There was no honeymoon period for the newly elected members of the South Tucson City Council.
Minutes before four new members were set to be sworn in, resident Raul Green used time set aside for comments from the public to lodge allegations against incoming Councilman Paul Diaz.
Green — the brother of recently recalled Mayor Ildefonso Green — alleged that about three years ago, when Diaz was mayor, he took a payment in exchange for a favorable zoning decision. Raul Green told the council he had evidence and challenged Diaz to discuss the issue publicly.
Diaz denied the allegations both before and after being sworn in Monday night — and publicly asked his council colleagues to consider having a formal discussion about the claims at a future meeting.
A majority of the newly formed council backed Diaz’s request, taking a formal vote to schedule the discussion — until Councilwoman Vanessa Mendoza asked the city attorney whether the vote was legal since it was not on the meeting agenda. City Attorney Bobby Yu noted it was in violation of the state’s public meeting laws and pushed to nullify the entire motion.
But that wasn’t the end of the discussion.
City Manager Sixto Molina, appointed when Ildefonso Green was mayor, notified the council he already passed along information several weeks ago to law enforcement about the same allegations Raul Green made at the meeting.
Molina, who once was the city’s police chief, said it was his duty to report the allegations since they also involved a current city staffer. He refused to discuss which agency he contacted several weeks ago or to name the city staffer allegedly involved.
Before the meeting began, Molina had submitted his letter of resignation to the council.
The new council had planned on discussing Molina’s performance — which could be seen as a precursor to formally firing him — but that discussion was tabled on Monday night.
In one of its first formal actions, the council unanimously backed Roberto Teso as mayor.
Teso said he wanted staff to comb through the city’s budget and redouble efforts to fully fund the fire department, saying it is important to the one-square-mile community that it have four firefighters on the city’s engine for every call.
The city recently reduced the number of firefighters on the truck from four to three, citing budget shortfalls. The move led to 16 firefighters in the department resigning about a month ago.
In addition to Teso and Diaz, Rita Rogers and Herman Lopez were sworn into office as council members on Monday night.
The four replace Green and Councilmen Rufino Cantu, Robert Larribas and Carlos Romo, who were voted out of office last month in a recall election.
