and intimidating or threatening the investigator. He eventually pleaded no contest to obstructing an officer.
Due to his criminal history and for the good of the county, De La Cruz should willingly resign from his supervisor seat.
All we need to do is look north to San Jose and see how elected officials who break the law are reprimanded. What did the San Jose City Council do when one of its members was suspected of accepting a variety of gifts and failing to report them as required? It voted to censure the council member and stripped him of all committee assignments. The Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office investigated and charged him with a misdemeanor. He admitted the charge and resigned.
Those charges seem trivial compared to the misconduct and criminal deeds of our elected officials.
Allowing Hodges and De La Cruz to function as active elected officials indicates our Board of Supervisors is out of touch with reality. If our Board of Supervisors is determined to uphold any moral and ethical standard, they would demand the resignation of De La Cruz and Hodges. At the very least, the Board of Supervisors should do the right thing by censuring and stripping De La Cruz of all committee assignments.
Outside of government, and in the real world of the private sector, Hodges and De La Cruz would be in the unemployment line or in jail for their wrong doing.
So, the action, or lack thereof, by our Board of Supervisors in dealing with Hodges and De La Cruz will determine which direction the Board is willing to take our county.
As a community we must ask, will the Supervisors do the right thing and take us on the road to the future with our heads held high?
Or, will the Board shirk its responsibility and take us down that road with our tails between our legs in shame because those admitting to ineptness and criminal wrong doing have caused such great pain, suffering and embarrassment to the fine people of San Benito County are allowed to remain as paid public officials?
