The National City City Council agreed to direct the city attorney to hire outside counsel to conduct two investigations into matters involving Councilman Jerry Cano.
The 3-1 vote, with Mayor Ron Morrison opposing, gives the city attorney authority to hire an independent investigator to determine if Cano violated state law by using his elected position to influence a governmental decision in which he has a financial interest.
Cano recused himself from the vote.
In addition, the same outside investigator will simultaneously investigate Cano’s claim that Councilwoman Mona Rios inappropriately touched him during a recent council meeting, an allegation he made at the April 3 council meeting.
In March The Star-News reported that Cano had five-year-old building code violations for non-permitted work at his Mary Lane home. Depite being sent notice of violations, Cano was never issued fines or penalties.
Instead, the city issued him a Recordation of Notice of Code Violations. Just recently Cano submitted plans to correct the violations after the city attorney gave him an April 3 deadline.
The fact that Cano was never fined or penalized in five years, while remaining out of compliance, spurred allegations of preferential treatment by residents, some who said they were issued fines and paid those and penalties for their violations.
At the April 3 council meeting, Rios called for an item for discussion for investigation to be discussed on April 17. She contends that soon after making that motion, Cano retaliated against her by alleging Rios inappropriately touched him during a photo opportunity at the meeting.
Rios said she supported an investigation into Cano’s sexual harassment claim because she wants her name cleared.
“I welcome a thorough independent investigation that results in a complete report as it relates to Jerry Cano influencing governmental decision as well as his malicious allegations against me to wonder what he is hiding,” she said.
Morrison, who failed at an attempt to bifurcate the two items, said at the meeting that he could not vote for an investigation because he is not clear of any allegations made against Cano.
“An accusation is where you have something evidentiary or you have a first-person accusation, the person is like, ‘I know someone did something’, ‘I saw them do that,’ ‘I heard them do that,” he said.
“We have none of that in this case. As far as what was being reported in newspapers, nobody first hand has accused council member Cano of influencing governmental decisions.”
City Attorney Angel Morris-Jones told Morrison that the allegation is whether Cano received preferential treatment.
Morrison said he supports an investigation to find out how Cano’s building code case was handled, not an investigation into allegations. He added that if that investigation shows evidence that someone did something wrong with Cano’s case , then that is the allegation.
Councilwoman Alejandra Sotelo Solis said Morrison’s no vote for an investigation shows he does not want transparency.
“Sadly, Mayor Ron Morrison didn’t vote to support the investigation and it makes me question what Mayor Morrison doesn’t want exposed as part of this process,” she said.
