Former Metrolink board member arrested

The San Gabriel Valley Tribune reported today that Baldwin Park City Councilman Anthony Bejarano was arrested for public intoxication Friday night; I confirmed the report with Sgt. Darryl Kosaka of the Baldwin Park Police Department.

This is the second time in a week that Bejarano has been in the news. He was a member of the Metrolink Board of Directors until he was replaced last week by Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who made two new appointments to the board in his role as chairman of the MTA board in the wake of the fatal train crash on Sept. 12. Villaraigosa was seeking a greater role on the board -- and the move came before Bejarano's arrest.

Bejarano told the newspaper that he had been drinking earlier in the night but hadn't had a drink in hours and was not drunk. "I did nothing wrong," he said. "I was not drunk. I was not driving. I was not belligerent. I did not scream at anybody. I did nothing wrong."

The Tribune reported that the city is not going to file charges against Bejarano.

--Steve Hymon

Comments

[calwatch]

Not so if you know Baldwin Park. Like many of the mid sized cities in LA County, Baldwin Park has gone through a lot of turmoil. The Council is divided over a proposed redevelopment project to concentrate thousands of people in buildings up to 150 feet tall (no joke) next to a Metrolink station in their downtown. Which would be nice except the San Bernardino Line is at capacity right now, with standees on most trains during the peak hour from Covina westward.. The EIR claims "transit oriented development" but a bus line with a base frequency of 30 minutes during the midday (Line 490) fails even the most basic test of TOD. He asked for a school board member accused of disorderly conduct to resign, but now he's in trouble? Double standard, although I agree it has little to do with the Metrolink Board (other than perhaps he's crying in his beer over the ability to hobnob with regional politicians, instead of the two bit council members at the local COG).

[Spokker]

What a non-story.