Darren Suen’s hypocritical behavior thrives by letting fellow Elk Grove City Councilmember Sergio Robles’ slide for his admitted drunk driving
Remember to 2016 when Suen censured a political rival?
Riddle me this: What’s the difference between censuring a political rival for making a statement you disagree with and censuring an elected colleague who has admitted to an arrest for drunk driving?
Plenty, especially if you are Elk Grove City Councilmember Darren Suen.
During the 2016 Elk Grove Mayor campaign, the two leading candidates were Steve Ly and Kevin Spease. Ly was the District 4 council member, and Spease was a planning commissioner.
Spease had lined up the support of Suen, former Elk Grove City Councilmember Steve Detrick, and several organizations, including the influential Elk Grove Police Officers Association, the collective bargaining unit for Elk Grove Police officers.
When the police officers association endorsed Spease, Ly told the Elk Grove Citizen the Spease endorsement was a backroom deal. For making that comment, Detrick and Suen were apoplectic.
To express their disgust with Ly, Detrick, and Suen personally censured Ly and condemned his accusations against the associations. It is crucial to distinguish the political activities of the police officers association from the duties of police officers.
Notably, the city did not have a formal censure procedure until Bobbie Singh-Allen pushed one through not long after she defeated Ly for the mayoral position. Her victory was partly due to pressing the city council to censure Ly for his alleged political bullying.
To be clear, we are not here to defend Ly – he can do that on his own. Furthermore, readers of this site will note during Ly’s tenure, he was repeatedly criticized, he might say, disproportionately, on this site.
In a companion story that will be published later today, Suen told Elk Grove News that he would not support or sponsor a censure procedure against City Councilmember Sergio Robles, an admitted drunk driver.
Why did Suen quickly censure Ly for his statement, which was not criminal, during a heated campaign? However, when Robles broke a law, which is one of the tenets of the city censure policy, one that put the public at risk for injury or death, Suen washes his hands of the hazardous behavior and refuses to censure the reprehensible act?
At this point, we suppose Robles could get drunk and run down Laguna Boulevard waving a loaded gun and not be admonished ala Donald Trump. Riddle us this, Mr. Suen – what is the difference between a drunkard behind the wheel of a car and a drunken person brandishing a loaded handgun?
That is only a question Suen can answer, but the public can conclude Suen is nothing but a big, fat manure-smelling hypocrite. Suen has one standard for a political rival and another for his law-breaking, admitted drunk-driving city council buddy.
What an embarrassment Suen is, but this is standard operating procedure for Singh-Allen and her city councilmen, Suen, Spease, Robles, and Rod Brewer, all of whom are under her thumb.
