Armando Vazquez
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By Armando Vazquez / Guest contributor
The cold blooded grab for absolute power by the previous Oxnard City Council administration really began some 109 years ago, when the omnipotent good old boys got together, strong armed the locals and formally created the city of Oxnard, and infamously ran it “like a plantation.”
This local Machiavellian power model may have ended with the recent failed law suit that former City manager Ed Sotelo waged against his previous hypocritical power mongering city council members that he served until they all turned on each other, attempting disgracefully to throw each other under the bus when they were all exposed by the far flung Oxnard City hall corruption investigation by the DA that, incredulously, did not result in any criminal conviction, but did tar and feather the lot of them as light weight, pathetic, and disgraced fools.
However, by the time they were revealed to be unmitigated scoundrels with no lack of shame, remorse or ethics they had amassed absolute power over city hall, and they did as they pleased, and we in Oxnard knew it! This was no one man job — the entire city council cabal, I believe, was in cahoots! This kind of long simmering ethical and immoral catastrophic implosion of our previous elected officials did not take place over night. What is need for this long term rot to occur is a filthy, corrupt, and protective powerful incubator to breed this kind of wanton systemic malfeasance, and nefarious wrongdoing throughout city hall, top management acted as that incubator.
How did the city of Oxnard come to this sleazy debacle? As I said before it took a lot of time, the perfect culture and a citizenry that had long ago abrogated its full responsibility of stewardship, oversight and control over their elected public servants. The foxes where left unattended way too long in the hen house, and then we expected the foxes to lay eggs!
Holden and his boys were slick, polished and anointed. They knew that they had been chosen “to lead their people” and as such they knew better that anyone else what the problems were and it follows that they knew the quick fixes as well in Oxnard. They didn’t need any stinking participatory democracy, except to get “re-anointed” every four years. This is the mind set of American Exceptionalism Oxnard style that follows something like this: “We have the power and the means which give us the irrefutable right to dictate the discourse and action and the power to carry it out”, and they did just that.
So here we are with a new city council drowning in red ink and in the process of learning to swim, a new city manager that is apparently kicking ass and taking names, and where is the democratic input, participation and power of the people? From my analysis, nowhere to be found! We continue to be impotent ponds in their newly constructed mind game. Has anything changed in city hall? Well we know the city is in the red to the tune of 10’s of millions of dollars. The city just won a $6.2 million dollar judgment on the ongoing downtown theatre fiasco. What will they do with this money? What is going on with Measure O monies that are being spent like drunken sailors by the city council for questionable projects? What is the City Manager running a Youth Safety Office that has now been awarded since 2009 approximately $3.7 million CALGrip dollars? The public asks question, and we just gets the run around.
On March 5, 2015 the City of Oxnard hosted a Community Forum that publicized, “ You are invited to join the Community Forum Committee and the City of Oxnard at the community Forum for Enhancing Trust and Building Community Priorities”. The Forum highlighted the opportunity for community folk to discuss their concerns and share insights and provide suggestions to the City Council and the administrative leadership of Oxnard. The overwhelming number one concern of the participants in the Forum was the acute lack of availability of programs and services for the youth of Oxnard (youth have too much time on their hand and nothing to do). The second concern was safety, which is of course in Oxnard code for fear of youth (especially youth of color). So if we follow the American Exceptionalism Oxnard style paradigm and the city council is true to form, the cops will be “anointed by the exceptional city council” to address both youth programming and safety and the OPD will continue to be funded with well over half of the entire city budget funds. And apart from the usual city youth program provider ( PALS, City Corp, The Alliance, CALGrip, City Impact) that are official or unofficial subsidiaries of the Oxnard Police Department no funds will be made available to independent CBO in the city no matter how exemplary their track record is in working with acutely troubled youth.
I was recently approached by a commander of the OPD who shared with me that he fears that a new wave of 13-17 year old youth trouble (this is a generational cyclical phenomenon know by all law enforcement) was brewing in Oxnard. The troubled youth we were talking about have little hope, with too much time on their hands and with nothing to do, so naturally they will act out in Oxnard. This cop knows that these tough active street kids will not work with the cops or their surrogates. He feared trouble might erupt this summer if nothing was done. I told him to round up your 20-30 toughest kids that the OPD you have recently arrested, are on probation or parole, get $25,000 from City Council, and send these 20-30 at-promise youth to the KEYS Leadership Academy and I promised that we would work with each and every one of those youth and their family to help them move them from hopelessness to becoming productive, informed and active members of their communities.
This OPD cop know what we can do at The KEYS Leadership with these tough youth, the parents and community knows what we can do with these at-promise youth, and I believe the new city council knows what we can do with trouble highly active troubled youth. What I am afraid of is that the new city council member have been infected By American Exceptional Flu and they now have the power and the means which give us them the irrefutable right in Oxnard to dictate the discourse and action and the power to carry it out, and they will do just that. And nothing will change in the hearts of our elected leaders in Oxnard if the citizenry of Oxnard remains AWOL. One thing is certain the foxes will continue their raids on the hen house until there is no nothing left, unless the good people of Oxnard say enough and take back the power.
— Armando Vazquez, M.Ed., is the executive director of The KEYS Leadership Academy@ Café on A in Oxnard.