Alert: We just learned that the City of Bastrop is seeking an Attorney General opinion in hopes of denying our open records request mentioned in our last post about the resignation of City Attorney Alan Bojorquez. The AG has up to 45 days to respond. Our request is for:
“Communications between Council Member John Kirkland and City Attorney Alan Bojorquez regarding Bojorquez's employment status with the City.”
Overview
If you live in a fast-growing city in Texas, let the story of the City of Bastrop, a small city of 12,000 people, be a cautionary tale. The City Manager has the power to make things happen -- good and bad. This is why it is so important to elect officials who understand their job is to -- both trust and verify city management -- and to make sure that officials a the spirit and intent of the Texas Open Meetings Act. Bastrop City Council Member Cheryl Lee gets it.
In this article:
Put it in Context The three most glaring takeaways from the suppressed Lee Report Harassment and Suppression of Lee, Nelson and Open Government Violations of Public Trust at Three Meetings
The Bastrop Backstory
Bastrop’s City Manager, Sylvia Carrillo-Trevino, and three of the five voting members of the City Council (Kirkland, Plunkett and Meyer) have, for well over a year, engaged in concerted and clumsy shenanigans to disrupt and dislodge those in the minority at City Hall. This came to a head at a Special Meeting called by the City Manager on November 21st, with Cheryl Lee being shouted down and where repeated requests for decorum by Mayor Lyle Nelson were ignored.
LIV painstakingly wrote it in this detailed article. If you haven't yet read it, please do. Then come back to this article for this important update.
Put it in Context
Since the November 21st fiasco, nearly 900 people have viewed the video of the meeting, and as many or more have read the Lee Report.
In contrast, nearly 4000 people have viewed the Bastrop Economic Development Corporation’s most recent meetings. America now knows about the little fragile heaven of “Bastrop charm” because Elon Musk-related industries have put Bastrop -- the county and the city -- on the map. Bastrop County is undergoing a 12-13% growth boom. It could be worse. Check out the 26% growth rate of Kaufman County.
The problem for Bastrop and much of Texas is the infrastructure needs that are driven by fast-paced growth -- water (quality and quantity), wastewater, public safety, roads, energy, schools, etc, -- can't keep up, especially in Texas. The Texas Legislature has failed to give cities and counties the tools to make growth pay for itself. A concerted attack on local government started in the 2023 legislative session with the passage of the "Death Star" bill, HB 2127 (see LIV article here). One of the leading contenders for the new speaker of the Texas House, is Dustin Burrows (R-Lubbock), the author of HB 2127.
These are the real questions for municipal officials in Texas. The antics of the Bastrop City Council majority and City Manager are providing a distraction when residents and local government urgently need answers to these questions about growth and open government:
What are the costs in taxes and fees to the residents and how will our quality of life be affected related to water (quality and quantity), land, transportation, and air quality?
Will businesses seeking development contracts and infrastructure projects involving hundreds of millions of dollars of investment be treated fairly? Or will they be subjected to pay-to-play politics by a local fiefdom?
Will our governing bodies operate transparently, follow open meetings law, and commit to their own fiscal accountability?
The three most glaring takeaways from the suppressed Lee Report are:
1. The repeated attempt by City Manager Sylvia Carrillo to get the Council to approve paying an engineering firm twice ($371,118 x 2 = $742,236). The firm had already been paid $371,118, but Carrillo insisted they be paid again. Lee kept asking why. The only response to date by Carrillo is, “I forgot about it”. Carrillo signed the invoice for payment. How does one forget about writing a check for $371,118 of taxpayer money?
2. The City Manager is expected to maintain neutrality on political or contentious matters serving as an impartial administrator for the city, yet appears to have violated ethical standards of the Texas City Management Association (laid out in the Lee Report pages 1-4, and 42-43, especially Tenet 7). Carrillo participated in and used city resources and her position to influence the outcome of a 12-month investigation costing the city more than $137,080 (see page 24, Lee Report). This does not include additional expenditures underway to legally defend a private petition for the Kirkland-led Council majority to recall Mayor Lyle Nelson for no legal reason at all.
Still, Kirkland has city management seeking vengeance to put the recall on the May ballot at the January 14th meeting.
3. The promise to thwart the law -- the Bastrop City Charter -- by Carrillo who announced at the November 21st meeting that she would defy the requirement clearly stated in her contract (see top of pg 5) to reside in the City of Bastrop. This longstanding city charter provision (see bottom of pg. 15) had just been reaffirmed by the voters by 63% on November 5th.
Harassment and Suppression of Lee, Nelson and Open Government.
The fight over open government and transparency comes on the heels of Bastrop voters passing Prop K -- the open government amendment -- by 73% on November 5th. Prop K amended the quorum requirement that appeared to allow for a quorum of 3 to meet in private, as Meyer admitted she was regularly doing with Plunkett and Kirkland. We assume they have stopped their private meetings, but it appears that they could be doing a "walking quorum" aka a "daisy chain"? If they are, know that there are criminal violations involved. See this section of the Texas Open Meetings Act (TOMA). See: Sec. 551.143. CONSPIRACY TO CIRCUMVENT CHAPTER; OFFENSE; PENALTY.*
Violations of Public Trust at Three Meetings
On November 21st Lee’s report was besmirched by Carrillo and some of the City Manager's most disorderly fans in the audience. They repeatedly shouted at and heckled Lee and refused to heed the Mayor’s repeated calls for decorum. Yes, maybe Nelson should have cleared the hall. But we understand why he didn’t, having been harassed for over a year with false claims to justify a recall campaign led from the dais by 3 of the 5 voting members of the City Council with help from the City Manager. See LIV News, "Breaking: Nelson finally filed suit on recall: Sylvia Carrillo's Inside Job".
On December 10th, Kirkland and Meyer on Item 11D, engaged in a heavy-handed parliamentary maneuver to deny Cheryl Lee's right to speak on the item, despite that she is named -- and blamed -- in the posting for supposedly making city staffer's names public on November 21st. Lee attempted to simply explain that those staffers' names were made public by Carrillo when she made the Report public on November 21st without bothering to redact staffers' names. You can't make this stuff up! This is Lee's Statement on 11D, the one she was stopped from making. For the video: Scroll to 2:05:20 in the video for the 11D.
On December 17th, at a Special Meeting called by City Manager Carrillo herself, Lee received this “lovely” Christmas present of Item 6B. Carrillo requested "Council Approval or Denial" of Lee’s travel expenses to cover travel and room expenses to attend the board meeting of the Texas Association of Black City Council Members (TABCCM) an Affiliate organization of the Texas Municipal League.
Folks, this was pure harassment of Lee by the City Manager. This $348 reimbursement request by Lee was approved in previous years by the City Secretary without objection from guess who? The City Manager -- Sylvia Carrillo. The City manager has the authority to approve expenditures under $50,000, yet she placed Lee’s expense on the Agenda for public discussion. Why? Retaliation pure and simple.
Sylvia Carrillo and the Council majority will giveth and taketh away at their whim for now. But if their whims are predicated on the silencing of Cheryl Lee, it's a very bad bet.
Please note: The voters have a chance to settle all of this at the next election in May when Kirkland and Lee will be up for reelection.
_______________________ LIV Addendum:
For over the year, Community Impact News (CIN) has repeatedly failed to tell the public the most important facts in the story of what is happening to the city’s governance related to the attempt to recall Mayor Lyle Nelson, to silence Cheryl Lee and the recent resignation of City Attorney, Alan Bojorquez. CIN's coverage of the November 21st “mobbed” meeting failed to report that Lee was shouted down and the repeated calls by the Mayor for decorum were ignored. Unbelievably, CIN did not link to the Cheryl Lee Report despite that it was the main subject of the meeting! CIN’s December 4th report of City Attorney Bojorquez’s resignation also failed to provide readers with a copy of Bojorquez’s resignation letter obtained by CIN in an open records request that is even referenced in the article. Thankfully, the Statesman did disclose Bojorquez's resignation letter that LIV had obtained and gladly released to the Statesman.
*In 2011, Austin-based independent news outlet, The Austin Bulldog (through its attorney, Bill Aleshire), caught all members of the Austin City Council, including Mayor Kirk Watson, involved in such criminal violations of TOMA.
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