This election meant a lot more to people than who would make the hard decisions on behalf of our city or even the presidential election. This was an election that would show if Rialto moving forward or falling backward.
Many saw the last four years under the leadership of Councilman Shawn O’Connell as a breath of fresh air, never did the community have such a strong voice in city hall. Now that has clearly come to an end as money and influence drove the results of this years elections with a bulk of Ed Scott’s Candidates winning on November 8th. Now Ed Scott and Deborah Robertson can travel on the taxpayers dime, verbally abuse employees and contractors and further use the cities general fund as their own personal slush fund.
One of the greatest concerns is the election of appointed Director Rafael Trujillo, re-election of Mayor Deborah Robertson and City Clerk Barbara McGee.
An image that was found on the page Rialto Watch Dogs shows an empty seat https://www.facebook.com/rialtowd/?fref=ts
Rafael Trujillo who was appointed to the West Valley Water Board two years ago to fill a vacancy lost the opportunity to be elected to the board. Once Director Olinger left the water board Rafael was once again appointed to the water board in the summer of 2016. With the passing of Councilman O’Connell and Councilman Ed Palmer choosing to run for Mayor instead of his City Council seat Rafael lost all passion working for the people of the West Valley Water District and put in for Rialto City Council. Rafael proved that he is purely looking out for himself and is not passionate about working for anybody outside of his own personal interests. Rafael also has serious problems following the Brown Act when he was on the West Valley Water Board and he clearly has not learned his lesson as he had a robo call for his campaign come out of City Hall.
Newly elected Rialto mayor Deborah Robertson sits down for an interview at her home in Rialto on Friday, Nov. 9, 2012. Robertson made history this November election with becoming Rialto’s first black mayor. (Rachel Luna / Staff Photographer)
Mayor Deborah Robertson disappointed a lot of the people that supported her into office four years ago with a long list of putting her own interests before those of the city, abusing taxpayer money with questionable travel practices, creating a realm of political favor when it came to appointing commissioners and only allowing her inner circle access to helping Rialto residents, bringing Councilman Ed Scott back into city hall, misusing general fund money, calling our police names and throwing employees under the bus to save her own political skin.
Barbara McGee has been our City Clerk since 1997!!!!!!! She is in total lockstep with the Mayor in all of her bad ideas. Mrs McGee also has had issues in how she treats staff and a couple years ago made an almost $100,000 mistake with Rialto Network funds forcing City Council to use General Fund money to repay PEG funds that Mrs McGee improperly spent. Mrs McGee has locked many groups out of working within the confines of her Healthy Rialto program that caters to a select few during a time where many Rialto residents are working and not allowed to participate.
June Hayes is a person that is so firmly attached to Ed Scott that he even funded her entire campaign. We know this because Linday Fretter and Junes Hayes campaign signs went up at the same time by the same people and when Ed Killgore the incumbent June Hayes was running against questioned June Hayes about outright lies in her campaign mailers she was clueless that mailers had gone out from her campaign. June Hayes has already used her seat as a Utility Commissioner to travel the country on the taxpayer dime and has made herself great friends with many special intrests with no clear boundaries. Now she actually has a seat on a Municipal Water Board.
To add insult to injury the only candidate that had any hope of doing some good in Rialto Andy Carrizales has been witnessed making statements that his campaign promises were only there to get him elected. The one that has upset residents to most was a statement claiming he has no real intention of working to repair Rialto city streets. We spoke to Andy Carrizales and he denied ever making any statement about going back on campaign promises. He told us that he was one of the first people hitting the streets for his run for city council and the residents put potholes and street repairs on his agenda because that was the one issue that rose to the top almost every time. “I went out and hit the streets and had a pad of paper and a pen and wrote down the residents concerns potholes came out on top”
Our last hope out of this election is that newly elected Assembly Member Eloise Reyes will do what Cheryl Brown stopped doing and speak to the people. Rialto needs someone like Eloise Reyes to stand up against the flood of warehouses that Mayor Robertson and Ed Scott are burying us in. Truck traffic and pollution are taking over well established neighborhoods and the Mayor and Council could care less. The people of Rialto are also looking for Eloise Reyes to help them bring opportunities to create an art hub in Rialto where local talent like Wet Paint Larry can launch off here putting Rialto on a national map and showing Rialto youth that they can do something great.
Many are ALREADY making the prediction that this is the point where Rialto begins a very sharp decline.
rialtonow 