City: It doesn’t charge veterans to hold parade

Firefighter Gonzalez, Zeronox honored

Tuesday night’s meeting of the Porterville City Council started off with two honorable presentations spotlighting an excellent city employee and a local business, which were followed by several upset comments during oral communications.

The meeting began with two presentations, the first of which introduced Porterville firefighter Austin Gonzalez as the city’s most recent employee of the month. Gonzalez has worked for the Porterville Fire Department for two years and was present at the meeting accompanied by his wife and three children, as well as a group of his fellow firefighters.

The second presentation was for Zeronox, which was recognized as an outstanding business in the community. Zeronox is a local company focused on vehicular electrification. Zeronox employees were present to accept their award, which was handed to them by Mayor Martha A. Flores.

After the presentations concluded, the floor was opened for oral communications and first to approach and address the council was David Horowitz, owner of Horowitz Jewelry. Horowitz began to express his disappointment in the council by saying he was shocked to find out the city “does nothing to help the veterans with the veterans parade” and stated the city instead charged the veterans to host the parade.

While the council was unable to address Horowitz’s comments immediately, at the end of the meeting they did clarify the city doesn’t charge veterans to host the veterans parade and in fact put roughly $25,000 towards the parade this year. City Manager John Lollis stated KSEE Channel 24 charged $15,000 to televise the parade.

Once oral communications were closed, Flores requested the council’s routine AB1234 reports be moved to the end of the meeting, which the council agreed to do.

All of the consent calendar items were quickly approved and the council moved to the seven second readings of ordinances concerning several different building and energy codes. After approval from legal counsel, the council agreed to approve all seven second readings in one motion.

The next meeting is set for December 6, beginning at 6:30 p.m. and can be viewed live at the Porterville City Hall or streamed via Youtube.