Social Media: Double-Edged Sword in Huntington Park

The Los Angeles Times article about "new" leadership in Southeastern Los Angeles County foisted a bunch of hollow, fawning praise on Huntington Park, and particularly mayor Karina Macias.

In neighboring Huntington Park, the council members are even younger, with four of the five in their 20s. Young and college-educated council members were also elected in Bell and Maywood.

So, we have children who do not care about the rule of law, because their professors taught them to ignore the rules. They treat the city council like a high school project. They want to buffer their credentials for higher office and turn the entire state into a province of Mexico again. This is no joke. I heard one advocate for the illegal appointments claim that the official language of American California was Castellon. 

This state cannot improve becoming part of corrupted Mexico. Why else do so many Mexican citizens seek refuge and a better life in the United States?

"What you're seeing is those of us who were raised here went off to college, we went out to establish our careers and have come back to reclaim our cities," said De La Riva, 38.

Nina Eliasoph, professor of sociology at USC, said what is happening in the southeast is the swapping of a system that became corrosive and stopped working for another one.

"The old one was based on local friendships and ties," she said. "The new one promises to be more open and accessible to everyone."

The new system is STILL based on local friendships. More residents who want anything done have to fit in with the corrupt club dominating the city council. As one will find below, the new Huntington Park council rewarded their political contacts with contracts and appointments.

But she said the emerging political way of doing things depends on how much residents actually participate and keep tabs on their city halls.

The more that people keep tabs on what is going on in Huntington Park, the more that people complain. High property taxes and water rates, illegal alien appointments, marijuana dispensaries in the city - the governance is nothing but bad.

Early this year, when trash began piling up in Huntington Park because of a new trash hauling contract, Mayor Karina Macias, 28, took to Facebook to keep track of residents' complaints.

Facebook posts are going to make the city cleaner? Really?! The truth is, a bad contract came in, and the city council refused to keep track of city services. Reports indicate that the four rogues are laying off staff and holding onto all the money, too.

The new council in Huntington Park brought back city commissions and created a new one, the Youth Commission, to receive feedback from younger residents. Eager to participate, two immigrants living in the U.S. illegally but with college degrees sought to volunteer in August.

Wow! The editorializing in this piece is just shameful. The new city council fired all the previous commissioners and hired their friends and family to replace them. They did not bring back the city commissions at all, since they have not met in nearly two years. 

As the council considered the appointments, residents who opposed the idea took to social media to raise awareness and opposition. Others did the same to support the appointments, which ended up being made.

Social media alone is not enough. The Four Rogues of HP know this very well. They think that they can get away with taking advantage of illegal aliens and counting on the low voter turnout.

"Millennials are more open to gay marriage and immigration," Macias said. "Most of the people who came to the podium that night were young people who were open to the idea of having undocumented commissioners."

Hell No! What is this talk about "gay marriage" in the first place? Immigration does not represent illegal immigration. Many people in this country do not oppose immigration. They oppose outright breaking of the law.

Macias, who voted in favor of the move, said that one challenge presented by the emergence of social media in cities that once seemed to shun transparency is the near-constant — and more digitally immediate — questioning of elected officials' ethics.

Ya think? Of course they blast the corruption. Macias is right at the top of it. When I started tweeting to her to rescind the appointments. this is the answer I got:

Macias Blocked Me on Twitter

"I think public trust is always going to be a constant challenge for any public official," she said. "But it becomes more of a challenge with social media — to see what they're saying about you in tweets, blogs or Facebook."

What people are saying about Macias will only grow worse as they blast her for ignoring legal residents, for engaging in cronyism and fraud, and for outright disrespect to this country.

She said responding to accusations online also has it limits.

"At the end of the day, nothing beats door to door," Macias said.

That's right, Karina! We will be going door to door next.