OP-ED: Speakers questioning mayor’s health should be ashamed

Photo courtesy of Rick Rodriguez

I was absolutely appalled with what I witnessed at Tuesday’s City Council meeting.

I knew it was going to be an active meeting when I walked in about 15 minutes before Mayor Pro Tem Blanca Pacheco opened proceedings; one side of the chamber’s seats were practically filled with people who I could tell weren’t just there to see their kid get an award.

I recognized one of the individuals in the crowd as Catherine Alvarez, a woman I had just recently interviewed about the rent situation at Eden Roc Apartments. Judging by the like-dressed people she was sitting with, I (accurately) figured that she and her peers were there to speak about rent control.

I knew that the issue was almost completely out of the Council’s hands, but I will always support when community members approach council to speak their mind on an issue; it takes courage, and it’s a refreshing departure from the usual instigators and trouble makers who tend to speak.

But the first sign of the trouble to follow came when the roll was called. After it was announced that Mayor Rick Rodriguez was excused, someone from the mostly blue-clad audience shouted, “Why?”

Calmly, Mayor Pro Tem Pacheco explained that Rodriguez was out for medical reasons. That should have been the end of it.

Alvarez was the first to approach the podium when the non-agenda public comment period arrived.

As expected, she spent most of her time speaking on rent control and AB 1482, a rent capping law that had been signed by Governor Gavin Newsom earlier that very day.

But then she said something that gained a collective groan from a handful of people in the audience, myself included: The mayor should have shown up to the meeting, regardless of his health issue.

Pacheco stepped in again, reiterating that Rodriguez was very ill.

Alvarez doubled down. She was at the meeting, and she has a broken foot.

Alvarez wasn’t the only person to question Rodriguez’s absence. There were several who followed, all with the similar narratives of, “I’d still have to work if I were sick,” and “He needs to step down if he can’t do his job.”

City Manager Gilbert Livas eventually stepped back into the conversation, and with what seemed to be a sigh of exasperation (or maybe resignation), he offered up a piece of information that had been kept on a relatively need-to-know basis: Mayor Rodriguez is currently hospitalized.

If anything, I thought that would have put a stop to the nonsense.

Yet even the most private of information wasn’t enough to stop one of the final speakers of the night to almost gleefully call for constituents to consider a recall of the mayor over his health, which was met with thunderous applause and cheers.

Let’s get one thing out in the open: The mayor is very sick. He’s not a little sick. He’s not kind of sick. He doesn’t have a broken foot.

I had the responsibility of interviewing Rodriguez a couple of weeks ago when questions first started to arise concerning his recent absence and the postponement of his State of the City address.

He was very open and honest with me about his situation, although he did ask me to keep details vague and private; it’s a request that I feel I honored.

The details concerning Rodriguez’s health is not my business to tell anyways, and quite frankly, isn’t yours to know either.

The one thing I will disclose from that conversation is that what has been going on has been going on for a long time, and Rodriguez has continually put on a brave face and a smile as he continued to fulfil his mayoral duties.

If that is inappropriate for me to share, then Rick, I apologize and hope you’ll forgive me for it.

But for a speaker to approach the council and take jabs at the mayor over a personal matter they know nothing about is not only disrespectful and inappropriate, it is a complete misuse of the dais.

I’m not going to pretend that I have always agreed with Mayor Rodriguez; although indirectly, he and I have butted heads on occasion and have had to have a few of those awkward conversations that journalists and politicians so often do.  

However, if there is anything I do know about Rick, it’s that he loves Downey almost to a fault. He believes in Downey. He fights for Downey.

Our current Mayor has a passion for his city that is reflected in, among many things, his work ethic. If he were physically able to be there, he would be.

If you believe or suggest otherwise, you simply do not know Rick.

In the meantime, Downey’s government is operating the way it is designed to operate. With Rodriguez currently incapacitated, Pacheco has stepped in and taken over in his stead as the Mayor Pro Tem. To this point, she has done a fine job, and I gained immense amounts of respect for her at this last meeting.

Her cool, calm, and collected head in the face of the recent adversity provides great confidence in her continued, future role as a Downey Council member, and, quite possibly, as our next mayor.

Those speakers who chose to use Rodriguez’s health as a tool to try and elevate their own agenda should really take a good, hard look at themselves in the mirror.

Not only were your actions on Tuesday disgusting, they were a total disgrace of how a public forum should operate.

Shame on you.