Anaheim Councilmember Natalie Rubalcava wished to point out me two issues as we walked towards a picnic desk at Little Folks’s Park.
“How do you just like the playground?” she requested about her newest municipal venture. The one-acre inexperienced area, web site of an notorious 1978 police beatdown of Chicano residents, shone like I had by no means seen earlier than. Youngsters performed on swings, a seesaw and even a small climbing wall. Adults relaxed within the shade. A vibrant mural on a south wall was a welcome distinction to the historic, light one on the facet of a liquor retailer a stone’s throw away.
That is the Natalie I’ve recognized since she was a grade forward of me at Sycamore Junior Excessive and Anaheim Excessive within the mid-Nineteen Nineties, the place she organized the homecoming dance as senior class vice chairman. A go-getter dedicated to a metropolis the place her household has lived for 5 generations. Form, self-effacing, with an enormous smile.
That’s not the Rubalcava popping up on my social media accounts, although. She confirmed me a video on her cellphone of protesters who crashed a meet-and-greet to chant that she was corrupt whereas holding a banner that learn “Natalie Rubal-cabal.”
Wearing denims, trendy sandals and a white T-shirt emblazoned with Andy Anaheim, the town’s cheery mascot, Rubalcava provided me an aw shucks grin. “OK, that banner was humorous.”
The primary-time politician — whose working-class district is the place my dad and a bunch of cousins stay — faces a June 4 recall election simply 18 months after profitable her seat. Critics declare she is a puppet of the company pursuits behind the self-identified “cabal” {that a} 2022 FBI affidavit alleged runs Anaheim. The federal investigation led to the resignation of former Anaheim mayor Harry Sidhu, who pleaded responsible final 12 months to corruption costs stemming from his function in attempting to promote Angel Stadium at a discount price to an organization managed by Halos proprietor Arte Moreno.
Rubalcava has completed herself no favors along with her opponents. Not too long ago, she joined the remainder of her fellow council members in approving the most important growth of the Disneyland Resort in a technology, regardless of Disney providing little perception into its plans.
“She represents the central query of Anaheim: of companies dominating the town,” stated Austin Lynch. He’s the Orange County organizing director for Unite Right here Native 11, the resort and hospitality employees union that’s spearheading Rubalcava’s recall. She beat their favored candidate in 2022 and efficiently campaigned in opposition to a poll measure final 12 months that may have elevated the minimal wage for Anaheim’s resort and occasion heart employees to $25 an hour.
Nonetheless, Lynch and Unite Right here recording secretary Martin Lopez insisted to me throughout a Zoom chat that these previous battles have little to do with their present marketing campaign. As a substitute, what sparked their ire was a city-funded corruption report launched final 12 months that concluded Rubalcava “was lower than candid and forthcoming” to investigators about her function in a few moral no-nos: an unsolicited cellphone name to a voter whose information Rubalcava bought with out their permission, and directing a metropolis employee to achieve out to the Orange County Enterprise Council, her former employer, about small-business mortgage alternatives. The latter incident violated the town constitution however didn’t quantity to something legal, the report concluded.
Anaheim Councilmember Natalie Rubalcava in entrance of a historic Chicano mural in her district.
(Michael Blackshire / Los Angeles Occasions)
I identified to Lynch and Lopez that Anaheim has had politicians far worse than Rubalcava, but Unite Right here by no means bothered to attempt to recall them. So what makes her completely different?
“We undoubtedly disagreed with numerous [previous politicians]” Lopez replied. “However when [the report] alleged she crossed the road, that’s once we determined to recall her.”
If his reply got here off as weak salsa, it’s as a result of it’s. The Rubalcava recall is de facto the most recent entrance in a long-running civil warfare amongst Democrats in Orange County.
Ever since a 2012 lawsuit pressured O.C.’s largest metropolis to change to district as a substitute of at-large elections, native activists have dreamed of turning the Anaheim metropolis council into one very like Santa Ana’s, stacked with progressive Latinos who put working class and immigrant residents forward of huge enterprise.
Drawback is, Anaheim isn’t Santa Ana. I’ve lengthy instructed my activist amigos — who by no means take heed to me — that the historic dominance in my hometown of individuals with roots in rancho libertarian Mexican states like Zacatecas and Jalisco has created a extra reasonable citizens. That’s why, although the town council is majority Latino, it’s about as wokoso as Winnie the Pooh.
Rubalcava, a Democrat, agrees.
Latinos in Anaheim “need public security,” she stated. “They don’t hate Disney. They hate Arte Moreno however love the group. Everybody I speak to barely talks in regards to the recall.”
A runner passes by because the solar units behind Angel Stadium in 2022.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Occasions)
She has the backing of unions, Rep. Lou Correa, practically all of O.C.’s Democratic Meeting members and state senators, and the Orange County Labor Federation. Unite Right here, in the meantime, has spent $845,000 on the recall since final 12 months, but finds itself principally alone.
The 46-year-old admitted to enthusiastic about resigning, to keep away from seeing her title being “dragged via the mud.”
“However I additionally need to be a superb instance for my youngsters. Like, I’ve bullies coming in right here pushing me round and attempting to make me look dangerous within the metropolis that I grew up in. Or questioning whether or not I’m corrupt or not.”
Her voice was calm however slicing. One other Natalie I remembered — a self-admitted “troublemaker” who practically bought kicked out of Anaheim Excessive — emerged earlier than my eyes. “I know I’m not corrupt.”
Rubalcava stated she by no means paid a lot consideration to native politics past having televised Metropolis Council conferences on within the background throughout dinner. That modified in 2022, when Jose F. Moreno, the lead plaintiff within the 2012 district election lawsuit, introduced he was backing Anaheim Union Excessive College District trustee Al Jabbar to exchange him on the Metropolis Council.
“Bushes weren’t getting trimmed as a result of [Moreno’s] focus was activism and never, you realize, serving the residents,” Rubalcava stated. “[Progressives] have been lining up their candidate to herald, and nothing would change. That’s after I determined I used to be going to run.”
A political motion committee tied to Disney spent $380,000 to help Rubalcava’s marketing campaign as she destroyed Jabbar. I requested if she had any points with that, contemplating the Home of Mouse has lengthy handled Anaheim Metropolis Corridor as its private sandbox.
“I wasn’t actually listening to that, as a result of I used to be fundraising myself.”
Media retailers and good-government observers blasted the connection, I replied. Why did she suppose Disney spent the cash that it did?
“Truthfully, I don’t know.”
Evasive Natalie? By no means knew her till now.
“It does trouble me when individuals speak in regards to the impartial expenditures, as a result of in the end, I labored my ass off,” she continued, eradicating her sun shades. “I knocked on doorways. I made cellphone calls. I nonetheless see individuals now who’re like, ‘You knocked on my door in 2022, and that’s why I voted for you.’”
She stated the meat with Unite Right here actually began after a gathering in regards to the minimum-wage poll measure. Among the many attendees: Unite Right here co-president Ada Briceño, who additionally occurs to be chair of the Democratic Celebration of Orange County. Rubalcava refused the union’s request to push her colleagues to undertake your entire initiative.
As a substitute, they permitted an ordinance that requires accommodations to supply panic buttons to employees — one thing that the union had sought, however not all the things it wished.
Shortly after, Rubalcava’s then-boss, Assemblymember Avelino Valencia, instructed her one thing Briceño had allegedly stated to him: “Natalie is public enemy No. 1, and I’ll cease at nothing till she’s recalled and politically ruined endlessly.”
Ada Briceño, chair of the Democratic Celebration of Orange County and co-president of United Right here Native 11, in a 2022 photograph.
(Don Leach/Every day Pilot)
Just a few months later, Valencia’s chief of workers fired Rubalcava as district director, providing no particular purpose.
“I labored my ass off for that man,” Rubalcava stated, referring to Valencia. She shook her head, then spoke about Briceño.
“I’ve all the time thought she was well-spoken, good, passionate in regards to the work that she does. The factor that’s essentially the most hurtful about that is that it’s a Latina pushing to recall me. I imply, I strive to not speak negatively about ladies. However I simply suppose that we tear one another down far too typically.”
Valencia stated in a press release that he has “a standing coverage of not commenting on issues concerning human assets, or present or former staff.” Briceño, in the meantime, declined to remark even after I learn to her what she had supposedly stated to Valencia about Rubalcava.
As our chat wrapped up, I requested the council member whether or not she thought she’d be recalled. She had no clue.
“I imply, it’s not life or dying. So I’ve to place issues in perspective. I nonetheless have a wonderful household — a husband, two daughters — and I’ve a legislation diploma. I’m not destitute. If I lose, I’ve to maneuver on and simply transfer ahead.”
Then, the combating Natalie I do know got here out yet another time.
“Like, I bought jumped at Sycamore, you realize what I imply? Like, I’m not likely afraid of [critics]. So I believe that bothers them, too. I can’t be bullied by anyone.”
