PICO RIVERA, California: City Council members in the Los Angeles suburb of Pico Rivera condemned remarks by a colleague who was captured on video calling members of the US military “the lowest of the low.”

The mayor and three of four council members voted Tuesday to ask Councilman Gregory Salcido to resign.

Salcido, who has been on leave from El Rancho High School in Pico Rivera, is seen on a video scolding a 17-year-old student wearing a US Marine Corps sweatshirt and urging him not to join the military.

“They’re not like high-level thinkers, they’re not academic people, they’re not intellectual people” they’re the frickin’ lowest of our low,” Salcido said on a recording made by a student. “I don’t understand why we let the military guys come over here and recruit you at school. We don’t let pimps come in the school.”

The video was posted to social media and has drawn millions of views, along with outraged comments.

President Donald Trump’s Chief of Staff John Kelly said last month in a radio interview that Salcido “ought to go to hell” for his remarks.

Mayor Gustavo Camacho called it “bullying, arrogant and aggressive behaviour.” The council can’t force Salcido from his post but Camacho introduced a motion to censure Salcido, which would bar him from city committees and appointments, and to ask him to resign from the council.

Mayor pro tem Brent Tercero said he would abstain from voting on the motion because he doesn’t believe that the resolution will solve any problems but he will volunteer for a recall campaign and will donate $250 to such a campaign.

Salcido is currently the city’s longest serving council member. If he refuses to resign, according to the resolution, he will be censured, which will include the formal removal from city committee appointments as well as from any other positions, committees or boards for outside agencies affiliated with the city.

Salcido, making his first public appearance since making the comments Jan. 26, said he would comment after the other speakers, who were likely to go on late into the night.

Dozens of public speakers — many who served in the armed forces or have children in the military — made patriotic and pro-military comments. Some called him shameful and cowardly.

Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies were at the meeting to provide security. Salcido and his family have received threats since the video was posted to Facebook.

— AP