Carson Political Veteran Vies for Dream Job: City Clerk

Vera Robles DeWitt has been active in Carson’s politics for the past 40 years. Although she hasn’t been in office since 1997, she has remained a consummate insider serving as a budget watchdog and instigated recall challenges against electeds she opposes. Now she is running for city clerk, beside political veteran Mike Mitoma, who is running for city council as the independent candidate. DeWitt and Mitoma served on the city council together and were allies back in the 1980s.

Robles DeWitt recently discussed her political beginnings, her hopes for Carson and the controversies following her career.

Robles DeWitt jumped into politics after starting a print shop, which she founded. She published a quarterly newsletter called the Carson Digest. Through this newsletter, she criticized Carson’s elected officials. Robles DeWitt said the city retaliated against her by siccing Carson’s Business License Division. She said the division investigated her after accusing her of having a silent business partner. She denied the allegations — instead she ran for a city council seat.

“If you’re going to use your power to go after me, a small business owner just trying to tell the truth to power, I’m gonna fight you from within,” Robles DeWitt said, referencing her initial run for office during a special election to fill the seat vacated by Councilman Gil Smith (He resigned following accusations of conflict of interest by his opponents on the city council, despite a finding of no wrongdoing at the time).

Robles Dewitt became the first Latina elected to Carson’s city council in 1981. She was re-elected for an additional two full terms. In 1990, she was selected as mayor. Since leaving office in 1997, Robles DeWitt has actively attended city council meetings and has been a particular critic of and thorn in Councilman Jim Dear’s side. Robles DeWitt was appointed to the Water Replenishment District Board of Directors in August of 2018 and elected to a four-year term in November 2020. If she is elected, Robles DeWitt will become just the fifth city clerk in Carson’s history.

Four other candidates are competing to fill the seat left vacant by former City Clerk Donesia Gause-Aldana this past April, including attorney Jeffry Caballero, labor union president of Local 809, “Ana” Meni, district chief of staff for the California state legislator Myla Rahman and educator Monette Gavino.

Robles DeWitt sharpened her elbows and thickened her skin during a period where political foes fought hard and dirty and influence peddling was commonplace enough to lead to the conviction of sitting council people during the 1980s and 90s. Actually, such political antics and influence peddling are still commonplace in Carson today. Watson Land Co. and big transportation and warehouse companies have poured a great deal of money into this and past elections. Robles DeWitt says she is running to keep the city clerk office independent of any policy influence.

“You’re an independent source not to be influenced by whoever is the three majority that can change from year to year,” she said.

Robles DeWitt has had her eye on the city clerk’s seat for a decade. She came close to winning the position when former City Clerk Helen Kawagoe retired in 2012 after suffering a stroke. Instead of having special elections, council members voted to appoint the next city clerk after reviewing a qualified pool of applicants. Donesia Gause-Aldana was selected. Although unhappy with not getting the nod, Robles DeWitt praised Gause-Aldana’s performance.

The city clerk seat should be the least political post in city government. But that arguably changed when then-Mayor Jim Dear ran for city clerk against Gause-Aldana in 2014 and won. At that time, Dear said he was not satisfied with Gause-Aldana’s performance and expressed that he could do a better job. After his win, political opponents and city hall employees accused Dear of racism and abusive behavior. Two years later, residents voted to recall Dear — Robles DeWitt counts the recall as her victory in her column. After Dear’s recall, Robles DeWitt planned to run for city clerk, but Gause-Aldana ran unopposed and won her old job back. After Gause-Aldana announced her resignation, Dear congratulated her for her time as city clerk.
Robles DeWitt recounted a discussion with Gauze-Aldana after the recall campaign where she told Gause-Aldana that she was going to run for city clerk. But when Gause-Aldana told her she was also planning on running, Roble DeWitt decided to step back for the interest of the city.
Five years later, Robles DeWitt believes she is still the best candidate for the job.

“I truly love my city and the government,” she said. “I ran the initiative to not allow swap meets to come into Carson. I ran the referendum fighting the illegal trash contract. Where were my competitors? I ran the recall. Where were those folks? You want to get in and jump and bless your heart for wanting to do that. But earn your way. I qualify more than any of my competitors.”

Robles DeWitt expressed her apprehension of Monette Gavino primarily because of Jim Dear’s endorsement and her clouded backstory during the recall election.
Robles DeWitt rhetorically asked if Carson wanted to go back to the days where the craziness of city hall was taking place.

“I want to get it stabilized,” she said. “I know people think of me as a very progressive in-your-face type person, but I’m not. … in deciding what’s best, I try to work in collaboration with people.”

One of the most pressing issues pinning Carson’s elected officials against a wall are the closures of mobile home parks. In DeWitt’s 55 years spent living in Carson, she lived five of those years in a mobile home park.

“I understand that the landowners want to be able to get some return on their investment,” she said. “I don’t know what the answer is at this point. It’s a prominent issue, but because they’re [elected officials] not working together, because everybody wants to be the champion and say ‘I did this.’ Why don’t you just do a study group? Figure out what can be done and then come with an answer. It doesn’t have to be a ‘you’ answer, it could be an ‘our’ answer.”

Jim Dear, who now is mayor pro tem, introduced a mobile home zoning draft at last week’s city council meeting. The zoning ordinance will make it if park owners propose to close the park, it will have to be replaced with a new mobile homes park.

DeWitt prides herself on overcoming the prejudices of being a woman in politics. She is not new to Carson’s rough-and-tumble politics.

“It’s very difficult for me to see an obstacle and think that I cannot overcome it,” DeWitt said.

If elected, Robles DeWitt hopes to reintroduce the passport service for residents and increase the accessibility of city council meetings by uploading minutes on the Carson website.

“I’m hoping we can reintroduce the passports,” she said. “That was a great service that the city of Carson provided its residents. And it didn’t cost us anything. But that was a personality conflict between our clerk and the council. Well, obviously, the clerk lost, but I’d like to see if we can still go back and do that.”

At the same time, she expressed the need for more volunteers at polling locations during elections and making information easily accessible to all residents.

“I want to be able to have a vehicle to tell the community, ‘this is what your council’s voting on,’ Robles DeWitt said. “The other day, somebody said, ‘How did your election go?’ I said, ‘That was the governor’s election, mine is in November.’ So there’s a lot of information that needs to be shared.”

Robles Dewitt said her proudest moment is helping the Southwest Voting Rights Group sue the City of Carson. The lawsuit cost the city over $500,000. City clerk candidate Ana Meni was the other plaintiff in the lawsuit. In the past 15 years, the majority of elected offices were residents of Carson’s Del Amo neighborhood.

“The majority of the elected officials come from north of Del Amo,” she said. “How fair is that? We have seven elected positions, and five of them all come from north of Del Amo. Well, we needed to have districts.”

Robles DeWitt says she essentially hopes to make the election process easier.

“It is very difficult to win an election in Carson,” she said. “You either have to know the right people or have loads and loads of money. I always felt that the south side of Carson, south of Del Amo, had been neglected, east of the railroad tracks, neglected. And with districts, at least we have one person that can speak on the potholes when they’re driving home.”

With more than forty years of history in Carson politics, Robles DeWitt is not new to controversy. Ringing in the new year, she was stripped of her president title at the Water Replenishment District over her role in attempting to hire former Carson Mayor Albert Robles (no familial relationship) as the district general manager. Robles previously served in the Water Replenishment District Board of Directors but was forced to step down after a lawsuit alleged that holding two elected positions was violating state law. Robles Dewitt’s attempt to rehire Robles was opposed by 16 cities, multiple federal and state legislatures, and the union that represented the district’s staff.

“Bunch of children,” Robles DeWitt said about the situation. “There were three of us that said let’s go ahead and hire Albert Robles, who was on the water board for over 20 some years. He’s a wealth of knowledge, but there was a disagreement. So one of my colleagues changed his mind and voted with the other ones. They will threaten me. I was gonna go to jail. Dealing with these problems, if you disagree, you don’t have to go to that extreme, especially with me.”

Robles DeWitt praises Robles for his initiative in creating a sustainable water supply that eliminated the Water Replenishment District’s need to purchase water from Northern California and the Colorado River. The facility, which is in Pico Rivera, delivers 21,000 acre-feet of recycled water to the San Gabriel Coastal Spreading Grounds. It is now named Albert Robles Center for Water Recycling and Environmental Learning.

“Fast forward today, we do not have to import any water from the Colorado River or the Delta,” Robles DeWitt explained. “We replenish the ground waters without buying expensive safe drinking water. This was a big winner for us because now we don’t have to buy that imported water.”

If elected city clerk, Robles DeWitt plans to step down from her current position with the Water Replenishment District.

“I am devoted to Carson,” she said. “I would leave the water board. My desire since 2012 has been to be with Carson.”

RLn Managing Editor, Terelle Jerricks, contributed to this story.