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Parlier council meeting stalls as three members leave amid dispute over city attorney
Summary
Three council members left a Parlier City meeting during a dispute about terminating the city attorney, leaving the body without a functioning meeting and prompting allegations of Brown Act violations and warnings that removing counsel amid a $4,000,000 lawsuit could risk the city’s finances.
Unidentified Speaker 1, a member of the Parlier City Council, accused three fellow council members of "failing their fiduciary responsibility" after they left a meeting in protest over the council's inability to remove the city attorney, saying the group "threw a tantrum" and that she has "reported them." The departures left the meeting without a functioning agenda and halted action on several items.
The speaker raised procedural and legal concerns, telling the meeting that an acting city manager "does not have authority to expedite and approve a contract" and alleging the council took action in closed session on evaluation items in violation of the Brown Act. She said the council had reportedly "re-ported out 3–0" on a vote to terminate the city attorney and later questioned whether proper notice and authority had been used for personnel actions.
The councilmember warned of fiscal consequences if counsel were removed while a roughly $4,000,000 lawsuit against the city is nearing trial, saying such an outcome could deplete the general fund and leave Parlier without a local police department. "Would you want to have a city attorney be removed when we're going to trial? So that we can lose 4,000,000?" she asked.
City staff and another speaker (identified in the transcript as Speaker 2) discussed municipal code provisions governing quorum and attendance, with Speaker 2 reading a provision (cited as 2.04.0.09) that allows written notices to require immediate attendance and references a historical $25 forfeiture penalty from a 1921 ordinance. Because of the departures and confusion over whether the meeting formally opened, staff indicated no official minutes would be generated for substantive action.
Speaker 2 offered to prepare a memorandum reciting what occurred so the events would be documented for the record. Speaker 3 apologized on behalf of council for those who came to present and asked whether the meeting would be rescheduled. The transcript notes the next regular meeting date as July 18.
No formal motions, votes or ordinance actions were completed during the disrupted meeting. The lack of a completed meeting also postponed consideration of agenda items tied to deadlines and contract approvals. The councilmember who remained urged documentation of the incident and reiterated she had filed reports about the behavior and alleged procedural violations.
Next steps: staff indicated they would look into the legal effect of members arriving and then leaving, prepare a memorandum to document the events, and coordinate rescheduling for items that require a full council to vote.
