Arcadia City Council members voted 4-1 Tuesday to censure Mayor Sharon Kwan.
The vote was somewhat of a forgone conclusion after an equally emotional regular council meeting Aug. 19. A lot of hurt feelings as a result of months of ill will ranging from personal attacks to charges of financial mismanagement and sexual harassment were on full display on the Council Chamber dais.
At the conclusion of the more than six-hour meeting that featured video presentations and many public comments, council members voted to censure Kwan but stopped short of OK’ing specific penalties. City Attorney Michael Maurer, City Manager Dominic Lazzaretto and staff members are now tasked with defining censure penalties that comply with the city charter. The council was expected to vote on censure penalties at a future regular meeting.
Councilman David Fu said Kwan, the city’s first female Asian American mayor, should retain the title but lose charter-mandated mayoral abilities of presiding over meetings and representing the city at public events.
“Members of the City Council are expected to uphold the highest standards of honesty, integrity, respect, professionalism, and accountability in their interactions with colleagues, city staff, first responders, and the public,” according to the censure resolution approved Tuesday. “Mayor Kwan has repeatedly engaged in conduct inconsistent with these standards, reducing the conduct of City Council meetings to political exercises and grandstanding, and abused her office for personal gain, by engaging in the following types of misconduct, and when confronted, fails to accept responsibility and denies wrongdoing.”
Council members’ 10 grievances spelled out in the resolution include:
“Weaponizing and exploiting children, induced to give false and uninformed statements, and giving false names to conceal their identities;
“Demeaning the military service of veterans;
“Knowingly falsely alleging financial impropriety;
“Disparaging first responders, and council colleagues;
“Making unfounded accusations of sexism and sexual harassment;
“Discouraging public participation by mocking and belittling constituents;
“Misusing council procedures and engaging in ‘ambush techniques’;
“Engaging in un-collegial behavior, unprofessional temperament, and unfounded accusations;
“Relying on ChatGPT to conduct City Council meetings”; and
“Abdicating her sworn elected responsibilities and duties by being manipulated and controlled by third party unelected persons, and concealing and denying that conduct and practice, informing city staff that (former Councilwoman) April Verlato must accompany her to all events, and by politicizing Coffee With the Mayor to malign other councilmembers and give Ms. Verlato a platform to air her grievances, rather than conduct the actual business of the Office of the Mayor.”
Kwan, the four council members, Lazzaretto and Maurer did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
In a statement to HeySoCal.com prior to the censure hearing Tuesday, Kwan said, “I do want to be very clear: This is a smear campaign against me because I reported Councilmember David Fu to (the city’s Human Resources Division) for sexual harassment and discrimination. He does not like being challenged by a woman, and now these three Asian men on City Council are sending a dangerous message that Chinese women need to be submissive, obedient, and silent — or else face punishment.
“This is part of the broader problem that women in office face everywhere,” Kwan added.
Verlato, who served on the council from 2016 to 2024, said the censure was about speech rather than misconduct.
“Her crime? She filed a sexual harassment and discrimination complaint against Councilman Fu,” Verlato wrote in a social media post. “The 3 men on council want to censor Mayor Kwan because they don’t like the way she talks. They don’t like that she uses ChatGPT. They don’t like that she asks questions about the budget. They don’t like that high school students come and comment in support of Mayor Kwan but against Councilman Fu. They don’t like that she’s friends with me. I literally made the list of their complaints! See a pattern here?”
According to Verlato, the censure effort originated after council members and city staff reacted to Kwan asking follow-up questions about a possible budget shortfall despite reports of a small surplus.
“The budget, as presented by the City Manager, projects a balanced budget for the next fiscal year,” Verlato wrote in a mass-email initially sent June 15.
The balanced budget resulted from putting $2 million less into the city’s Equipment and Capital Improvement funds than last year, “and the money being transferred into these funds is less than what is actually needed,” according to Verlato. “The numbers reflect that the cost of City Staff increased by 21% just last year alone.”
The email also noted costs across all departments have risen:
- 2023-2024 $46.3 million actual;
- 2024-2025 $56 million estimated;
- 2025-2026 $60.8 million, an increase of $4.7 million.
“That’s another 8% increase in costs for staff next year, while revenues are projected to increase at about 3%,” Verlato wrote. “In order to balance out these compulsory expenditures on staff, the City Manager proposed and the City Council approved the following:
- “Only $1.9 million will be added to the Equipment Fund, $3,150,000 will be spent
- “Only $2.9 million will be transferred into the Capital Improvement Fund while $4,711,700 of projects are scheduled
- “That’s a deficit of $3,061,700 from the City’s reserves.”
At the regular City Council meeting Aug. 19, Councilmen Fu, Michael Cao and Paul Cheng voted to move the censure hearing forward. City law requires three council members to advance a censure action. Councilwoman Eileen Wang, the current mayor pro tem, did not vote after her three colleagues moved the censure forward.
At the special meeting Tuesday, Wang read prepared remarks that expressed support for the censure and allegations listed in the resolution.
The proposed censure resolution, which council members revised slightly before voting, and other relevant documents are available on the city’s website, along with a video of Tuesday’s hearing.
Arcadia council members serve four-year terms and rotate the mayorship every 9 1/2 months.
To date, no Arcadia council member or mayor has been the subject of a censure action.
Updated Aug. 27, 2025, 2:31 p.m.
