City Council President Paul Krekorian will not excuse Kevin de León’s council absences – and he’s not alone.
At the weekly council meeting on Wednesday, Krekorian – who sits on the Parks & Recreation & Business Economic Development committees – said he would take de León’s absence to the board of supervisors.
But he also explained that this wasn’t just about de León’s absence. Krekorian said a number of council members missed a number of council meetings – and that he didn’t think a number of council vacancies were vacant.
“There are some other things that we are going to look at,” Krekorian told council. He added that he will call out any vacancies that exist, but said that “it’s not the responsibility of the council president to look at the council payroll”
Krekorian also said he will ask the city attorney to look into the matter.
Here’s the full text of Krekorian’s statement from Wednesday’s meeting:
“I want to state for the record that I have asked the city attorney to review the situation and determine if the council is in the position of having a vacancy that is responsible for a lack of funding or for a lack of personnel. I have said that I want to look at that in the next few days. And if there are situations that should be addressed, that’s something I want to look into.”
He added that because it wasn’t a council vacancy, the council did not have “the responsibility to look into the payroll.”
“I have a responsibility to the city,” Krekorian said. “We may be in a situation where the city budget can’t support the payroll of the council, so we have the responsibility to look at that.”
Councilors on the Parks and Recreation & Business Economic Development committees are responsible for determining the number of vacancies.
Here’s a look at the other council positions who didn’t receive any absences:
At the council’s July meeting, City Attorney Ed Lofgren said he will look into the situation.
Here’s the council’s July 31, 2015 meeting agenda:
July 31, 2015:
7:00 – Public hearing on the agenda item to