At a special Lemon Grove City Council meeting on March 8, Council discussed a resolution condemning Council member Liana LeBaron of certain misconduct in meetings and outside of meetings.
The resolution stated over the past several months that LeBaron has continuously engaged in “disruptive, obstructive, and inappropriate behavior at City Council Meetings, including shouting over her colleagues when not recognized by the mayor, interrupting the mayor and her fellow council members without being recognized, shouting about non-agendized matters during City Council Meetings and during meeting recesses, and failing to heed the direction of the mayor in her attempts to control the order of the meeting causing undue delay and unnecessary distraction from City business, and making baseless accusations of fraud, embezzlement, and abuse aimed at her colleagues and city staff.”
The original motion to adopt the resolution failed with LeBaron, and council members George Gastil and Jennifer Mendoza voting no. A motion to table the resolution and find another solution was passed with Mayor Raquel Vasquez and Mayor Pro Tem Jerry Jones voting no.
More than 25 speakers spoke, most in support of LeBaron, with some others saying that the council member needed to be censured.
Vasquez said at the previous closed session meeting that LeBaron cursed out Mendoza, and then at everyone in the room.
“Then she pointed at me, and she called me a baboon,” she said. “That is a racist comment, and it will not be tolerated in the city of Lemon Grove.”
When LeBaron had a chance to speak, she addressed what the mayor said, saying that council members and the city attorney attempted to keep her from attending a closed-session meeting even though it is her job, and she had aright to be there. She said what she witnessed was “disgusting” and said, “Are you guys insane? You’re acting like a bunch of *** buffoons.”
LeBaron said that she has been repeatedly disrespected by the mayor since her first council meeting and requested a Zoom meeting on how to improve communications during council meetings, with nothing coming from it. She added that the mayor had been hostile to her on two occasions to the point she was fearful of her safety, that she reported that she filed police reports and grievances, with no action taken.
“So, the first problem for me has been having to work, unprotected, with a mayor who has verbally and physically threatened and intimidated me on more than one occasion, with nobody in a position of authority doing anything about it,” she said.
LeBaron said she gets pushed back during public meeting because the City’s top officials do not want her to ask questions, speak her mind, because they are afraid of what the public might learn, whether question staff, initiate dialogue for the public’s benefit, or asking questions that would help her in her voting decisions.
“The public needs to understand what is happening here,” she said. “While on the surface it appears that four members of the city council have an axe to grind with me, the reality is that my colleagues have an axe to grind with you…They are trying to shut me down because they do not like the work that I am doing for you as members of the public.”
LeBaron said some examples were:
Asking the city manager to provide supporting documentation for several large expenditures she was being asked to approve and was told it was a burden on the staff. She said she asked the city manager for copies of the city attorney’s bills to understand how much services were costing the city, and after extensive negotiations, could only review a few copies with a chaperone present. She said she used the conference room at City Hall to meet with constituents, study city materials, and was told that she was not welcome in City Hall except during official city council meetings by the city manager and city attorney, with the city attorney threatening her with a court
order to prevent her from going to City Hall.
LeBaron said that the accusations that she does not follow proper procedures during council meetings are baseless, and that she is following the Municipal Code in her right to “dissent from or protest against any action of the city council entered into the record and the minutes.”
“What I have been doing, consistent with the Municipal Code, had been lodging on the record for the public’s benefit the reasons for my dissent and my protest against the misconduct and misinformation spread during council meetings,” she said. “My colleagues on the Council do not like my message, and rather than responding to the merits, are trying to kill the messenger.”
LeBaron said every one of her council colleagues has presided over the city’s persistent financial crisis without fully investigation and reporting the real reasons for its near bankruptcy. She said though she supported the 2020 sales tax increase, she has since learned that it was not to improve the city’s financial situation, but “to cover up the severity of the problem without fixing the mismanagement and corruption,” that got the city in the problem in the first place.
“Sadly, city leaders continue to cover up our financial problems even today,” she said. “On the public’s behalf, I have been alone in asking lots of tough questions to get to the bottom of the financial crisis. The city’s top officials have been stonewalling me from the beginning and today they are taking it to a new level. Make no mistake they are trying to cancel the results of an election. Their goal is to leave the residents of Lemon Grove without a protransparency, anti-corruption advocate by silencing me.”
LeBaron also filed a complaint against the city manager and city attorney for creating a hostile environment for her, accusing both of professional misconduct in November 2021.
Gastil said that although he believed that everything on the resolution was factual, he did not think that the resolution was the answer in solving the problem. He said that he believed that with team training, and learning to communicate, that they could avert resorting to this type of resolution.
“If LeBaron has concerns, thinks that there is fraud, thinks someone is doing something illegal, she needs to bring this forward in a clear way, with evidence, in a way that can be investigated,” he said. “We have gotten to the point where the distractions are continual…We need to see some significant improvements and tonight I am looking for an alternative. I did not come here wanting to pass a censure.”
CORRECTION: In a previous version of this story Lemon Grove City Councilwoman Liana LeBaron was incorrectly quoted as saying “You’re acting like a bunch of *** baboons” to her fellow council members. A review of the prepared statement read by LeBaron made available by the city of Lemon Grove after the city council meeting shows the councilwoman said: “You’re acting like a bunch of *** buffoons.”
The East County Californian regrets the error.
