After $67,000+, lawsuits, political warfare and enough Facebook drama to qualify as a municipal utility, Avenal has finally achieved the dream: fewer people available to actually govern.
TL;DR 📱
For everyone scrolling past the paragraphs looking for the part where this somehow made Avenal better:
The tentative court ruling says the recall election stands and the four recalled council seats have been vacant since May 28. But the same ruling also says the City Clerk was the lawful elections official, no City Council resolution delegated recall authority to Kings County, and the wrong official processed the petitions. The judge nevertheless treated those problems as procedural irregularities that did not justify throwing out the election.
So here’s the deal Avenal bought:
💸 Roughly $67,000+ spent on the recall
🪑 Four vacant council seats
🏛️ No normal council quorum for major business
🚧 Roads, contracts and major projects potentially delayed
🗳️ The regular November election is still happening anyway
🚒 The Avenal Fire Department is still here
🔥 And it will remain unless a future functioning council actually votes to change the city’s fire-service model
Oh, and one of the recalled councilmembers can still run again in November. The tentative ruling specifically says the recall does not create a continuing ban on running in the next regular election.
So after more than a year of political combat, Avenal has arrived at November with:
less money, fewer councilmembers, the same Fire Department, and the same election we were going to have anyway.
Outstanding.
The potholes remain undefeated. 🕳️🥂
AVENAL, CA — After months of lawsuits, petitions, campaign signs, public-comment marathons and Facebook posts written with the emotional restraint of a raccoon trapped inside a Costco, the Avenal recall has scored its biggest legal victory.
The tentative ruling says the recall election survives.
The four recalled councilmembers are out.
And Avenal can finally proceed confidently into its newest form of municipal government:
🪑 THE EMPTY-CHAIR ERA
Avenal normally has five councilmembers.
Four were recalled.
One remains.
This is unfortunate because local government depends upon a little-known political doctrine called:
math.
One councilmember is not three councilmembers. Nor the Mayor.
Without a quorum, a city can’t simply approve major business because everyone in the audience is very passionate.
So after all the fighting over who should control City Hall, Avenal appears to have arrived at the elegant answer:
Almost nobody.
It’s like fighting over who gets to drive the family car and then celebrating by removing three tires.
Technically, somebody won.
🚗🎉
⚖️ WAIT — THE COUNTY DIDN’T ACTUALLY HAVE THE AUTHORITY?
Here’s where this gets wonderfully strange.
The tentative ruling does not amount to a clean declaration that Kings County handled everything correctly.
Quite the opposite.
The court’s reasoning, as summarized in the ruling materials, says the City Clerk was the lawful elections official, that no resolution had been adopted transferring recall-election duties to the County, and that there was no other agreement formally delegating recall authority.
The court also found that nobody from the City affirmatively delegated processing of the recall petitions to the County and that the County Registrar treated acquiescence or a lack of objection as though it were an affirmative agreement.
Translation:
The wrong official processed the recall.
But then comes the plot twist.
The judge says that defect wasn’t serious enough to invalidate the election because it didn’t change the signatures, the voting process or the outcome.
So the legal result is essentially:
“Yes, they did it wrong. No, we’re not undoing it.”
Municipal law: where everybody can lose a little.
💸 $67,000+ WELL SPENT*
*Definition of “well” remains subject to litigation.
Avenal has already spent roughly $67,000 or more on this exercise in accelerated democracy.
And remember:
There was already a regular City Council election scheduled for November 2026.
November.
As in, a few months away.
Apparently waiting until November was considered unbearable.
So instead, Avenal purchased the deluxe political package:
Recall Election Premium™
Included at no additional charge:
💸 an extra election
⚖️ multiple lawsuits
📣 months of political warfare
🪑 four empty council seats
🚧 potential delays in major city action
📱 enough Facebook posts to affect regional internet bandwidth
🗳️ and, as a bonus…
the November election everybody was going to have anyway.
This is like paying $67,000 to get Christmas delivered early and discovering the box contains a note:
“Actual Christmas still arrives in December.”
🧠 STILL WAITING FOR THE PART WHERE THIS WAS NECESSARY
After all the petitions, lawsuits, taxpayer money and political theater, Avenal is still left with a strangely basic question:
What exactly was the emergency?
The Fire Department is still here.
The regular election was already coming in November.
The city was still working on roads, infrastructure, economic development and community projects.
And even the tentative ruling concluded that the County wasn’t properly delegated authority to administer the recall process — it simply decided that defect wasn’t enough to overturn the voters’ decision.
So what justified spending tens of thousands of dollars and temporarily leaving Avenal without a functioning council majority instead of simply campaigning and settling the political fight in November?
From the AvenalPress cheap seats, this is looking less and less like an emergency rescue mission and more like an old-fashioned political power play.
And if some of the most vocal figures involved identify with the MAGA wing of politics, the slogan almost writes itself:
🇺🇸 Make Avenal Govern Again.
Step One:
Remove almost everybody capable of governing it.
Flawless execution.
To be clear, the court ruling does not say MAGA politics caused the recall or that any particular organizer acted from a private desire for power. That’s political commentary, not a judicial finding.
But after all this disruption, the public is certainly entitled to ask:
What measurable thing got better?
Because “we successfully removed the council and now the council can’t conduct major business” is not traditionally featured in municipal management textbooks.
🚧 ATTENTION POTHOLES: YOUR TIME HAS COME
There’s one small downside to treating City Hall like the season finale of a reality show.
Cities actually have work to do.
Boring work.
Useful work.
Things like:
approving contracts,
authorizing major expenditures,
moving infrastructure projects,
handling development agreements,
making policy,
and — occasionally — fixing roads.
Road projects don’t approve themselves.
A pothole doesn’t care which Facebook page you follow.
It simply expands.
Quietly.
Patiently.
Waiting for local government to lose a quorum.
🕳️
And now the potholes know.
They smell weakness.
🚒 AND NOW, THE BIGGEST PLOT TWIST:
THE FIRE DEPARTMENT IS STILL HERE.
Yes.
That Fire Department.
The one that played such a starring role in Avenal’s political war.
Still here.
The trucks did not disappear after the recall.
The firefighters did not dissolve into constitutional mist.
Nobody backed an engine onto Highway 33 with a sign reading:
“RECALLED — RETURN TO COUNTY.”
The recall election removed councilmembers.
It did not automatically repeal every policy those councilmembers previously approved.
That means the Avenal Fire Department continues unless and until a future legally functioning City Council takes the necessary action to change the city’s fire-service model.
So after all this:
🚒 Fire Department: still here
🔥 Firefighters: still responding
📞 Emergency calls: still happening
🪑 Council quorum:
Well…
🤡 WE STOPPED THE THING THAT DIDN’T STOP
There is something almost poetic about this outcome.
A major source of political conflict was Avenal’s decision to establish and operate its own Fire Department.
Recall happens.
Court says recall survives.
Four councilmembers are removed.
And the Fire Department responds:
“Neat. Anyway, somebody called 911.”
🚒💨
It’s like spending a year trying to cancel Netflix and accidentally canceling your electricity.
Netflix is still running.
But now nobody can see the television.
👑 EVERYBODY IS VERY CONCERNED ABOUT POWER UNTIL A CHAIR OPENS UP
Another charming feature of this political saga has been watching a movement presented as a fight against political power gradually produce a number of people deeply interested in possessing political power.
Funny how that works.
Avenal has watched arguments over who can call meetings, who has authority, who gets to lead and who gets to be called mayor.
Meanwhile, the person most closely associated with launching the recall has gone from emphasizing the recall itself to expressing political ambitions of their own.
And the councilmember who was not recalled after supporting the recall movement from early on has shown considerable enthusiasm for occupying the mayoral role.
That doesn’t establish anyone’s private motive.
It does, however, create excellent comedy.
The recall began with:
“Get these people out of power!”
And somehow ended up at:
“Excellent. Now about that chair…”
🪑👀
🗳️ AND PRECIADO CAN RUN AGAIN
This may be the finest detail of the whole situation.
The tentative ruling specifically orders that Preciado’s nomination papers be processed and his name placed on the November ballot. The judge concluded that the statutory restriction applies to being a successor candidate in the recall election itself, not to a later regular election.
So after spending roughly $67,000+, months organizing a recall and countless hours arguing about removing elected officials…
one of them can simply say:
“See you in November.”
You could not pitch this script to HBO.
They would say it was too unrealistic.
🗳️ COULD WE HAVE JUST WAITED UNTIL NOVEMBER?
That brings us to the uncomfortable question.
November was already coming.
Candidates could run.
Residents could campaign.
Voters could replace councilmembers they disliked.
That is, traditionally, what elections are for.
Instead, Avenal took the scenic route.
Petitions.
Recall.
Litigation.
County involvement.
Quorum problems.
Empty seats.
Tens of thousands of dollars.
And eventually…
November.
Exactly where the road was headed anyway.
Google Maps would have found a shorter route.
🏞️ THE PARK DOESN’T CARE WHO YOU BLOCKED ON FACEBOOK
Here’s where the jokes run into the actual cost.
Government services belong to everyone.
Roads belong to everybody.
Parks belong to everybody.
The Fire Department protects everybody.
Infrastructure benefits everybody.
Businesses considering investment don’t ask whether you were on Team Recall before deciding whether to create jobs.
And when somebody calls 911, firefighters don’t arrive and ask:
“Before we start CPR, did you support the recall?”
That would be absurd.
Although at this point maybe don’t give anyone ideas.
A city has to serve:
people who supported the recall,
people who opposed it,
people who supported some of it,
and the large population of residents who would simply like everyone involved to log off Facebook and fix something.
🥶 AVENAL PRESENTS: PROGRESS, NOW BUFFERING
This is where the recall’s price becomes real.
Avenal still has projects.
Roads.
Infrastructure.
Development.
Community facilities.
Public safety.
Parks.
Economic growth.
And those things require something considerably less exciting than political revolution:
functioning government.
A court victory doesn’t pave a road.
A Facebook post doesn’t execute a contract.
A political rally does not authorize capital improvements.
And anger, however righteous, remains surprisingly ineffective at filling potholes.
The recall side won the election.
But if the practical result is months of slowed decision-making before November, then ordinary residents are entitled to ask whether this was a good deal for Avenal, rather than simply a good political result for one faction.
🧾 THE AVENALPRESS.COM RECEIPT
Let’s check the bag before leaving the store:
Recall survives: ✅
Four council seats vacant since May 28 under the tentative ruling: ✅
County properly delegated recall authority: ❌
Regular November election still happening: ✅
Preciado allowed to run again: ✅
Approximately $67,000+ spent: ✅
Council quorum problem: ✅
Avenal Fire Department magically abolished by recall: ❌
Potholes enjoying unprecedented political stability: ✅✅✅
🍳 THE BOTTOM LINE
The recall supporters won an important victory.
The tentative ruling says the election stands.
But winning a political battle and getting a good deal for a city are not necessarily the same thing.
Avenal spent tens of thousands of dollars and months tearing itself apart to remove four councilmembers shortly before a regular election.
The immediate result is four vacant seats and a serious governing problem.
The County’s handling of the recall was found legally defective in significant ways, even though the judge concluded those defects were not enough to overturn the election.
One recalled official can run again.
The November election is still coming.
And the Fire Department?
Still here. 🚒
If a future council wants it gone, that future council will have to actually vote and govern.
Which is going to require, among other things…
a council.
Until then, Avenal can celebrate the one constituency that emerged from this entire saga completely united, prosperous and confident about the future:
the potholes. 🕳️🥂
They haven’t felt this secure in years.
AvenalPress.com — All the News Fit to rePress™
Todas las noticias bien refritas. 🍳
SATIRE NOTICE: AvenalPress.com uses satire, parody, exaggeration and political commentary concerning public officials, elections and matters of public interest. Characterizations of political motives, including descriptions of the recall as a “power play,” are commentary rather than judicial findings. The court materials discussed above describe tentative rulings and may be subject to further proceedings, modification or appeal.