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Huntington Park Vice-Mayor Arturo Flores
February 28, 2025
By Brian Hews
This week, the FBI raided Huntington Park (HP) City Hall and the residences of HP officials, including HP City Manager Ricardo Reyes, former HP Mayor Graciela Ortiz, former HP Councilmember Marilyn Sanabria, current HP Mayor Karina Macias, current HP Councilmember Eddie Martinez, and former HP official Efren Martinez for looking for evidence in a wide-ranging corruption probe involving a pool project at Salt Lake Park.
Current HP Vice-Mayor Arturo Flores’s residence was not on the list.
Just days earlier, as exclusively reported by Los Cerritos Community News, Flores, Martinez, and current HP Councilman Jonathan Sanabria illegally removed Councilwoman Esmeralda Castillo from her city council seat for allegedly living outside the city.
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Castillo’s constituents alleged that the HP Police Department helped frame up Castillo when they found her at her elderly parent’s house.
City Manager Reyes had hired former La Mirada Councilman now-lawyer (for only two years) Andrew Sarega as a “special counsel,” using a no-bid contract, to level the residency charges against Castillo in closed session and allow the vote to remove Castillo.
The removal looked like a frame-up itself. When the council came out of closed session, Reyes had a typed notice of release on the city manager’s letterhead that he handed to Castillo. There was not a typewriter in sight inside the council chambers.
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The letter given to Castillo at the council meeting.
Castillo said the reason she was removed was because she had filed a complaint with the city in December accusing Flores, Martinez, and Sanabria of harassment, intimidation, and verbal abuse.
Castillo, only 21-years-old, called out Flores as particularly nasty, saying he harassed, yelled, intimidated, and hurled profanity at her in several closed-session meetings
But the local TV news media, apparently unaware of the actions against Castillo, treated him as if he were a crime fighter in an interview after the FBI raid. Flores said on TV that he had been “championing the investigation” and “wanted to get to the bottom of it all.”
Now, fed up with the Vice-Mayor, a united group of residents have gathered 100 signatures – when they only needed 60 – and took the first step to recall Flores, publishing a Notice of Intention to Recall (NOI) Vice Mayor Flores in Los Cerritos Community News.
HP does not have a city “adjudicated” newspaper. Under Government Codes Sections 6000 and 6008, if an adjudicated paper does not exist in the city, then an entity wanting to publish a legal notice can use an adjudicated paper within the county; LCCN is adjudicated in seven L.A. County cities.
Under government code, the NOI for the recall must list the reasons for the recall and attach the names, addresses, and signatures of the residents who voted in favor of it.
Flores, the proponents, did not hold back, labeling him “Abusive Arturo.”
The recall read:
“Abusive Arturo Flores must go! – Abusive Arturo is a disgrace to Huntington Park he is using his position to intimidate and harass women while pushing a corrupt agenda. He lied about living in our city before scheming with the City Council and is now abusing his power.
“Serial abuser of women- Abusive Arturo has a long history of intimidating and harassing women, including all women city council members and staff. He gets drunk at official events, stumbling and verbally harassing women, and attends city council meetings wreaking alcohol.
“Under investigation- Abusive Arturo is currently under investigation for sexual harassment, hostile work environment, and abuse of power at city hall.
“Corrupt- Abusive Arturo abused his power by making city staff block his license plates on the law enforcement system so Arturo can get out of tickets for drunk driving and parking [sic] on red.
“Self-serving- within a year, Abusive Arturo voted to give himself almost $20,000 yearly raise while voting to cut senior citizen services by denying city services that support food distributions and cutting public safety programs while giving contracts to his friends.”
The notice is below. Emails to Vice-Mayor Flores went unreturned.
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