Village of Vinton still without a budget, refuses state, federal grants

State leaders don’t really know how to solve an unusual problem in the Village of Vinton.

Nearly a month into the fiscal year and the Village council does not have a budget, cannot collect taxes and is refusing millions of dollars in grants from the state and federal government.

And it’s the same three council members who have stall both of those things.

It was more than one resident could handle during a Village council meeting Tuesday.

“Why do we have meetings if they can’t agree on anything?” the resident asked the council before he was escorted out of the meeting.

Their frustrations are directed at Martha Garcia, Maria Medina and Juveia Rios Ontiveros on the council who rejected $168,000 dollars of federal grant money that would have gone to build a skatepark or a bulk waste system.

“The problem here is the financial,” Garcia said when asked why reject the grant money. “We don’t have the audit for this year.”

The three women said they don’t want to accept grant money – even if the village doesn’t have to pay it back – if they don’t have last fiscal year’s audit.

It’s an audit they say will show discrepancies .

“Let the County and the state come in and see the books,” Rios Ontiveros told ABC-7 recently.

At that time she showed ABC-7 books she’s kept that she says show financial discrepancies by village employees but she refuses to bring that supposed evidence to council meetings or report it to authorities.

“Our quality of life is not there. We’re being held hostage by these three ladies,” said Victor Carrejo, Vinton resident.

“I see no reason why we have to refuse the money,” said Madeleine Praino, Vinton’s mayor.

The village clerk said last year’s audit isn’t out because since the same three councilwomen refused to adopt a budget the village had to lay off its accountant.

“They’re slapping every single citizen on the face with this,” Praino said.

This isn’t the first time the councilwomen have rejected money for the village. Just a couple weeks ago they rejected $38 million dollars in grants to build a sewer system there and get the town out of debt for money they paid for the design of that system.