Richmond’s 23rd Street Merchants Association is best known for sponsoring the annual Cinco de Mayo Festival that brings thousands to Richmond to celebrate. Despite some problems several years ago, it has become a successful and peaceful family-oriented affair that brings credit to its sponsors and to the City of Richmond.

All is not peaceful, however, at the 23rd Street Merchants Association where, it seems, a schism has developed rooted in local political priorities.

In November 2012, Rosa Lara was elected president of the 23rd Street Merchants Association for a two-year term to succeed Rafael Madrigal. According to an article in the January edition of La VOZ de Richmond, Vice-president Sergio Rios is quoted as confirming that the directors of the Association removed Ms. Lara from both the Board of Directors and the presidency on October 31, 2013. Rios announced that he has assumed the presidency.

Shortly after, Association Treasurer Gonzalo Ochoa submitted a letter of resignation, saying he was too busy to continue.

Lara, however, maintains that she is still on the board and still president. La VOZ states that as of December 18, “The feud continues and has escalated to involve lawyers on both sides. According to Sergio Rios, the lawyer for Ms. Rios is Josh Genser, which Rios considers inappropriate given that he is the lawyer for the entire association and should not be acting on her behalf.”

Which one is real and which one the pretender has yet to be sorted out.

So what is this all about?

It appears that at least one component of the dispute involves the association’s long and close relationship with Chevron. La VOZ states:

The 23rd Street Merchants Association was born with an internal contradiction. On one hand its name highlights a focus on the merchants of the most prominent Latino street in Richmond. On the other hand, the Mission Statement seems to embrace a lot more. It reads: “To serve the Hispanic and overall business community of West Contra Costa County.” The Association debuted in Richmond six years ago with a leading role in the annual celebration of Cinco de Mayo. With hard grassroots work and some wealthy sponsors, the Association was able to put together successful Cinco de Mayo celebrations. Chevron, one of the main sponsors, used this yearly event to promote its image and ameliorate community frustration for repeated fires and explosions occurring at the local refinery, and for ongoing pollution, as well as other conflicts involving the oil company.

When Rafael madrigal, a good friend of Chevron, left the presidency of the Association, he was followed by Ms. Rosa Lara who was elected president in November 2102, even though she is not a merchant. She cherishes the relationship with Chevron as well. During the 3013 Cinco de Mayo festival, security guards and police officers were sent to attempt to suppress community members from distributing information criticizing Chevron’s fires. U.S. laws protecting the First Amendment prevented them from blocking freedom of speech.

Chevron is not only a big sponsor but also an actual voting member of the Association, and so are several prominent Chevron advocates and lobbyists. In fact of the close to 100 members listed on the website as members (with voting powers) only a core are businesses residing and operating on 23rd Street. Even the pro-Chevron councilmember Nat bates is a voting member of the Association and so is Chevron lobbyist Eric Zell.

Sergio Rios also provided some insight into the disputed priorities:

We want to the focus to be on the merchants of 23rd Street and their needs. We want our customers to feel safer, we want crime reduced and the association more transparent and with more participation in the association affairs.

The 23rd Street Merchants Association is not against Chevron. Chevron contributed to the Cinco de Mayo festival of last year, and the City also contributed. We want to achieve more independence from both Chevron and the City.

The Association will be focused on the merchants of 23rd Street. This was not taking place. It was disregarded. There will be a refocusing towards the original concept of the Association. The Association is here not just to organize the festival of Cinco de Mayo, regardless of how successful it is, but to respond to all the needs of the merchants of 23rd Street.

Association Secretary Juan Munoz added:

The problem is priorities. For us, to organize a Cinco de Mayo festival is a secondary objective. For us it is more important, for example, to be able to provide scholarships for our young people. More than anything we want to prepare our youth so that we’ll have, through them, better representation in all areas.

…they (Chevron& company) try to carry the group in one direction when the group’s interests are elsewhere. But we are businesspeople and we are open to all and cannot close our doors. We do not want people to give us a label that says that we are against Chevron nor do we want a label that says we are in favor of Chevron. We don’t want to depend on Chevron and we don’t want to depend on the City. We want to depend on ourselves. Perhaps the idea is out there that the merchants can be bought by Chevron with money. That is not the case. The dignity of a person cannot be bought with money. It is important that this be clear. The Association has not sold out. Chevron is not managing us and we are not manipulated by Chevron and Chevron is not going to tell us what to do.

Rosa Lara responded with charges about the members of the board who tried to expel her:

They have been unsatisfied for a long time, and in reality they have not contributed what they should have as members of the board. They did not fulfill their responsibilities in the planning of the Cinco de Mayo festival but they insisted on being paid for certain services rendered. First they talked about donating their services, but later they demanded payments ($1,200 for Rios for DJ and $3,500 Munoz for bouncy castles). This is a conflict of interest. Even worse, Rios has been on the board for six years and he refuses to run every two years as the bylaws require.

Rosa Lara first caught the community’s attention in a big way when she was hired by the American Beverage Association to take on the proposed soda tax. A June 14, 2012 article in the Huff Post noted:

A powerful Washington, D.C., trade organization that represents PepsiCo, Coca-Cola and other major beverage companies is helping fund a Richmond group that is fighting a November ballot measure to raise taxes on soda and other sweetened beverages, interviews and records show.

A Richmond resident, Rosa Lara, is going door to door identifying herself as an organizer with the Community Coalition Against Beverage Taxes and collecting signatures on a petition. Although Lara doesn't mention it unless specifically asked, her group is supported by the American Beverage Association, the industry's main trade organization.

In May, Lara presented the Richmond City Council with a petition that she said included 900 signatures against the sweetened-beverage tax. Holding up a pile of papers, she also told the council that 100 businesses had signed up to oppose the measure.

… In an interview, Lara said she does not mention the American Beverage Association funding when she is collecting signatures. But if asked, Lara said she will acknowledge that she's a paid community organizer.

An August 6, 2012, article in State of Health,  Richmond Soda Tax Campaign in Full Swing

For weeks, 26-year-old, Richmond native Rosa Lara has been mobilizing local business owners against the measure. City officials project the tax could raise up to 8 million dollars a year to be used for things like more sports fields, nutrition education, and other anti-obesity programs geared at Latino and African American youth. But Lara says most of the people she talks to don’t believe that’s how the money will be spent.

“When I approach the people to let them know what’s going on it’s to educate them on how it’s going to affect the businesses and where the money’s going,” Lara says. “The money is going to a general fund. There’s no strings attached to that money.”

Lara says she’s already signed up more than a hundred business owners against the tax. Her anti-tax signs can be found on the windows and shopping aisles of several businesses on 23rd Street, a hub of Latino-owned shops. Lara says business owners worry their customers will go to neighboring cities for cheaper sodas.

At La Raza Market, where cases of soda are stacked counter high, Alejandra Nava, a cashier, says trying to track all ounces sold could mean having to hire another person.

But what makes the outgoing Lara a particularly formidable tax foe is that she has the deep pockets of the American Beverage Association — the trade group that represents Pepsi Co, Coke and others — paying her for her work.

Karen Hanretty is the group’s vice-president of public affairs. “The American Beverage Association always opposes discriminatory taxes on our products,” she says. “We think it is fundamentally unfair to single out any soft drink as a unique contributor to obesity.”

The anti-soda tax campaign was run by the same outfit, San Francisco public relations firm Barnes Mosher Whitehurst Lauter & Partners, that ran Chevron’s 2012 City Council campaign for Bates Bell and Roberson and against Martinez and Langlois. Immediately after the 2012 election, Lara was asked to join the board of the 23rd Street Merchants Association and to become its president.

Chevron also asked her to join the Steering Committee of For Richmond, the Chevron funded community funding organization, and featured her prominently in the Chevron Blog. Lara also started a new “Richmond Latino group” called Richmond Latino Leadership Political Action Committee.

Lara was seen as the Latino antidote to the RPA and to Richmond progressive politics in general. At the January 24, 2013, city Council meeting where disposition of the Gary Bell seat was discussed, Lara was quoted by Richmond Confidential as saying:

Gary Bell won the seat. Unfortunately he can’t take the seat,” said Richmond resident Rosa Lara. “Let’s let the voters vote. We can’t appoint someone that doesn’t fit the seat,” she continued, alluding to Martinez.

Lara has also been mentioned as a potential Richmond City Council candidate.

Lara appears to be a casualty in the battle for the hearts and minds of Richmond’s Latino community. The 23rd Street Merchants Association has taken on a distinctly conservative flavor, but La VOZ lists a distinctly progressive group of contributors, including Jovanka Beckles, Paul Kilkenny, Eduardo Martinez, Juan Reardon, Doria Robinson and others.

The context is reminiscent of the Richmond Chamber of Commerce, where the debate continues about whether the organization should focus on providing services and advocacy for all Richmond businesses or whether it should focus on advocating for Chevron and campaigning for pro-Chevron candidates.