During the Great Recession a decade ago, El Monte was in danger of losing much of the ground it had gained.
The working-class suburb lost four auto dealerships. Its city government laid off more than 100 employees, including 17 police officers, and slashed youth sports and after-school programs.
These were painful blows for a tightknit city that had become known, after a rocky period in the ’80s and ’90s, as one of the safest of its size in the country.
