Calexico City Council rotation: Ureña appointed mayor, Gloria Romo appointed mayor pro tem
CALEXICO — Raul Ureña was appointed mayor and Gloria Romo was appointed mayor pro tem for the City of Calexico after the city council approved the resolution to amend the City Council’s Annual Rotation Policy at a regular meeting on Wednesdsay, March 1.
The motion for the resolution passed with four votes by then-Mayor Pro Tem Raul Ureña, then-Mayor Javier Moreno, and council members Gloria Romo and Gilberto Manzanarez, with Councilmember Camilo Garcia abstaining.
Councilmember Manzanarez made a motion to nominate Raul Ureña for mayor, which was seconded by then-Mayor Javier Moreno.
With four votes – by Raul Ureña, Javier Moreno, Gloria Romo, and Gilberto Manzanarez – and one vote against the motion from Councilmember Camilo Garcia – Raul Ureña was appointed mayor.
Ureña nominated Gloria Romo as Mayor Pro Tem, which was seconded by Councilmember Moreno.
With four votes – by Mayor Raul Ureña, Javier Moreno, Gloria Romo, and Gilberto Manzanarez, and one vote against the motion from Councilmember Camilo Garcia – Gloria Romo was appointed as mayor pro tem.
After the voting, Mayor Ureña said some parting words for the mayorship under Moreno.
“There is no reason and no doubt why (Moreno) was elected two terms here in the City of Calexico,” Ureñ said. “Mr. Moreno, when he came into this conflictive body, he set peace, he set order, he set the grounds for the consensus that is right now building our city.”
Moreno said he will still be active as he has projects to finish and thanked for everyone’s support.
“This was a good experience for me and looking forward to working with everybody as well as the community,” Moreno said.
Mayor Pro Tem Gloria Romo congratulated Ureña and Moreno via teleconference from Dublin, Ireland.
According to the agenda staff report, the recommendation that the rotation be moved to the first regular meeting in February beginning with this meeting on March 1, was done by then-Mayor Pro Tem Raul Ureña and Council Member Gilberto Manzanarez.
Regarding background information for this agenda item, the government code grants the city council the authority to select the mayor and mayor pro tem, per the document. State law does not prescribe a particular method that the city council must use to select a mayor and mayor pro tem, rather, the city council may select and seat the mayor and mayor pro tem in the manner it chooses, per the document.
On July 2, 2013, the city council voted to move the mayor and mayor pro tem rotation from December to July, beginning in July 2013, per the document. Previous to July 2, 2013, the rotation of the mayor and mayor pro tem occurred in December.
“The policy will be as follows if adopted beginning today which would change the day of rotation, and the next rotation will happen with this resolution in 2024 on the week of February, the day that was on the resolution,” Colio said before the voting.
“As a reminder, this is a decision of the city council members, it’s not a recommendation made by anyone but the city council members,” Colio said before the voting.
Before the vote, Ureña offered a brief explanation to the public
“Initially myself and council person Manzanarez were going to propose this for December, traditionally December is the best date because that is when you get an election in November and then in December you are followed up with the change in leadership,” Ureña said.
“Out of respect for Mr. Moreno’s initiatives that we all knew since the last year, publicly were coming up to his trip to Taiwan to establish economic relations,” Ureña said.
“(Moreno) needed to go as mayor and in this particular case, (and) I had no problem making the recommendation that for this year we start with March and for the purposes of, eventually, coming back to the December timeline that is more aligned with our elections,” Ureña said.