Because the regularly scheduled Ceres City Council meeting for Monday, May 25 falls on Memorial Day, a holiday, Councilman James Casey asked the council to meet the following evening. However, the rest of his fellow councilmembers turned down his request.

Apparently Casey was unaware that City Manager Doug Dunford, who left the city on April 3, had already arranged for the May 25 meeting to be cancelled. He requested the council to meet the next evening, noting that many on the council will be helping the VFW and American Legion remove flags at the cemetery at 4 p.m. and may not be done by the start of the 6 p.m. meeting.

According to Chief of Police Trenton Johnson, who was acting as interim city manager prior to the April 13 hiring of Steve Williams, Dunford had “already planned with finance to work around this council meeting being canceled so he had lined up before he left, the dates that would line up to make sure that we did bring the budget to the council in the appropriate amount of time with even an extra council meeting just in case he didn’t pass the first time.“

Ceres resident John Warren said the council is missing an “opportunity to really discuss and bring the next budget to fruition so the general public can have input into what that budget’s gonna look like. So I think that’s a necessary meeting and moving it one day doesn’t really take a lot to do. Because Monday is a holiday, you should have that meeting on Tuesday.”

Vice Mayor Daniel Martinez said he won’t be in town on May 26 and wasn’t sure any the department heads planned to be on vacation.

Councilwoman Cerina Otero said that despite the pre-planning that had taken place, she stated that “we do owe it to the public to at least have something on the agenda or we just show up.”

“There’s a lot of times during the holidays like Christmas and New Year’s or later in the year that we may have to cancel meetings so I wouldn’t be opposed to continuing and having a special meeting on Tuesday,” said Otero.

Saying she wasn’t one who likes cancelling meetings, Councilwoman Rosalinda Vierra said she already has made plans to be out of town.

“I know there’s a couple staff members that do have the extended weekend by using vacation time because they were also informed that it (meeting on May 25) was not going to happen,” said Vierra.

Mayor Javier Lopez also said he was against a special meeting on Tuesday, May 26. With three members against, Casey’s request died.