An unanswered question posed of the Ceres City Council by resident Shirley Rogers on Monday sparked an embarrassing moment of tension between her and Mayor Javier Lopez.

Rogers was in the audience and noticed that a photographer was present to take photos of the council during its presentation of a proclamation for Sept. 26 being Lowrider History Day. Rogers later came to the podium to say: “You have a person here doing some photography work. And he said he was asked by the mayor to be here because of the low riders. That’s very nice; I sure he does beautiful work. Who’s paying him?”

After a long pause and no answer, the 90-year-old Rogers continued pressing, asking, “Who’s paying him? Is the city paying him? Are you paying him, mayor? Who’s paying? Oh, my God, you’ve all went nuts.”

Rogers is known for her frank and occasional crass comments directed at the mayor.

Councilwoman Cerina Otero tried to end the stalemate, saying, “I actually don’t have the answer, but I would hope that the mayor could at least answer that, because sometimes we do give answers to the public, and I think it’s courtesy to just give one simple answer if somebody does know.”

Mayor Lopez dismissed answering Rogers by saying: “I would just like to remind everybody of decorum. Next person, please.”

However Rogers pressed on saying, “Maybe there’s something I don’t understand. Somebody is paying him, or he’s doing it for free. Is he doing it for free?”

The mayor then said: “Um, ma’am can we please move on, please? Decorum. Thank you.”

She then sternly demanded an answer.

“I asked a question, and I want an answer. Who is paying him? And how much? This city has got a money problem. You are obviously the reason why.”

When the mayor asked to go into recess Rogers barked “you need to straighten up now.”

After the recess the photographer, who identified himself as Yeshua, spoke up and said he is volunteering his services to the city.

“I volunteer a lot for the city. I volunteered for the schools. I volunteered a lot for, you know, different things and I’ve never, ever received a city check. So I just wanted to clear that up because I don’t know what the misunderstanding might have been. At the end of the day, I’m here just trying to highlight something great that I think the city’s doing. So I think all the sort of back and forth was a bit unnecessary.”