ARVIN, Calif. (KERO) — Arvin's newly elected mayor, Olivia Calderon, and council member, Jaime Perez are slated to be sworn into office at the end of Tuesday’s City Council Meeting.
- Arvin's mayor-elect Olivia Calderon and council member Jaime Perez are set to be sworn in at the end of the meeting.
- The agenda for the meeting is over 300 pages long with the swearing-in ceremony at the very end.
- Mayor Daniel Borreli previously placed the swearing-in at the end of the agenda, citing old business completion.
- The meeting will address pending items including grants, street construction design, and safety camera purchases.
- Mayor-elect Calderon criticizes the current council's ethics, claiming they are advancing their agenda unethically.
For your convenience, the skimmable summary above is generated with the assistance of AI and fact checked by our team prior to publication. Read the full story as originally reported below.
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:
Olivia Calderon and Jaime Perez, Arvin’s elected officials are slated to be sworn into office during Tuesday’s City Council Meeting. However, that won’t be until after the current council addresses pending action items.
"Tuesday, December 10th should be a day of celebration, it should be a day that we are sworn in and that we can turn the page, it’s a new day for the City of Arvin," said Arvin's Mayor-Elect Olivia Calderon.
Though Calderon and council member Jaime Perez are scheduled to receive the Oath to Office, Calderon says it won’t be in the way she imagined it to be.
"Instead, what I found is an agenda for December 10th over 300 pages and what you have is our swearing buried at the end of the agenda," said Calderon.
According to Arvin’s City Manager Jeff Jones, the mayor is responsible for placing items in order on the agenda.
"Two members of the city council may place things on the agenda," explained Jones. "The mayor is the person in charge of the meeting, so he or she sets the order of the items on the agenda."
And it’s not the first time this has happened. 23ABC reached out to Mayor Daniel Borreli, who was unavailable, but said in part quote:
“In 2020 [the council] had [the swearing] at the end right before the closed session because they had old business on the agenda that the past council had to take care of,” end quote.
This time around, the council will be addressing items from the agenda from November 12th—a meeting that was canceled due to a lack of quorum.
Those items were then discussed during the special meeting on Tuesday, November 26th, and were tabled by the council per the community’s request.
With the next meeting scheduled for Tuesday, the council is expected to discuss old action items as well as new ones, but this time, the public won’t be allowed to comment until the end. Within the old action items are:
1. The discussion of the Grants Manager Employment Agreement.
2. The consideration to approve $470,900 for the design of street construction.
3. The consideration is to purchase a two-year subscription of 15 Flock Safety Falcon Cameras and related technology worth approximately $109,000 for the Police Department.
New items include:
1. The consideration to purchase four vehicles for the city for a total value of approximately $193,000.
With costly items at hand, Calderon says the current council is acting unethically by placing both public comment and their oath to office at the end of the agenda.
"In a last-ditch effort to advance their agenda, this is what they’re doing," stated Calderon. "They have all of these items here and they have us until the very end, so that we have no say in any of these serious policy proposals."
Despite the council’s decisions on the action items, Jones says they can always be revisited once the new council members take office.
"The city council always has the right to look into revisions and overturning prior action. I believe it would take the request of two council members to place it back on the agenda," explained Jones.
Arvin’s City Council Meeting is scheduled to start at 6 pm at the Arvin City Chambers.
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