We remained till the end of Tuesday night's Bastrop City Council meeting to witness the City Manager Sylvia Carrillo's handpicked longtime friend, Interim City Secretary, Irma Parker, certify the recall petition as "sufficient."
Well, OK. Though we have strong doubts about the petition having met the requirements set out in the City Charter, let's just assume for the moment that the petition is sufficient.
Why then didn't the three recallers sitting at the dais on City Council, John Kirkland, Kevin Plunkett, and Cynthia Meyer take a major opportunity presented to them to say something like:
"Great. Now that we have made our point, we stand down to respect the rule of law because the District Attorney has released the Grand Jury 'NO BILL' -- a decision not to indict for lack of evidence in this matter."
You read that right. The DA has spoken. Last week, the DA's office released a statement indicating that the Grand Jury investigation found a "lack of evidence" to pursue anything at all against Susan Smith, the former CEO of Visit Bastrop. The Mayor had not been under investigation, as claimed repeatedly by recallers.
The recallers could also have simply said, "We're sorry about the $137,080 in taxpayer funds spent on this matter." Silly us to expect something so simple.
Maybe the recallers didn't know about the DA's NO BILL. You might then share this information with them.
Our post is going a bit viral on NextDoor: "Bastrop Recaller's House of Cards in Collapse! NO BILL, No Charges, No Case."
Special thanks to City Council Member Cheryl Lee Is $371,000 chump change?
While Carrillo and Parker were busy trying to figure out how to resuscitate Lyle Nelson's hanging -- er, recall -- on Tuesday night, City Council Member Cheryl Lee was pursuing what could have been major "missing money" at City Hall had she listened to Carrillo. It was a lil' ol' matter of $371,000. Lee was told by Carrillo SIX times that the City had to pay an engineering firm $371,000. Lee (god love her) through her own investigation, found that the firm had been fully paid for the work in fiscal year 2024.
The three recallers on City Council, who have claimed for a year about how important public money is to them, sat there dumb-founded on Tuesday night uttering not a word of concern about $371,000. Why? Might that be because they didn't want their enabler, City Manager Sylvia Carrillo, held accountable for a major mistake?
This is an ongoing story as Cheryl Lee is trying to get information that has yet to be provided to her as required by the Texas Open Meetings Act.
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