Community members are demanding answers from Vallejo city leaders following a disorganized and potentially hazardous end to this year’s annual Fiestas Patrias, a Mexican and Latinx arts and culture festival hosted by the Solano AIDS Coalition.
Organizers, participants, and visitors of the festival voiced their concerns at a city council meeting on Sept. 24. They said automatic sprinklers at a nearby parklet drenched attendees and electrical equipment, damaged cultural clothing, and caused safety and accessibility hazards at the portable bathrooms during the Sept. 14 event. Attendees also told the council that public works employees prematurely removed surrounding traffic barriers, exposing vendors and children to passing cars.
“These situations were a direct result of someone in the city failing to communicate with each other, and it feels very intentional,” Julia DeBartolo-Smith, special events coordinator for Solano AIDS Coalition, said at the council meeting.
Festival organizers and members of the Latino community during the meeting said the mishaps at the Fiestas Patrias event felt “disrespectful” and the city’s actions were “reckless and unsafe.”
“Children were in danger,” community member Juliana Cortez — a teacher of ballet folklórico — said in Spanish during public comment. “It scared me because I had four children participating in this event.”
Vallejo Public Works Director Melissa Tigbao told Open Vallejo in a statement on Sept. 27 that public works staff did not know the parklet would be used for portable bathrooms “as the area was not marked” in the event permit application submitted by the Solano AIDS Coalition.
A site map obtained by Open Vallejo through a public records request does not appear to include the parklet in the event plan. The special event application does include a handwritten note indicating that the organizers planned to make use of the parklet, however.
Tigbao wrote in the statement that the city recently scheduled additional irrigation in the parklet to address brown patches of grass caused by broken sprinkler heads. She also said Public Works staff maintained they only removed traffic barriers after the event ended.
In an email to council members obtained by Open Vallejo, City Manager Andrew Murray said the city has demonstrated its respect for Fiestas Patrias by providing “seamless” support for the festival in the last several years.
“The City employees who perform work on community events such as this are very diverse and many of them are Vallejo residents who appreciate and respect events such as Fiestas Patrias,” Murray said in the email.
Murray wrote in his email to the city council that event organizers bear responsibility for installing and removing traffic barriers provided by the city. He said city staff “do not believe” that they removed the barricades and are unsure who did. Murray wrote that staff collected the barricades, which were arranged “in an orderly fashion” against street light posts, after 6:30 p.m.
A department supervisor will be present at future events during set up and clean up and can address any issues that arise, according to Murray’s email.
Mario Saucedo, the president of the Solano AIDS Coalition, said his organization secured appropriate permits for the Fiestas Patrias event. According to a permit application submitted by the organization on Aug. 1, event organizers requested local road closures from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. The festival ran from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., but planners accounted for extra time for vendors to safely pack their wares, Saucedo said.
DeBartolo-Smith wrote in an Oct. 3 email to Open Vallejo that the traffic barriers were gone before 6:30 p.m.
Fiestas Patrias is an annual Mexican and Latinx arts and cultural event commemorating Mexico’s independence from Spain, traditionally celebrated on Sept. 16. Approximately 1,000 people attended this year’s event, which was held in downtown Vallejo. About 80 children performed traditional dances and songs, Saucedo said.
The festivities are part of National Hispanic Heritage Month, which runs from Sept. 15 to Oct. 15. The Solano AIDS Coalition has organized the event for nearly a decade to bring health awareness to the Latino community while introducing its culture to the downtown area. This was the first time they encountered issues like those earlier this month, DeBartolo-Smith said at the Sept. 14 city council meeting.
Saucedo said his team arrived at 5 a.m. on the day of the celebration to close roads and set up traffic barriers. He said city workers arrived three hours later to install the barricades but saw them already there. The workers then set up cones to divert vehicles from the event area, Saucedo said.
Vallejo’s Fiestas Patrias event ran smoothly for much of the day, according to Saucedo. But around 3:30 p.m., city-owned sprinklers popped up and began spraying festivalgoers, which continued for at least an hour, he said.
Cortez, the ballet folklórico instructor, said the water soaked traditional dresses, boots, shoes and makeup worn by the dancers. She said on Sept. 30 that she still has some dress shoes drying and hopes they aren’t damaged.
Community member Susan Hepler said her mother — who needs special accommodations — could not reach the portable bathrooms because of the wet ground and soiled herself. Hepler told Open Vallejo that her mother was “mortified” by the experience and is uncertain about attending future events due to accessibility concerns.
“They need to do better,” Hepler said Thursday. “They represent us; we voted for them. They need to show us that they care and that we didn’t just help them into a position of power they can abuse.”
DeBartolo-Smith said the organization notified the city that it would place portable bathrooms in the parklet to prevent the sprinklers from going off during the event. However, a review of the event’s permit application indicated that organizers checked “NO” to a question asking whether irrigation sprinklers would need to be turned off.
“We have worked with multiple mayors, police chiefs, and permit officers. We hope that we can get this issue resolved so we can continue to bring Hispanic cultural events to the city of Vallejo, and bring life, even for a brief moment, back to Downtown Vallejo,” she said in an email to Open Vallejo.
During last week’s city council meeting, Vallejo Mayor Robert McConnell apologized on behalf of city officials and asked Murray to investigate the matter.
Murray said his office will organize at least one open meeting this fall to discuss how Vallejo can better support these organizations. Saucedo said he will meet with city officials in early October.
“I want the city to take responsibility for their mistakes and for putting many people in danger,” Saucedo told Open Vallejo. “They should put an ad in the newspaper, post an apology on social media — in English and Spanish — apologizing to the Latino community. That would be the right thing to do now.”
Enrique Beltran said he has volunteered with the Solano AIDS Coalition for over a decade, putting up barricades and taking them down after events. He said the confusion made community members feel unsafe during this year’s Fiestas Patrias celebration.
“We felt discriminated against because they arrived and took down the barricades and didn’t seem to care that people were still there,” he said in Spanish. “They didn’t care if something happened to us or that they put our lives at risk. It’s really disappointing how things turned out.”
Saucedo said the Solano AIDS Coalition events attract members of the Latino community “who normally would not come to downtown Vallejo due to fear of racism and discrimination.”
“I’m not looking for who’s to blame,” community member Cortez told Open Vallejo. “Maybe it was a misinterpretation. We are human beings; we make mistakes. But it’s important to discuss because thank God nothing happened, but something could have happened.”
Askari Sowonde, who organizes Vallejo cultural events including an annual Kwanzaa celebration, said BIPOC community organizations have long felt that the city does not respect or support them equally. She said the disorganization at the Fiestas Patrias event is the latest example, and local groups are uniting to speak out.
“The city does not listen. They listen to the staff, not the community, not those impacted,” she said. “It’s a passive, ‘Mm-hmm, we hear you.’ But they keep doing the same thing. We have to beg and plead as BIPOC organizations.”
People impacted by the issues at the Fiestas Patrias event can submit a damages claim via the city’s website.
A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that Askari Sowonde organizes an Intertribal Pow Wow that is held in Vallejo. That event is organized by the 7 Generations Intertribal Council.
