Council affirms mayor's appointees to Community Grant Review Committee after split vote

The El Mirage City Council on April 21 voted 4-3 to ratify Mayor Hermosillo's appointments to the Community Grant Review Committee, ending a heated debate over whether application scoring should be an administrative task or involve council members.

Councilmember Norton McDaniel moved to decline the mayor's appointees and have staff perform all scoring using a rubric, arguing that scoring is an administrative function that should minimize the appearance of favoritism. "Because the rubric already provides an objective scoring system and because scoring is an administrative task, a council committee is not necessary and could undermine the objectivity the rubric is designed to provide," Norton said during the discussion.

Opponents of Norton's motion said council participation would offer oversight and help resolve implementation kinks the first time the program is used. "Just because there may be an element of subjectivity doesn't mean that it lacks integrity," Councilmember Monica Dorsey said, describing the multilayered review used in other local grant and scholarship processes.

After the procedural motion to decline the appointments failed to produce a final appointment change, Mayor Hermosillo moved to ratify the original appointments: Vice Mayor Parsons, Councilmember Monica Dorsey and Mayor Hermosillo. On the roll call, the motion passed 4-3 (aye: Mayor Hermosillo, Vice Mayor Parsons, Councilmember Dorsey, Councilmember Winston; nay: Councilmembers Aldridge, Gentry and Norton). The council recorded and confirmed the vote at the meeting.

The council's action establishes the three-member committee for the FY 2026——27 grant cycle. According to staff materials discussed at the meeting, the committee will review and score eligible nonprofit applications using council-approved criteria, deliberate in public, and provide nonbinding, rank-ordered funding recommendations to the full council.

Councilmembers who opposed the appointments said they were not opposing the program itself but sought clarity that staff would apply rubric criteria consistently and that council involvement would not create the appearance of favoritism. Supporters said council oversight would help refine procedures and provide additional transparency for the first year of the program.

The council did not vote on changes to the rubric itself at the meeting. Council members may direct additional follow-up or changes to the process at a future meeting.