| Photo by marek-studzinski on Unsplash
Part III of “Proactive People Must Protect Own Neighborhood” Series
This series intends to discuss socioeconomic empowerment for the City of West Covina in the San Gabriel Valley of the County of Los Angeles, California. However, this columnist will first discuss why the city government has for years “thrived” (pun intended) by signing anomalous contracts, creating perennial budgetary deficits, and selling parks and even streets. The city government has been controlled allegedly by a political clique of White politicians, along with minority allies that tolerate their pernicious governance. To this writer’s educated guess, said clique dominated city politics for decades in the small city of nearly 110K residents.
It is a small city because West Covina has a total area of about 16.09 square miles, consisting of 16.04 square miles of land and 0.05 square miles of water. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the population of the City of West Covina totaled some 109,501 individuals on April 1, 2020. It showed population growth since the April 1, 2010 census, which reported only 106,098 residents.
The city’s median household income (in 2024 dollars) for 2020-2024 was $101,065. But data show that persons living in poverty amounted to 10.0%. West Covina now has a growing population of homeless people, with some of them admittedly being transients. Perhaps a study of poor West Covinians, who total almost 11,000 residents, and how many often face the threat of homelessness.
Here is the breakdown of the racial composition of West Covinians: White alone, percent of 16.1%; Black alone, percent(a) 4.0%; American Indian and Alaska Native alone, percent(a) 1.9%; Asian alone, percent(a) 31.3%; Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone, percent(a) 0.4%; Two or More Races, percent 19.4%; Hispanic or Latino, percent(b) 53.2%; and White alone, (not Hispanic or Latino) 9.5% percent.
The 2010 U.S. Census recorded 10,545 Filipino residents in West Covina. Based on the demographic context of the total city population during the 2010 Census, 106,098 Filipinos represented roughly 9.9% of the total population in West Covina at that time. A significant share of the Filipino community settled in the southern portions of the city. But when the city was gerrymandered, oops, redistricted, the Filipino population was divided into Districts 5 and 2. And District 5 included a portion of the affluent South Hills area, which was some six miles north of it. South Hills is closest to Freeway 10, while the bulk of District 5’s population is closer to Freeway 60. The present councilmember representing District 5 lives in the South Hills area, and he has few neighbors who vote in said district (because they live outside the narrow corridor gerrymandered to it).
“West Covina’s TraPos later gerrymandered the district, which has many Filipino and minority voters, into two districts (2 and 5). It was intended apparently to minimize the number of Filipino-and-minority votes in District 5 against the status quo position of the city’s ruling political clique. The gerrymandering strategy’s bottom line was to deny Fred Sykes a seat in the city council.”
This columnist was not yet a voter in 2011 because he was just a permanent resident of the city. At that time, the city council election was held citywide. He noticed a candidate who lost in his first two attempts to be elected councilmember. His name was Fredrick Sykes, who lived just five streets away from this writer’s residence. Mr. Sykes, a retired deputy with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, was a fellow member of a minority group. This journalist said that it was high time for West Covina to have its first Black American councilmember and, eventually, its mayor. Because mayorship rotates among the five city councilmembers, this columnist thought that Fred Sykes lost in said first two elections because other minority voters did not support his candidacy — aside from the effects of racism.
This community activist cum wordsmith invited Mr. Sykes to attend regularly the Wednesday-morning meetings of the Media Breakfast Club (MBC) that was held then in the Filipino-American Community of Los Angeles (FACLA). Eventually, the MBC unanimously passed a resolution adopting Mr. Sykes as an Honorary Filipino American. An MBC member, David Casuco (now deceased) wrote a glowing account of Mr. Sykes’ bid for Council seat in his column in the Weekly Balita newspaper that circulated also in West Covina. He even called the candidate the “Moses of West Covina”, a term that MBC members first described Fred Sykes. Then this journalist accompanied Mr. Sykes and his volunteers in house-to-house campaign sorties in the four corners of the city. The group of Filipino-West Covinians “guaranteed” victory for Mr. Sykes, who placed second. The two top winners in that election each got a seat in the City Council.
As predicted, Councilmember Sykes started to question questionable (pun intended) perceived anomalies — some of which are described in the lead paragraph of this column article. He became the City Mayor when it was his turn. Then he ran for reelection. The ruling clique put up a White Vietnam veteran (now deceased) to minimize Mr. Sykes’ image as a decorated sheriff’s deputy and law-enforcement officer (LEO). This writer also believed that his absence in West Covina in the 2015 election contributed, too, to the defeat of Mr. Sykes by only 52 votes. This journalist went back several times that year to Sorsogon Province of the Philippines to prepare for the May 9, 2016, election for provincial governor. Unfortunately, the political bid of this writer also failed, like that of Mr. Sykes’. Because traditional politicians that Filipino pundits and humorists shortened to “TraPo” (sic) ran negative campaigns against both this writer and then Mayor Sykes.
The “TraPos” (a Filipino colloquial term for a cleaning cloth for dirty kitchen spots) belittled the reformers’ house-cleaning platforms of governance and socioeconomics. West Covina’s TraPos later gerrymandered the district, which has many Filipino and minority voters, into two districts (2 and 5). It was intended apparently to minimize the number of Filipino-and-minority votes in District 5 against the status quo position of the city’s ruling political clique. The gerrymandering strategy’s bottom line was to deny Fred Sykes a seat in the city council.
Now that Fred Sykes is a candidate again in District 5 for the same city-council seat in the November 3, 2026 election, the “TraPos” of West Covina have launched a well-funded negative campaign — even on Facebook — against him. But this time, other minority journalists like this wordsmith will accompany Mr. Sykes in some of his house-to-house mopping operations to report on his new quest for the council seat. Yes, so that he can continue his fight for good governance and viable socioeconomic programs. It is time to eliminate budgetary deficits, which are unsustainable and not a responsible way to run even a small city.
