Politics
In scandal-plagued Huntington Park, the abrupt ouster of a council member raises alarms
In February, the Huntington Park City Council met behind closed doors to discuss a seemingly routine item on their agenda — potential litigation the city was anticipating.
Everyone on the council was allowed to attend the meeting but one — then-Councilmember Esmerelda Castillo. Barred from the closed-door discussion, the 22-year-old was later seen on camera picking up her things from the dais and making a quiet exit.
When the council met again a week later, Castillo was no longer listed as a member. On the agenda instead was an item to fill her seat.
As Castillo would come to learn, the city had quietly launched an investigation to determine if she was a city resident and concluded she was not, kicking her off the council — all without her knowledge.
Former Huntington Park Councilmember Esmeralda Castillo.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
While residency requirements for municipal seats are common, Huntington Park’s move to investigate one of its own council members, then remove her unilaterally, is virtually unprecedented, experts say.
“I’ve never heard of a city doing it that way. There’s always someone complaining to the district attorney, usually from an opponent,” said Steve Cooley, who oversaw about a dozen residency cases during his time as Los Angeles County’s top prosecutor.
Two weeks ago, in response to a lawsuit filed by Castillo against the city, the council and the city manager, a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge issued a temporary restraining order preventing Huntington Park from filling the vacant seat.
Castillo’s removal from office has angered residents in this scandal-plagued city. Amid the ongoing legal fight to regain her seat, several current and former council members are embroiled in a corruption probe with the district attorney’s office over the alleged misuse of public funds.
On Feb. 26, D.A. investigators executed search warrants as part of “Operation Dirty Pond,” a probe into the alleged misuse of taxpayer funds allocated for a $24-million aquatic center that hasn’t been built. No one has been charged.
The search warrants were executed at the homes of then-Mayor Karina Macias, Councilman Eduardo “Eddie” Martinez and City Manager Ricardo Reyes. Search warrants were also executed at the homes of two former council members, a contractor and a consultant.
Altogether, the turmoil is making Huntington Park residents weary.
“I feel sad, defrauded, angry and powerless,” said Maria Hernandez, 50, a longtime Huntington Park resident who attended the court hearing two weeks to support the former councilwoman.
Castillo declined to be interviewed for this story, but her attorney, Albert Robles, said his client has been caring for her ailing parents while maintaining a full-time residence in Huntington Park, which he said is permitted under state and city election laws. He said Castillo’s removal was politically motivated.
“Here, defendants not only acted as judge, jury and executioner, but to further highlight defendants’ self-directed unjust political power grab, [they] also conducted the investigation,” Castillo alleges in her suit.
The city notified Castillo via letter she’d been investigated and removed from the council as a nonresident but did not allow her to attend the Feb. 18 closed-door meeting when the results of the probe were discussed, Robles said. He claimed it was retaliation for Castillo accusing the members of bullying and harassment in a formal complaint to the city in January.
But Andrew Sarega, whom the city hired to oversee its investigation into Castillo, disputed those claims and said the probe into Castillo began months before she filed her grievance.
He said a complaint was filed in August with the district attorney’s Public Integrity Division, which looks into criminal allegations made against public officials.
According to an email obtained by The Times, the D.A.’s office declined to take the case, saying the matter was civil, not criminal. That put the case back in the lap of Huntington Park authorities, who looked at the city’s municipal code that says when a mayor or council member moves out of the city or leaves office, their seat “shall immediately become vacant.”
“It doesn’t say you have to go to court, you don’t have to do X, Y and Z; that’s what the black letter law says,” Sarega said. “And so, based on the investigation and everything that had been discovered that seat was deemed vacant.”
Scott Cummings, a UCLA law professor who teaches ethics, said although the council’s actions may not have been best practice, it appears legally sound.
“It was her action that created the vacancy and the city council had no obligation to vote on anything necessarily because it’s an automatic trigger,” he said. “But it all boils down as to whether or not it’s true, and it does seem like a full investigation with transparency is in order.”
Cooley, who created the D.A.’s Public Integrity Division that looks into potential wrongdoing by public officials, agreed with Cummings and said local and state prosecutors should take up these cases to combat the appearance of conflict.
The city launched its investigation into Castillo in November, after the city manager heard multiple complaints alleging Castillo did not live in the city, Sarega said.
The investigation included surveillance, court-approved GPS tracking, and search warrants at her Huntington Park apartment and parents’ home in South Gate. Investigators also interviewed five witnesses, including Castillo, according to Sarega.
He said investigators tracked Castillo’s vehicle for a month in January and found that she had stayed at the Huntington Park apartment only once. Someone else was living there, but she had mail sent there too, Sarega said.
The Times visited the former councilwoman’s apartment for several days in February with no one answering the door. Most neighbors in the area said they had not seen Castillo when shown photos of her.
Robles, Castillo’s attorney, disputed the city’s allegations.
In a declaration to support the restraining order against the city, Castillo wrote that she moved into the Huntington Park apartment near Saturn Avenue and Malabar Street after the owner of the house her family was renting planned to use it for their own family.
“My neighbors across the street,” she wrote, “whom I have known most of my life and considered family, offered to allow me to stay in a room in their home, until I could afford my own apartment.”
She wrote that her parents moved to South Gate, where she started visiting frequently because her mother’s health had worsened, requiring more visits to a physician and a specialist. She said that included overnight stays.
Robles said regardless of which city his client lives in, she was never given due process guaranteed under California law.
He worried that a ruling against his client could set precedent for cities across the state that may take similar actions when dealing with cases in which an elected official is being accused of not living in their city.
“If you don’t think other cities are going to do it, you’re mistaken,” he said.
Politics
Federal judge blocks Trump from cutting childcare funds to Democratic states over fraud concerns
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A federal judge Friday temporarily blocked the Trump administration from stopping subsidies on childcare programs in five states, including Minnesota, amid allegations of fraud.
U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian, a Biden appointee, didn’t rule on the legality of the funding freeze, but said the states had met the legal threshold to maintain the “status quo” on funding for at least two weeks while arguments continue.
On Tuesday, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said it would withhold funds for programs in five Democratic states over fraud concerns.
The programs include the Child Care and Development Fund, the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, and the Social Services Block Grant, all of which help needy families.
USDA IMMEDIATELY SUSPENDS ALL FEDERAL FUNDING TO MINNESOTA AMID FRAUD INVESTIGATION
On Tuesday, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said it would withhold funds for programs in five Democratic states over fraud concerns. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File)
“Families who rely on childcare and family assistance programs deserve confidence that these resources are used lawfully and for their intended purpose,” HHS Deputy Secretary Jim O’Neill said in a statement on Tuesday.
The states, which include California, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota and New York, argued in court filings that the federal government didn’t have the legal right to end the funds and that the new policy is creating “operational chaos” in the states.
U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian at his nomination hearing in 2022. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
In total, the states said they receive more than $10 billion in federal funding for the programs.
HHS said it had “reason to believe” that the programs were offering funds to people in the country illegally.
‘TIP OF THE ICEBERG’: SENATE REPUBLICANS PRESS GOV WALZ OVER MINNESOTA FRAUD SCANDAL
The table above shows the five states and their social safety net funding for various programs which are being withheld by the Trump administration over allegations of fraud. (AP Digital Embed)
New York Attorney General Letitia James, who is leading the lawsuit, called the ruling a “critical victory for families whose lives have been upended by this administration’s cruelty.”
New York Attorney General Letitia James, who is leading the lawsuit, called the ruling a “critical victory for families whose lives have been upended by this administration’s cruelty.” (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
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Fox News Digital has reached out to HHS for comment.
In what might be the most decisive critique yet of President Trump’s remake of the Kennedy Center, the Washington National Opera’s board approved a resolution on Friday to leave the venue it has occupied since 1971.
“Today, the Washington National Opera announced its decision to seek an amicable early termination of its affiliation agreement with the Kennedy Center and resume operations as a fully independent nonprofit entity,” the company said in a statement to the Associated Press.
Roma Daravi, Kennedy Center’s vice president of public relations, described the relationship with Washington National Opera as “financially challenging.”
“After careful consideration, we have made the difficult decision to part ways with the WNO due to a financially challenging relationship,” Daravi said in a statement. “We believe this represents the best path forward for both organizations and enables us to make responsible choices that support the financial stability and long-term future of the Trump Kennedy Center.”
Kennedy Center President Ambassador Richard Grenell tweeted that the call was made by the Kennedy Center, writing that its leadership had “approached the Opera leadership last year with this idea and they began to be open to it.”
“Having an exclusive relationship has been extremely expensive and limiting in choice and variety,” Grenell wrote. “We have spent millions of dollars to support the Washington Opera’s exclusivity and yet they were still millions of dollars in the hole – and getting worse.”
WNO’s decision to vacate the Kennedy Center’s 2,364-seat Opera House comes amid a wave of artist cancellations that came after the venue’s board voted to rename the center the Donald J. Trump and the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts. New signage featuring Trump’s name went up on the building’s exterior just days after the vote while debate raged over whether an official name change could be made without congressional approval.
That same day, Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio) — an ex officio member of the board — wrote on social media that the vote was not unanimous and that she and others who might have voiced their dissent were muted on the call.
Grenell countered that ex officio members don’t get a vote.
Cancellations soon began to mount — as did Kennedy Center‘s rebukes against the artists who chose not to appear. Jazz drummer Chuck Redd pulled out of his annual Christmas Eve concert; jazz supergroup the Cookers nixed New Year’s Eve shows; New York-based Doug Varone and Dancers dropped out of April performances; and Grammy Award-winning banjo player Béla Fleck wrote on social media that he would no longer play at the venue in February.
WNO’s departure, however, represents a new level of artist defection. The company’s name is synonymous with the Kennedy Center and it has served as an artistic center of gravity for the complex since the building first opened.
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Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is leveling a stunning accusation at Vice President JD Vance amid the national furor over this week’s fatal shooting in Minnesota involving an ICE agent.
“I understand that Vice President Vance believes that shooting a young mother of three in the face three times is an acceptable America that he wants to live in, and I do not,” the four-term federal lawmaker from New York and progressive champion argued as she answered questions on Friday on Capitol Hill from Fox News and other news organizations.
Ocasio-Cortez spoke in the wake of Wednesday’s shooting death of 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good after she confronted ICE agents from inside her car in Minneapolis.
RENEE NICOLE GOOD PART OF ‘ICE WATCH’ GROUP, DHS SOURCES SAY
Members of law enforcement work the scene following a suspected shooting by an ICE agent during federal operations on January 7, 2026, in Minneapolis, Minnesota. (Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)
Video of the incident instantly went viral, and while Democrats have heavily criticized the shooting, the Trump administration is vocally defending the actions of the ICE agent.
HEAD HERE FOR LIVE FOX NEWS UPDATES ON THE ICE SHOOTING IN MINNESOTA
Vance, at a White House briefing on Thursday, charged that “this was an attack on federal law enforcement. This was an attack on law and order.”
“That woman was there to interfere with a legitimate law enforcement operation,” the vice president added. “The president stands with ICE, I stand with ICE, we stand with all of our law enforcement officers.”
And Vance claimed Good was “brainwashed” and suggested she was connected to a “broader, left-wing network.”
Federal sources told Fox News on Friday that Good, who was a mother of three, worked as a Minneapolis-based immigration activist serving as a member of “ICE Watch.”
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Ocasio-Cortez, in responding to Vance’s comments, said, “That is a fundamental difference between Vice President Vance and I. I do not believe that the American people should be assassinated in the street.”
But a spokesperson for the vice president, responding to Ocasio-Cortez’s accusation, told Fox News Digital, “On National Law Enforcement Appreciation Day, AOC made it clear she thinks that radical leftists should be able to mow down ICE officials in broad daylight. She should be ashamed of herself. The Vice President stands with ICE and the brave men and women of law enforcement, and so do the American people.”
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