The decision
FACT: On June 18, 2026, in a special called session, 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 Place 4 election Fitzgerald won by 2 votes. The vote tied 2 to 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 to 2. That’s from the official minutes; our notes from that night.
FACT: Residents didn’t get a plain-words heads-up. The agenda item read “legal representation of a council member in pending civil litigation”: nothing about an election contest or whose fees. Nine days earlier, an attempt to even discuss the item ended when a council member’s walkout broke quorum.
The city is not a party to the lawsuit
FACT: The minutes call it “the pending cause brought against him and the City.” The court file says otherwise. The petition’s caption in Cause No. 348-377803-26 reads “MICHAEL BACHAND, Plaintiff/Contestant, v. ROBERT FITZGERALD, Defendant/Contestee.” The City of Westworth Village is not a named party anywhere in the petition. The city’s only exposure is the cost of administering a new election if the contest succeeds.
What the Attorney General has said
FACT: The Texas Attorney General has addressed exactly this question. JM-685 (1987): a governmental body may spend public funds to defend its own interests, 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): 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 reimbursing a trustee’s legal expenses arising from an election contest.
What the city’s own opinion says
FACT: The written opinion the city relied on, produced only after a complaint to the Attorney General, is the Westfall opinion. It concludes the city may pay counsel to protect the city’s own interests, chiefly the cost of administering a second election if the contest succeeds, while conceding the city “is prohibited from defending a candidate’s title to office.” The minutes, though, record a vote to reimburse Fitzgerald’s fees. The opinion and the minutes describe two different actions, and only one of them is blessed by the opinion.
FACT: The document’s own dates are worth noting: its cover is dated July 10, 2026, its page-4 header reads June 22, 2026, and the Cantey Hanger engagement letter was not signed until July 7, 2026. The vote it discusses happened June 18. Open the PDF and check page 4 yourself.
OPINION: Whatever explains the two dates, no version of them puts a signed, written opinion in front of the council before it voted. The justification came after the decision.
The engagement letter, and who the lawyer actually represents
FACT: The city withheld its litigation engagement letter until the Attorney General ordered the records released on September 30 after the city failed to follow the procedures required to withhold them. The city produced the letter on October 7. Read it in full.
FACT: On July 10, 2026, Kelly Hart & Hallman LLP sent an engagement letter to Mayor L. Kelly Jones, captioned “Legal Representation in a matter adverse Michael Bachand.” The copy the city produced is signed by Mayor Jones as “mayor” and dated July 10, 2026. That is the same date as the cover of the Westfall opinion.
FACT: Paragraph 1 defines the client: “Our Client in this Matter will be the City of Westworth Village.” The same paragraph states that the representation “does not give rise to a lawyer-client relationship between the Firm and anyone else.”
FACT: Paragraph 4 is titled “Joint Representation Conflict Waiver.” It states that “the Client and Robert Fitzgerald have chosen to be represented by the Firm when they could choose to be represented by separate counsel in this Matter.” Paragraph 5 refers to “the jointly represented clients” and to communications “between the Firm and the Client and/or Robert Fitzgerald.”
FACT: Under “Client Responsibilities” on page 2: “The Client agrees to pay our statements for services and expenses in this matter.” Robert Fitzgerald is not named in any payment provision in the letter.
FACT: Paragraph 4 provides that if a conflict of interest arises, the Firm “may withdraw from the representation of one or more of them,” and that the Firm “may continue to represent the other(s), even if we take positions adverse to the other’s interests.” Paragraph 5 provides that if the Firm no longer represents one of them, it “may nevertheless use any confidential information we have concerning this Matter adversely to them or to the advantage of those we continue to represent.”
FACT: Paragraph 12 states billing rates “range from $350.00 an hour for new associates to $1,000.00 an hour for senior partners,” that Mr. Whitfield’s time is “billed at $675.00 per hour,” and that legal assistants are charged from $200.00 to $305.00 per hour. Paragraph 14 states “we have made no commitment to the Client concerning the maximum fees and costs that will be necessary to resolve or complete the Matter.”
OPINION: Three observations, and we state the letter’s terms and let you draw your own conclusions. First, the City is not a party to Cause No. 348-377803-26, a point documented above from the petition caption, yet the engagement letter makes the City the only party obligated to pay. Second, paragraph 1 and paragraphs 4 and 5 describe different arrangements: one says a single client and no lawyer-client relationship with anyone else, the others describe two jointly represented clients. Both cannot be true. Third, the City agreed in advance that if the two clients’ interests diverge, the Firm may drop the City, keep representing Councilman Fitzgerald, and use the City’s own confidential information to the advantage of the client it keeps.
What we don’t know yet
UNVERIFIED: How much public money has been paid under this engagement. A records request for the payment records was submitted October 7.
UNVERIFIED: Whether any council vote authorized this engagement. The June 18 motion was to reimburse Fitzgerald’s legal fees; the minutes record no vote to retain Kelly Hart & Hallman or to sign this letter.
UNVERIFIED: Whether Robert Fitzgerald signed the letter. The produced copy carries one signature: the mayor’s.
What we think
OPINION: When the Attorney General has said “never, as a matter of law,” a 3 to 2 vote, decided by the mayor, to spend your money on one side of a lawsuit about the council’s own composition, deserves a public, plain-English justification. Residents haven’t gotten one. And with the city not a party to the suit, “defending the city” doesn’t supply it.
Where this connects
This decision sits inside a larger story: the lawsuit itself is covered on The May 2 Election, and the man who filed it was taken off the P&Z Commission the same night. See Planning & Zoning.