Before the Greenfield City Council could begin debating the business at hand on Tuesday, a bitter divide among residents of this south Monterey County town took center stage, with emotion spilling into the packed council hall.

Greenfield's farmworker community is angry about the council's decision to pay for an audit on its police department amid a budget deficit.

Some claim the costly review is part of three council members' attempt to oust Police Chief Joe Grebmeier and a waste of taxpayers' money since the motive for their actions is personal vendettas against the city's top cop.

Grebmeier is widely seen as protecting the rights of farmworkers.

"Their attack on the chief, we see is an attack on us," said United Farm Worker Vice President Efren Barajas two weeks ago over the council's decision to move forward with the audit. Barajas credits Grebmeier as instrumental in bridging a relationship between police officers and the city's growing farmworker community in the past decade.

Again Tuesday, hundreds of UFW members stood outside Greenfield City Hall Tuesday protesting, some holding red UFW flags. One police officer stood outside the doors of City Hall, while another stood just inside.

In the end, a divided council voted 3-2 to hire an outside auditing firm.

"I see this city divided and it will continue this way unless the council does something — form a committee to have a community liaison," said Greenfield resident Alicia Martinez.

Inside the meeting hall the rhetoric was emotional on both sides.

"Someone is lying to these people," said Cassie Madrid, a Greenfield resident for 35 years. "There is fear in this town because someone is telling them the chief of police is getting fired and that they are getting deported. No one is prejudice here. All we want to do is clean up our town. Look at our streets. It's trash. We are tired of this!"

Anjelica Isidro, spokeswoman for the Oaxacan community, which has long said it faces discrimination in the town, said they feel like they are being attacked by the broader community.

"Only racist people seem to fit inside this meeting," Isidro told the council members.

Mayor pro-tem Yolanda Teneyuque admonished Isidro for the comment. Isidro apologized.

The discord from the public quickly spread to the council members themselves.

Teneyuque argued to close public discussion and move the meeting forward. Mayor John Huerta Jr. fired back that he wants to "make sure everyone comes to the podium if they have something to say. It's open for everyone to come forward."

As the council took up the matter of the police audit, Teneyuque argued for spending $22,000 to hire Matrix Consulting Group in Palo Alto to conduct an audit of Grebmeier's department, while Huerta lobbied for contracting with the California Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training.

The city is facing a $200,000 budget deficit. Having POST conduct the audit would not cost the city money, Huerta said.

By 9 p.m., three hours into the meeting, a motion to vote on the audit had still not been made. But each of the council members had voiced their preferences before opening up the issue again to the public.

The city's divide was lining up as it did weeks earlier when the council voted to initially pursue the audit.

Councilwoman Annie G. Moreno had acknowledged her support for the Huerta's POST option, while councilmen John Martinez and Randy Hurley voiced their support for Teneyuque's pick of Matrix.

And as it did before, the council was lined up for a split, and divided 3-2 vote.

    
Californian reporter Kimber Solana contributed to this report.