Passage would mean Baldwin Park would join a small cluster of San Gabriel Valley cities to allow such sales.īy Thursday’s update – and after trailing by more than 100 votes at the start of this week – 4,293 voters had said “yes” to the measure and 4,234 had said no, with just more than 332,550 outstanding ballots still to be processed, according to the Registrar’s Office. County Registar-Recorder’s seventh canvassing update showed just 59 votes separating passage of Measure CB from not passing.
31, were not available Monday for the other candidates running for the seat.The future of cannabis sales and delivery in Baldwin Park continued to hang in the balance Thursday, Nov.
31, Garcia, who filed a statement of intent to run for the seat in November, had raised nearly $122,550 in campaign funds, including $52,000 of her own money.Ĭampaign finance reports for the second half of 2017, which are due Jan. A GoFundMe account linked to Sierra’s website had just over $5,000 Monday.Īs of Dec. Sierra and Adams had not yet filed any campaign finance reports as of June 30. Rubio and Martinez had nearly $136,000 and about $47,000, respectively, at that time. La Puente resident Michael Adams is running as an independent candidate.Įng, who lives in Monterey Park with his wife, Congresswoman Judy Chu, had more than $1 million cash on hand as of June 30. Also running are fellow Baldwin Park Councilwoman Susan Rubio, El Monte Councilwoman Victoria Martinez, former state Assemblyman Mike Eng and union organizer Ruben Sierra, all Democrats. Ed Hernandez, who is termed out and is running for lieutenant governor. Garcia, 42, a Democrat, is one of six candidates running to succeed state Sen. The week before, the council approved permits for five businesses that had planned to self-distribute their products. Some said being forced to work with one distributor could raise their costs. The decision to award Rukli an exclusive distribution permit was a controversial one. “We saw no conflict with supporting the police chief’s endeavor in expanding his contributions to public service.” “We understood that he was a good man with a long tenure of service in the city of Baldwin Park and we elected to lend our support,” Bershatski said. In the same email, the Rukli CEO said over the last several months he learned Taylor was running for the board seat. “It’s so difficult to ever find that smoking gun moment,” she said, adding that the contributor could argue that “‘we found someone who supports our view and we want her to be able to be successful in life’ - that’s entirely legal.”īershaktski’s only other political donation to a Baldwin Park city official was the $10,000 he contributed to police Chief Michael Taylor’s campaign for the West Valley Water District’s Board of Directors in Rialto. She also said it’s easy to provide legal explanations for donations that may seem unethical. Levinson said it’s difficult to prove if public officials are being bribed with political donations.
“Money follows decisions, but it doesn’t look to me like anything illegal happened.” “It looks like a bribe, but that doesn’t mean it is a bribe,” Levinson said. Jessica Levinson, a professor at Loyola Law School and an election law expert, said the timing of Bershatski’s contribution was questionable, but not necessarily illegal.