The Binge Cases: Scary Terri - The Sellout | 3. Red Flags

Episode Date: November 2, 2021

Alvin Parra worked for Huizar when he first got elected. He saw early warning signs that Huizar wasn’t the man of the people he made himself out to be. Parra tried to warn people about what he saw behind closed doors, but most of them weren’t ready to listen. He ends up doing something drastic to try to expose Huizar. A Neon Hum Media and Sony Music Entertainment production. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts to binge all episodes now or listen weekly wherever you get your podcasts. Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Alvin Parra says there were a bunch of red flags, but the light bulb stood out. About 5,000 CFC light bulbs, those little circular ones, energy efficiency light bulbs. It's 2006. WESAD has been in office for less than a year, and the L.A. Department of Water and Power gave Wissad's office a bunch of energy-efficient light bulbs to distribute to his constituents. The city had been having these brownouts, which is when power companies restrict power access

to prevent total blackouts. The light bulbs were supposed to basically decrease the demand on the power grid. And we got pallets of them, so we decided to make it an event. Like since we were fresh off the campaign, call the volunteers back in, we'll pre-state walk and hand out light bulbs to residents. So basically, Alvin is working for Jose, we said. He's pretty high up in the city council administration.

Alvin is in charge of his offices all over the district. And we had a big event. We got about like 10 media stations there. We got like 300 volunteers. Going to be at the Alcimino Senior Center. It was a great event. And then, the night before the event, Visad comes by. And he's looking at the light bulbs.

And these are individually packaged light bulbs with their own boxes. And it says LADWP, energy efficiency light bulb. That was it. He says, where's my name and picture on these bulbs? Alvin says Visad wanted his name and his picture. His picture on all the light bulbs. All of them. Mind you, this is like late afternoon, early evening,

before the event the following day. I get a phone call from one of the staff members and say, the council member wants his name on each box. And someone says, we're going to make labels. We can't put his picture, we're just going to put his name, compliments of council member Jose Huizar. Yeah, they spend hours into the, hours to put that label on. It's like, oh my God, this guy's full of himself. From Neon Hum Media and LA Taco, this is Smokescreen,

the sellout. A podcast about a politician dogged by allegations of corruption, harassment, and pathological pettiness. It's about the residents who fought gentrification even as their neighborhoods were auctioned off to the highest bidder. I'm Mariah Castaneda. This is Episode 3, Red Flags. Red flags. Long before Alvin Parra went to work for RISAD, he had political aspirations of his own. They came from home, from his mom. My mom was an immigrant from Mexico, basically, you know, in a new country with six children. And I was the youngest of them all.

So we were just an immigrant community in this community of El Sereno and Dingan Heights. And I never knew much about politics, but I was very passionate about it because of my mom. Alvin remembers his mom yelling at politicians on television. She helped them to a very high standard. It kind of rubbed off on me, just the sense of justice and doing what's right. So Alvin grew up in El Sereno, just a little north and a little east of Boyle Heights. He ended up going to UCLA. And then in the late 80s, he landed an internship with Gloria Molina. At the time, she was the city councilwoman for the 1st District of Los Angeles,

which is right next to District 14. And right off the bat, they had two college interns and our jobs were to go around the community and look for dumped sofas and trash and report it to the departments and get it picked up. So I was just blown away that, oh my God, I can have an impact in cleaning up the quality of life in my area. Alvin said that he fell in love with all the little things that go into working in local government, like being able to fix things around the neighborhood, you know, housing stuff, a neglectful landlord, the kind of problems where there's a big power imbalance,

when having a city council member on your side can really make a difference. Once he graduated college, he went on to work for other politicians. He actually got a little less local. He went all the way up to working for the congressman who represented East LA. So here's this kid from El Sereno, Latino, immigrant family working in the Capitol. And I was living there when Bill Clinton was elected president. So back in 1992. So it was a celebration.

We partied hardy on the streets of Washington, D.C. Eventually, Alvin came home. He got into local politics again. And that's when he met We Sad. This is my producer, Carla Green, talking to Alvin. What was your first impression of him? Clean cut. He was always clean cut, nice looking. He got his law degree. And so he was trying to come back to give back to the community. So Alvin knew We Sad for a long time. And he knew a side of him that, like, not everyone saw. I think it was hard to approach him.

He wasn't a bad guy to get along with, but he was kind of a little nervous. And I think I've gotten to see that he is shy around people. So Weesad gets on the school board, and he gets elected to the city council in 2005. He'd run against Nick Pacheco. Alvin had run for office before, so he thought about running against Pacheco himself. But his son had just been born. It just wasn't the right time. So he threw his weight behind

Wiesad. And when Wiesad won, Alvin became his head of field operations, which meant he was in charge of what was happening in the district, outside of City Hall. Other staffers might want to be in the seat of municipal power, going to vote on big city policy stuff like the budget. But to Alvin, worrying about the little things was a plum assignment. I want to be in the community.

Our community needs attention. We need those sofas picked up. So I supervised all the staff members in the field. So my responsibility attention. We need those sofas picked up. So I supervised all the staff members in the field. So my responsibility was that and I loved it. Alvin's like, yes, put me out in the district. Let me talk directly to constituents. He loved it. And he loved having the power to help them out. Sometimes anyways. And putting out fires wherever I could. Anything that had to deal with constituents complaining or having questions or wanting me to put the council's

office. And as a young, new city council member, Huizar was a hit. He was charming. He seemed thoughtful. He'd do little things, like go to local events where kids were playing music, like Norberto's little sister. Remember, Norberto is the guy who grew up in Culver City and made Pero Like for BuzzFeed. My sister, I believe she played at an event where he attended. She played in a banda, so she played clarinet, and he happened to be there. Wiesad was out in the district, a lot. He was very careful to go to cultural events that he knew mattered to his constituents. Raquel Zamora, whose family owns that taqueria that's been in Boyle Heights for generations. Zamora brothers. Because damn, like for Mother's Day, he gave 200 señoras a dozen of

roses and he paid for all of their lunches and the mariachi played for three hours huizar also dedicated a statue to the braceros the agricultural workers like his father like he didn't have to do that statue he didn't have to make this dedication and honor them like nobody else has done that you know right and even in his speech he like his voice cracked because he spoke about how his father was a bracero and the sacrifices he made to come you know so that's what i'm like he had a heart you can actually see how wizar prioritized things like that and some of the emails that came out in a public information request. He forwards along things like invites to events happening in the district, a mariachi performance or ribbon cutting or unveiling. He would send his assistants emails like,

am I able to make it? And try and get me there. This one time when he wanted to visit an elderly activist in Eagle Rock on her deathbed, He emailed three times in less than 24 hours. What's the status? What's the status? And then again, this is my third time asking, what's the status? And Norberto says people really notice that kind of stuff. And, you know, again, like, oh, it's Jose Huizar. Like, my family's into him. My family likes him. He attends events where other Latinos are at.

He represents. He is representing us in the local politics of LA. And so there wasn't much to really dislike about the dude. But while Huizar is spending time going to events, Alvin says that inside the office, just a couple months into his term, Huizar just doesn't seem that interested in the district, doesn't seem interested in his constituents or their problems, which from Alvin's perspective is like the whole job. We would meet with the council member every week to brief him

on everything that's going on. He wouldn't really engage with us. It was kind of like sometimes talking to a wall. And after like a month or two, he told the chief of staff to cancel those meetings and just provide written memos. And it was kind of said to me indirectly that he was just bored and he didn't really care about the district that much. So it came to the point where we're just more briefing him on what we're planning on doing. And we would probably just meet with like maybe five or 10 constituents a month. And I was like, oh my God, this guy doesn't really want to meet with people. You can't solve your constituents' problems if you're never even talking to them.

But that wasn't everyone's experience of WeZED. This is The Sellout. Hi, everyone. This is Jonathan Van Ness. Clean water, fresh air, our health. Electricity, honey. We tend to take for granted the things that matter most, like the separation of church and state. Americans United for Separation of Church and State has been on the front lines defending your freedom to live and believe as you choose, so long as you don't harm others.

Most folks don't see how church state separation affects our daily lives until that freedom is gone. The separation between church and state covers many core freedoms like civil rights for LGBTQIA plus people, women, and racial slash religious minorities, or reproductive justice and freedom. But those rights are not a given. Every day, Americans United works at the state and federal level to make sure these freedoms and more are protected for every American to enjoy and benefit from.

They can't do this alone, though. Join Americans United for separation of church and state and growing the movement. Because church-state separation protects everyone. Freedom without favor and equality without exception. Learn more and get involved at au.org slash curious. Hi, everyone. This is Jonathan Van Ness. Clean water, fresh air, our health. Electricity, honey. We tend to take for granted the things that matter most,

like the separation of church and state. Americans United for Separation of Church and State has been on the front lines defending your freedom to live and believe as you choose, so long as you don't harm others. Most folks don't see how church-state separation affects our daily lives until that freedom is gone. The separation between church and state covers many core freedoms like civil rights for LGBTQIA plus people, women, and racial slash religious minorities, or reproductive justice and freedom. But those rights are not a given. Every day, Americans United works at the state and federal level to make sure these freedoms and more are protected for every American to enjoy and benefit from. They can't do this alone, though. Join Americans United for separation of church and

state and growing the movement because church-state separation protects everyone. Freedom without favor and equality without exception. Learn more and get involved at au.org slash curious. So I'll start with a little bit of context. This is Eric Huerta again, my LA Taco colleague who went with me to Mariachi Plaza. Like I said, Eric's been blogging reporting on Bull Heights for a while. And when Eric was still a student journalist, Wissad reached out to him about doing an interview. It's not really clear why he went for Eric, you know, out of all the journalists he could have approached. No disrespect to Eric, but he was just a student. And Wissad was fully a city councilman. Maybe Wisad liked that Eric was an ambitious student reporter from the neighborhood. Maybe he liked turning on the

charm for someone who might never catch the attention of a city council member otherwise. Anyways, Wisad got in touch with Eric. So, you know, I put on my student journalism hat. I was like, cool, this is a serious opportunity. Eric got all ready for the interview, got his recorder, skateboarded over. So I showed up, you know, wearing what is usually my typical uniform is like cut off dickies, sneakers, a T-shirt. So, you know, I was just showing up as like a 20 year old skater kid. And I just show up like yeah hey we's are cool nice to meet you he's excited i'm excited you could feel that energy

in the article eric eventually writes it definitely gives we sad the benefit of the doubt he writes towards the end quote it's safe to say that behind all the political drama and bs that goes around we sad is improving bole Heights for the better. So I will say that because it was just for me doing it for myself. I didn't put too much into it. You know, I wasn't very critical of him. Maybe that's why Wiesad approached Eric. He figured he'd have an in.

Eric was a young journalist, a fellow Mexican. Maybe Wiesad thought he'd give him the benefit of the doubt. But if Huizar thought Eric wasn't going to get something out of their friendly relationship, he underestimated him. And after that, I kind of took advantage of that in a lot of different ways. If Eric saw something going on in the neighborhood that needed attention, he'd message Huizar, tag him on social media. One of the things that I did a lot was whenever there was garbage that wasn't picked up along the streets, you know, like sometimes these same garbage cans light on fire and melt. So I would just take a picture and I would tag him

and the Department of Sanitation and be like, can you send somebody to fix it? And he would reply back, you know, saying, yeah, take care of it. We'll have somebody come take care of that trash can. And within like a day or two, you know, boom, the sanitation department would come, clean it up, and put in a new trash can. This is the stuff that Alvin thought was so important. That little stuff. And

at least from Eric's perspective, Wisad is taking care of it. So it seems like it kind of depends. If Wisad likes you, if he wants to turn on the charm with you, maybe those little things do get done. But then Alvin says there was a way Wiesad would treat his staff. Like, if Wiesad was upset with someone, they'd suddenly find themselves on some weird time out, often without understanding why. It felt petty.

He never had the, sorry for using these words, he never had the balls to tell you directly. He would have his chief of staff. So if he was angry with you, you know, he couldn't, he just went to the chief of staff and he had that person go and say, hey, you're grounded. There was another woman who was the initial, first press secretary for the council member. I think she was expecting the baby. And she was doing a great job. I don't know what she did, obviously. She doesn't know. I don't think she had a clue that upset him. Then she saw a listing for press secretary for Jose Huizar. Her job just posted somewhere. And then after she's kind of like, what's going on here? Oh, council members is going to be replacing you. Huh? When are you going to tell

me? So that's kind of the way he operated. It was unfortunate. Yeah, that's wild. Did that ever happen to you? Yeah. At some level, he was like, OK, you're not allowed to go to Eagle Rock. OK, I'll just take care of Borough Heights and El Sereno. And then eventually the time out would be over. And then I'm off the S list. The shit list. That I can go back to whatever, then I'm not able to do this. And I'm like, I'm like, okay, whatever. It was weird. It was kind of weird. I think everybody got on that list at some point. So we said was not a great boss. He was not the easiest to work for. He could be vindictive. This actually came out publicly a lot later.

A couple of his staffers sued him for different things, alleging a pattern of harassment and retaliation. One of the staffers, Mayra Alvarez, said in her lawsuit that Wissad would do things that ranged from bizarre to disturbing, like obsessively track her social media. I'm just going to read from the lawsuit here. It was somewhat amusing at first. Mrs. Alvarez would post a photograph of she and her husband and then count the minutes it took Huizar, ostensibly having seen the picture and seen that she was out living a life unrelated to him to send her a text or email about some superfluous issue. But it soon became harassing and abusive. There was other stuff too.

Alvarez said that if Huizad's tea wasn't waiting for him when he arrives in council chambers, he'd text her over and over again. Tea, tea, T. One time, when Alvarez was late bringing his T and a work binder down to him, she says he threw the binder at her, hitting her in the chest. Alvarez's case was later settled by the city for $150,000. She sued Wissad in 2018, years after Alvin left his office.

But back when Wissad was first elected, for Alvin, the way Wissad treated his staff wasn't even the most disturbing thing. You know, I remember we having that constituent meeting because there was this one senior that wanted to meet with them. The owner, the landlord, increased the rent, like doubled it. And she had lived there for like 20 years. She was in her 60s or 70s.

So the woman needed help. And she reached out to Wisad's office. She's like, all I need is an extra month or two to figure things out. Which was something Wisad could maybe help with. He met with her, told her, yeah, yeah, we'll do something to help you. And then as soon as she left the room, I said, so council member, what would you like me to do? He's like, ah, leave it alone.

And I'm like, ah, what? I mean, it doesn't hurt you to just tell me to make a phone call to the landlord and ask for a favor. Other council members would have called building and safety and do an inspection, look for code violations and play hardball. But at the minimum, just a phone call. That's what I thought would be just a phone call. Hey, courtesy, we've got this senior that lived with you for 20 years.

We tried to speak to other people in Wiesad's office at the time to get a sense of what he was like. No one got back to us. But at this point, Alvin said he was losing faith in Wiesad. But he hadn't totally given up. The final nail in the coffin was Wyvernwood. Yeah, Wyvernwood. Oh my gosh, you know, the memories are coming back. Boyle Heights will be made, or Boyle Heights will be broken on the fate of Wyvernwood, I believe. Stay with me after the break.

An apartment complex with thousands of tenants, the developers who want to kick them out, and we said, with a decision to make. What was the last thing that filled you with wonder, that took you away from your desk, or your car in traffic, or your sink full of dishes? As an actor, it's very free being part of these shows.

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So Wyvernwood is this big apartment complex in Boyle Heights. It's on the south side of the neighborhood, about two miles down from Mariachi Plaza. It's a couple blocks from this big freeway interchange where the 5 meets the 101 and the 10. Anyways, Wyvernwood was built in the 30s. It's this huge complex with over 1,000 units and rent that's really affordable for the neighborhood. About 6,000 people live there.

It's a bunch of these wide, two-story buildings. They're all built around this big garden area. There's grass, trees, and all these paths between the different buildings. It was built in 1939. The architects were Whitmer and Watson. That's Richard Shave. He's a preservationist and one half of the couple

that makes up Esoteric Tours, which does historical tours around LA. He and his wife, Kim Cooper, do a lot of fighting for historic buildings around Los Angeles. Like, back in 2018, they led the charge to landmark the old LA Times building in downtown LA. Wyvernwood is this wonderful oasis in southern Boyle Heights. I recommend everyone go there when the hacarandas are in blossom. It is just a sea of purple. Wyvernwood is a special kind of housing

called garden apartments. It's a historic California thing. Here's Samuel Gonzalez, the guy whose family has lived in Boyle Heights for like six generations. The idea of garden apartments was that you could build dense housing for working class people,

but that you could do it in a way that put them in social experience within each other, within these gardens, with these walking paths and all of trees and all of this to enjoy, so that you have a sense of nature and serenity within that. And just a lot of families live there and they're lower income families and they've been living there for maybe generations. So some developers are asking for a meeting with Alvin about Wyvernwood. They bought the property back in the 90s and are looking to do something with their investment.

It's 2006. WESAD has been in office for less than a year at this point. We sat down. They came in with their, you know, the owner and their folks, a little team. their, you know, the owner and their folks, a little team. And they showed that they wanted to basically demolish the 1,000 units and build 600 to 700 luxury condos. Meaning everyone at Wyvernwood, all the tenants, would have to leave. And they probably would not be able to afford to come back whenever the construction finished. I said, so how are you going to take care of these thousand family members?

They've got to be relocated somewhere. And I'm thinking, the council member lived in Ball Heights. He grew up there. He's going to be pissed if he hears that these developers are going to just dump a thousand families onto the street. So I asked him this question. I go, what's your relocation plan? He said, oh, that's not our problem. That's the city's problem.

I'm like, oh, no. But I had to bite my tongue because I'm not the council member, but I was about to give that guy a lashing. And I bit my tongue and I said, OK. In Spanish, we say, vas a ver. You're going to wait and see. And so I briefed the council member. I said, oh, this is a bad project. They're just going to throw out a thousand families. Somehow they set up a follow up meeting. I guess, you know, we decided to meet in Rivenwood at the community center all by ourselves. It's empty, just the developers team and our office is about five or six of us. They get basically the same pitch.

Before this meeting, Alvin had given his boss some suggestions of what to say. Tell the developers that they've got to have some kind of plan for the longtime tenants if they're going to redevelop. That if they don't have a plan, WESODE is going to stand in their way and make it difficult for them to get their project approved, which is something a council member can do. They have a lot of influence over what kinds of projects get approved in their district. I give Jose the talking points of what to say and to hold this team accountable and maybe tell them, look, if you're going to do this team accountable and maybe tell them, look, if you're going to do this, these are the conditions I want on behalf of the community. Or you know what? This is a deal breaker. If you don't take care of the residents,

you don't get none of my support. So I gave him my talking points and I'm like thinking, okay, he's got my back. I got his back. We got the community's back. And the presentation's over. Pretty much all that Jose says says is okay go ahead move forward just don't use my name and i felt like the blood just left my body i had an outer body experience like oh my god he sold out a thousand families i don't know why what's going on here but he sold out a thousand didn't even ask or didn't even fight and challenge and use any of my talking points. I go, wow, this guy is, this guy is another, he's a piece of work. For Alvin, that was the last straw.

We sad rolled over. He didn't stand up for the thousand families about to be displaced. So it was a struggle between taking care of my community and working for this person who I thought was unethical. And I started seeing the dark side of him. He's not just this aloof kind of character. There's a dark side to him. That was the first time Alvin saw something in Wiesad that didn't just look like apathy or boredom,

but something that felt more malicious. Alvin didn't get it. Why wasn't Wiesad trying to do something to help all the Wyvernwood tenants who were going to get displaced? It was like his indifference was becoming pathological. We tried to get in touch with the property owner, 15 Group, to ask about this meeting, but they never got back to us. We also asked Wisad himself about this meeting, as well as other anecdotes included in this episode.

He never got back to us. That iteration of the Wyvernwood project actually didn't end up going forward. This is 2006, and the Great Recession is just about a year away, stalling out pretty much all real estate projects, including this one. But the redevelopment of Wyvernwood

is kind of like this zombie that just won't stop coming back to life throughout Wisad's time in office. So, it's 2015, nine years later, and a post about Wyvernwood goes up on the website of the LA Conservancy, a local preservationist group. and rehabilitation of the existing Wyvernwood Garden Apartments, especially its existing tenants and rent control protections and its open spaces, a high priority in any discussions that take place regarding the future of the site. That's awesome. That's Richard Shave again.

That's an awesome statement to make. That's so great. My experience is the exact opposite of that, is that he refused to take a stand on anything that had to do with Wyvernwood. Here's why Richard's laughing. In that quote, it sounds like we said is going to try to make Wyvernwood a municipal historic landmark, which is possible. And that would set off some preservationist dominoes for sure. And maybe make developers at least try to find a solution that doesn't involve demolition. And here's something else. Richard says that making Wyvernwood a historic landmark is something we said could have done easily. If a city council member feels that a property in their district needs municipal landmark

status, they bypass everything and put it on council floor as a motion. And they bypass all of that. Yes, council members that want properties landmarked in their districts, they just get it done. So Wyvernwood stayed without any municipal landmark status. In public, you'd see we said speaking out about the importance. So Wyvernwood stayed without any municipal landmark status. In public, you'd see Huizar speaking out about the importance of protecting Wyvernwood and its tenants. But behind closed doors, nothing changed.

There was nothing standing in between Wyvernwood and demolition. And that's how it stayed for years, with the buildings and the residents in perpetual limbo. It was beyond the scope of anything Jose Huizar was prepared to do. He never wanted to deal with this. He wanted to ignore it until he was termed out because it's too explosive an issue. Because if you actually start evicting 6,000 people in the middle of Boyle Heights, I mean, that's just, that's a nightmare.

And so this is just something that no one really wants to touch. From the minute 15 Group bought the property in 1998 to the end of Jose Huizar's term, I see it as negative space. And it's just inability or refusal to take a stand on this incredibly important parcel and how it represents, in a nutshell, all the hopes and fears and dreams of Boyle Heights as it faces gentrification as it moves into the 21st century. So back to Alvin in 2006. It was that Wyvernwood meeting that made him realize, I can't keep working for this guy. So at that point, I stayed on for a couple of more months. And he was only serving one year

to complete Antonio Villaraigosa's term. And re-election had just started. Filing period had started. And I said, I can't let him run unopposed. There was actually one other person who ran in that election. Juan Johnny J. Jimenez. He ended up with about 5% of the vote. Anyways.

So on Friday, the deadline to file, I just told my wife the night before and she knew I was struggling. And I said, honey, I got to do this. I don't think we got a shot of winning, but I got to send out a message that this guy is not who you think he is. And hopefully people hear it. Imagine living in the 14th council District where we bring services to you. It's worked here beautifully. This is from Alvin's campaign video. It's the one and only video posted to the YouTube account Alvin Parra 2007. It's over 10 minutes long, it's extremely early 2000s, and it's extremely Alvin. So come join me. We're going to see some great things.

So how government works and how it can work for you. Let's go. Alvin gets into this beige SUV with his campaign poster on the door. The video cuts to black and then in yellow text, imagine your city government

working for you. The video follows Alvin around the district, talking about a bunch of hyper, hyper local issues. At one point, we watch him pick up a tiny piece of trash and throw it into a trash can. Nothing is too small. It's all the stuff that makes Alvin excited about local government. And that he felt like we saw it ignored.

Like Mr. Manchaca's tree. I'm standing here with Mr. Manchaca who lives in the 14th council district. And he reported a tree that was diseased and a tree limb was going to fall. How long have you been calling to report this? About three years. About three years. About three years. Yellow text pops up at the bottom of the screen. City is responsible for street trees.

We reported it to the Department of Tree Services, Urban Forestry, to trim the limb and make it safe for you. I think three weeks later they didn't respond. No, they never responded. They never responded. They never responded and the tree limb in fact did fall and fell. Alvin didn't expect to win and he didn't. We saw it beat him easily by almost 5,000 votes. I ran and I lost but I had to tell people this is not the guy you think he is. But word didn't get out. At least not much.

To most people in 2007, Wisad was still a golden boy. It was pretty easy to dismiss Alvin as a disgruntled former employee, which is exactly what Wisad did. In one LA Times article about Alvin running, Wisad called Alvin desperate. And in another, said that he demoted Alvin running, Wissad called Alvin desperate. And in another, said that he demoted Alvin because he

quote, simply was not performing. And to be fair, Alvin was a disgruntled former employee. That's the whole reason why he decided to run against Wissad in the first place. So that was like 13 years ago. And 10 years later, a lot of

stuff came out. And for a while, I thought he was going to get away with a lot. I didn't think it would get this bad. So Alvin was kind of like a Cassandra. You know that lady from the Greek myth who was cursed? She could see the future, but everybody would be like, yeah, okay, whatever, Cassandra. That's kind of what happened to Alvin. He tried to tell Los Angeles who Huizar was, but people didn't believe him. He tried to warn them that Wissad was a guy who was one person behind closed doors and

another in public. But the message just didn't get out. Next time on The Sellout. Wissad is fighting to be re-elected. He's running up against a guy named Rudy Martinez. And something strange starts happening during the campaign. Wissad's staffers start snitching to his opponent about things they'd witnessed in his office.

Their allegations were pretty wild. And some of them are made public. public. The Sellout is produced by Neon Hub Media and LA Taco. I'm your host, Mariah Castaneda. My co-reporters are Alexis Olivier-Ray and Carla Green. Carla Green is our lead producer, and she wrote the episodes. Our editor is Catherine St. Louis. Vikram Patel is our lead producer, and she wrote the episodes. Our editor is Catherine St. Louis. Vikram Patel is our consulting editor. Associate editor is Stephanie Serrano. Associate producer is Liz Sanchez. Our executive producer is Jonathan Hirsch.

Samantha Allison is our production manager. Fact checker is Sarah Ivry. Our sound designer is Hans Dale Sue. Eduardo Arenas made our theme music. Other original music by Moni Mendoza, with an additional track from Blue Dot Sessions. Special thanks to Erica Lindo, Javier Cabral, Tanner Robbins, Haley Fager, Natalie Wren, Adrian Riskin, Shara Morris, Navani Otero,

Janet Villafana, Vanessa and Jorge Castaneda, and Ivan Fernandez. If you want to know more about what you've heard on the show so far, head over to lataco.com to see a beautiful map of some of the places we talk about made by Tommy Gallegos, as well as new reporting and interviews.

This week, we've got two interviews with our amazing composers, Eduardo Arenas, who's from Boyle Heights and made our theme song, and Moni Mendoza, who's from CELA and made most of the other music you hear. Thanks for listening. See you next week.