The Feb. 19 Fireside Room debate between the candidates in the 5th District Board of Supervisors race featured the incumbent’s passionate defense of his record amid an exchange of personal barbs with his opponent, Michael Rubio.

Parra, the two-term incumbent, faces a Tuesday challenge from Rubio, a former legislative aide to state Sen. Dean Florez.

The two candidates sparred over high unemployment, urban blight and public safety issues, among others.

Parra emphasized his lifelong familiarity with the 5th District and his challenger’s inexperience.

“I didn’t come here six months ago,” he said, referring to his opponent’s recent move into the district to qualify for the race.

Rubio said Parra had done the same thing eight years ago, to which Parra responded, “I have lived and worked in the 5th District all my life.”

The candidates’ statements reflected the different tone of their appeals.

Parra tried to establish himself as the true bearer of progressive credentials.

“Where were you,” he said at one point, looking out at the audience as a stone-faced Rubio sat to his right, “when I was threatened for supporting Jesse Jackson in ’64 and ’68 with my job and my life?”

He spoke of his family living in a tent on Jefferson Street “with 15 other people” after emigrating from Mexico. Highlighting his record of “40 years as a public servant,” he mentioned as accomplishments his support for community development projects and his promotion of diversity in the Bakersfield City School District while an administrator there from 1985 to 1994.

Rubio emphasized his willingness to work with the private sector, his role in regulating air pollution and what he described in an interview with The Rip as a lack of “leadership and accountability.”

“Let’s tap into the private sector,” he said. “We’re creating a community that is really becoming dependent on government.”

He implied that some areas on the west side of Bakersfield get more resources because they have better representation.

He said he has visited some 15,000 homes in the district.

“There’s a lot of people who don’t feel like they have a voice in the 5th District,” he said. “There are many things going on in the 5th District that wouldn’t be going on in Rosedale. That’s because they have a louder voice.”

Again and again, Parra tried to paint Rubio as an outsider who didn’t understand the needs of 5th District residents.

In an interview with The Rip, Parra, who speaks Spanish, criticized Rubio for not being bilingual.

According to him, Rubio was invited to a forum at the Spanish-language television network Univision, but didn’t come.

“He didn’t show up. There was an empty chair for him, because it was in Spanish,” Parra said.

“He doesn’t know the culture, he doesn’t know the language,” he added.

When asked if he was bilingual, Rubio said, “I speak some Spanish, enough to have a conversation.”

He said the fact that he went from door to door was more relevant.

“It’s more important to get out and speak to the people and not sit (in an office) on Truxtun Avenue,” he added.