Commerce city manager, tied up in federal cannabis probe, abruptly resigns

Commerce City Manager Edgar Cisneros, entangled in a federal cannabis corruption probe of public officials, has quietly resigned the position he held for six years.

Cisneros stepped down during a closed meeting late Friday, a day that City Hall is typically closed. The city has yet to announce the departure on its website or social media, though Cisneros submitted a resignation letter at the time and the City Council formally accepted it.

The city declined to release copies of the letter or the terms of Cisneros’ separation, claiming the agreement between the two sides has not been finalized yet.

“The City Council met in closed session with all five members of the City Council present,” City Attorney Noel Tapia said. “The City Council unanimously accepted the city manager’s resignation.”

Assistant City Manager Vilko Domic has taken over the city manager’s duties for now, according to Councilman Kevin Lainez. The details of who will succeed Cisneros are “still being worked out,” he said. He declined to address the reasons for the resignation.

Domic did not respond to a request to comment. Cisneros could not be reached.

Implicated in cannabis probe

Cisneros’ resignation comes a year after court filings first implicated him in the federal cannabis investigation involving public officials from Baldwin Park, Compton and San Bernardino County. The filings, following the arrest of San Bernardino County Planning Commissioner Gabriel Chavez in October 2022, identified Cisneros as “Person 14” in the case and alleged that individual, while serving as the city manager in Huntington Park, funneled at least $45,000 in bribes from companies seeking retail cannabis licenses to Baldwin Park City Councilman Ricardo Pacheco from August 2017 through February 2018.

Cisneros operated a cannabis consulting business at the time and allegedly gave a sham contract to Chavez in Huntington Park to cover a portion of the bribes, according to the filings. Cisneros, a longtime Montebello Unified school board member, served as the city manager in Huntington Park until transitioning to Commerce in November 2017.

Both Pacheco and Chavez, who acted as a middleman in the dealings, have pleaded guilty to bribery charges as part of plea deals reached with the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Baldwin Park City Attorney Robert Tafoya, labeled a “co-conspirator” in court filings, resigned from the city in response to allegations that he had, along with Compton Councilman Isaac Galvan, assisted in the scheme.

Federal authorities arrested Galvan on a 10-count indictment in August. Tafoya has not been charged.

At the time of Galvan’s arrest, a fourth case had been filed under seal by federal prosecutors.

Ciaran McEvoy, a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles, declined to answer questions about whether Cisneros has or will be charged in the probe.

“Pursuant to our neither-confirm-nor-deny policy when it comes to publicly discussing the existence of investigations, we have no comment,” McEvoy wrote in an email.

Cisneros declined to comment about the allegations against him or to answer questions about his consulting business when asked about it in May.

Allies benefit

Investigations by the Southern California News Group have found that at least one of Cisneros’ allies have benefited from his time on the Montebello school board and at Commerce City Hall as well.

Martin Fierro, a Commerce-based businessman, built a multimillion-dollar business off the cheap rents offered by Cisneros’ public agencies. Fierro began renting the parking lot of a shuttered Montebello Unified school in Commerce in 2015, while Cisneros served on the board, and ran a successful swap meet for years.

Then, as the pandemic hit and the ports ground to a halt, Fierro leased multiple vacant lots from Commerce, solely approved by Cisneros, for pennies on the dollar to turn into parking lots for tractor-trailers. Though he paid only $2,700 per month for 18.8 acres, real estate experts estimated each acre alone could have generated $30,000 to $50,000 per month.

Commerce even asked a private landowner to rent to Fierro, a move that later led to threats of a $5 million fine from L.A. County when it turned out Fierro had set up an unpermitted parking lot atop a former landfill. Cisneros blamed the property owner for failing to get the proper approvals.

A cannabis company backed by Fierro was one of the few selected to receive a development agreement with the city, despite missing key deadlines that should have disqualified it, according to records reviewed by the Southern California News Group. The company voluntarily withdrew from the process in May, just days after the Southern California News Group asked Cisneros about the city’s handling of its application.

Cisneros, who said at the time he did not know Fierro was involved, denied the company received any special treatment. Others had missed the same deadlines and were permitted to continue as well, he said.

Several of the leases tied to Fierro have expired or been terminated in the past year, records showed.