No notice given for city admin candidate meetings

By V. Hugh Lewis, Jefferson Jimplecute

The last steps the Jefferson City Council have used to interview candidates for the City Administrator position came under fire on Good Friday after some council members met with the final two candidates. 

The challenge was made due to the lack of posting of notice of a meeting when council members gathered to perform in-person interviews.

Under the Texas Open Meetings Act (OMA), a government body is required to post notice of a meeting whenever they gather and discuss city business. 

There are certain exceptions for different situations, for example social gatherings where a number of members may be present. The OMA specifies however, that city business cannot be discussed.

The Jimplecute received an anonymous tip that members of Council were holding a meeting at 9 a.m. Friday morning at the City’s Visitor’s Center. 

Upon arrival, the Jimplecute passed Ward 3 Aldermen Victor Perot and Ted Dickson leaving the center and found the vehicles of Mayor Rob Baker, and Ward 1 Aldermen Jim Finstrom and David Westbrook parked outside the building. 

Former Alderman, and current Alderman candidate for Ward 3, Richard Turner, also received the same anonymous call about Friday’s meeting and entered the building shortly after 9:15a.m. to find Baker, Westbrook, and Finstrom, sitting at the conference table with a candidate.

According to Turner, when he informed them he believed the meeting was a violation of the OMA, he said Baker told him it was not and that no notice was required to interview candidates. 

After further discussion, Turner said Finstrom told him, “he shouldn’t be interrupting their meeting.” Turner took a photo of the group and left.

Turner returned to the Visitors Center around 1 p.m. Friday to find Baker, Finstrom, Westbrook, and Ward 2 Alderman Gary Amburn in the conference room with a second candidate.

When the Jimplecute drove by around 1:30 p.m., Baker and Finstrom’s vehicles were parked in front of the building.

Westbrook was parked around the corner of the building near the kitchen door.

The council members present in the conference room when Turner arrived constituted a quorum of members, thus creating a meeting according to the OMA. 

A second photograph was taken by Turner before he departed.

In speaking with Baker and other Council members later Friday afternoon, the Jimplecute learned the process Council has used to choose candidates to interview for the position. 

All council members were given all of the submitted resumes along with a scoring sheet. 

They were to review the applications, score them, and submit the scoresheets to Baker. 

From there, the top five candidates were chosen. 

Then several members of council held group zoom meetings with the top five to do preliminary interviews. 

From there the top two candidates were chosen and Friday’s in-person interviews were scheduled.

The Jimplecute reached out to Chip Stewart, an attorney, media law professor at Texas Christian University and advisor to the Texas Center for Community Journalism. 

He reviewed the situation and said, “the rule is you always assume a notice of meeting is required. Then you work through the exceptions as allowed in the OMA. Interviewing a candidate for a city position is city business, and so a meeting notice would be required.”

The Texas Attorney General’s Open Meetings Act Hotline concurred with Stewart on Monday. “Even a group of more than two members getting together to discuss or interview an individual for a city position requires a notice – especially if they plan on giving their thoughts about the interview to the rest of the council. It’s city business. Since they had a quorum present at the second interview, they definitely should have posted notice,” the AG’s Office member stated. “Zoom meetings to conduct interviews should also have had notice posted.”

The OMA was modified in 2019 to better define the concept of a “walking quorum” to include a “string of communication,” written or verbal “between members that occur outside of a meeting… and that concern an issue within the jurisdiction of the governmental body in which the members engaging in the individual communications constitute fewer than a quorum of members. The offense requires that the member know at the time he or she engaged in the communication that the series of communications ‘involved or would involve a quorum and would constitute a deliberation once a quorum of members engaged in the series of communications.’ ”

Baker told the Jimplecute by phone on Friday afternoon that Dickson had contacted the Texas Municipal League to inquire about the need for notice to be posted after Turner “burst in.” According to Baker, Dickson told him the TML said, “the entire council could be present for an interview and they didn’t have to call a meeting.” 

Dickson has not directly responded to a request for comment as of press time. Baker also said City Attorney Mike Martin had been contacted and he “said it was OK.”

TML responded on Monday. 

“We appreciate the question, but TML would have to defer to the city attorney in this case,” Chris Corrigan at TML wrote in an email. 

Martin, in an email to the Jimplecute on Tuesday, called Friday’s events a “meet and greet”, despite Baker calling it an interview on Friday, and said that he [Martin] “had not done extensive research at this time” on the matter but that “Baker wanted to bring what he considered to be the two finalists for City Administrator to Jefferson for a ‘meet and greet’. I told the Mayor as long as city issues were not discussed, no decisions were made, no Q&A was held, that a ‘meet and greet’ with some of the council members was okay. I didn’t discuss the issue of quorum (my fault) because I thought it would be an individual ‘meet and greet’,” he said in an email to the Jimp.

“I talked to the Mayor and he indicates that the candidates came to town and there were three informal get-togethers with some of the council members,” he continued. “First with two council members plus Rob Baker, then with two members plus Rob Baker, and the final with four, including Rob Baker. Obviously the fourth would be a quorum, if it is considered  a meeting. However, councilman Ted Dickson called TML Legal before this last get-together of four people, and they assured him that if it was just a meeting of the candidates and no notes were taken, no City issues were discussed, no decisions were made, that the get-together did not qualify as a City Council meeting, and therefore, was not required to be posted. The Mayor assures me that City business was not discussed, no notes were taken, no deliberations were had, and no decisions were made.”

Dickson was text messaged by the Jimplecute requesting the name of the person at TML he spoke with, but, as of press time, had not responded. The first names Dickson provided to Turner do not match anyone at TML when asked. 

Baker was sent, via email, a series of additional questions on Tuesday informing him of the responses the Jimplecute received from the AG’s Office and questions requesting the Council’s thinking and reasoning when deciding not to post notice. 

As of press time, Baker had only responded to say we was waiting to hear back from the City’s Attorney before responding.

The Jimplecute has learned since, that one of the candidates does not wish to relocate from the Atlanta-Queen City area to Jefferson, and Council is considering granting a waiver to the city ordinance which requires the City Administrator to live inside the city limits at Thursday’s meeting. 

Violations of the OMA are a Class C misdemeanor, per occurrence, and carry a $100-500 fine, and/or up to 30 days in jail, if convicted.  

The OMA also requires public officials to take training courses within 90 days of taking office on the OMA and the Freedom of Information Act. 

All Council members have certificates on file with City Secretary Doris Hines stating they have completed the required training courses.

According to the certificates on file with the City Secretary, Baker took his courses on day 93. Dickson last took the OMA course in 2018 while on JEDCO, and the FOIA training on day 21. Finstrom last took the courses in 2015. 

Amburn took his courses on day 83. Perot took OMA training last in 2015 and does not have a FOIA certificate on file with the City Secretary. 

Westbrook last took the courses in 2018. Ward 2 Alderman Tyrani Braddock took hers on day 95 and does not have a FOIA training certificate on file with the City Secretary. 

It is recommended by the AG’s office that the training be taken at the beginning of each new term, but multiple course undertaken is not required. 

The AG’s office updates both the training courses and  handbooks for OMA and FOIA every two years. 

According to Braddock, she did not participate in either the zoom interviews, nor the interviews on Friday.

Baker has called a special City Council meeting for 5:30 p.m. Thursday evening to, among other things, review and discuss the candidates in a closed session, and possibly offer employment to one of them.

The Jimplecute will live stream the open portion of the meeting.

Turner has made a FaceBook request for interested individuals to attend the special meeting and voice their opinions on the matter.