Listen here:
In an hostility-filled three hours, the Morongo Valley Community Services District Board of Directors met for a special session online yesterday afternoon (February 23), to discuss what the board expected to be routine legal matters. Morongo Valley’s elected local government body convened in the special session to renew Resolution 23-01, which allows online meetings pursuant to AB 361, and must be renewed every 30 days, as well as to confer with legal counsel regarding exposure to litigation.
However, board members’ strained relationship with the public and each other led to a chaotic meeting, compounded by the idiosyncrasies of conducting a meeting with 75 attendees on an online platform.
This special session meeting, which was attended under protest by Board Director Johnnie Tolbert, was scheduled for 2 p.m. on a weekday afternoon, a time window which conflicts with local school pickup times and traditional working hours. The meeting was also announced with only 26 hours of notice, and shortly after last Wednesday’s (February 15) regularly scheduled meeting was cancelled. Board President Jennifer Henning said that the issue discussed during closed session was of immediate importance and necessitated the urgency the meeting. She also said that legal counsel was unavailable outside of normal working hours, a fact that other board members disputed.
These routine matters were surrounded by more than ninety minutes of public comment, during which many attendees called for the resignation of board members. Much of the frustration at the meeting was rooted in the CSD’s decision to switch legal counsel earlier this year, which some board members and residents feel was done without sufficient community review. President Henning ended the meeting by announcing her intention to work with Director Tolbert on an audit of funds paid to legal counsel by the Morongo Valley CSD over the last decade, which she said would be an agenda item at the board’s next regular session meeting, scheduled for March 15.
