Anaheim Mayor Ashleigh Aitken, who has denied accusations of using racist and homophobic slurs, is refusing to meet with a host of community group leaders to discuss the allegations levied against her, saying if one of the city’s most prominent and longtime Latino activists, former City Councilman Jose Moreno, is present, it would put her in an “unsafe environment.”
Moreno, President of Los Amigos, reached out to Aitken on behalf of a slew of community organizations in late September in the wake of the accusations asking the mayor to meet with the groups’ leaders to have a dialogue on what allegedly transpired and the impact it has had on residents.
“The purpose of our request is to be in conversation with you about the allegations levied against you. We have all known you and/or worked with you for over 10 years and are quite concerned about these allegations. The allegations have stirred tremendous anxieties in our communities,” reads a Sept. 25 email from Moreno to Aitken obtained by the Voice of OC this week.
“As leaders of our respective organizations, we seek to engage in conversation with you before determining any actions.”
The groups include Los Amigos, the Orange County Communities Organized for Responsible Development (OCCORD), OC Asian Pacific Islander Community Alliance, League of United Latin American Citizens, the Arab American Civic Council, OC Community Congregation Organization and Chispa.
Aitken, who is up for reelection next month, responded to the email later that day saying she reached out to leaders individually over the phone, she welcomed the meeting and denied the allegations against her but would only sit down with the leaders if Moreno wasn’t present.
“I will not, however, engage with Dr. Moreno as I feel it puts me in an unsafe environment. If you are still willing to sit down with me under those parameters, I would appreciate your time to discuss these very important accusations,” she wrote in her response.
Moreno said he endorsed Aitken’s political campaigns twice and it’s difficult to understand why the mayor would agree to meet with all the community leaders except for a particular person.
“I’ve supported initiatives that she has pushed. I’ve also raised questions about some initiatives that she chose not to push. So I certainly hope it wasn’t simply because I had asked in some instances over the past couple years, public questions about some of her actions. I certainly hope that the mayor’s office of Anaheim is bigger than that,” he said in a Thursday evening phone interview.
Moreno said the point of the meeting was to hear from her directly about the allegations and to work on addressing the pain and impacts on the community the allegations have caused.
Aitken said she looks forward to sitting down with community groups to discuss the allegations.
“I look forward to sitting down with our community groups to discuss these ridiculous allegations. They seem to be a well-orchestrated attack before an election, but that doesn’t mean people’s feelings haven’t been hurt. Community is more than just one person, and I intend to speak to any and all groups that will welcome honest dialogue,” she said in a Friday text message.
Aitken did not take a reporter’s call about the controversy but said in a follow up text message her refusal has to do with her lack of trust in Moreno.
“There is no trust there. Honest dialogue requires mutual respect. The fact that my response was leaked to the press only reinforces my position. The community deserves a forum focused on solutions, not a circus driven by those seeking chaos over connection. My offer stands,” she wrote.
Moreno has achieved prominence as a local Latino activist by leading the community group Los Amigos, which has been meeting on a weekly basis in Anaheim to discuss Latino issues and concerns for decades.
Days after Aitken’s Sept. 25 email to the groups, Ivon Peña, the executive director of OCCORD, replied on behalf of the leaders expressing their disappointment in the mayor requiring the exclusion of Moreno to meet.
“Given the seriousness of the allegations and the concern they have generated in our communities, we are disappointed that your response would require the exclusion of a member of the very group requesting this dialogue and a member who has worked for decades uplifting our Latino-Mexican-origin communities,” Peña wrote in a Sept. 29 email response to Aitken.
“It does not escape us that your rationale for trying to exclude Dr. Moreno raises serious racial/ethnic and gendered tropes about Latino men,” she continued.
“We are genuinely disappointed that you have refused a meeting with us as a community, as we sought to approach this moment with seriousness, transparency, and care for the communities we serve and the trust necessary in our democratic institutions.”
Peña said community leaders just wanted a chance to speak to Aitken about concerns from residents about the allegations who were deeply hurt.
“The majority of us did not understand where these sentiments of feeling unsafe were coming from,” Peña said in a Thursday evening phone interview.
“We were trying to convene not to attack the mayor or anything like that. We were trying to have dialog because dialog leads to accountability. We really believed in the importance of dialog and accountability because the mayor still has important questions to reflect on about her leadership, the trust of the community, and really what comes next.”
In her email response to Peña, Aitken said she was happy to meet with the leaders but if they can’t accept her restrictions that was their choice not hers.
“As a Woman’s Studies major, I deeply contest the notion of a static ‘Latin American gender culture’. I also don’t subscribe to reverse sexism, as it is a fevered response to women gaining power in the home and outside of it. Women do not have historic institutional power, making your framework indefensible,” Aitken wrote in Sept. 29 email to the community leaders.
“I would caution accusing me of sexism and racism based on my email. The current movement of Traditional Masculinity and the calls for historic gender roles inside and outside the home is indefensible, and certainly not aligned with my values.”
Peña said it was disappointing to see the mayor double down on her response and rather than understand the community’s concerns be dismissive.
“We didn’t reject dialog with her. We disagreed with the conditions she had placed on meeting because we were supposed to come together as community leaders,” Peña said in the phone interview.
“The lesson on feminism and sexism was just really disappointing. Especially for myself – as a woman of color, as a Latina – it really missed the mark, trying to give me a lesson on feminism and sexism when those intersections of race and gender is something I navigate every single day, and I think it was really steering away from the point that we were trying to make.”
Both Peña and Moreno emphasized the importance of due process.
“Our community has often been victimized with lack of due process. We’ve often been railroaded and disparaged and diminished without due process. That’s been quite often in the history of Latinos in Anaheim, let alone Orange County, let alone California and as a nation. So for us, due process is really important,” Moreno said.
Allegations Against Aitken & a City Council Response
In a claim filed against the city, Aitken’s chief of staff, Berenice Ballinas, alleged the mayor called her a “dirty Mexican,” repeatedly questioned her perceived sexuality, mocked her faith, and drank heavily at government functions and events.
Ballinas also alleges city leadership dismissed and minimized her concerns about Aitken’s behavior.
Aitken has denied the slurs attributed to her but admitted last week to having a drinking problem, going to rehab last year and relapsing at a birthday celebration this past June.
The city has hired an outside investigator to review the allegations against the Mayor – a probe that Aitken has welcomed and the rest of her colleagues have called on or said they support at this point.
Moreno said most city council members along with other elected officials – including Latinos on the city council dais – have ignored the harm these allegations have caused in a city where over half the population is Latino, adding Councilwoman Natalie Meeks was the only one to address the allegations the next day.
“The way I feel that she has handled it – the council and the broader community of electeds – is almost to behave and there’s nothing to see here, nothing new, it’s political season,” he said.
“They may be used to that culture of politics getting ugly but for those of us in the community that have to deal with the consequences of that ugly, it seems they have not expressed much concern or actions to address that, and that’s unfortunate and it says a lot about their own character.”
Editor’s note: Anaheim Mayor Ashleigh Aitken’s father, Wylie Aitken, chairs Voice of OC’s board of directors.
Hosam Elattar is a Voice of OC reporter. Contact him at helattar@voiceofoc.org.
