Five Corpus Christi City Council members have been added as defendants in Mayor Paulette Guajardo’s federal court case related to a planned hearing for her removal.
Guajardo’s original complaint, in which she requested a preliminary injunction, is based on assertions of due process issues related to the hearing, records show.
The city of Corpus Christi had initially been the sole defendant.
Documents filed as part of an April 23 amended complaint now list council members as among defendants, showing those included as Gil Hernandez, Kaylynn Paxson, Carolyn Vaughn, Sylvia Campos and Eric Cantu.
Hernandez, Cantu, Campos and Vaughn declined comment in messages to the Caller-Times on April 24. Paxson did not immediately respond.
Attempts to reach an attorney hired to represent the city in the matter were unsuccessful as of late afternoon on April 24.
Each of the five named council members had supported moving forward with proceedings for a removal hearing, a process that had been launched through a citizen-submitted petition.
Signed by six registered voters, it requested Guajardo be removed from office based on allegations of misconduct or malfeasance related to tax incentives that had been awarded to a hotel project.
Guajardo has denied the allegations.
The five council members constituted the majority who had voted in March to proceed with next steps in the petition, followed by a vote April 14 scheduling a pretrial hearing in May.
The pretrial hearing will set the stage for a trial similar to one in a civil case. In this instance, the trial will lead to a determination of whether Guajardo continues to hold office, a decision ultimately made by other council members.
A federal judge earlier this month had granted a temporary restraining order that had been requested by Guajardo, blocking the council from suspending her from office in an April 14 meeting.
Suspension had been among the options the council could have considered, according to city documents.
The temporary restraining order expires April 27.
Filings this week did not specifically state the reasons council members had been added as defendants in the case.
However, an attorney representing Guajardo contended in an April 24 email to the Caller-Times that it had been a violation of Texas Supreme Court precedent and the City Charter when the council members voted “to act as judges and jurors in an impeachment proceeding against the Mayor.”
“The five City Council members’ acts in starting an impeachment proceeding in violation of governing law are ultra vires acts that strip them of official immunity and require that they be individually named in any legal challenge,” John Flood asserted in the email. Ultra vires is a legal term that means “beyond the powers.”
The incentives
At the center of the petition for removal is a controversy over developers’ representation of a hotel project that was awarded $2 million in tax incentives.
Developers of a Homewood Suites hotel had included in a presentation requesting the funds a slide showing a screenshot of the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency’s website announcing new flood maps.
The date of the release, which appeared on the website, did not appear on the slide.
The issue, once raised, led to debate over whether the date had been deliberately obscured or if it came down to a formatting error — and whether, in the end, the slide played a role in the decision by the majority of the council to approve the tax incentives.
The petition alleges that Guajardo had been aware of accusations against the developers but chose to place the item on an agenda for consideration and subsequently voted in support.
Guajardo has denied allegations made in the petition, as well as those made in subsequent articles of impeachment that assert she perjured herself in depositions taken as part of a lawsuit aimed at reversing the council’s decision on the tax incentives.
A law enforcement investigation focusing on the developer determined no criminal wrongdoing, and an administrative investigation by an independent City Council-hired attorney concluded the same.
Those conclusions have been cited in arguments against holding a removal hearing.
While previous investigations did not find criminal wrongdoing, there has not been adequate exploration of ethical questions, some supporters of a hearing have said.
Some of the council members who voted earlier this month to move the petition forward, setting a pretrial hearing in May, said it was not a political decision but that they were instead compelled to continue the process because of the City Charter and the seriousness of the allegations.
The court case
Attorneys representing Guajardo wrote in the original complaint that the proceedings were “being advanced in circumstances where the only plausible basis is political motivation rather than legitimate governmental objectives.”
“The combination of structural unfairness, lack of evidentiary basis, and punitive intent rises to the level of conscience-shocking governmental conduct,” the complaint states.
In response, city attorneys wrote that, like any other legal proceeding, “the hearing process is designed to produce facts with which to base a reasoned judgment.”
“Plaintiff complains repeatedly and respectively about lack of due process,” the response states. “The argument boils down to Plaintiff does not have sufficient notice of the charges against her or the procedure to be involved.”
U.S. District Judge George C. Hanks Jr. did not issue the preliminary injunction in an April 15 hearing, in part saying that concerns were premature, given the proceedings had not begun.
Documents filed by Hanks the same day stated that he was “concerned that this case is not ripe and that, accordingly, the Court lacks subject matter jurisdiction over it.”
A minute entry of the hearing shows that Hanks had asked that representatives of Guajardo and the city convene to “reach an agreement that narrows the issues addressed by the TRO.”
Flood, in a filing this week, stated that they had “been unable to agree with opposing counsel on stipulations regarding suspension and removal.”
As of the late afternoon on April 24, filings did not show response from city attorneys.
Kirsten Crow covers city government and water news. Have a story idea? Contact her at kirsten.crow@caller.com.
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This article originally appeared on Corpus Christi Caller Times: Corpus Christi council members added as defendants in mayor’s court case
Reporting by Kirsten Crow, Corpus Christi Caller Times / Corpus Christi Caller Times
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