The 'Inferno' truth
Trustee Gary Mendez's code shaped by grandma, karate
By Tracy Garcia, Staff Writer
Article Launched: 01/12/2008 10:31:03 PM PST
RE-ELECTED: Gary Mendez, a Whittier native, has been elected to serve another term on the Rio Hondo College Board of Trustees. (James Carbone/Correspondent)WHITTIER - Gary Mendez's grandmother scared the dickens out of him as a youngster - and it's something the newly re-elected Rio Hondo College trustee says he will never forget, because it ended up shaping the way he lives his life.
"I remember early on, she told me about Dante's `Inferno,"' said Mendez, 38. "She said there's a stage of hell meant for those who never take sides, and they end up in this purgatory.
"As a young man, that scared the heck out of me, as you can imagine," he said, chuckling.
"But it also showed me that if you don't take sides and stand up for what you believe, there is an area in hell that is for you," Mendez said. "And I took that seriously."
He has kept that lesson close to his heart as an adult, and says it's also part of the reason he has landed in some sticky situations since he was first elected to the Rio Hondo board in 1999.
In 2001, he was accused by fellow Rio Hondo board members of not living in his trustee area. That prompted an investigation by state officials, who ultimately cleared him.
In 2005 he formed a majority vote with newly elected trustees Angela Acosta-Salazar and Garry Couso-Vasquez and was elected president of the panel, only to be censured and have the title stripped by the board six months later following an altercation with former President Rose Marie Joyce.
This past fall, just a couple of weeks before he won re-election, he claimed the now-retired Joyce had
been secretly forced out by the board for poor performance - an allegation that Joyce and the board have vehemently denied.
That prompted trustees to call for Mendez to be censured again at a special meeting in October, which was canceled when only two trustees showed up.
More recently, Mendez was in the spotlight when he and other local activists campaigned in Iowa earlier this month for former Democratic presidential candidate Bill Richardson.
Mendez and the group - which included a 15-year-old high-schooler and her older sister - got stranded in the Hawkeye state and caught people's attention when he quickly tried to raise $2,000 for four train tickets home.
"Why is there so much drama? I think about this a lot, I've asked myself that question," said Mendez, who was raised by a single mom, Ruby, in Pico Rivera and Whittier before striking out on his own at 17.
"And I kind of know the answer - I'm not afraid to take up things and causes that people are reluctant to do," he said. "It's a lack of fear - but not consequence - and confidence that maybe I'm not afraid to do what I think is right."
His detractors, many of whom run in the same local political circles and declined to go on the record about Mendez, said they think otherwise.
"We keep our distance from him. We don't care to associate with him," said Lillian Gonzales, president emeritus of the local Mark Twain Democratic Club.
Mendez is currently on the Democratic Party's Los Angeles County Central Committee in the 56th Assembly District.
"One time, we were at a 56th Assembly District meeting and he just had a matter of opinion and stood up and yelled," Gonzales said. "This is the kind of person he is.
"That's why I stay clear of him. I don't have any wish to be near him for any reason," Gonzales said.
But Ralph Pacheco, a Whittier Union High School District trustee who met Mendez when Pacheco was on the Rio Hondo board nearly 20 years ago, disagrees.
He points to Mendez's volunteer work at Mayberry Park in South Whittier, where he teaches karate to local children, as an indicator of his personality.
"He has a way of connecting with children. These children just respond to him and that's a gift," Pacheco said. "It's a side of Gary Mendez that most people who know him politically don't know about.
"And if more people knew that side of Gary Mendez, they would have an entirely different perspective of who he is - not as a politician or elected official, but as a person," Pacheco said.
After graduating from Whittier High School, Mendez began working and attending Rio Hondo, where he earned a degree in paralegal studies. Eventually, he transferred to Cal State Sacramento, where he earned a bachelor's degree in government.
He began his political career working for now-Rep. Grace Napolitano, D-Santa Fe Springs, then was a field deputy for former state Assemblyman Tom Calderon.
His mother's death in 1998 brought him back to Whittier from Sacramento, at which point he said he started to feel like he "wanted to step up and take some challenges."
"And Rio Hondo was the first thing that popped into my mind," he said. "Serving on the college board, it was like home for me."
In 2004 he started his own political consulting firm, Urban Strategies, and made an unsuccessful bid for a seat on the Water Replenishment District.
He also ran for Norwalk City Council in 2005 and was roundly defeated by Rick Ramirez, whom he now counts as a good friend.
He's also a third-degree karate black belt - another part of his childhood to which he's clung.
"I used to play musical instruments in the third grade, and I would walk home and they used to get taken away by the neighborhood kids," Mendez said.
"My mom would have to get on the phone to find out who had taken it, but after a while, she said, `Gary, we can't do this anymore,' so she enrolled me in karate."
He said he soon learned how to defend himself enough to stop being bullied, and karate became "something I grew to love and has been a pillar in my life."
So when the going gets tough in his political world, Mendez says he can always fall back on his old karate ways.
"As long as what I'm doing is right, they can kick me and take me down, but I stick to what I believe is right.
"And," he quickly adds, "it's just politics."
tracy.garcia@sgvn.com
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