City Council candidate Mario Rivas is looking to the environment to help residents save some money.

Rivas, a former Marine and recycling coordinator for Huntington Park, owns a Segway, drives a Prius, and installed solar panels in his house to serve as an example to residents of how to use alternative energy resources.  One of the reasons he got a Segway, he says, is to make people conscious about carbon emissions from cars and the money they can save from not taking cars.

“If you save a family $50, they’ll greatly appreciate that,” he added.

He says he was inspired to become an environmentalist during the time he was stationed in Okinawa, Japan.

“The Japanese [people] over there were very keen on having their streets and their environment clean,” he said.  “I took a tour of the island and just appreciated the greenery.  People from mainland Japan, it’s like Hawaii for them.  Just the pristineness of it was what impressed me.”

Rivas aims to change environmental standards to bring money to a city that faces a deficit of up to $4.5 million, as well as changing the image of a city hurt by former council members arrested on suspicion of misusing city funds to inflate their own salaries.  

 “We have to think about the long-term sustainability of the city,” he said.  “And the image of the city needs to change.  People from outside need to know that the city is reformed, and has a brand new face without any special interest involved.”

Rivas’ other main goal is to win back the residents’ trust of city government without bowing to special interests.  When he first ran for City Council in 2008, he already appeared to distrust the local government.

“There wasn’t transparency,” he said.  “There was no website, there wasn’t City Council minutes, or a budget.  Those were…immediate red flags.”

To combat this, Rivas plans to open forums for Bell residents to discuss issues and to create City Council meetings for residents to voice their opinions and provide suggestions.  Through such open forums and his environmental strategies, Rivas believes he’ll introduce a “new way of thinking” to the community.  Perhaps, he says, he has an advantage because of the large Hispanic population in Bell.

“It’s part of what we appreciate, part of where we came from, the land, working with our hands,” he said.  “Most fourth-generation immigrants are now citizens, and they remember a time where we used to reuse, not take for granted a lot of things.  So my idea is to bring back those ideals to the community, back to this whole area.  Latinos have done a lot with less, and that’s our tradition.”

Reach reporter Josh Woo here.