While the feuding continues unabated between Hawthorne Mayor Chris Brown and his hometown newspaper, the Daily Breeze, over a story containing numerous accusations of profligate spending, especially on travel, he missed his second straight City Council meeting last night.
Mr. Brown’s two closest Council allies also were unavailable. He indicated he would not have been comfortable sitting with the remaining two Councilmen. Short of a quorum, the meeting, therefore, was cancelled.
The young mayor disputed a prominent claim in this morning’s Daily Breeze lead story — that two dozen anti-Brown protestors marched in front of City Hall before the non-meeting. They called for him to resign over the newspaper reports.
As for the absences of three persons, the mayor said that Olivia Valentine was hospitalized with an illness, and Councilmember Angie English “had an emergency.”
Mr. Brown said he “couldn’t go to the meeting. To be honest with you, I wouldn’t go and sit on the dais alone with just those (other) two guys (Mr. Vargas and Nilo Michelin), knowing they were trying to destroy the whole city.
“That is exactly how they feel. They don’t want economic development. They don’t want anything to happen with the city. Alex Vargas has been a Councilman for six years, and he has not brought one business to the city. Nothing.”
Their thorny relations are rooted in prickly feelings that developed a year ago about this time when the then-first-year mayor insisted on passing a budget on time, according to Mr. Brown.
The mayor believes that Breeze reporter Sandy Mazza and Mr. Vargas “are in cahoots with each other. With her, it all comes to one thing. She was promised an exclusive for the (forthcoming Hawthorne) Mall. She decided not to do it. ABC-7 did it. She has been very mad ever since. It’s really that simple.”
Mr. Brown, who is running for re-election in November against three contenders, said the number of protestors was inflated by the Breeze.
He told this newspaper there only were seven demonstrators. All were from the north Hawthorne neighborhood of Council rival Alex Vargas, “who wants to run against me as mayor.”
Retraction
The mayor’s demand, through his attorney, for a retraction on the charges of perceived excessive travel and spending, so far appears to have been ignored. The 10-day deadline stipulated by the lawyer was reached 10 days ago.