Chaotic efforts to get the Fresno Oversight Board sworn in have some members muttering a different kind of oath.

The volunteer board charged with overseeing the final twitches of the former Fresno Redevelopment Agency is scheduled to hold its first meeting at 4 p.m. today at the downtown county library.

It's likely only four of seven members will take their seats. There almost certainly will be no reports to review. Probably no one from the old RDA will show up. The threat of lawsuits most definitely will hang in the air.

And that's if everything goes right.

Which, if the last few months are any hint, is unlikely.

But one of the few board members whose authority is not in question said it's high time local leaders stop bellyaching and begin the public's business of burying the RDA.

"We're going to do the right thing for everyone," board member and former Fresno County Supervisor Doug Vagim said Friday. "But there's $155 million to be discussed. Some of that money could put more stuff in our schools, more sheriff's deputies on our streets."

A much different attitude prevails at City Hall.

City Attorney James Sanchez on Friday said some board seats remain unfilled. He said it's still not clear which local agency gets to fill one particular seat. He said today's meeting is illegal. He said some board members for no good reason are stirring up "a process circus."

One of Sanchez's lieutenants on Friday sent a letter to Oversight Board members, saying the city will ask a judge to stop today's meeting if they actually try to conduct official business.

There's obviously no love in the air, and with good reason.

The old RDA was the city's primary revitalization engine, pumping tens of millions of dollars into older neighborhoods over the past 50 years.

Gov. Jerry Brown and the Legislature killed RDAs last year as part of their budget-fixing plan, then survived a legal challenge from redevelopment agencies across the state.

However, city officials still have some say in the process. The City Council and Mayor Ashley Swearengin are now the governing board of the old RDA -- something called The City of Fresno as Successor Agency. Their mission: Take an active, even enthusiastic, role in helping the Oversight Board eliminate the RDA.

State law requires the seven-member Oversight Board to be filled by May 1 with two members appointed by the Fresno County Board of Supervisors, two by the mayor and one each from the Fresno County Office of Education, State Center Community College District and the largest special-taxing district.

A week before the deadline, the board lineup (with appointing agency) looks like this:

• Vagim -- supervisors.
• Former Fresno Unified School District trustee Mary Curry -- supervisors.
• Former Fresno City Manager Jeff Reid -- community college district.
• Former Clovis Unified School District Superintendent Terry Bradley -- county schools office.
• Supervisors Chairwoman Debbie Poochigian -- county library district (the largest special district).
• Vacant -- mayor.
• Vacant -- mayor.

Vagim, Reid, Bradley and Poochigian took the lead in calling today's meeting. Four is a quorum, they said. If the city wants to drag out its appointments, they said, so be it.

Curry declined to join the four. She said holding a meeting without a full board isn't fair to all parties, including the public.

The city doesn't think a four-member quorum even exists. Sanchez said the Metropolitan Flood Control District is the largest special district. He said Met Flood's board recently named district General Manager Bob Van Wyk to the Oversight Board.