April Verlato Selected as Arcadia’s First Female Mayor Since 2003

Arcadia Mayor April Verlato. – File Photo by Terry Miller / Beacon Media News

Roger Chandler as mayor pro-tem

By Terry Miller

Newly seated Arcadia Mayor April Verlato paid a poignant homage to her father who passed away in 2017. During Tuesday’s reorganization, a tearful Verlato said there was one person missing in the audience and remembered how her father would ask if she was Mayor yet. She would say, “No, Dad, but I am a councilmember.”

Verlato then composed herself and said she knows he’s watching and thrilled that she has been elected mayor of Arcadia through April 2020.

Verlato quipped that if she wasn’t elected Mayor she was convinced her staff would have “sabotaged” the process but added that they need not worry, “It’s going to be a lot of fun, I promise,” Mayor Verlato said.

Mayor Verlato also made reference to the fact that she is the first female mayor since 2003 when Gail Marshal was mayor as part of the centennial celebration for the City of Arcadia.

Outgoing Mayor Sho Tay gave a touching farewell Tuesday, thanking the community and his fellow councilmembers for allowing him to “bridge the gap” that had divided the community at the beginning of his term as mayor. Tay said his faith helped him in the “chaos” of what should have been the beginning of his term last year.

During the reorganization, councilmembers elected Roger Chandler as mayor pro-tem.