Otay Water District Area 4 Director Hector Gastelum received praise from colleagues at Wednesday’s board meeting for his commitment in serving the water district.
Despite this commitment, Gastelum remains banned from serving on all of Otay Water District’s internal committees, including the Engineering, Operations and Water Resource Committee that Gastelum was assigned to last year before his removal.
Board President Tim Smith on Wednesday made the decision to keep Gastelum off of committees, stating that Gastelum’s social media behavior had not change since a censure was delievered April 22, 2017.
Gastelum was censured by colleagues last year after protestors flooded several Otay Water District meetings asking board members to take action on the then-newly elected Republican board member for social media posts that they said expressed an anti-Muslim sentiment.
In February 2017, Gastelum posted a series of Tweets in which he called for “legislators to increase the list of —so called” #MuslimBan to prevent #SubHuman #Scum from #USA to #MAGA.
In another Tweet, he called Muslims rapists and murderers.
Smith said by Gastelum posting his opinions on social media it disrupts the business of the water district, even though Gastelum uses his own personal social media accounts and not one associated with the Otay Water District.
“You have your own personal beliefs but when it interferes with the business of water that’s where we have concerns,” Smith told Gastelum on the dais.
As he has done from the onset, Gastelum on Wednesday stood by the controversial Tweets that got him censured.
“I’ve (previously) said that I didn’t paint (all Muslims) with the same brush,” he said. “My Tweet was very specific towards the (Muslims) raping people. What type of society are we if we can’t condemn someone who rapes a woman?”
Gastelum has always maintained that his social media posts about Muslims have been taken out of context. He has said his Tweets included links to a story about how Sweden has received more than 100,000 immigrants and only 500 of those are working and it has become the rape capital of the world.
During Wednesday’s meeting, after the discussion of the censure, Gastelum Tweeted a screenshot of his initial Tweet in an attempt to show that his words were taken out of context and that he didn’t paint everyone with the same brush.
Chula Vista resident Edgar Hopida, a Filipino American Muslim, asked the board to continue the censure for Gastelum.
“I see no remorse and I see no change in tune in his social media…,” he said. “I feel that he has not been remorseful, he still is sticking to the rhetoric. In fact, he has upped the ante in anti-immigration rhetoric since then (censure).”
Hopida said if Gastelum would have simply offered a sincere apology for his Tweet than it would have been “water under the bridge.”
