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McFarland showcases summer interns; council praises hands-on municipal experience
Summary
Four interns presented projects ranging from finance work and records retention to public-works inspections and a parks-and-rec SWOT; councilmembers praised the program and asked staff to share presentations.
Four college and high-school interns who worked in McFarland city departments gave presentations to the City Council summarizing their summer assignments and recommendations. The interns — Roman Diaz (finance), an administrative intern (records retention), Evelyn Garza (public works), and Michaela Ayon (community development) — described hands-on projects including utility-lien reconciliation, business-license follow-up, a records-retention audit, construction-plan review and site inspection support for the West Kern Avenue and 2025 Street Rehabilitation projects, GIS and USA Dig-ticket management, and a SWOT analysis of the parks-and-rec district. Finance intern Roman Diaz outlined work on utility liens, business-license compliance, records retention and invoice coding; he said the projects helped secure city services and improve accounting accuracy. The administrative intern described sorting records back to 1955 and using the city’s retention schedule to purge outdated files and preserve required audits and water-testing records. Public works intern Evelyn Garza summarized field work on West Kern Avenue and Tenth Street, noting experience with construction inspections, ADA-ramp compliance and plan-reading. Community development intern Michaela Ayon presented a SWOT analysis of the McFarland Parks and Recreation District and suggested mobile-first and bilingual communications, CivicRec for online registration and payments, and a micro-internship program linking McFarland High School students to parks-and-rec activities. Council members and the mayor repeatedly commended the interns and asked staff to share the presentations. Council member Gutierrez said, “thank you for your hard work,” and Council member Gonzalez called the internship program “something amazing.” Staff named in thanks included Erica De La Cruz (city clerk), Jonathan Arceo (finance manager) and others who supervised the interns. Council members and staff said they intend to continue the internship program and noted the presentations give students practical experience that can lead to jobs or further civic engagement.
