Teacher & city establishment run for Council
Lucio wants more patrols and apartments.
By Brian Maquena
May 16, 2022
EAST LAKEWOOD, CALIF. — Following her mother’s footsteps, Veronica Lucio migrated to Lakewood from a foreign land — Texas.
All kidding aside, the 17-year resident of east Lakewood hopes voters on June 7 will choose her as their district 5 Council Member. The neighborhood is Lakewood’s most diverse, having large populations of minorities and non-English speaking residents.
“East Lakewood needs a voice and we want to be heard!” wrote Lucio on her campaign website.
A lawsuit—initiated by resident Gregory Slaughter—forced Council to adopt district elections last year. As a result, Lakewood residents living east of the 605 Freeway are ensured that one of their own will sit on the Council dais for the first time.
The district 5 race features two newcomers in Lucio and Cassandra Chase, who grew up in Lakewood.
Both are the daughters of immigrants and both are involved in children’s education, although for Lucio it’s her fulltime job. She is an instrumental music teacher for Long Beach Unified School District and the mother of a 5-year-old girl.
Like her opponent, Lucio is civically engaged. A member of the Recreation & Community Services Commission, Lucio reviews reports on city-owned recreation sites, as well as recreational events and community services. The Lakewood Populist unsuccessfully reached out to commission members for comment.
Steve Croft, who took over as Lakewood’s mayor March 12, nominated Lucio to the position last July.
This is where the two candidates begin to diverge. Lucio is backed by Lakewood’s establishment while Chase is not.
Longtime incumbents & their allies endorse Lucio
Not only was Lucio nominated by Croft—a 17-year Council Member—but she has also received endorsements from Councilman Todd Rogers, who at 21 years is Lakewood’s longest-serving incumbent. Councilman Ariel Pe has also endorsed Lucio.
Such support could be considered good or bad.
Lakewood establishment: competent but self-serving
While Croft can brag about Lakewood’s good fiscal condition, he was also joined by Council Members Vicki Stuckey and Pe in passing a suspiciously-drawn election map.
The map violated a Council guideline and provided safe seats to Croft and his unelected appointee, Stuckey. The boundaries also veered off main streets and zigzagged.
Croft originally proposed east Lakewood NOT be given the chance to vote till 2024. This would had allowed the unelected Stuckey to run this year.
“He’s one of the slickest politicians that Lakewood has ever had,” then-said Slaughter, who is running against Croft in district 2.
While Croft got his map, he was forced to allow east Lakewood to vote this year, thus pushing Stuckey off Council. This occurred after a grassroots organization named Lakewood Forward gathered signatures in protest.
Chase is a co-founder of the group.
Longest-serving Councilman & public safety org back Lucio
The Los Angeles County Professional Peace Officers Association also endorsed Lucio. The organization had earlier endorsed Rogers in his run against political outsider Michelle Hamlin, a public school teacher turned realtor and homeschooler,
Rogers—a former Assistant Sheriff for the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department—is much-respected for his public safety background. During the summer 2020 riots, when Lakewood businesses were attacked and hooligans tried to intimidate deputies, he provided leadership. He also backed the recent emergency $400,000 public safety plan.
Yet Rogers also as mayor ignored anti-Hispanic bigotry after a racist assault at the Lakewood Mall in June 2020. By contrast, he had immediately condemned anti-black and anti-Asian assaults.
Rogers excused his silence, telling the Lakewood Populist that he did not want Mexicans to violently target a bunch of black guys. He also said privately that he could not call the June 2020 incident a hate crime since the Sheriff’s Department did not.
Click here to read Rogers’ letter about the situation.
Rogers has also promoted a local Marxist who appeared to blame the summer 2020 riots on America and not the rioters themselves.
“This [George Floyd murder] has been the tipping point in our social structure and the racial tensions and unrest that continues today,” said Candace Kelly, a speaker at a private Interfaith Council meeting hosted by Rogers on August 5, 2020.
“The black community does not need to change. We need to change. ... Our institutions need to change,” Kelly also said during her presentation to area-faith leaders, quoting Governor Gavin Newsom.
Supports patrols, congested housing
Yet, unlike Chase, the former Texan supports more traditional approaches to east Lakewood’s public safety crisis, including violent homeless that attack children and young women.
Lucio wrote via email that she would seek more patrols and increased funding for homeless outreach programs. In contrast, Chase wants to explore allocating future funding away from the Sheriff’s Department.
Lucio knows about the dangerous traffic conditions at 207th Street and Norwalk Boulevard, where a man’s property has been crashed into five times. She regularly visits Palms Park. Yet she gave no concrete plan on solving the issue, only writing that she would support measures to improve the situation.
Lucio supports congested housing
Lucio is more progressive than Chase on one issue — housing mandates like SB-9, a state law that forced zoning for multifamily housing throughout all of Lakewood.
“As someone who has lived in an apartment I do not view it as a negative,” wrote Lucio. “While I understand the concerns regarding parking, giving people an affordable way to become part of our great city should be a positive thing.”
The data doesn’t lie, though.
Congested housing in east Lakewood is plagued with violent crime. Past Councils via zoning regulations have stuffed most of the city’s apartments into two small housing blocks in the community. Coincidentally, almost half the city’s homicides have occurred in or near those housing blocks since 2020, per LA Times data.
Three shootings have occurred the past year in the center of the community’s congested housing, Pioneer Boulevard and Centralia Street. In two housing blocks, drivers can’t see past cars when making turns due to overflow parking and the streets being narrow.
Click here for our very popular interactive east Lakewood homicide map.
Lucio declined to do a live interview. However, via email, she supported resuming broadcasts of Council’s public comments segments.
“As your District 5 Councilmember, I will work to continue improving public safety, recreation and community spaces, upholding our city’s values,” wrote Lucio on her website.
Any idea why the dude delivering the populist tried to open my door. I’d like to get to the bottom of it and know where you guys hire the delivery people. I managed to get a clear video of the guy. This was along pioneer at around 12:30, 4/23/22.