ARVIN, Cali. (KERO) — Some Arvin residents claim that the city attorney is overcharging the city. Now, Mayor Olivia Calderon is saying she’s doing her part to ensure the city is being mindful of its taxpayer dollars.
- Arvin Mayor Olivia Calderon is hesitant to sign a payment to City Attorney Nathan Hodges due to high charges.
- Calderon is responding to public concerns about the city's legal expenses, which exceed the budget by over 150%.
- She has requested to delay certain payments until she clarifies the invoice details with Hodges.
- The Mayor plans to initiate a process to hire a full-time city attorney, as Hodgess' interim role has exceeded the agreed timeline.
- City Manager Jeff Jones confirmed that the city spent $414,062 on legal services in the past year, far above the $240,000 budget.
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:
Some residents in Arvin have been raising concerns claiming that the city attorney is overcharging the city. And now, Mayor Olivia Calderon is saying she’s doing her part to ensure the city is being mindful of its taxpayer dollars.
"We haven’t approved this invoice at this point," said Mayor Calderon at Tuesday night's city council meeting. "However, again, I’m the new mayor here and I know that the city has hired us to do our due diligence and to be able to get clarity on how we’re spending our tax dollars."
At the meeting, Mayor Calderon motioned to hold off on signing payment for city attorney Nathan Hodges.
As the new mayor, Calderon says she is listening to public concerns about high payments made to Hodge's, and she questions some of his billings to the city.
According to the City Manager Jeff Jones, the city’s budget for legal services is about 240 thousand dollars. When it comes to Hodges’ services, Jones says—
"For the last 12 months, the total amount paid is $414,062. I want to say it’s about 150–160 percent of the budget."
Though Mayor Calderon did not discuss what items on the invoice she had questions about, she requested to delay the payment of his invoice until she discussed those charges with the city attorney. A request that Vice Mayor Susana Reyes was not fully convinced of.
"At the end of the day, he also has bills to pay, so I was just thinking if you are okay with certain items, why not pay him," questioned Reyes.
In a statement to 23ABC, Reyes added in part quote—
“The City Attorney’s check has been held since January 2. In the long run, this practice could damage the city's operational efficiency, and create a cycle of deficiency and mistrust between the city and its vendors,” end quote.
As a result, the city council voted to delay paying the charges Calderon had questions about until she discussed those charges with the city attorney.
"Although Arvin has never happened before, I’ll admit, what would happen then is it would go back to the city council and they would vote whether or not to pay that particular item, so it would ultimately be the decision of the council whether to pay an item or not," said Jones.
At the meeting, Calderon also directed the City Manager to begin a Request for Proposal process to hire a full-time city attorney.
According to her, in 2021, the city adopted a resolution and hired Hodges as an interim city attorney —a period that the resolution says was not to exceed six months or until a permanent city attorney was hired.
Since the city has not gone through that process, Calderon asked that action be taken to hire a full-time permanent city attorney.
23ABC reached out to Hodges for a comment on both items discussed at the meeting but have not received a response by news time.
Calderon says she plans to meet with both the City Attorney and the Vice Mayor to go over her questions early next week.
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