Nearly a third of the City of Industry’s population moved out of the insular manufacturing town in the aftermath of a bitter battle for three City Council seats in 2015, according to an analysis of voter registration records.

Most of those who disappeared from the voter rolls had been renting their homes from City Hall, records show. Some were city employees whose leases were terminated just after the election, shortly before they also lost their jobs.

Others say they left the subsidized housing — which costs as little as $770 a month today — out of fear of retaliation for supporting the losing side in the election.

Both of the incumbents who lost the 2015 election no longer live in the city of about 200 residents. Three other councilmen who chose to step down stayed in Industry, according to the voter registration.

Interviews and public records obtained by the Southern California News Group show city-owned housing in Industry often has been used as a tool for those in power to reward allies and punish dissenters. Decades of tight control over housing has allowed the city to shape the electorate to its will, resulting in just six contested elections since Industry’s incorporation in 1958, with only three taking place in the last four decades.

That’s despite the fact that candidates need only five signatures to qualify to run for office.

Today, four of the five council members live in the subsidized city-owned housing, with most residing in a gated hilltop neighborhood. The council, through an appointed housing board, controls roughly half of the city’s housing and manages more than $1 billion in funds, thanks to the city’s open-arms approach to businesses that would be unwelcome in more traditional cities.

The other half of the city’s homes are owned by the Perez family, owners of Valley Vista Services, the city’s exclusive trash hauler. Less than 10 residences are independently owned, according to voter registration records. Industry does not have residential zoning and most of the houses are mixed in with industrial areas, tucked behind business gates and in between warehouses.

For decades, the process for choosing and removing tenants of the public housing has been anything but fair. Industry has never required applications or proof of income. Tenants often were selected in secret, with vacancies going to the friends and family members of whomever was currently in power, interviews and public records show.

But that system may be changing.

City Hall mulls housing reforms

Three City Council members acknowledge past abuses of the process and say they would like to see it become more independent. Their new city manager is developing the city’s first rental application. Rents were recently raised by 20 percent, though the prices are still significantly below market rate and Industry spends more on the properties than it takes in.

Earlier this year, all of the existing tenants signed new leases, provided pet deposits and turned over lists of the occupants for the first time. The city also has placed a freeze on accepting new tenants and plans to conduct a rent survey to determine how much to charge future residents.

“We haven’t filled any of the vacant housing right now because we’re waiting on the housing commission and city staff to come up with a new lease agreement and process,” Councilman Newell Ruggles said. “We’re not just stuffing anyone in there to fill up the housing, like in the past, to collect votes.”

Ruggles, Mayor Cory Moss and Vice Mayor Catherine Marcucci said they would like to see Industry’s housing stock divided up or expanded so no single entity would own more than a third of the homes. However, there isn’t a plan yet for how to accomplish that goal.

City booted residents shortly after election

The fiercely contested 2015 election featured the second most candidates of any election in Industry’s 60-year history. Infighting ahead of the contest led to a district attorney’s investigation, two scathing state audits and criticism from a state legislator.

Industry terminated the month-to-month leases of eight households in the first six months after the election, effectively removing 10 percent of its electorate in one fell swoop. Three of the city employees who lost their homes later lost their jobs as well.

Two former residents, who spoke on a condition of anonymity because of a fear of retaliation, claimed the employees were forced out for overtly supporting the other side in the 2015 election.

Moss and Ruggles, who won their seats in the 2015 election along with Councilman Mark Radecki, said the decision to terminate leases was made by the city’s previous administration and the housing board at the time, not the City Council.

“I would never condone or want to evict somebody that voted against me, or who doesn’t believe what I believe in,” Ruggles said.

Former City Manager Paul Philips — later ousted in a different fight over housing in 2018 — previously said the leases were terminated to avoid any potential conflicts related to Industry renting to city employees. Three of the people who lost their homes, however, were not city employees.

Another five leases have been terminated since Philips’ ouster, though some of the tenants have yet to leave. In total, the terminations in the past four years involved about half of the 28 homes now owned by Industry.

‘Keep your mouth shut’

Once the homes were vacant, city officials filled them with allies. Some of the new tenants were appointed to boards, such as the Planning Commission, that require residency.

In 2016, then-Mayor Mark Radecki arranged for a family friend, Catherine Marcucci, to move in to one of the homes, according to text messages between Marcucci and the mayor’s wife, Mary Radecki. Marcucci was appointed to a seat on Industry’s Civic-Recreational-Industrial Authority board, and then ran unopposed for City Council after living in the city for roughly a year.

The Radeckis, who live in a 5,500-square-foot home that cost the city $450,000 to remodel, did not return multiple requests for comment.

The friendship between the family and Marcucci soured in late 2017, when Marcucci began asking questions about the application process for other tenants. In text messages obtained by the Southern California News Group through a public records request, Mary Radecki accused Marcucci of not following through with a promise to “keep your mouth shut.” She pointed out that Marcucci didn’t fill out an application either.

“Funny I don’t remember seeing you paying for a campaign going out there campaigning being elected by the residents of the city,” Mary Radecki wrote. “It was all handed to you every single bit of it the house, 2000+ a month, platinum insurance that pays for everything. Everything was handed to you by me, my husband and The people that had to work hard to make it happen.”

Mary Radecki continued, saying she wished she could give the council seat to her child because it provides health benefits.

“We gave it all to you instead of giving it to somebody else,” she wrote. “There is a lot of people that have been brought into the city to board seats, jobs by friends of friends, like you said you wouldn’t be in the city if it wasn’t for friends, so I don’t understand why out of all the people we’ve brought in you’re the only one causing problems.”

In an interview, Marcucci denied ever agreeing to vote a certain way in exchange for the housing. She voted in line with Radecki initially because, as a first-time council member, she felt an obligation to support the mayor, she said.

Once she felt comfortable enough to ask questions, her votes began to change, prompting criticism from the people who had brought her in, she said. The exchange with Mary Radecki made her hyper-aware of influence the City Council and other officials could have over housing.

“I was scared that I might get kicked out of my house,” she said in an interview. “I would like to think that with our new housing board, our new administration and our council that this type of behavior would not be tolerated.”

Behind-the-scenes fight over new housing

Radecki’s decision to bring Marcucci onto the council backfired later that year. In late 2017, Industry was moving to build new homes on the city’s outskirts, an unprecedented move for a city that once had a state law passed to specifically exempt it from having to build state-mandated affordable housing.

Letters from families began to trickle in, asking to move into the houses that weren’t even approved yet. The project, slated to be built by a nonprofit, jumped from a proposed 10 homes to 25. Neighboring residents in Rowland Heights showed up at Planning Commission meetings to protest the density.

The new homes would have doubled the city’s share of the available housing and become the single largest voting bloc in Industry. Three council members who opposed the project, including Marccuci, allege it was an attempt to seize power by filling the new houses with people loyal to Radecki, Councilman Abraham Cruz, and influential consultant Frank Hill.

Hill, a former state senator from Whittier convicted of corruption in 1994, officially worked as a consultant through an engineering contractor, but, unofficially, the three council members, neighboring administrators and other current city employees described him as a manipulative figure with his hands in every decision. While in the Legislature, Hill sponsored the law exempting Industry from affordable housing requirements.

Hill was one of the driving forces behind a proposal to build a massive solar project on ranch land the city owned between Diamond Bar and Chino Hills. That project ended up costing the city $20 million and left it with nothing to show for the financial support. The failed solar project has since spawned a half-dozen lawsuits from both sides.

The former senator has a long history with Industry. The city was one of his first clients after he got out of prison, records showed. The contracts were later canceled by the administration that lost the 2015 election. Hill met with Philips on almost a monthly basis in the latter half of that year, according to calendar listings.

Hill’s son became a tenant in Industry in the last four years, along with a number of friends and family members tied to council members now calling for a more independent selection process. The city has attempted, unsuccessfully, to terminate his lease.

Hill has not returned multiple requests for comment over the past three years.

In a February 2018 email to Philips, Councilwoman Moss expressed her concerns about the new housing project and Hill’s influence on it.

The city hadn’t created applications yet, or any process for selecting the tenants, yet was moving ahead with construction. A new City Council majority, made up of Moss, Marcucci and Ruggles, had fired City Clerk Bill Morrow the month before. Morrow was performing double duty as a consultant on housing reform. He didn’t have qualifications for either job and is a longtime, close friend of Hill.

Reform Monitor Bill Lockyer, a former state attorney general, was fired at the same time. The city never disclosed why.

“It has become clear to me that Bill Morrow is not working in the best interest of the City of Industry,” Moss wrote in her email to Philips. “His loyalty lies with Frank Hill and their goal is to rush this project through and hand-pick every resident to stack the deck for future elections.”

Moss alleged Philips was aware of the supposed scheme, and he was fired later that month. His second-in-command resigned in March 2018, saying he couldn’t keep working with the city because he felt the leadership had compromised reform efforts. Lockyer, in subsequent interviews, denied there was any plan to fill the new homes.

Philips declined to comment, citing the terms of a settlement agreement with the city.

In an interview, Moss said she felt the previous administration attempted to keep her and other freshmen council members in the dark on the housing project and other decisions. Today, the council is still trying to “clean up messes” created during that period, she said.

“There were outside individuals who were manipulating this council and taking advantage of our naivety at the time,” Moss said. “Fortunately, we were all quick learners and were able to see them for what they were.”

Industry’s Planning Commission killed the housing project and the City Council didn’t challenge the decision. National CORE, the nonprofit hired to build the homes, received a $425,000 settlement.

The city also backed out of the Tres Hermanos solar project, fired most of the people involved and formed a historic partnership with two neighboring cities to guide the property’s future.

More leases terminated recently

The housing board has sent out five termination notices in the past year. Two went to individuals tied to the previous administration. None of the letters listed a cause for the termination. The other three related to four units the city obtained from Perez family during the settlement of a lawsuit.

City Manager Troy Helling said the homes are in bad condition and the city needs to assess whether they should be demolished or renovated. Crystal Salome, who has lived on the property for 15 years, was offered $5,000 to move out by the end of August. She said that while the single-family homes are old and need repairs, the city is exaggerating the condition.

Her family of four has struggled to find a new place to live because of how expensive it is to rent a house outside of Industry’s bubble, she said.

“I don’t think what they’re doing is right,” she said. “To me, it seems like they don’t even care.”