In Eternal Textile Wheel, a political scandal in southeastern LA County, Ticker is currently in Huntington Park. It seems he’ll be stuck there for a while.
The blue-collar, overwhelmingly Latino city is facing a lawsuit by former councillor Esmeralda Castillo. Esmeralda Castillo claims he was illegally excluded in February following an investigation that determined Castillo did not live within city restrictions. Mayor Arturo Flores has been fighting recalls on social media by someone who is “reckless alcoholic” and abuses women while not providing evidence to support their creepy claims.
His predecessor, Councillor Karina Mathias, woke up to the sound of an LA County District Attorney’s investigator outside her apartment, holding a search warrant as part of Operation Dirty Pond on February 26th. This is a survey of the proposed $25 million aquatics center for Salt Lake Park, originally announced in 2019, but so far there is nothing to show except half the football field, fenced land and dying grass. He also served in Councillor Eddie Martinez, two former councillors and mayors Ricardo Reyes and the city of Huntington Park.
Then there’s Atti from the town for many years. Arnold Alvarez-Glasman resigned at a special council meeting in early March, just two days after Operation Dirty Pond Raids. He argued that Flores and his council allies had made his work “unreasonably difficult.”
Isn’t it surprising that city council meetings are even easier to blend in and even easier to blend in with local government desmaddles?
Political misconduct occurs in all parts of Southern California, but over the past 30 years there is a level of Skulduggerry, and sometimes totally thieving, by council members of the Southeast LA County cities. There was a South Gate. There, former mayor and treasurer Albert Robless was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison in 2006 for corruption, and older council members suffered a gunshot wound to the head in an unsolved case. Bell, five former councillors and two city staff were found guilty in mid-2010 for decades of fugitive residents.
It’s local politics as WrestleMania.
Huntington Park was thought to be a city that repeatedly reassured the public that a new generation of politicians who helped rob the previous villain would break the corruption cycle. That’s what I said last year when I did a series on the history of Latino politics in Los Angeles.
Well, here we are.
At the April 7 meeting, Flores boasted that he was wearing a vote against him for him to take over her as mayor. [her] The audience responded with a moan and muttering “Ah, God.”
A few weeks later, Nancy Martiz was sworn in to fill Castillo’s former seat, so she focused on her cell phone like someone waiting for Uber’s ride.
“Your background is just corrupt,” Rudy Cruz told the council at an April 7 meeting in the public comments section. “It’s like oysters to rocks. It’s hard to put them down.”
I then asked him if he thought Flores’ Ascension represented a fresh start for Huntington Park. The 48-year-old resident laughed.
“There are others waiting for the animal to die,” replied Cruz. “here [in Huntington Park]immorality becomes moral, and illegal becomes legal. ”
An unfinished pool project in Salt Lake Park, Huntington Park. This is the subject of an ongoing LA County District Attorney’s investigation into allegations of millions of dollars in public funding misuse.
(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)
I sized them up to Flores and Macias at their chosen location and interviewed them to decide who was true and who was full of it. Loquasious Flores, a self-proclaimed “Pelonero,” a fighter who serves his first term, appeared at Salt Lake Park in a City Seal and a Carhartt jacket embroidered with his name. Dressed in a calm, modest black blouse and jeans, Macias chose a Mexican ice cream shop where he slowly enjoyed the rocky path inside the waffle cone.
Both are Mexican immigrant children who grew up in a blue-collar neighborhood. This is Macias from Huntington Park in Flores, South LA. They have worked in jobs that require selflessness and attention to detail – Flores is a marine bomb dog trainer touring in Afghanistan and Iraq, and Macias became a full-time caretaker for his parents. They were former political allies who previously worked in the political campaign of Efren Martinez, a power broker in Southeast LA County, who lost to Assembly Race last year, whose residence and consulting business were also searched as part of Operation Dirty Pond.
“This is a legacy of Carina Mathias, right?” Flores, 36, told me as we were roaming Salt Lake Park. People used to be in skate parks. “It’s a failure of a pool project full of contradictions, plagued by suspicious behavior and issues of legality and incompetence.”
Mayor of Huntington Park Arturo Flores at a city council meeting held at Huntington Park City Hall on April 7, 2025.
(Eric Sayer/Due to the era)
“They [Flores and his allies] Macias, 38, replied when I shared his thoughts. She has been sitting on the city council since 2013. What he’s saying, there’s nothing, do you know? ”
Both used “Do you know?” In our conversation, like the typical Latin Angeleno. Both argued that the “community” was behind them, and welcomed all scrutiny.
“I’m not panicking, do you know what I’m saying?” Flores, 36, boasted. “I’m as cool as a cucumber.”
“If there’s no enemy, you’re not trying to press a button or do anything good for your community,” Macias (38) offered a hint of pride.
This is not her first brush in scandal. In 2017, the DA investigated for raising funds for the Efren Martinez Assembly Campaign from a company that attempted to do business with Huntington Park, and eventually cleared her.
This time, Macias presented me with a folder of documents that includes the Salt Lake Park Aquatic Center timeline with all council votes, including a motion in 2023 that granted the mayor of Huntington Park to implement all contracts related to the project. Yes in the vote? Flores.
“The mayor had known about the project from the time he started, so he decided to make something out of nothing,” Macias effectively said of the matter. Later, when we walked down Pacific Avenue and she handed me her business card, she realized it was outdated.
“It’s still saying that mayor,” Macias said, a small smile on her face. “Don’t tell the mayor.”
Huntington Park Councillor Karina Mathias is standing in front of one of many storefronts in downtown Huntington Park on April 25th. Macias is also the former mayor of Huntington Park.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
Flores didn’t give me the document, but perhaps something more powerful: Confession.
After working for 10 years in Los Angeles County politics and then serving as Antonio Villalarigoza’s bodyman in a failed governor’s campaign, Flores moved to Huntington Park in 2018.
“I’m not saying there were no political ambitions out there,” he admitted.
He helped Eddie Martinez, Graciera Ortiz and Marilyn Sanabria with the 2020 City Council success campaign. The latter two saw their residences being searched as part of Operation Dirty Pond. Flores said they and Macias first sold him on the Salt Lake Park Pool Project.
“I was inspired, and I thought it was beautiful,” he said. “I thought, ‘This is what we need. Latinos need this.’ Why isn’t there anything great in the community? ”
They told him that the criticism by the Watchdog was merely a “loss hater.” However, Flores said his perspective changed after being appointed to the city council in 2022 and went to city hall during the storm.
“The staff had 30 gallons of garbage cans filled with water. There was mold on the wall. The roof is leaking. I went to the mayor’s office.
The subsequent fire hose of allegations he unleashed during our hour chat looked like a coincidence compared to Macias’ measured response. Flores’ humble Bragg, like “Every time they tried to pilot against me, they already expected it to be their tactics, so they met an insurmountable reaction,” sounded like the words of someone asking to get caught up in their proverb petards.
However, when Efren Martinez claimed he was “not involved” in the Salt Lake Park Pool Project, Macias didn’t like himself. One of the clients he listed on the campaign disclosure form for the failed 2020 Congressional Race was a construction company where the owner saw his residence search for Operation Dirty Pond.
Flores and Macias were both comfortable as long as the subjects were not one another. They are seriously attacking me about the improvements in Huntington Park and I am sure my enemies are innocent of claiming about them.
But one of them should be wrong, right?
As a tiebreaker, I called on former Congressman Hector de la Torre, who entered politics a quarter century ago to help cleanse my hometown’s South Gate. He is now the executive director of the Gateway Urban Government Council, advocating 27 cities ranging from Montebello to Long Beach, Cerritos and all southeastern LA county cities, working with Flores and Macia in their capabilities.
De La Torre praised both of them for their “devotion” to better Huntington Park, urging the dirty pond investigators to do their job. But in a tired tone, he said, “In Serra, sometimes it’s not about someone removing the rot and cleaning up the city.” (Sera is the nickname for southeastern Roun County.)
“Sometimes, it’s two different factions, both of which look as shady as the other factions,” he said. “And the swing is not from corruption. They are from certain types of corruption.”
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