The City of McFarland, today, wasted no time in appointing Eric Rodriguez, a former U.S. Marine and former GEO Group, Inc. employee to fill the vacant seat with a 4-0 vote.

After receiving pushback from community residents and organizations to reschedule this meeting to a later date when interpreting could be provided to the city’s Spanish speaking community members, the council continued with their meeting as planned.

The meeting, which was set to begin at 6 p.m., but due to technical difficulties didn’t start until about 6:25 p.m., was conducted by teleconference and interpreting wasn’t provided.

During the teleconference, the city of McFarland could not control who could speak during the meeting, one caller shouted in Spanish, “I am very bothered by what you are doing today, what is going on, you guys are sellouts.”

She continued, “I apologize, but I don’t understand anything of what you guys are saying, how can you make decisions when the community is not present?”

This is a developing story.