The Morongo Valley Community Services District special meeting scheduled last Friday, June 30th at 6pm was canceled due to lack of quorum at 6:15.
In a last ditch good faith, Park Commissioner Christina Gorke and Finance Director Johnny Tolbert waited 15 minutes past start time for a possible change of heart from Fire Commissioner Michael Emory, who sent an email Thursday saying he would not be attending despite requesting the meeting be rescheduled to that date.
Emory has since been absent from the last three meetings in over three months due to personal family issues, but with last Friday’s meeting being the fourth, his reasoning is pure refusal based on civic semantics—that he will only attend regular meetings, not “special meetings.”
Tolbert said, ”There were a series of emails between myself and Director Emory. I pleaded with him to come to tonight’s meeting. He believes the community response is that they do not want a special meeting.”
Tolbert reiterated the three time sensitive items on the agenda: to reinstate previous legal counsel with Brunick, McElahaney, and Kennedy in the wake of Best, Best, and Krieger’s resignation last May; to approve the Smith Marion and Co. audit engagement letter and the annual resolution for fire suppression with the agreement for collection of special taxes, fees, and assessments for the fiscal year of 2023-24.
Tolbert continued, “We had an email from him June 18th saying he’d be available June 30th, so we rescheduled for tonight to accommodate him. He replied (yesterday) he is not coming to a special meeting—(he claims) the public has told him they do not want a special meeting. I asked him to please attend the meeting in the interests of the District—he has chosen not to… There is nothing being hidden here, this is not meant to attack him, this is just a meeting to attempt to get business done. Unless we have a quorum, we can’t get it done. Ladies and gentlemen, we are trying.”
