American dream turning into a house of cards

When Maria De Los Angeles Fitz got the phone call, she couldn’t believe her luck. Courtesy of the city of South Gate, she had won a raffle for a new house. Two stories. Three bedrooms. She could pick the carpets, the paint -- any color.

So Fitz went down to City Hall, where then-Mayor Xochilt Ruvalcaba hugged her. City workers escorted her in front of the cameras. A newsman stuck a microphone in her face, asking in Spanish: How did it feel to win a house?

One month later, the answers don’t come easy.

If it weren’t for the house, Fitz wouldn’t be so happy. If it weren’t for the house, she wouldn’t be so sad. If it weren’t for the house, residents wouldn’t be gossiping about her, some calling her a lucky lady, others calling her a sellout.

“Es triste” -- it’s sad -- said Fitz, the divorced mother of a 13-year-old daughter. “I never imagined such things. I’m a victim of everything that has happened.”

Fitz’s picket-fenced dreams started fading when the politicians who held the contest -- billed as the “City of South Gate’s First Dream Home Raffle” -- were swept from office last month in a recall election, leaving the city nearly bankrupt and awash in corruption probes. South Gate’s new leaders came in with a mandate to clean house and may start by taking away Fitz’s.

Many residents in the working-class city southeast of downtown Los Angeles consider the 1,850-square-foot house, now under construction on a parcel of city property, an illegal gift of public funds.

Fitz, instead of drawing sympathy, receives scorn from some residents who call her a comprada -- a person whose political loyalties were bought. Rumors -- all of them unproved and fueled by the opposition -- swirled that the former officials rigged the raffle. Another claim, which grew out of the public accusations of rigging: Fitz was a baby-sitter for the mayor’s family. She says that’s not true, and an inquiry by The Times found no evidence of any connection between Fitz and Ruvalcaba.

Fitz reacts to the accusations with defiance and sadness. A churchgoing, hard-working immigrant, she edges toward anger when she declares that she won the raffle fair and square.

Atop her couch in her tidy apartment sits the symbol of her winning ticket -- a 3-foot cardboard key, colored silver, with “winner/ganador” emblazoned across it. Fitz laughs off the accusations, and expresses the unique frustrations of being a raffle winner in South Gate.

“It’s not my fault that God blessed me like this,” she said. “It’s a blessing from God, and I don’t sell blessings.”

Life always moved at a numbingly routine pace for Fitz, a slight woman with dark brown eyes and curly red hair. For years she has worked at a lens factory in Torrance, barely scraping together enough money to support herself and her daughter, Ruby. Fitz always refused to go on welfare. She threw herself into church activities and spent her few off hours driving her daughter to choir practice and youth group meetings.

In December, Fitz was planning her first visit in nine years to her Mexican hometown when she heard about the raffle, which the mayor said was being held to raise national awareness about the shortage of affordable housing. Fitz entered at the urging of her daughter, who had a premonition of winning. “She told me, ‘Esa casa es mia,’ ” said Fitz. That house is mine.

Little did mother and daughter know about the brewing controversy. Fitz had never paid attention to South Gate’s raucous politics -- “Politics I don’t understand,” she said -- and she was unaware that city leaders had already rolled out free trash service for a month and free food baskets for the needy before Christmas. Critics called the giveaways obvious ploys to buy votes.

When the day came for the raffle extravaganza, workers gave the City Hall grounds a carnival-esque atmosphere with yellow balloons and thumping ranchera music. Before hundreds of residents, a little girl drew the winning ticket and handed it to Ruvalcaba, who announced, “Maria De Los Angeles Fitz!”

Like any lottery winner, Fitz seemed dazed by her lucky draw and smiled nervously while posing for pictures with the mayor and city employees. Then came odd questions from reporters: Did she think the leaders were corrupt? How did she plan to vote in the recall election?

Fitz, a shy woman, appeared uncomfortable. She was just happy to have won the house and politely declined to talk politics.

But days later, a photograph of Fitz and Ruby, flanked by Ruvalcaba and Vice Mayor Raul Moriel, appeared on campaign mailers distributed across the city. Said the mailer: “God and Vice Mayor Raul Moriel changed my life ... when he had the vision to implement the ‘Dream Home Raffle.’ ”

The mailer only served to fuel more rumors -- and jokes.

At a council meeting, Councilman Hector De La Torre, a critic of Ruvalcaba and her allies, did a “Saturday Night Live”-style sendup, raffling off a Snickers bar. “I’m thinking of a number between one and 10,” he said, holding up the candy bar before a packed council chamber.

The satirical jabs were meant in part to express concerns that giving away the house -- which cost $160,000 to build -- was an illegal gift of public funds.

And it comes at a time when the cash-strapped city is laying off employees. Critics also complain that the ousted leaders approved a $100,000 loan -- at no interest -- so Fitz could pay the estimated gift tax on a property appraised at $200,000. The city, which has already spent about $90,000 on the house, ordered the contractor this week to halt construction, at least for now.

De La Torre and others are quick to blame the former leaders, not Fitz, for putting the city in such a quandary.

Their desperate attempt to boost their popularity, say some critics, leaves the city no choice but to play Scrooge. “My responsibility is to the taxpayers, it’s not to follow through on a gift of public funds,” De La Torre said.

City Atty. Salvador Alva authorized the raffle, saying it was legal. But others counter that state law holds that a raffle should be open to everyone. Only renters were eligible.

Throwing up her hands during the interview, it is clear Fitz has no patience for all the legal and political mumbo jumbo. “I won it clean,” she said. “I’m not worried because I have documentation. It was legal.”

Friends and relatives of Fitz say she has been unfairly smeared by the fix allegations. And Ruby, her daughter, has grown sullen from people asking if her mother is a comprada.

“If she was bought, then all of us were bought who entered the raffle,” said Alejandrina Terrazas. She said no one deserved to win more than Fitz, who she said is always there to help out a friend. “Everything she’s done for everyone has been given back to her,” Terrazas added.

But if Fitz does have to battle the city in court, her former benefactors may not be in a position to help. Ruvalcaba, the 30-year-old former mayor, punched rival Councilman Henry Gonzalez, 67, in the face at her last meeting. Police are considering filing a misdemeanor battery charge.

And next month former Treasurer Albert Robles has a date in criminal court, where he is scheduled to stand trial on two illegal weapon counts.