City Council - Special Meeting

Welcome everybody to the City of Farmer Springs special call meeting for Tuesday, July 28th. Our first order of business will be public comments. I don't have anybody signed up to speak this afternoon. And seeing none, we'll move right on to our agenda, which is executive session. I'm going to read us into executive session. And C1 and C2 I'm going to combine. So, City Council will convene a closed executive session pursuant to Section 551.074, Personnel in Section 551.071, Consultation with Attorney of the Texas Government Code to consider and deliberate and to seek legal advice from the City Attorney regarding a complaint alleging a violation of the City's Code of Ethics, one, against Council Member for District 4, and two, against the mayor pursuant to section 2-284 of the city's code filed July 10th, 2026. Item C3, the City Council will convene in close executive session pursuant to Section 551.071, consultation with the attorney of the Texas Government Code to seek legal advice to discuss with the city attorney the procedures for conducting public hearings for ethics complaints. At this time, we will recess to the city manager's conference room. Thank you. And we are back. Thank you all very much for your patience. We do have some action that needs to be taken as a result of executive session. So with respect to item C1.

Mr. Mayor, I make a motion that we table any further discussion on item 26-474 until... after the public hearing on August 4th and continue the discussion in the executive session at that time.

I'll second.

We have a motion and a second to table item C1 to August 4th. If you would please indicate your vote accordingly. Motion passes. action related to item C2.

Mr. Mayor, I make a motion that we dismiss the ethics complaint against the mayor in item C2 26-475. I'll second.

Thank you. We have a motion and a second for C2. If you would please indicate your vote accordingly. Motion passes. Thank you very much. There is no action to take as a result of item C3. So that will, wait a minute. I left something out. Go ahead.

Mr. Mayor, I move that the city council ratify the retention of independent outside legal counsel and authorize and direct the city manager to proceed with an independent review of the city's ethics complaint process, including its compliance with the city charter, the code of ethics, applicable council policies, due process principles, and applicable Texas law, and to present the findings and any recommendations to the city council upon completion.

I'll second.

We have a motion and a second.

Can we have discussion? I'm not really understanding fully what this is about.

All right. Before we vote, Councilman Gonzalez, any comments?

No, Mayor.

Councilman Bennett? Yes, sir. Councilman Reed?

No.

Councilwoman Villafranca?

Can you explain in further detail? I didn't understand what you're requesting.

Yeah, what we're requesting is the retention of an outside legal counsel to review our ethics complaint process and including the compliance with the city charter, code of ethics, applicable counsel policies, due process principles, and applicable Texas law so that we can see how how well our process fits into the processes of each of those various guiding documents.

So is that a future agenda item? I'm not really fully understanding, I'm sorry.

Well, that's what I was asking the city attorney is if that is really the appropriate, if this is the appropriate meeting to make that versus next week at the regular council meeting. We didn't have a provision for any future agenda items on this agenda. And so that's why I was just questioning whether we're following procedure tonight to do that or whether it would be better that this item be brought up next week as future agenda item. Make sense?

So that's... Yeah.

If you're talking about hiring an outside attorney to evaluate our existing structure, it's not on the agenda for tonight. It should be placed on the next agenda or could be placed on the August 4th agenda. And you wouldn't have to ratify. You would just simply authorize or approve. Does that make sense? But because there's nothing on the agenda for tonight that would authorize or enable us to do that, I think it needs to be on an agenda. Does that make sense?

I do understand, but we just went through with many questions and concerns regarding the processes and procedures directly from C3. So I have to be supportive of asking for that.

Councilwoman, let me come back to you for just a moment. I want to go to Councilman Neal first.

Yeah, I... I just want to hear a little more discussion here about that. I do think I'm not sure if it's directly appropriate at this time, given that there's no item on the agenda, but I can also understand that item C3 had a lot of discussion. So I just like to hear a little more before.

So I just, I want to weigh in and just say, um, I don't understand why you would ask for an outside attorney to do that. That's what we pay a city attorney to do. And if we have questions, concerns, or want to make revisions to our current policy, I would think that that would be the city attorney's responsibility to do that. We would direct the city manager to have that meeting with the city attorney to do that. That's my only concern.

That was my exact comment. That's why we have a city attorney, for him to create policies and procedures. I don't necessarily think that we need to have an outside attorney create policy.

Well, the rationale is just to have an outside disinterested party looking in, review what we have in place, and have a specialist in the ethics in the complaint side of law.

Could I? Absolutely. I don't have any problems at all with the idea. In fact, I'm looking forward to it because it means less work for me. However, the only concern I have is that it's not on the agenda for tonight. In order for it to be a valid, formal, correct, proper action, let's see it on the next agenda. Thank you.

Yeah, I don't have a problem with bringing it up. And of course, I had my own. Why would you go outside versus not use the city attorney? But my question, as soon as you said that, was we don't have a provision tonight for a future agenda item. And that's why I think it needed to be brought up next week.

Understood.

So you'll retract. I retract.

Mr. Mayor, I retract my motion.

Okay, thank you. Pardon me. So with that, that is all the business that we have for this evening. So we will adjourn at 7.32. Thank you very much.