Dateline Carson – In the latest zaniness encircling the three- or four-person City Council, after yesterday’s concluding count, Pastor Jawane Hilton was declared the winner – by merely 18 votes out of 5,096 ballots — of a special election on June 2 to fill the chair vacated when Mike Gipson was elected to the state Assembly.
While that much is true, it seems that Mr. Hilton now occupies the chair that Al Robles held until he was selected as mayor in April.
“Strange, huh?” asked Jim Dear, the City Clerk who was mayor until last March’s elections.
“He got elected to Gipson’s seat but was appointed to Robles’s seat,” Mr. Dear said. “Let’s say the Council allegedly made the appointment at Tuesday night’s meeting. I don’t believe it was legal.
“During the meeting, (Mayor Al) Robles said, ‘I make a motion to appoint Jawane Hilton to the vacant City Council seat.’ Lula Davis-Holmes instantly seconded it.”
Mr. Dear said that when his lone ally on the Council, Elito Santarina, “hears that, he stands up, takes his staff report and walks out of the room. Therefore he did not participate. His intention was to not be part of the City Council meeting.
“He is 70 years old. So he is not, like, quick on his feet. He immediately, immediately walked out of the room.
“At that point, I said ‘There is no quorum.’ The Council cannot conduct business without a quorum. The mayor said, ‘We already have conducted business. We already have appointed Jawane Hilton.’ The Hilton crowd was there, and they cheered. Mob mentality.”
The seats formerly held by Mr. Gipson and Mr. Robles are due to expire in March 2017.
Why did the two-person Council majority appoint Mr. Hilton to the old Robles seat instead of the old Gipson seat to which he had been elected?
“Here is the reason,” Mr. Dear said. “You have to realize the way the law works. They could not appoint Hilton to Gipson’s seat because Gipson’s seat is what the election was about.
“As for Robles’s seat, because Robles resigned from it on April 21, they have only 60 days to make an appointment, which expires on June 20. By appointing Hilton to Robles’s seat, and then Hilton getting sworn in next week, Hilton can resign from the seat he has because of the Robles appointment.
“That,” said Mr. Dear, “would start the 60-day clock all over again. That way, the Council may appoint someone else to the Gipson seat, giving the Council five persons.”
Not as an afterthought, Mr. Dear said “it is important that they do not get away with this.”
The city clerk said he will bring his second lawsuit of the week against the City Council in an attempt to invalidate their action.
So far, he is undefeated.
As a wallet note, as opposed to a footnote, Mr. Dear will seek attorney’s fees from the Council for last Monday’s lawsuit that disappeared when the Council conceded Mr. Dear was correct.
Fresh from a legal victory when two of the three members – Mayor Al Robles and philosophical partner Councilperson Lula Davis-Holmes – conceded they did not have authority to act last Friday on seeking to speed up the final election count.
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