Waukegan City Hall was an absolute circus on July 17th when the City Council listened to Margaret Carrasco’s appeal of her organization’s denial of a permit for the Fiestas Patrias Parade and Festival. Ms. Carrasco, a well-known controversial political community organizer, had previously run the event for several years.
Over the last several months, it has come to light that Ms. Carrasco had indeed tried to file for a permit to host the annual parade and festival. However, her organization submitted its initial application too early, so the City of Waukegan rejected it and reminded her she still owed the city thousands of dollars in security fees from the last time her organization ran this event that had to be paid before she could submit another application.
Fiestas Patrias is a patriotic holiday in Mexico, the anniversary of Mexican Independence from Spain. In other words, Fiestas Patrias is, to many Mexican people and Mexican Americans, the equivalent of the 4th of July. As the City of Waukegan is majority Latino, hosting an event to honor this special day makes sense.
While Ms. Carrasco had not filed the correct paperwork and still owed the City of Waukegan thousands of dollars, Puro Futbol, headed by Oscar Zepeda, filed all the proper paperwork on time, and his organization was awarded the event. Puro Futbol is a well-known Spanish-language newspaper publisher in Waukegan.
After the Puro Futbol was awarded the event, Ms. Carrasco paid the fees due from the previous year and filed an application, all too late, as the event was already awarded. She then filed a complaint that she should be awarded the event.
Ms. Carrasco was given a venue at the Waukegan City Council to appeal her case publicly. Insiders in City Hall expected that Waukegan’s nine elected aldermen would see through Ms. Carrasco’s inaccurate and rambling statements. After swearing to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth Ms. Carrasco committed perjury by lying that she did not charge for the parade. Alderwoman Florian corrected her, saying she had been charged $200 to be in last year’s parade, and Ms. Carrasco admitted she charged fees. This was not the only lie she told during her testimony.
Ms. Carrasco was given 15 minutes of time, Waukegan City staff in charge of special events were given 15 minutes, and the aldermen were allowed to ask questions of both sides. And when the final votes were tallied, they came back 7-2 in favor of overruling the City staff’s denial of her application.
With the Aldermen’s approval of a second parade on the same day and place, the City put out the statement below.
“The city’s overall goal is to allow both groups to celebrate their respective events and for the public to go enjoy these special events while maintaining adequate resources to protect all Waukeganites.”
So this means that Puro Futbol and Ms. Carrasco can now have their respective parades and festivals on September 17th. So one would think the drama would be over because everyone got their events with some stipulations. No!
In an article in the Lake County News-Sun, Ms. Carrasco said she would seek an injunction from a judge as if our legal system has nothing better to deal with. Meanwhile, Mr. Zepeda from Puro Futbol said he would move forward with his event within the city rules and said, “We will do everything possible to unify the Hispanic community, not tear it apart.”
Stay tuned in the coming days and weeks to see how this latest Waukegan saga plays out.
Comentarios