Borderline Evil: Why LULAC’s Push for Camarillo Police Defunding is Wrong

By Mike Smith

On Wednesday the dishonestly-named, veritably anti-police League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) outed itself during the Public Comments session of Camarillo’s (virtual) City Council meeting –by way of a LULAC spokewoman– as an organized middleman between Camarillo’s three leftist councilmembers and the people of Camarillo. Two of them visibly hold far-Left credentials: Vice Mayor Susan Santangelo and Councilmember Shawn Mulchay.

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Yet their shared educational status cannot unmake the fact both have forgotten why the Borderline Bar and Grill massacre in 2018 did not result in more victims murdered.

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If Santangelo and Mulchay are open, they will both dismiss the tragic mass murder as a Thousand Oaks issue. If they’re unusually open, both will admit they don’t believe the level of Thousand Oaks’ police contract funding had any effect on how soon the Sheriffs assigned to Thousand Oaks arrived. And if they’re exceptionally open, both will claim such a crime could be avoided in Camarillo if only the Sheriffs Office contract with Camarillo gets a slashed budget.

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For them, the issue is not the issue – the issue is (or rather, was) the ‘racial justice’ resolution they failed to pass at Wednesday’s Camarillo City Council meeting. What new issue will Vice Mayor Santangelo and Councilmember Mulchay create next?

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Less-radical leftist Councilmember Kevin Kildee –the resolution swing vote– did not vote in favor of this pretext for police defunding under the guise of justice. Kildee is now surely hated by his own Democratic Party; if he gets replaced by someone far-Left on November 3, that is the best he can hope for from his reluctant political allies. Kildee’s house likely has multiple security measures, is in a gated community, or both. He has learned the lessons of the Borderline massacre that are totally lost on Santangelo and Mulchay. The Left feels Kildee’s safety-minded ‘NO’ vote on Wednesday is shameful and dangerous.

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But the inches-and-feet long game by LULAC, to defund the Ventura County Sheriffs Office Camarillo Patrol Operations Division over time, is gaining ground. It is advancing thanks to two liberals faking conservatism on the city council:  Councilmember Charlotte Craven and Mayor Tony Trembley. Despite their ‘NO’ votes on the racist ‘racial justice’ resolution, Mayor Trembley allowed the deceptive resolution on the agenda in the first place. Craven did not question this move.

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For her part, Councilmember Craven continued her unsuccessful attempts at the leadership Mayor Trembley is lacking as Mayor on the matter of Camarillo police services funding. Trembley’s nonverbal language of indecision removes any doubt. Optically-speaking, his inability to separate the people’s city council from a courtroom setting does not look good to the constitutional conservative voters in his district as November nears.

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And it’s shameful Councilmember Charlotte Craven couldn’t get herself to renounce her support for LULAC in addition to the equally-destructive Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement on Wednesday. If Craven understood the Left is totalitarian, she would have condemned both – and apologized for voting in line with LULAC’s 2018 lobbying effort to keep Camarillo an SB54 criminal sanctuary city. Granting certain criminals amnesty in a city will put that city on a path to police defunding sooner or later.

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For Camarillo, ‘Sooner’ is now.

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Mike Smith was a 23 year resident of Camarillo

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