Hollister mayoral candidate and Councilmember Honor Spencer took her public feud with Councilmember Rolan Resendiz to a new level this week, calling for the council to officially censure Resendiz in January “for his public comments using misogynistic and derogatory language towards women, senior citizens, community members and council members, and other public comments unbecoming of a member of the Hollister City Council.”
The request, seconded by Vice Mayor Marty Richman, came near the end of a five-hour council meeting Dec. 16.
The request came less than a month after Spencer herself called her political opponents on the council “f—ing morons,” caught on a hot mic at a council meeting—and after another private mediation session with Resendiz failed to ease tensions.
Spencer’s motion also came about three months after Resendiz had filed an official complaint with the city attorney about repeated verbal and physical threats made against him in private council sessions by Richman and Spencer, in which they both later admitted directing similar obscenities at Resendiz.
Her motion also came one day after Resendiz said he filed a report with Hollister police that he had received numerous anonymous threatening text messages, including one calling him a “faggot.”
Spencer also acted several hours after a parade of men and women took the podium in City Hall and demanded that the council take some kind of action against Resendiz after one of the women said Resendiz had attached an obscene slang reference to some Facebook posts, and used a pejorative phrase in another.
The continuing war of words between two council factions—Richman, Spencer and Carol Lenoir versus Mayor Ignacio Velazquez and Resendiz—is a carryover of a bitter council election in 2018 into a new political year, in which Spencer is seeking to upend the mayor’s bid for a fifth term.
Richman, who is not seeking reelection in 2020, said the council needed to “censure Councilmember Resendiz for various reasons, and to divorce the public employer, the city of Hollister, from his remarks, which show sexual harassment.”
Less than an hour earlier, the vice mayor had repeatedly shouted down the mayor during discussion of a property tax issue, and convinced Spencer and Lenoir to suspend the mayor’s gavel authority so Richman could continue speaking unimpeded.
The speakers during public comments, including two former council candidates, all said they were appalled by Resendiz’s Facebook use of a word they said was Spanish slang for vagina. With high school students in the audience, one of the women, Airport Advisory Commission member Elia Salinas, twice offered her obscene English translation.
There were no specific allegations of sexual harassment against Resendiz, but the term was used repeatedly to describe his social media conduct.
In some of his Facebook posts to two of his frequent social media antagonists, Salinas and former mayor Victor Gomez, Resendiz ended the posts with “#cuca.”
Resendiz, a Mexican-American, said he was simply abbreviating the Spanish word for cockroaches, cucaracha, which he said was poking fun and making a political point.
“It’s not a common slang term—I’ve never heard of it referenced that way,” Resendiz said in an interview with the Free Lance.
Rather than apologize for offending anyone, Resendiz said he has been a victim of constant attacks on social media, in web postings, text messages and whisper campaigns since his initial council campaign began in the summer of 2018. He knocked out an incumbent endorsed by the local political establishment, Mickie Luna, by nearly a 2-to-1 margin, campaigning door-to-door on a slow-growth platform.
“I am the one who was harassed, stalked, threatened and physically assaulted by these people,” he said at the Dec. 16 council meeting. “I have documented and reported it for a very long time. This is the most recent attempt to misconstrue my words, as part of a longstanding fight by very selfish people. They simply do not like my voice being heard.”
“I am an openly gay Mexican, and I consider myself a poor person,” he said. “I’m no stranger to being discriminated against, or having to fight for what is right. I will not be easily silenced or intimidated. One thing I can say for certain is that I would never—and I mean ever, ever, and I mean this from the bottom of my heart—I would never be hateful or discriminatory towards any marginalized group of individuals. In fact, it’s quite the opposite.”
In explaining his use of the term that ignited so much opposition, Resendiz told the Dec. 16 audience that “I have in the past referred to this person and other well-known special-interest consultants as cockroaches.”
“I have referred to them as cockroaches because I feel that there is an infestation of them here in local politics. They do this to make more money and undermine the democratic process.”
In an interview, Gomez offered Resendiz this advice: “His best course of action would be to own up to making a mistake and ask the community for forgiveness and mend those relationships with the community.”
In his comments at the council meeting, the mayor defended Resendiz and said that if the council is considering censuring members for verbal abuse, “then I’m going to request that we have a censure about the language that was used here by Councilmember Spencer and Vice Mayor Richman.”
“What we keep seeing here is absolutely wrong, all the way around,” said Velazquez, seeking to calm his council. “And this keeps happening over and over and over again.”
“I heard a city council member refer to myself and another council member as ‘f-ing morons.’ That’s what happened. I heard here at City Hall a council member make a threat to another council member using the same type of language. I heard another council member screaming and yelling to another council member using ‘f-ing this and that.’”
“I don’t believe censure is the answer here,” said Velazquez. “I believe it’s time for so many people to start behaving appropriately here. We can agree to disagree.”
On the report of the city Council my concern is how can they get any work done that could actually benefit Hollister if all they do is fight and feud we should put the silliness aside and start concentrating at the task at hand and that is to make Hollister a better community for all no matter of race sexual orientation religious beliefs Etc. it’s really very disheartening to read all of the name-calling is slandering the downright Unacceptable behavior by adults that should have Hollister’s best interest at heart I don’t know what you folks think you’re going to be teaching the next generation but I hope to God it’s not how to fight and argue in city Council The city Council offices we need some people to set examples this kind of behavior is not the examples that I’m necessarily talking about.