The legal fees vote
FACT: Per the official minutes, the council took up “reimbursement of legal fees to Council Member Robert Fitzgerald in the pending cause brought against him and the City by Michael Bachand” — the lawsuit contesting the May 2 election. The vote tied 2–2, with Council Members Turner and Griffith opposed and Fitzgerald recused. Mayor L. Kelly Jones cast the tie-breaking vote in favor. It passed 3–2.
FACT: The Texas Attorney General has twice held that public money cannot pay an official’s legal fees in an election contest. JM-685 (1987) says a governmental body may defend its own interests in a lawsuit but “may not do so to represent the purely personal interests” of an individual official, and has “no authority” to pay an official’s legal expenses in defending an election contest. DM-431 (1997) says a government “will always be precluded” from paying an official’s attorney’s fees in an election contest — “as a matter of law.” A third opinion, GA-0104 (2003), took up the same territory: whether a district could reimburse a trustee for legal expenses arising in an election contest.
FACT: To be fair to the whole picture: the Bachand suit names both Fitzgerald and the City. A city paying to defend itself is a different question from a city paying an official’s personal defense. But the motion, as the minutes record it, was reimbursement of legal fees to Council Member Fitzgerald.
OPINION: When the two council members who voted no include one who just won his seat, and the deciding vote comes from the mayor, on a payment the Attorney General has said twice is off-limits — residents are entitled to see the legal opinion the city is relying on. We’ve asked for it.
The board appointments, same night
FACT: Per the minutes, the council made its board appointments that night: Michael Bachand, Brad Turner, and Anita Gray came off the Planning & Zoning Commission, replaced by Aaron Feldman, Russell Laughlin, and Gary Fitzjarrell for terms ending May 2028. The vote was 4–0 with Fitzgerald abstaining. Changes to the WRA, CCPD, and Finance/Long-Range Planning committees were made the same night.
FACT: Two of the three replaced had just been on the May 2 ballot: Turner had won a council seat (a natural reason to leave P&Z), and Bachand had lost his council race by 2 votes — and is the plaintiff in the election-contest suit the council had just voted to fund the defense of.
FACT: These appointments didn’t end the roster changes. Three weeks later, at the July 14 regular meeting, three more sitting commissioners — including the commission’s chair — were removed mid-term, and one of the members appointed this night was replaced. Our notes on July 14, with the roster document. Between the two meetings, six of the commission’s seven seats changed hands.
SPECULATION: Replacing the plaintiff in a pending suit on a city commission, the same night the city votes to fund the other side’s legal fees, looks like retaliation. We can’t see inside anyone’s head, and we label this as our reading of the record — but the record is what it is, and it’s linked above so you can read it yourself.
Also that night
FACT: Mayor Jones attended remotely, and Phillip Poole was appointed Mayor Pro Tem. The executive session listed the Fitzgerald litigation and board appointments.