CCPOA Urges Voters to Reject Ernesto Gutierrez

Cathedral City Police Officers Association encourages residents to reject Ernesto Gutierrez

CATHEDRAL CITY — Ernesto Gutierrez, who is up for reelection in November, has pissed off the powerful Cathedral City Police Officers Association with his constant meddling into day-to-day operations and micromanaging to the point that it is urging voters to reject Gutierrez on Nov. 8.

Payback is, as they say, hell.

The CCPOA has paid more than $4,000 for a billboard on Date Palm and 30th Avenue asking residents in District 4 to “Support Your Local Police Department. Vote ‘No’ on Ernesto Gutierrez for City Council.”

Starting in early October, the CCPOA will begin a “Vote No” on Ernesto Gutierrez campaign, Jesse Borrego, president of the Cathedral City police Officers Association, told Uken Report exclusively. “It’s unfortunate but it must be done given his recent statements about our agency and the disregard for the hard work that we do in the city.”

The CCPOA has notified Chief George Crum of its actions, Borrego said.

Gutierrez could not immediately be reached for comment Thursday morning.

The Cathedral City Police Officer’s Association consists of 36 sworn officers, below the rank of Sergeant, who have taken an oath to maintain law and order for our citizens and represent the finest element of our community, according to its website.

For some time now, Mayor Gutierrez has tried injecting his ideologies into this department, Borrego said.

“Mayor Gutierrez feels that he wants our city to look more like Indian Wells or La Quinta and routinely sends our department heads emails requesting we ‘enforce’ commercial vehicle parking within the city streets or street vendors from selling fruit on corners,” Borrego said.

Little does he realize; the hard-working predominantly Hispanic residents are the ones who work in Indian wells and provide services to these cities, Borrego said.

“By him having us give a local gardener a ticket for parking his work truck on the street or having it towed is sad,” Borrego said. “He isn’t the one out there giving these tickets, it’s us, and that impacts our city residents and their views on us.”

Borrego alleged that Gutierrez has also mentioned that “we are lazy and some in our ranks get paid too much. That couldn’t be further from the truth.”

“Yes, we get paid well, but it’s a dangerous job nowadays” Borrego said. “We are also about 1.2 officers lower than the national average. We just want change and a council member who we feel appreciates our hard work and doesn’t use us as pawns for his schemes.”

To his knowledge, the CCPOA has never done anything like this.

This isn’t the first time Gutierrez has been the subject of police ire.

In May, a longtime employee of the Cathedral City Police Department, Sgt. Corwin De Veas, told the City Council he believed he is being retaliated against because of his 40-year relationship with Guiterrez, as Uken Report was first to report. So, he used the public comments portion of a City Council meeting to air his list of grievances and to plead with the mayor to leave him alone, saying, “You’re causing me a headache.”

You may read the full story here.

At the time, Gutierrez acknowledge that he is personal friends with De Veas but declined to comment on his allegations. All he would say is that “I am pro police and against laziness in any department.”

Borrego now says De Veas’ gripe “was all for show.”