Paul Flores, a Porterville resident, used his three-minute public comment at the July 3 Charter Review Committee meeting to press the panel on transparency, accountability and membership. “My name is Paul Flores, and I’m here to address serious concerns about transparency, accountability, and the composition of this body,” Flores told Committee Chair Greg Shelton and members.

Flores said he had contacted district attorney public-integrity units, the Tulare County grand jury, every city council member, the city attorney and the city clerk to request Shelton’s resignation. He accused a local group he named and described as “Blessings of Liberty” of exercising undue influence and said the committee “only exists to reaffirm and follow orders from” certain local actors. “It seems like the committee only exists to reaffirm and follow orders from daddy Meister,” Flores said.

Flores criticized the committee’s demographic representation and said the membership did not reflect Porterville’s population. He also urged the panel to scrutinize members’ property holdings, asserting that Shelton had discussed owning multiple properties and saying it suggested a potential conflict of interest. “With those 7 hundreds, Porterville deserves the charter committee free of self interest,” Flores said.

Chair Greg Shelton acknowledged the comment period after Flores finished and the committee moved on to scheduled business. The committee did not take any formal action at the meeting in response to Flores’s remarks; minutes and later agenda items show the panel proceeded with its planned administrative work.

The committee’s discussion later in the meeting focused on process for handling proposed charter amendments submitted by city council members, anonymizing those suggestions and having committee members research and parse them for council prioritization. That procedural discussion did not include substantive responses to Flores’s allegations.

The meeting transcript records only Flores’s public comment on these topics; the committee did not vote or issue a statement addressing the allegations during the July 3 session.