_____________________________ ST. NORBERT CHURCH           RATES ________________________

Socialize

BARROWS CANNOT RUN FOR COUNCIL: Entire Cerritos City Council and Mayor Seen Meeting at City Hall Today

 

 

Pictured (l-r) Barrows, Dianne Mendez Paddleford, Sherman Kappe, Bob Buell owner of B and B Stables in Cerritos, and Julia Emerson. Buell gave Barrows an eye-opening $5,000 for his 2017 campaign. Buell’s company rents 5 acres of land from Cerritos.

 

Sources tell HMG-CN that all officials were there at same time.

By Brian Hews

Last Friday, Hews Media Group-Community News followed its February story and broke a follow-up story outlining how current Cerritos City Council candidate Bruce Barrows, prohibited from running in April of this year.

The report will affect future Council candidates placing a four year ban on seeking reelection.

The report was backed by two judicial decisions, one in 1988 and one and 1989, that HMG-CN found inside the Los Angeles County Superior Court archives.

Both judges clearly stated in their rulings that Councilmembers cannot seek election for two years after serving two consecutive terms.

 

Read story click here.

 

 

Both judges ruled that the ban was from the date of candidacy, not the date of election which would effectively place a four year exclusion for running for Council.

The judge’s rulings followed the passage of Prop. H, which modified article IV of the Cerritos City Charter. Both times, Cerritos City Council members ignored the passage of Prop H., and used city attorneys to fight the proposition in court.

Chris Fuentes, one of the authors of Prop. H and a long-time Cerritos resident told HMG-CN, “our aim was to keep them off for four years not two. We had to break the cycle of the same candidates running every two years, it is ludicrous for anyone to think we wanted a two year ban. Do you think the opposition would have spent $50,000 if they thought it was two years? No way, it was always four years and everyone knew it.”

Now sources are telling HMG–CN that the entire Cerritos City Council, along with Mayor George Ray, were seen at City Hall today to reportedly meet about the Barrows article and discuss a way to fight the evidence presented in the HMG-CN article.

A meetin together would violate the Ralph M. Brown Act on open meeting laws.

Other City Hall sources were telling HMG-CN that the city was receiving many phone calls from resident who, after reading the article in Friday’s newspaper, concluded that Bruce Barrows is precluded from running for Council.

HMG-CN has been told that a group is forming to hire an attorney and file an injunction on Barrows, stopping him from running for Council.

That same group is contemplating a lawsuit against the city of Cerritos.

HMG-CN will update when more information becomes available.

 

 

Editor’s note: Mark Pulido stated he was working all day at Sen. Lowenthal’s office.

 

 

  • Nick Melendrez says:

    Great work, Brain and Hews Media Group!

  • Res Ipsa says:

    Looks like the city attorney says you are wrong (again) Mr. Hews. However that’s not surprising given that neither of these decisions have anything to do with councilman Edwards or Mr. Barrows as I stated earlier. Assuming you did run this by your “legal advisor” before running your erroneous headline (which I seriously doubt) I would be searching for a new one one the double because whomever is advising you is an incompetent. But as they say birds of a feather and what not.

  • Chris foster says:

    Yet the city attorney has twice said that Barrows can run. So I assume you’ll be running you’ll be running a correction or retraction, because that’s what real newspapers do when they make a huge mistake, at least from my experience.