Arcadia Politics, Plain Talk with Councilman David Fu on Homelessness, Recall, and Keeping Arcadia Safe
I sat down with Councilman David Fu for a candid look at his recall challenges. We talk about the homelessness, staged public comments, censure vs censorship, and why Arcadia’s core services keep improving despite noisy politics. Evidence, process, and public safety comes first.
- how judge vetting shaped a values-first approach to local governance
- elected versus appointed judges and accountability trade-offs
- Arcadia’s virtuous circle of schools, safety, and stable revenue
- homelessness drivers, legal limits, and targeted triage
- housing costs as a force behind unsheltered populations
- fire insurance pressures in high-risk zones
- manufactured public comment vs authentic civic voice
- censure as reprimand, not censorship
- city outcomes: balanced budget, fully staffed fire, rebuilding police
Visit arcadiaca.gov and select Meetings and Agendas, then watch the August 29 session to see the full presentation
You can hear this podcast on these channels below
Transcript
City Councilman David Fu
Christine Zito:
Hello and welcome to Arcadia FYI. I’m Christine Zito. I’m your host. I have a great show for you, so stay tuned for that because this is what it’s all about. That’s why it’s called for your information about the city of Arcadia, things going on outside the city of Arcadia because we all are one big happy family, like I always say in this valley. And thinking of that, I have coming up in very soon, I mean very soon, is some very special musical guests. You’re gonna like them. They’re local, they’re famous locally, and they’re gonna bring in their instruments and they’re gonna share with us some of their music and where they’re gonna be performing next. It’s really real, in fact, we’re gonna even probably go on location and see one of their performances. It’s gonna be a lot, a lot of fun. So I would like to thank our sponsors, Longo Toyota, Lexus in El Monte. I know. You have to go down there, check it out. They’re on this huge acreage of cars and trucks. And you never know, you might find your dream car there. Star Seven Financial with Francine Chu, the Santa Anita Park. There’s a lot of things coming up in the new year. The Olympics is coming very soon at the Santa Anita Park. We have Pete in here talking about that. And the Le Méridien here in Arcadia and Pasadena. Alrighty. If you’re listening on your favorite podcast channel or you’re watching on YouTube, you see I have a very special guest here in studio. He is with the City of Arcadia, and he’s on the City Council. Councilman David Fu, Welcome.
Councilman David Fu :
Thank you very much, Christine. It’s very I’m very happy to be here.
Christine Zito:
I am glad that you’re here. Boy, we have a lot of things to cover today.
Councilman David Fu :
Let’s go. Let’s dive in.
Christine Zito:
Okay, first let’s let’s talk about it a little bit about who you are. Um were you raised here? Were you born here? Anywhere on the planet?
Councilman David Fu :
You know, I ask myself those questions every day. Was I really born here? Uh yeah, I I I’m a you know good old-fashioned American. Uh I was born in uh in New York City. Um California when I was five and a half, lived in LA until I was twelve, and then moved to Beverly Hills. I grew up there through the middle school and the high school. Uh and I’ve been living here in Arcadia for about eleven years now, but before that raised my family in the West Side and so on.
Christine Zito:
So are you a New York Yankees fan? New York football giants fan?
Councilman David Fu :
You know, you’re you’re confusing me with somebody who has time on their hands. Uh you know, I I played football in high school, I was a wrestler, uh I used to play tennis and tons and tons of golf, but I gave that up and when I started to do a lot more serious public service. And it’s amazing, your life just came back to you. You know, I used to play 70 rounds a year, probably. And, you know, you’re two a days on Saturday, two a days on Sunday. My ex was a golf nut. And you know, the 19th hole, hanging out with your buddies at the club, all that stuff, you know, drinking a lot more than you’re supposed to, all those things that go along with it. And when I ended that engagement, I uh decided that, you know what, I’m gonna quit playing golf because I was playing really bad golf for years and years and years. I started when I was 12, but um you just recently gave it up? About about 10 years ago now. Oh and uh yeah, and you know, I got my whole life back because it’s amazing how much time it that I believe the term of art is time suck. That is a huge time suck to play golf between trying to practice and again hanging out. Even, you know, um if if you’re serious about playing golf, you try to play privately because the public golf courses take like seven hours to play one round of golf. And you know, in a private course you can kind of zip through, you can be done. I think we our record time was like two hours and forty-five minutes.
Christine Zito:
On an 18-hole or a nine-hole and going around twice.
Councilman David Fu :
18 holes, yeah. I mean, you can get just zip through there really quickly because a lot of time there’s just nobody out there. But uh, you know, it it still takes a lot of time out of your life. And so after that, uh instead, I worked for the state bar and I was uh worked on something called the Jenny Commission. It is the judicial selection process uh for the state of California. And what that is is it’s a statutory body, it’s created by law, uh, and you advise the governor’s office conducting a confidential investigation of anybody that the governor wants to appoint to be a judge in the state of California from the Supreme Court down. Uh it’s uh required by law, and uh kind of interestingly the backstory about that was that when Jerry Brown did his first spin through the mansion, one time uh he left the state to go on some business trip. And back in those days, the lieutenant governor and the governor were not necessarily from the same party, they weren’t linked, and so at that time, the lieutenant governor was Mike Kerb from the Mike Kerb congregation. He was the religious right, and he had was the leader of that um kind of fundamentalist religious uh uh singing group.
Christine Zito:
Good old days.
Councilman David Fu :
Back in your back in your other life. But so when Jerry left, uh Mike said, Hey, I’m the governor now, and he appointed a bunch of people to be judges. And when Jerry came back, he thought, not on my watch. So he had to find a way to unwind that, and there came a kind of fairly large pr political brouhahaha that came out of it. So out of that controversy was born the Jenny Commission, which is the Commission on Judicial Nominees Evaluation. And because of the timing of that vehicle, it prevents somebody from uh committing a kind of a midnight appointment that doesn’t have to go through some process. The commission is independent, it conducts a confidential investigation, there are specific rules, and what I tell people actually is that Jenny commissioners say it’s the most fascinating work you’ll ever do in your professional life. In fact, you should try it because I think you would really love it. And let me tell you why.
Christine Zito:
Okay.
Councilman David Fu :
Imagine you’re playing a parlor game.
Christine Zito:
Okay.
Councilman David Fu :
Except your rules are codified under the government code, violating them is a misdemeanor. You’re sworn to secrecy, you may never tell anybody about the investigation or any subject matter of the investigation, past, present, or future. You will make decisions that affect the lives of millions and millions of people going forward.
Christine Zito:
Uh-huh.
Councilman David Fu :
And you’ll be dealing with real life situations. It is the biggest freaking onion you have ever seen because in life, there are a gazillion permutations to things that happen. And it tests your sense of what is fair, what is right. You have rules that are, again, they’re codified, and you are to stay within your lane. There are specific things there. But when you apply to be a a bench officer in the state of California, you sign a comprehensive uh uh uh application, which um is uh call the the um the personal data form. And what happens is that uh when you sign it at the end, it says, I am authorizing the State Bar of California to climb up my derriere with an electron microscope. And you can ask for anything employment records, arrest records, tax records, health records, I mean anything. We don’t do it very often, but you could ask for anything in in the pursuit of finding out whether or not a person is qualified for the bench. It’s remarkable to do. You will participate in the selection of Supreme Court justices, the justices for the courts of appeal, all the superior courts in the 58 counties of the state of California. It’s remarkable, and twenty percent of the commissioners uh should be laypersons, should be what are called public members, uh so they’re not lawyers.
Christine Zito:
Okay, so people that are Okay, so someone like you. Yeah, someone like me picking a judge or choosing or uh saying that this person is qualified.
Councilman David Fu :
Well, so what what you do actually is you arrive at a rating. So um to give you a little bit of sense of the process, the application is reviewed based on the application. There’s a top secret way that an investigation is launched and uh electronic requests for information are sent out to people who are likely to know what the qualifications are of that applicant. From there, you conduct the investigation, and what you’re trying to learn is you’re usually between six and eight uh qualities. It’s uh job-related health is one of the sort of less uh weight.
Christine Zito:
We don’t want judges dying on the bench as they’re ready to depend someone.
Councilman David Fu :
But it’s uh your uh judicial temperament, it’s your uh legal acumen, it’s your community respect, your ability to be free from bias, and things of that nature which are important.
Christine Zito:
Oh my gosh. You see, you just opened up a whole can of worms on judges on the benches today and who put them who puts them there. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
Councilman David Fu :
Well, that’s that’s the thing, is that you know you uh when you go through that process, you’re only trying the only thing you can do is judge what you believe a person will be like when they are then appointed and are uh and robed.
Christine Zito:
Right, but some of the judges are elected there.
Councilman David Fu :
Trevor Burrus Well, that’s very interesting because at the state bar, and I spent a lot of time at the state bar, I was also the chair of the real property law section, and then I was not really quite part of the state bar. I was served on the judicial council after I left uh the commission. You can only serve for four years if you serve as the chair. So I was the chair of the commission. Most people are limited to three years. But what you find out is uh there is a body called the Commission on Judicial Performance, and that is the disciplinary body that investigates sort of acts of malpractice and uh malfeasance by bench officers, by judges. And what you find out is somewhere around 80, more than 80 percent of the judges who are disciplined are actually elected and not appointed. So what it shows you, and we’ll get to this about the election in a minute, okay, is that elections are beauty contests. Appointment is different. Appointment is somebody looked at you, somebody knew something about you, and they said, I think this gal or guy is gonna be okay. And if he doesn’t or she doesn’t, it’s gonna be an embarrassment to me, the person who put him there. And so people are very careful on appointment, they’re very careful to make that appointment, and they’re very careful to behave after they’re appointed. And it it tells you, and we talked about this a little bit before we got on camera, um where I came from is very different from where I am right now.
Christine Zito:
Yeah, because this is uh this is quite the journey. Because I have like, okay, so let’s go back. I said you were born in New York, you come to the West Coast, which Well let’s get into Oh my gosh, now you got me. Now I there’s so many questions I want to do.
Councilman David Fu :
I’ve got you off on all your mind is just spinning. I can see those wheels grinding away.
Christine Zito:
I know. I know I want to go somewhere and I just can’t. So let’s talk about who you are today in the city of Arcadia.
Councilman David Fu :
Okay, sure. Okay. Okay.
Christine Zito:
So you bring your family here. Did you do you have children?
Councilman David Fu :
I have children, but they’re not children. We’re waiting for we’re waiting for grandchildren.
Christine Zito:
Okay, waiting for grand waiting for grandchildren. Did your children graduate from Arcadia High School?
Councilman David Fu :
They did not. They went through uh I joke with people that I never went to private school, my kids never went to public school. My kids went through uh the University Elementary School at UCLA, which is legendary if you know it. It’s now they call it the lab school.
Christine Zito:
Yeah, they should be.
Councilman David Fu :
From there they went on to Harvard Westlake. My wife’s daughter, whom I consider to be my own, is a school counselor today in the Covina School District. And she grew up in Walnut and grew up in the Walnut schools. But our kids are both sides. Right there.
Christine Zito:
Yeah, Walnut High School, go Mustangs. So now that you reside in Arcadia, because I do want to get to who you are as a city councilman, what what um encouraged you, bribed you, or for you to run for city council?
Councilman David Fu :
So I never had any kind of aspiration to do this kind of thing. I um, you know, politics is a strange creature. And um although I have an ego like anybody else, I didn’t have the kind of ego that said that I need to get out in front of people. I mean, I get to do that anyway in different respects. And so I I didn’t have any burning desire to do that. Um when I was campaigning, people would ask me, so why are you doing this?
Christine Zito:
Yeah.
Councilman David Fu :
And I said, you know, it’s because I have this history of public service. Uh it’s not because I think it will make me special. And what I would say is, and I believe it to this day, is if you think serving on the Arcadia City Council makes you special, you don’t get out very much. You know, it’s a great honor. It’s a great honor to be elected by the people of your district to say we believe in you and we want you to represent us. There’s no question about that. But in terms of gratifying my ego and making me think that I’m better than somebody else, you know, you’re totally wrong.
Christine Zito:
Well, I didn’t even know about David Fu until you started running.
Councilman David Fu :
Well, exactly. And believe me, plenty of people don’t know about me now. Okay.
Christine Zito:
It’s just I didn’t even address this. You are a lawyer and you do business law.
Councilman David Fu :
I’m mostly a real estate lawyer. Okay. Um and mostly a real estate litigator. Uh I was an investment real estate broker. Can you lower my rent? Um, nobody can do that, not even God can do that. Yeah, that’s a tall order these days.
Christine Zito:
I know it is. I I would love well well, maybe we’ll have time to do that.
Councilman David Fu :
Well, it’s part of one of the questions that we talked about before about uh about affordable housing and ADUs and and what’s the status of that, and that’s a long, complicated question.
Christine Zito:
It is a long, complicated question, and I know it’s been something on the the city council that has caused great challenges. Now, being on the the city council now and with the makeup that’s all there and all the per different personalities, how challenging do you think it is to be on city council?
Councilman David Fu :
Uh you know, uh Arcadia is a wonderful city, okay, and I don’t just say that because somebody elected me to sit here. You know, we have a w an amazing town. Uh we are the sweet spot. Okay. It’s a really it’s a Goldilocks thing, okay? We’re not so big that you’re just an anonymous number someplace like when you live in Los Angeles. You’re we’re not so small that we don’t have our own police department, we don’t have our own fire department. Not only do we have a top-notch police department and fire department, but we have the Arboretum, we have a regional shopping center, we have Santa Anita. You know, it’s amazing for such a small city, 56,000 residents, to have so many attributes that really set it apart and enable us to do things.
Christine Zito:
And a great and a great high school, great education.
Councilman David Fu :
One of the top public uh education systems in the country, right. So um and that is what I talked about at council as being the virtuous circle. Okay, it’s that we have amazing schools, so people want to live here. Because people want to live here, they compete to own homes or to rent here. Because they do that, we have very strong, very steady property values. Because we have strong and steady property values, we have a lot of tax revenue, and that tax revenue then goes back to support those schools. So this is a the the, you know, it’s the confluence, the stars are aligned, it’s just the right place in the universe for us. Uh we have a very safe community, uh, it’s beautiful here in the foothills. I mean, there’s just really it’s Mecca, okay? And so um it because it is Mecca, we don’t really have a lot of really serious problems, but we have a lot of dumb ones that people create, okay? And that’s part of my uh of my crusade. Yeah.
Christine Zito:
And before we get to your crusade, because I I I think one of the biggest problems, and with me being a b a small business owner here in downtown Arcadia, is the homeless. I mean, I wish I could do something. I mean, my heart goes out to them, but when they block the door or you know, I mean, I I ask I’ve asked every council person that I’ve had a chance to talk to. I mean, I know there’s not like the one and all perfect solution to it, but I mean, how would David Fu address this situation?
Councilman David Fu :
So, you know, uh and I don’t want to uh minimize this, but anecdotally, I believe that the homeless situation uh in terms of disruption and people uh affecting businesses is gradually improving.
Christine Zito:
Yes.
Councilman David Fu :
Um I do agree with that.
Christine Zito:
Thank you to the Arcadia Police Department.
Councilman David Fu :
Right. Well and you know, there’s an old political science joke that says somebody who’s mugged once is a liberal and somebody who’s mugged twice is a neoconservative.
Christine Zito:
Okay.
Councilman David Fu :
And you know, the the thing about and I’m 65 years old, okay. You know, that uh you getting pissed off about things will make you illiberal, okay? And so I think that we all share the same view that our heart aches for the unsheltered, for people who are suffering from mental illness, from uh the fact that these people are living in squalor and they are uncared for and they have a uh a variety of health and other and and mental maladies. That I think that there’s no one, you’re not human if you don’t think that’s a problem.
Christine Zito:
Yeah.
Councilman David Fu :
The question is is um what do you think is the appropriate remedy? And that depends a lot on how many times you’ve been mugged, okay? So because the reality is that we live in a country of laws. Our political philosophy is that personal freedom is pretty much number one on our list. And because we have personal freedom, we may not abridge that freedom from for people who really probably need more help than we can legally provide them. You know, when you look at the statistics on homelessness, what you find is that roughly a third of people are suffering from mental illness. Roughly a third of people are suffering from drug addiction. Um and I always say that if you’re not crazy now, living on the street for a month will make you that way. And if it won’t drive you to drugs, then you know nothing will, right? So, but if you look at those numbers, what you realize is that there are people who live on the street, they say because they want to.
Christine Zito:
Yeah.
Councilman David Fu :
But the one of the reasons why they want to is because In order to be in institutional housing, they have to get clean, clean and sober. And they don’t want to do that. And we don’t have the laws to compel that. We don’t force people into rehab programs.
Christine Zito:
Well it’s like the housing issue. Some people think that we build more houses, it will solve the homeless situation. And it doesn’t.
Councilman David Fu :
Okay. It’s written by two, I think, UW professors. And I commend it to your reading. And the theory, and I think it’s fairly accurate, is that the cost of housing does ultimately drive homelessness. Not all homelessness, obviously, but a big part of it. And what they say is that they prove this by looking at the sort of the counter-arguments. For instance, in other communities that have smaller, unsheltered problems, what you see about that community is that some of them have really great weather, like we do in Southern California. One argument is, oh, we have great weather in Southern California, so everybody comes here to be on the street. Okay. But there are other places that have decent weather that don’t have the magnitude of our homelessness problem, as an example. And so what they point out is that what is common to all cities with very large unsheltered populations is the high cost of housing. And what they point out is that there is a substantial portion of the homeless population, which is unsheltered because they suffered from a financial shock. They were doing, they were paying their rent, they were breaking even, they were hand to mouth, but then something happened. Their car broke down, they couldn’t afford to get it fixed, so they couldn’t get to work, so they lost their job, and within 90 days they were on the street. I have a question for you.
Christine Zito:
Okay.
Councilman David Fu :
What is the average age of a child in homelessness? Entering homelessness, pardon me.
Christine Zito:
Entering homelessness? I would say two years old.
Councilman David Fu :
You’re very close. It’s one year old.
Christine Zito:
Uh-huh.
Councilman David Fu :
One year old. Okay. But that’s a shocking number, too.
Christine Zito:
That is a shocking number. It tells you And I just use two just to I mean I’ve heard of the.
Councilman David Fu :
You pulled it out of the air. I know you, Christine.
Christine Zito:
Well, no.
Councilman David Fu :
So that two-year-old didn’t do anything wrong. They’re not on drugs, they’re not alcoholics, okay, and they um they’re not criminals and they’re not mentally ill. They’re there because of circumstance. And I’m not saying that all homelessness is uh a victimless crime and you didn’t do anything wrong, and blah, blah, blah. You know, the we don’t need to get into those kind of questions about the rugged individuals and you know, just pull yourself up by the bootstraps. Okay. But what it does illustrate is that there’s a large portion of the population of the unsheltered, which is there by happenstance, it’s not because of any act of their own. And um so the question is then, uh, what do we do about it? And one answer is, well, try to improve overall the accessibility to shelter. Um, and that if we can, and I had said this actually when I was campaigning, if we could help to locate uh some of our unsheltered uh occupants or residents, pardon me, and try to discern, okay, who is it who’s suffering from mental illness, who’s suffering from drug addiction, and look to the others who are there because they just had a bad break. And try to get them enough to get them back into a housed situation. And then from there, I would argue that those folks who were working before should be able to find work again and should be able to maintain themselves in a sheltered environment.
Christine Zito:
You know what? I I’m so glad you said that because I agree with you.
Councilman David Fu :
Um when I Well, I’m glad you said it too. Because I love hearing people tell me I’m right.
Christine Zito:
Um it’s a good conversation.
Councilman David Fu :
But you know what? There’s nothing wrong with that.
Christine Zito:
Okay?
Councilman David Fu :
What I don’t like to see is where people don’t argue about the facts, they don’t argue about the issues, they call each other names and they try to engage in character assassination instead, because that’s not solving the problem.
Christine Zito:
And I think and then now let’s just bring it up.
Councilman David Fu :
That takes us to the recall, doesn’t it?
Christine Zito:
Yeah. I was just gonna say, let’s just let’s talk about this whole recall thing.
Councilman David Fu :
Nice segue. You want another softball here? I know.
Christine Zito:
I think I have but I do want to say with everything that’s gone on with the city council, and I’m a I I am a resident of Arcadia, so I’m just gonna be I’m I’m gonna talk as a resident.
Councilman David Fu :
It’s then you’re better than Stephanie Aiken, who doesn’t even live here.
Christine Zito:
Okay. Uh I’m gonna speak on the behalf of Christine Zito, and if some of the residents agree with this, this is great. I have been disappointed in the council with everything that has gone on with all the arguments and uh, you know, just all the nitpicking and hey, you did this and stop doing that, and we’re gonna silence you and hey, how come this person?
Councilman David Fu :
And so let’s talk about that. So talking about this, and I appreciate that because I do hear people say to us, you know, do we really have to go through all this? Does does this really, you know, uh it’s a waste of time, and you know, why is this so important? Okay. And the answer is that um I I don’t have an objection to people who say, I have an idea, I want to give it a try, I want to do something. What I object to is people who don’t try to establish whether or not that idea is something which is viable by talking to the subject matter experts in our city first, and then saying, okay, I spoke with the fire chief. He agrees with me that we could use a wildfire consultant. Okay, and this was something which Mayor Kwan had advanced, which was never discussed with the fire chief, never discussed with the city staff. It just was blurted out there, okay? And well, and what I argue about that is that it was showboating. It’s this kind of idea that I’m gonna score political points because I’m so clever. Look at me. Look, Ma, no hands, look how smart I am.
Christine Zito:
Do you really think Mayor Kwan is is show boating and that she wants to put I mean, do is she in a place as a person that that needs political points?
Councilman David Fu :
You know, I don’t know Mayor Kwan very well personally, although I tried to get to know her. I uh my wife and I, Natalie, Natalie’s my wife, we tried to be her friend. And because, frankly, other members of the council had said, forget it, you know, this person is not to be trusted, don’t even bother. But I said, no, I’m gonna give everybody a shot. I’m gonna give them their their chance to prove otherwise. And I was disappointed. Um, do I think that that’s what Mayor Kwan does? Yes, I do. Okay. I’m sure of it. All right. And I’m sure that quite frankly, that April Verlotta was behind it and that she had been advancing this because, quite frankly, Mayor Kwan was not using her own words. I I know Mayor Kwan well enough to know that she’s got limited English facility, okay? And the stuff she was saying is just stuff she wouldn’t say. You know, I speak the way I speak because I speak that way. If you heard me speak Chinese, you would know that I really don’t speak Chinese. I’m really terrible. I mean horrible.
Christine Zito:
And if you and if you tried, I wouldn’t even know anything.
Councilman David Fu :
Yeah, I went to Berkeley, and Berkeley has the best East Asian language program in the country. And uh in I took one year of Chinese, I got a B minus, a C plus, and an F, and I was out of the program. Okay. Okay.
Christine Zito:
Well, do you think April Verlardo is really behind it? Or like whispering in the in the ear of May Kwan?
Councilman David Fu :
Oh, absolutely. There’s no question. There’s no question.
Christine Zito:
And you can you can prove that?
Councilman David Fu :
Um probably if we had to. I’m sitting on the dais with Mayor Kwan, and Mayor Kwan is responding to things, and she’s reading from her cell phone. Okay. Now, you’re not writing on your cell phone because you can’t be doing that and listening at the same time. That’s just not the way our brains function, okay? So and yet I I’m watching uh the mayor reading from her phone, often mispronouncing words because you didn’t write them. Once she I heard her mispronounce, use uh swap the word personal for personnel, okay, which is confusing, right? No, and I’m not I’m not trying to demean her or say that she’s stupid. I’m just saying if you didn’t read it, I’m sorry, if you didn’t write it yourself, and you and you know you’re a radio personal personality, or you were, right? Very much. You know the difference when you write your own material, it’s fairly easy for you to uh to then uh present it in a way because you know where you’re going, you know what’s said.
Christine Zito:
Well, it’d be my story.
Councilman David Fu :
Right. Okay. But if someone just handed you a late breaking news here, okay, and you say, Okay, I’m reading this, this is just in. And and that’s where you say, uh uh and you you start reading and okay, no, I’m sorry, this is a mistake. No, I’m sorry, it was you know injured, not just in.
Christine Zito:
Well, from experience, when someone gives you a rip and read, you do read it and then you paraphrase it later.
Councilman David Fu :
Trevor Burrus Yeah, but that’s not what we’re seeing with. Okay, that’s okay.
Christine Zito:
So I’m just saying, in just in my experience with rip and read in radio. Well, let me let me ask you this. Okay, so let’s get to the recall.
Councilman David Fu :
You’re talking about somebody who’s a professional at that presentation. Okay.
Christine Zito:
Okay.
Councilman David Fu :
And so that’s not what we see. But but before we get to the recall, I just want to explain something that that I think is a fair question from people, and I try to explain it. What went on was a variety of different kinds of behavior. As an example, besides this idea that the kind of showboating this thing and wasting city council time with proposals which really are unproven to be necessary. Um we also experienced that phenomenon with the endless teenagers going through City Hall and you’re laughing, okay, because it was funny, right? You know, had the kids who were who uh do assumed the names of the foo fighters when they got up there to try to diss me. Yeah. And so um, you know, we had these teenagers going up and saying, uh I’m I’m concerned about the cost of fire insurance. And it’s like, dude, you don’t pay for the fire insurance in your house. Okay, where are your parents? And the answer is, of course, is that for whatever reason, I think they were told this is a great thing you can do. You can put it on your college application that you spoke at Arcadia City Council, like that’s going to impress a lot of people. Um and so they got up to try to make that point. The problem is we live in a democracy. And what you’re doing is you are trying to manufacture evidence that these that the community is concerned about something. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that fire insurance is not a problem. Fire insurance is a huge problem all over the West, certainly in California, right here in District 1, because I live in Highland Oaks and it’s a high fire danger area. It’s a big problem. But I don’t want to hear little kids getting up at City Council and telling me how important this is because it happens to dovetail into somebody’s assertion that we need a wildfire consultant. Okay? That’s fake news. We don’t need that. If you really think that your community is going to support an idea, then go to the people who are really affected by it, explain your position, and tell them, I would like for you to come to City Council and support me. All right? It’s an artifice and it’s anti-democratic. It’s wrong. Because you’re trying to imply to people that something is there when it’s not.
Christine Zito:
Okay, so so you don’t think that nobody in District 1 need is interested in fire insurance or no, it’s not the point.
Councilman David Fu :
The the point is that the people who are there because they are personally interested in the issue and they believe city council. Okay. And should come to City Council and express that. And to be honest with you, I’m I I actually don’t do that. I don’t ask people to come to City Council.
Christine Zito:
Okay.
Councilman David Fu :
Okay. Excuse me one second.
Christine Zito:
Okay, go ahead. Well, while you’re while you’re drinking water. Um it’s uh is that you or is that me? It’s me. Okay. Okay. Oh, you got the ding ding, yeah. Um got it.
Councilman David Fu :
Round two.
Christine Zito:
I thought it’s five o’clock somewhere. Um okay, so I get what I get what you’re saying.
Councilman David Fu :
Yeah, so there’s a reason for this. Okay. And what I said was, hey, both fit, okay? You know, you know. Okay. Beep.
Christine Zito:
Oh, I’m not bleeping that out.
Councilman David Fu :
No, yeah, it’s if you really have this issue. It was like the kids who were, you know, who said, Oh, my name is Dave Grohl from the from the Foo Fighters, right? Right. And I said, that’s funny, okay. But you know, uh I live in the video era and we had taken the video and pieced it together and showed how these kids were say had the same uh buzzwords and attack lines. It’s clearly the it was clear that they had been scripted by someone.
Christine Zito:
Right.
Councilman David Fu :
One person who had gave them the same script. So all the kids were scripted then to come to city council and then come up with the We had a nine-year-old who lived in Temple City come to City Council and call the city council racist. Now, excuse me, you probably haven’t noticed this, but I happened to observe the other day that all five of us are Asian.
Christine Zito:
Okay.
Councilman David Fu :
A nine-year-old from Temple City, nine years old, came in and said, I don’t live here, but I pass through Arcadia with some frequency, and I’m concerned that the city council is racist, and then uh got you know expressed dissatisfaction with our treatment of the mayor. Okay. Um I’m sorry, that is fake. That is manufactured. I don’t want little kids coming to City Council if unless it’s real, it’s genuine, you know. And what you see is kids will say, I’m working on this project, I’m studying homelessness, I think that we could develop, you know, a facility of the city.
Christine Zito:
Well, do you think those kids maybe be becoming coming on the behalf of their parents, or maybe should the parents are you thinking maybe I don’t believe that for a New York nanosecond.
Councilman David Fu :
Okay. Okay. That kid’s mom wrote a letter actually later on and said something like, uh, because it was alleged at that point that he was part of another group. And the mom actually wrote a letter and said, Okay, please read this at City Council. Uh that my son is not part of that group. She was not willing to be kind of part of this misrepresentation. She wasn’t willing, however, to come to City Council. And I don’t blame her. Okay. You know, I think that what happens is that for these kids is they don’t realize that they’re being manipulated, all right? That they’re being used for some purpose. They’re just saying, hey, I’ve got a great idea for you. Why don’t you do this? That’s like your buddy who says, hey, you know, I just need to take this bag and drop it off at that that boarded up house on the corner, knock three times and say, My name is Joe, and then drop the bag on the floor, and somebody will pick it up. And uh I just too busy to do it myself. You know, you are being used for some nefarious purpose. And that is wrong. It is wrong for us to encourage children to come to city council and make statements that are not genuine, they’re not really their words. It is wrong for us to encourage children to come to City Council and you know, and to just bag on city council and give fake names, because we don’t have a way to really prevent that. We must allow people to speak at City Council because it’s a an open forum and we’re not allowed to edit that in any way. But when we encourage people to come here and waste our time and give us funny names and pretend that they’re they believe in something, I I think we’ve we it’s a bridge too far. Okay. We’re no no longer encouraging young people to take action. Now we’re encouraging young people to be manipulated by others and to have a fun laugh on the Arcadia City Council. And I don’t want to see that.
Christine Zito:
Let’s talk about your recall. Sure. So you’re being recalled.
Councilman David Fu :
So I’m being recalled because of the censure against the mayor. That’s exactly really what it says. That that it was without evidence, that it was retaliatory, and um basically it was the other times there were other they’ve tr they tried to do this four times, and it’s taken them a long time to get it together, okay? But basically that it’s like driven by my own ego and ambition. All right. Well, first of all, I was one of four people who voted for the censure. I just brought the motion, okay. And the other three happen to agree with me. The second thing is that all the evidence for the censure was video evidence from city council meetings. All I did was show the video. And so we showed the video of the mayor denigrating Dr. Michael Cow for his military service because she said, Don’t tell me you’re a veteran. I checked into your background. You didn’t carry a gun. Dr. Cow spent ten years active duty. Active duty, this isn’t like some plush job at at Walter Reed. This was active duty frontline in Iraq and Afghanistan. And in his unit, uh, according to the description um online, what they would do is they’re basically flying in a he was Air Force, they’re flying in a mobile hospital, they fly into the combat zone, they evacuate injured troops, and they take them out. It is way freaking dangerous. Okay. And what I observed during the Century Motion was that according to the the United States Army, over 200 medical personnel have been killed in action um since the Vietnam era. Um it’s not a safe thing to do. Okay. And uh I have tremendous respect for Dr. Cow. Oh, I do too.
Christine Zito:
My grandpa was a was a medic in the Army. World War II.
Councilman David Fu :
You know, it it you are saving lives, okay? And you’re saving lives in an environment where a lot of people are taking lives. Um and that’s just part of the hypocrisy or um uh no the contradictions of what war is about. But um to try to denigrate a service member, and then she said, I’ve done a lot more because I’ve given millions of dollars to veterans. Well, you know, so there are four taboos in that, and politically speaking. Number one, you denigrated a doctor, which people don’t like. Number two, you denigrated a a a veteran. Number three, you denigrated a doctor who is a veteran. And number four, you bragged about your money. Okay. And that’s you don’t do that in politics unless you want to be out of politics. Right.
Christine Zito:
And you have uh all of that on videotape?
Councilman David Fu :
Of course. I didn’t make it up. She was right there.
Christine Zito:
Um so have you seen it, by the way? I’ve seen some of it. I haven’t seen I didn’t see the I only heard about her um degrading.
Councilman David Fu :
Oh honey, we’ll we’ll show you all kinds of stuff.
Christine Zito:
Yeah, so I yeah, but I’ve heard other things too. But I’ve also heard other things from all city councils, so it’s because I would have okay, so you s so the censor I mean what it’s censure. Censure, I’m sorry. Censure is keeping her from saying certain things.
Councilman David Fu :
No, it’s not, actually. And that’s that’s why I made the distinction. Um people are getting confused with censorship, like you know, I I’m censoring You like you, you’re a radio person. We were joking about my BS comment a little bit earlier. Um so censorship is when uh a viewpoint or a particular words or uh even visual conduct, I suppose, um, are uh prevented from being transmitted to somebody else for some reason. Okay. A censure is a public reprimand of a member of a body for behavior which is inconsistent with the values of that body. And that was really the issue is that we don’t want people to come in and advance pointless positions which are unnecessary and uh uh unresearched and unproven, uh not really adequately vetted in order to try to just create some kind of political recognition, I guess. Look how smart I am, but you know. And um but it was much more than that. Again, it was the in my view was this anti-democratic conduct of taking people, seating the audience, pretending that they’re uh expressing a legitimate viewpoint when in fact these are people who couldn’t possibly hold that um that uh motivation. These kids are not writing the checks for fire insurance. If you went to their parents and said, You’re concerned about this, your son is concerned about it, please come together and come to a city council and do this. Okay, then I don’t have a problem with that. You know, fire insurance, it’s a real thing. You know, I’m lucky mine has been picked up, but uh my neighbors uh hasn’t been haven’t been picked up and we’re all stuck with fair plan. Um, you know, that’s okay. I I’ve got no problem with that. It’s not the question of viewpoint, it’s the question of who is behind this and orchestrating it and for what purpose. And that is artificial and uh and it’s disingenuous to believe that it’s organic. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
Christine Zito:
So it’s not necessarily that Mayor Kwan can’t say certain things, it’s just being reprimanded for Yeah.
Councilman David Fu :
No, she can say what she wants to say. Um what we did was we agreed that all of us would limit our comments to certain areas.
Christine Zito:
Okay.
Councilman David Fu :
And so um, but you know, there were also personal attacks and things of that nature. She she did it with me, and and you wanted to talk about the recall. Okay. Yeah, the recall.
Christine Zito:
I mean, so you’re being yeah.
Councilman David Fu :
So this is all about the recall, is the whole th the Well, the they’re saying that um that my conduct against the mayor was retaliatory, and actually it’s the other way around, that this recall is retaliatory because I was the one who spearheaded the censure, you know, I because I made the motion. Um and you know, that’s fine, bring it. That’s what I I said that during the other.
Christine Zito:
Okay, so for me, uh okay, in in just what you’re saying, the only thing is is how’s the city doing? So that’s where the city is doing great.
Councilman David Fu :
Okay, so let’s talk about it.
Christine Zito:
Yeah, that’s what real fast. I just I because we do Okay.
Councilman David Fu :
To summarize that the the recall is basically an attack on your Yeah, it’s your but it’s this weird vanity project because it’s never gonna happen. Okay. You know, it’s really, really hard to recall uh um an elected official in any place. And it’s I think it’s gonna be impossible here.
Christine Zito:
Yeah.
Councilman David Fu :
Um for one thing, um it’s interesting. I’ve talked to a lot of people, just kind of, you know, in the community, outside the community, in our adjacent adjacent communities, and they all come to me and say this and they go, what the heck is going on with these guys? What are they thinking? You know? Um, because this kind of assertion that, well, no, uh, there was no there, there, there was no evidence. You’re kidding me. My presentation went on for two hours. It was it was all video, you know. And so uh it it it’s they’re really kind of you know whistling past the graveyard. But what they’ve what they have done is they’ve convinced a handful of people that, oh, David Fu’s a bad guy and he’s got whatever his agenda is. That’s fine. You know, I’m for somebody who doesn’t have an open mind, you’re not gonna change their mind, so don’t bother. They’re not worth your time, okay? But for anybody who is interested in in you know what happened, I will tell you, we have a wonderful website of the city of Arcadia, arcadiaca.gov. Go to the meetings and agendas tab on our website, and you can look at any city council meeting, pull August 29th, and just fast forward about an hour and watch the presentation that I did. But pack some, you know, pack a lunch, because you’re gonna be there for a while, uh, and you’ll see that I methodically point out all these places where it’s quite clear that someone, and namely the mayor, with whatever help she had, had contrived to set up people to you know give her softballs, to uh try to aggrandize her image and things like that. Uh you know, it’s not necessary. You already won your election. You’re there, okay? You don’t need to people come up and tell you, oh, you know, you’re the greatest person in the world and you’re my total role model, and I think you’re, you know, that you have uh you know, that you’re this amazing uh uh woman and that you’ve uh uh uh uh uh made all these achievements. It’s like, okay, yeah, so what? You know, what does it have to do with anything here? Um to me, what really capped it was uh one of the things was that there was a a young woman that they gave a um commendation to for speaking at City Council means for her bravery, okay, for 10 minutes of public comment. And and I said, so here’s the juxtaposition is that this woman you gave a commendation to for her bravery to come before the city council and call us names, basically. But Dr. Cow spends ten years in active duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, and you think he’s not really a veteran. Okay? I mean, that is it’s colossally stupid and it’s tone-deaf. And um i it it’s an offense to our community. It was poorly reflective of our community, and most people I say I I talked to say that the mayor did not really shine in any of those moments. Um, you know, but as far as it being fake, just watch it. I didn’t manipulate the video. It’s all you know straight there. You can go back to the meetings that I excerpted and pull it from there if you want.
Christine Zito:
And there was no censorship there. So you know what? I there’s so many things I want to uh you’ll have to come back in and we can consume. Oh, look, we’re out of time. I know, I know. Um but I thank you for coming in. I you know, you had a lot of you you said a lot of good things, and I think that all the city council people um are doing good things for the city of Arcadia. I think some some of it has gotten sidetracked with all the the stuff that has gone on in the city council meetings.
Councilman David Fu :
But let me make one point about that, okay? And that is that all the work that we need to do is getting done. Okay? I mean the the city has a balanced budget. We’re likely to show a substantial surplus this year. We have our fire department is fully staffed for the first time in years. This was a uh a uh labor contract that Mayor Kwan and and Ms. Verlato voted against. But because we are now paying our firefighters with a competitive wage, we now have a fully staffed fire department. Our police department is still rebuilding, but they too are competitive now. The the most important things in the city to the people who live here are our services, of course, but mostly public safety. And so those things are absolutely secure. Yes, and there’s nothing that we’re not, quote, not getting done. And that’s because we have a great city with a great city staff and they take care of us.
Christine Zito:
You know, I love this city. I can honestly say that I love the city of Arcadia. I love being here, I love working here, and I love being in downtown Arcadia. And and it and that’s why we have this show, so we can hear the good news of what you guys and gals are doing in this city.
Councilman David Fu :
So But we don’t have to like, you know, we don’t need a lot of self-aggrandizement for that. You you know, you voted for us to do a job, we’re gonna do it, you know. And if we’re not gonna do it, then vote us out. Okay. But we don’t have to blow our horns and you know say, oh, look at me, I’m so smart. It’s just, it’s just, it’s dumb, you know, it’s really dumb.
Christine Zito:
Oh, you are quite the character. I you know, I’m believe me. You know what, it’s it’s been great to get to know you in this conversation. So thank you so much.
Councilman David Fu :
Thank you. Thank you, Christine. I I really appreciate the opportunity.
Christine Zito:
We will continue this conversation, but I do want to thank our um I need to go back to my sponsor. See, you made me lose my sponsor here. It’s it’s your fault. That’s it.
Councilman David Fu :
It’s uh well, okay, recall me. I’m recalling you as a guest.
Christine Zito:
I would like to thank our sponsors. Longo Toyota in El Longo Toyota, uh Lexus and El Monte, Star Seven Financial with Francine Chu, the Santa Anita Park, which is just right down the street here, the Le Méridien Hotel in Arcadia and Pasadena. Until next time on Arcadia FYI. Be blessed and make it a great day.
