Council splits over Ethics Commission nominee

 In the overall scheme of things, 13.36 seconds is not that great a period of time. It might not seem like that long an interval. But, think about it this way. Suppose you’re in a classroom where a roll call is being taken — just a roll call to determine who is present and who is absent — and when the teacher calls out one particular name, that person waits 13.36 seconds before responding “here.” Get out a stop watch and time it yourself. In a situation like that, 13.36 seconds seems like an eternity.

In fact, at Tuesday night’s city council meeting, City Secretary Jennifer Horn thought 13.36 seconds was such a long time after she called the name of council member Dex Ellison that she called his name a second time just to make sure he knew it was his time to respond. This 13.36 seconds elapsed during the roll call vote on the nomination of Rebecca Chapa to city’s Ethics Commission, the only vote of nine taken Tuesday that appeared to split the council.

I attempted to learn from Ellison exactly what was going through his mind that those 13.36 seconds, but he seemed reluctant to talk about it, telling me early Wednesday he was tied up at work and then later that he had become sidetracked by the failed insurrection that afternoon at the nation’s capital. He was the only council member who did not respond immediately when his name was called. Council members Yvonne Flores-Cale, Chapa’s sponsor, Michael Tobias and Robert Rizzo immediately voted to approve the nomination after their names were called, just as their colleagues — Mayor Travis Mitchell, Mayor Pro Tem Rick Koch and Ashlee Bradshaw — did when voting not to approve it. Only Ellison hesitated and I thought the readers of this article might be as curious as I about that 13.36 second-hesitation before he ultimately cast what turned out to be the deciding vote to approve. Unfortunately, all we have is what’s on the record from the council’s meeting.

“Rebecca is honest and follows good moral standards,” Flores-Cale said in formally placing her nomination before the council. “Rebecca does an excellent job confronting situations with a cool mind and a soft heart. She is the epitome of what an ethical person should look like.”

Mayor Mitchell said he could not support the nomination in large part because of “her comments that were derogatory toward individual council members.”

“This Ethics Committee, in particular, is supposed to be a group of citizens that do not have that reputation,” Mitchell said, adding that a board member “should not be perceived as someone who is overtly political, but rather someone who could take a dispassionate approach, methodically analyzing all conclusions.”

Council member Tobias said regardless of “whatever has happened with councils in the past, it is time to move forward.”

“I commend you for all the things you’ve done for the community,” Bradshaw said. “Unfortunately, I haven’t seen you in that capacity. I’ve only seen you with what you’ve presented at the meetings and I would like to see someone with a little less bias on the Ethics Committee — someone who is able to reach an objective conclusion on the situations at hand.”

Ellison, at first, seemed to be leaning against approving the nomination. He said he had numerous conversations with the nominee and her family — “I have been in their home” — but then made references to reaching out to Chapa in an attempt “to build bridges that I felt weren’t wanted.” He added he felt she was an involved citizen and if she was being nominated to serve on any other committee, he would readily approve her. “I think the Ethics Commission is different, when you think about what the Ethics Commission is charged with doing” in that it is involved only in judging the actions of city staff members and elected officials.

Mitchell responded to Ellison by saying he did not believe Chapa could be fair in dealing with an ethics complaint filed against certain city council members or someone on the city’s staff. “I think this council’s job is bring someone forward who we believe has demonstrated that very fair, calm demeanor and has the reputation of being very fair, apolitical generally speaking, and not demonstrating they have an axe to grind, in particular toward individual members of council and/or staff.”

Pies, ethics bookend council meeting

Last night’s City Council meeting began, for all practical purposes, with City Manager Scott Sellers announcing his intentions to make Kyle the center of the pie universe and ended, for all practical purposes, with Mayor Todd Webster Sellers announcing his intentions to completely rewrite the city’s ethics code and to completely reshape the city’s Ethics Commission.

Sellers also announced a Labor Day weekend hot air balloon festival to officially inaugurate Kyle’s designation as the Pie Capital of Texas.

In between discussions on pies and ethics, the council routinely and, even more importantly, harmoniously dispensed with mostly routine agenda items. Of the 12 items requiring council action on last night’s agenda (I’m grouping the three consent agenda items into one since they were dispensed with a single unanimous vote), 10 were approved unanimously. In fact, last night’s meeting, even including an astoundingly brief 18-minute executive session, lasted only two hours and five minutes, way below the average length of council meetings during the last 2½ years.

"We have applied to become, by trademark, the ‘Pie Capital of Texas’," Sellers revealed immediately after the Citizens Comment period at last night’s meeting. "We looked at doing that legislatively, but just to make sure we didn’t pit one community against another we thought we’d go this route. Part of that designation means we actually utilize the brand, utilize the trademark."

Interestingly, a Google search of "Pie Capital of Texas" turned up zilch (except for magazine articles on where in Texas to eat great pies) and another search for a "Texas Pie Festival" only brought to my attention an event reserved for pecan pies only that is held annually in Tatum, about 280 miles northeast of Kyle. Sellers didn’t mention the possibility of a pie festival, although I’m betting one is in some form of a planning stage. He did say:

"So we have several events that are coming up that would involve pie to one degree or another. One of those I’ll announce right now is a first ever — as most events are right now in Kyle — our inaugural hot air balloon festival. That will be over Labor Day weekend this year. And the event is entitled Pie in the Sky. We’re very happy to have several balloon aficionados that have joined us to plan the event. It should be a great destination and we’re looking forward to that being a success.

"Some of our other events that are already planned involve some sort of a pie-eating competition," Sellers continued.

Just a suggestion, but something like what’s depicted in the following video could be a lot of fun.

Seriously, however, I have been giving this a lot of thought since Sellers’s revelation. One thing that came to mind is the fact that when the word "pie" is mentioned, most people here think of a desert treat. However, in Europe, especially in Great Britain, pie, especially some form of a steak pie, is considered a primary dinner entree option. If you’ve ever attended a Premier League game in England, you know the halftime routine consists of visiting and purchasing a pie and a drink from one of the many various meat pie concessionaires in the stadium. Nothing beats a hot, good tasting meat pie and come coffee or hot chocolate during a chilly English day at halftime of a football game. So why not, in some way, introduce meat pies to Kyle, perhaps trying to coax a restauranteur to open an eatery downtown devoted to English cuisine?

Another thought was to try to convince ACC to open and operate a culinary arts school in downtown Kyle devoted to the teaching and training of pastry chefs.

"Kyle has been looking for a destination," Sellers said. "There have been no shortage of meetings to discuss ‘what is our destination’. We sent out a survey to all households in the city, had focus groups, talked to the chambers. When it came down to it we realized our main destination right now is people coming off the interstate to enjoy our downtown and specifically to get a slice of pie. It seems like just about every meeting we have here at the city — and, granted, proximity helps — adjourns to the Texas Pie Company immediately thereafter or just prior to the meeting.

"It’s not our intention to support just one company," he continued. "It’s our intention to support an industry and a current destination. We feel we have a built-in destination. Brands and destinations are earned, not given, and one we have earned at this point is ‘the pie capital of Texas’. Here in Kyle, we’re very fond of our pie."

Just before the start of the comparatively brief closed, executive session which was nominally the last item on the agenda, Mayor Webster, who was obviously battling the effects of what he called a serious case of the flu, said that illness prevented him from preparing a revision of the ethics code in time for last night’s council session.

"My intention was to come in here with a list of (ethics) items I had identified," Webster said. "There are four things right off the top of my head that I think are big bucket issues that need to be addressed."

Those "big bucket issues," according to Webster, included "the way we make appointments — having each individual council member make an appointment to the Ethics Commission has created a situation where you could end up without a quorum."

Under current procedures, if one city council member filed an ethics complaint against another council member, the Ethics Commission members appointed by those two council members must recuse themselves from deliberating on the matter. Only last month, the council was faced with a situation in which as many as four council members were prepared to file an ethics complaint against another member, which would have effectively eliminated five of the seven commission members, rendering the entire exercise moot.

"There’s a conflict with the City Charter with respect to the City Attorney," Webster continued. "I think the charter says the Ethics Commission is supposed to have independent counsel for a meeting and I don’t believe the ordinance says that."

The mayor also said he believes the current ethics ordinance is too complex and "has created a condition where technicalities and procedural issues could create situations where there aren’t substantive reviews of issues."

Webster said he wants to make a list of all the things he thinks should be changed, but his illness prevented him from getting that job finished. As a result, the council voted 6-0 (council member Daphne Tenorio, citing family conflicts, was excused from attending last night’s meeting) to postpone the discussion of "revisions needed to strengthen" the ethics code until a later meeting, probably the one scheduled for April 18, but no date was actually specified.

"I think we need to simplify this a great deal," Webster said. "It’s a very complicated ordinance, which, in itself, could make enforcement of it difficult."

In response to a question from Mayor Pro Tem Damon Fogley, who wanted to know if the mayor planned to collaborate with the Ethics Commission on a revised ordinance, Webster said he planned to do come up with something to offer the council on his own.

"The ordinance itself has some process in it that says that they (the commissioners) are supposed to rewrite it," Webster acknowledged. "But I’m planning on starting from scratch."

He added he believes other cities may have ethics ordinances that would be more appropriate for Kyle and that he might use those as resources.

In other action last night:

• Council member David Wilson presented a plan that would provide homeowners an option to purchase sidewalk repairs at a discounted price. Under the city’s ordinances, all residential sidewalk repair costs are to be borne by residents and not the City.
• The council confirmed the city manager’s appointment to the Civil Service Commission and two appointments to the Planning & Zoning Commission.
• The council approved the second reading of three proposed zoning changes. One was approved unanimously. Council member Travis Mitchell voted against one to rezone a proposed residential neighborhood adjacent to the Amberwood subdivision since the current zoning was identical to the one currently applied to Amberwood and he saw no need to change it. Council member Becky Selbera voted against one to rezone property located in her district from agriculture to retail services because of concerns she has expressed previously concerning flood mitigation in those areas roughly bounded by Scott Street and Old Stagecoach Road.
• The council awarded Halff Associates the contract to develop a Stormwater Master Plan, approved an interlocal agreement involving the construction of a water line extension, approved the wording of and individually signed a letter of appreciation to the Hays CISD Board of Trustees for its vote last week to grant qualifying businesses a freeport exemption, and approved a resolution indicating support for the realignment of FM 2001.
• The council approved Mitchell’s suggestion to spend $2,500 to help defray the cost of the construction of a wrought iron decorative fence to separate the historic Kyle Train Depot from the Union Pacific tracks — an expense item Mitchell said has been contained in several recent budgets — and granted the required permission for the Hays County Historical Association to begin soliciting private funds to pay for the restoration of the caboose located immediately north of the depot.
• Sellers announced a new city survey is available online to receive resident input as part of the preparation process for next fiscal year’s budget. Residents may access that survey by clicking here.

Ethics Commission derails Tenorio’s strategy

I get it. Council member Daphne Tenorio understandably and probably quite desperately wants to prove she committed absolutely no ethics violations in a situation involving a pending economic development project for Kyle. But, in order to do that, she must first be charged with committing any ethics violations. Someone (or some thing) must allege she did something unethical.

So what did she do? She put The Kyle Report on trial.

Last night, I walked into an Ethics Commission meeting at City Hall fully expecting to cover a hearing on possible ethics complaints filed against Tenorio. It turned out to be a hearing on the ethics and journalism integrity of The Kyle Report, and the Ethics Commission exonerated this publication of any claims of making false accusations.

I’m not going to go into this at length because I prefer to report on the news more than being the subject of a news story and what happened at last night’s Ethics Commission meeting put me at the center of this story. Apparently Tenorio’s strategy was to prove she was completely innocent of any and all claims of ethical violations made The Kyle Report, since it is also apparent no one else has made any other such claims. At least, not so far. The obvious first step in this strategy was to get the Ethics Commission to rule what was reported in The Kyle Report actually constituted allegations of wrongdoing.

She never made it past the first step.

She is not going to have the opportunity to defend herself against any charges of wrongdoing — again, at least for now — because the members of the Ethics Commissions, after much discussion and debate and trying to figure out exactly what constituted an allegation and whether parts of sentences should be considered out of context from the complete sentences, voted unanimously last night that in some 13 statements Tenorio cited from The Kyle Report, not a single one constituted an actual allegation of any ethical violation.

So now the obvious question is "What happens next?". Does the entire matter drop right here or will there be any additional investigations or discussions on what actually transpired? Will the public ever learn the truth or will the City wash the entire matter through its recently created Stormwater Utility, wipe their hands of the entire affair and actually lend some credence to the notion of non-transparency in municipal government, especially when it comes to protecting one of their own?

Not only does the public deserve to know the truth, Tenorio deserves the opportunity to clear away any dark clouds hovering over her political reputation.

Through no fault of the Ethics Commission, neither transpired at last night’s commission meeting