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By Brian Hews
Recall efforts against four current Commerce City Council Members are continuing as community members gather the necessary signatures needed to force an election to remove Mayor Joe Aguilar, Vice Mayor Leila Leon and city councilmembers Tina Baca Del Rio and Ivan Altamirano from office.
Commerce recall organizer Miguel Alvarado, who has become a visible leader of the effort, tells Hews Media Group-Community Newspaper that residents have been “actively going door to door and spending quality time with our fellow neighbors so everyone is informed about the urgency of this recall campaign drive.”
Alvarado said the recall efforts against Aguilar, Baca Del Rio, Leon and Altamirano is “not about personalities, it is about how Commerce residents are uniting to create a new vision for our city’s future.”
“Commerce was once considered a Model City, and we want to restore it back to its former glory,” Alvarado said.
Recent city council meetings have been consumed with long heated arguments that have pitted the four recall targets on one side and lone city councilmember Denise Robles on the other.
Alvarado is determined to keep the campaign in a “positive direction.”
“What we want out of this recall is to elect a new city council majority that is going to dedicate 100 percent of their positive time and energy in making Commerce more vibrant, and to bring new businesses to our vacant land that all residents will be able to benefit from,” Alvarado said.
“We have lost a sense of leadership at Commerce City Hall, and voters want to have a new city council that can clearly set a new path and a new sense of professionalism and trust to the residents,” Alvarado said.
If enough signatures are gathered, an election could take place as early as this summer, or could be put on the November California Primary Election ballot.
“We are creating a strong movement here, and when the community wants change, it will take place,” Alvarado said.
“We are heading forward. This campaign has become an around the clock effort,” Alvarado quipped.
“We have to look out for our children and to make sure that our residents are safe, if you can’t listen to 13,000 residents, you have no business in being in public office here in Commerce,” he said.
