Westminster City Council meetings, which routinely run past midnight, lasted until 2:30 a.m., followed by closed-door discussion of legal matters that consumed another 45 minutes.
The night’s big result? Mayor Tri Ta was censured, on a 3-2 vote, for allegedly making false statements about his colleagues on Vietnamese-language media.
“I got in a cat nap,” Vice Mayor Carlos Manzo said Thursday, after starting his job in construction management about two hours after his council work was over.
In addition to reprimanding Ta for his public statements, Manzo and fellow council members Tai Do and Kimberly Ho approved the final reading of an ordinance protecting city employees “from improper influences or interruptions from public officials.
The ordinance stems from actions surrounding the proposed renovation of the Civic Center – an idea backed by Ta and Councilman Chi Charlie Nguyen but killed in April by their colleagues – which would have involved selling off city land for a residential development. Detractors say the Ta and Nguyen pressured city staff to meet with developers and to sign off on that project and others.
A resolution that passed in October provided similar guidelines for interactions between staff and elected officials.
Council members Do, Ho and Manzo also asked that the mayor’s office be moved from City Hall to the Council Chambers building as a way to create physical distance between Ta and city employees.
But on Wednesday, the same three colleagues joined a...
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