Family Ties Link City’s Voters to Campaigners--Except Mayor

IRWINDALE —  It’s a family affair, again.

This year’s batch of five candidates for two City Council seats on the April 14 ballot is almost exclusively from a core of Irwindale families that have a virtual lock on the city’s top positions.

There’s Jacquelyn Breceda, daughter of former Councilman Richard Breceda. There’s Julian Miranda, son of Irwindale Police Chief Julian Miranda and nephew of Councilman Patricio Miranda. There’s Joe Tapia, brother of former Councilman Art Tapia. There’s Alfred Herrera, half-brother of Councilman Richard Chico. Chico, whose seat is up for election, has decided not to run again.

Then there’s Mayor Salvador Hernandez, the odd man out. “He’s the only loner,” said Councilman Frederick Barbosa. Hernandez is an anomaly in Irwindale, where it seems as if everyone else is related to a city official. With such family ties, some extending 50 or 60 members strong, things can get a bit sticky in this city of only 569 registered voters.

Recently, for instance, former Councilman Richard Breceda has taken to publicly attacking Hernandez, who is the appointed mayor, contending that the mayor has an illegal storage business at his home. Jacquelyn Breceda, 33, said her father’s battle with Hernandez is simply a personal feud between the two.

“He’s not doing this to win any votes for me,” she said. Hernandez, who is the only council member running for reelection, did not respond to numerous requests for an interview.

Breceda, a bank administrator, said she would like to see Irwindale politics move beyond what she believes is petty bickering based on family matters.

“I’d like to see us go beyond that,” she said. “In order to be a successful city, we’re going to have to pull together.”

Breceda has run for council three times before, each time edging closer to victory. “I was so close I could almost feel it,” she said of her 1990 loss by a handful of votes. She has campaigned harder this time. And in Irwindale, that means pounding the pavement.

One former councilman observed that, to win in Irwindale, you have to go to every household in person and plead your case. If you don’t meet the voter, the ex-councilman said, you won’t get the vote. So Breceda is walking from house to house, sometimes visiting three or four times to catch the residents at home.

Her message of restoring harmony on the council and among Irwindale’s leaders is appealing to the people she meets, Breceda said. “I think they’re kind of refreshed with the idea that I don’t want to fight with anyone.”

Breceda said her goals if she is elected are to bring more housing to the city, increase youth and senior programs and possibly hire a city consultant who could work to attract more businesses to Irwindale. Breceda said she is also concerned with keeping the city budget under control.

During a period when the city had three city managers, the City Council was seven months late adopting its $7.74-million 1991-92 budget and passed its 1990-91 budget 10 days before that fiscal year ended.

Although she is campaigning hard against them, Breceda said she likes all four of the other candidates. Five or six times a day, when she makes campaign rounds, she bumps into Joe Tapia, who she says is a “very polite man.”

“I know all the residents, mostly by name,” said Tapia, 67, echoing a claim made by several of the candidates.

A retired 29-year employee of the city, Tapia said his chief concern is with the other city employees, who are mostly Irwindale residents. “I don’t think they’re getting paid enough,” Tapia said.

He’s out there every day, campaigning door-to-door, he said. If he is elected, Tapia said, he will promote greater cooperation among the council members and city staff. “I think I can work with them instead of arguing,” he said.

Tapia would also like to see more low-income housing and a new child-care center.

Herrera, 57, hasn’t really campaigned from house to house yet but he has been told that it is important, he said. “To me, it’s an entirely new aspect of politics,” Herrera said.

Herrera, the city manager until last May, unexpectedly left the post to take stress-related disability leave. His application for a state-paid disability pension was approved in February, state officials said.

An election victory for Herrera could bring more acrimony to the council because he would have to work side by side with Councilman Barbosa, who has expressed a deep distrust of Herrera and has called him “a curse on the city.”

Among Barbosa’s complaints is that Herrera ineptly handled the city budget while city manager. Herrera called the criticism unfair, saying his office was understaffed.

Also, Barbosa accused Herrera of secretly altering his employment contract with the city while city manager. Herrera denied the allegation: “What they mean by alter, I’m not sure.” Firing back at Barbosa, Herrera said he is “not a ‘yes’ person, and I don’t intend to be one for any councilman.”

Herrera said his most immediate concern is to provide more affordable housing because its families want to “bring their sons and daughters who have had to move out of town back into town.”

Also, the city should do more to attract businesses to Irwindale to increase city tax revenue, he said. Attracting more revenue, rather than staff and service cutbacks, is what the city needs to remain fiscally sound, he added.

“I do have the experience to be a benefit to the city,” said Herrera, who has been with Irwindale for 32 years in a variety of other capacities, including police officer, license and zoning officer, personnel director, redevelopment director and assistant city manager.

In contrast, Julian Miranda, 22, has no city government experience, though he has held various part-time jobs with the city. Miranda is a senior at the University of La Verne studying political science and is set to graduate in June.

Miranda said he would promote more youth programs but that other than that he would “talk to the community and find out what they think.”