Interim General Manager Mimi Duzenski announced the cancellation shortly before 4 p.m. Wednesday. Meeting rules require that three of the five board members be present for the meeting to be called to order.
Subsequent calls to directors revealed that President Bernice King Tingle and board members Celeste Farron and Jass Singh were going to be absent.
Wednesday’s meeting was scheduled to replace a Nov. 14 meeting that was also canceled due to a lack of a quorum.
Tingle said in a telephone interview that she was not attending the meeting because she was at a funeral earlier in the day and planned to care for an injured friend that night.
She felt discussions on Wednesday’s action items — the annual residential survey and feedback on the Music in the Park event — could be delayed until the board’s December meeting.
Farron said during a telephone interview that her reason for missing the meeting was also personal but had a different motivation.
She felt it was inappropriate to discuss community issues during a meeting with Singh, because he was ousted from the board by recall vote during the general election Nov. 6.
Singh was recalled in the middle of his four-year term, 1,646 to 1,100. Steve Gutierrez topped the field of three candidates to replace Singh during a separate race to fill the seat Nov. 6.
Farron said she sent Duzenski an email Monday, Nov. 26, announcing that she wouldn’t be at the Wednesday meeting.
“I feel the voters have spoken and one board member was recalled and two items on agenda could be carried over,” Farron said. “It was a waste of money (paying the staff and legal counsel), and I really felt we needed to listen to the voice of the voters. So for me, it wasn’t we didn’t have a quorum. I was available, but I chose to take heed for what the voters had voted.”
In an email to the Tracy Press on Wednesday night, Singh said he was “tied up” in San Jose and unable to attend.
The next board of directors meeting has been scheduled for 7 p.m. Dec. 12 in the Michael Forbes McGrew Board Room at 230 S. Sterling Drive.
• Contact Denise Ellen Rizzo at 830-4225 or drizzo@tracypress.com.
and then Jass wasnt able to be there anyway...