Last week’s Cypress City Council meeting was one for the record books – and possibly for the law books.
Buried in the meeting’s agenda was a “carry over” expenditure of $5,000 to be paid to the independent, non-profit organization that runs the city’s community festival. It was described as support for income that the festival organizers “lost” due to their last-minute decision to ban/eliminate “political booths” (which had already been reserved and paid for) by several local candidates running for the two open spots on the council in the November election.
While this may sound like a small, well-intentioned and supportive city expenditure, the story behind it reveals a dark, calculated and politically motivated misuse of public funds and abuse of power.
Statements made during the Cypress City Council meeting on September 23rd revealed that Mayor Scott Minikus, had met in person with the festival’s organizers bringing along city attorney Fred Gallante. At this meeting, the Mayor asked the organizers to eliminate the political booths because the festival date coincided with that of the Jewish high holiday of Yom Kippur, which would prevent one of the candidates, Mark Plager, from hosting one of the political booths at the festival.
It was further revealed by Mr. Plager himself that he had asked the Mayor to intervene on his behalf with the organizers to eliminate the political booths. Mr. Plager asked Mayor Minikus to “do it quietly behind closed doors”. It should be noted – and is in the public record – that Mayor Minikus is a big supporter of Mr. Plager’s campaign, as are Mayor Pro Tem Bonnie Peat and her husband Jon Peat, is Mr. Plager’s campaign treasurer. This kind of closed door action is the antithesis of how our government should operate.
This ugly story doesn’t end here.
Based on the agenda item and the statements made at the council meeting, it appears that Mayor Minikus suggested that the city compensate the festival with the above mentioned $5,000 in taxpayer funds in return for the booth fees they would lose by eliminating the “political booths”. This kind of expenditure doesn’t happen simply because the Mayor wants it to; he needs the support of the City Manager – Peter Grant – and other city staff to include the expenditure proposal on the council’s agenda in the “fine print” and have it approved.
Fortunately, that didn’t happen. Councilman David Burke objected and exposed the Mayor’s and city attorney’s roles in influencing the festival organizers to remove the political booths. He also objected to the wording of agenda item number seven (7) that purported to justify the expenditure of taxpayer funds in exchange for eliminating the political booths.
In the end, the council then voted to okay the expenditure but removed all wording indicating the payment was in exchange for the organizer’s elimination of the political booths. The vote was three to two, with Burke, Mallari and Marquez voting for and Mayor Minikus and his long-time supporter, Mayor Pro Tem Peat voting against. It was clarified that the festival organizers should henceforth be free to make their own decision regarding the presence of political booths at the festival.
Further aggravating this nasty chapter of Cypress city politics, the Mayor promulgated a set of flimsy arguments in defense of his actions, and launched a threatening outburst directed at Councilman Burke. The Mayor’s actions laid bare the entire ugly abuse of his influence in front of the council and attendees. However, that was definitely not the Mayor’s first or only threatening outburst. He was reprimanded by the council for his January 2024 outburst in which he accused, without any substantiating evidence, fellow council members Marquez and Burke for allegedly working with the plaintiffs in the CVRA lawsuit that the city eventually settled out of court for approximately $850,000, not including attorney’s fees and costs, all paid with taxpayer money
At the previous council meeting on September 9, 2024, the Mayor also threatened the citizens of Cypress regarding the content of their social media posts – especially as those applied to criticism of the current council majority and council candidates they support.
I want to ask the Cypress City Council to again, publicly, reprimand Mayor Minikus for this misuse of his position as Mayor and his violation of the council’s own code of civil conduct in his threatening verbal attack of Councilman Burke. In addition, I think the Mayor, the city attorney and city manager all owe the independent, volunteer, non-profit organizers of the Cypress Community Festival an apology.
Paul Kokkinos is a concerned resident and registered voter in Cypress