(This story was updated to add new information.)
How the Corpus Christi City Council decides to move forward with the early stages of the mayor’s removal proceedings won’t be determined for several more days following postponement of a pretrial hearing.
The pretrial hearing — expected to cover topics ranging from witness lists and subpoenas to motions and scheduling — was delayed from May 27 due to inclement weather, and is now expected to be held prior to the June 2 special meeting, according to city officials.
It will be the same day that council members are expected to vote on whether to continue work on the proposed Inner Harbor desalination plant.
Although unrelated, the delay falls on the heels of an order from a federal court denying Mayor Paulette Guajardo’s request for a preliminary injunction related to the removal proceedings.
Among other topics, the pretrial hearing is expected to cover a motion filed by Guajardo’s attorneys arguing that half of the council members who would sit on the tribunal determining her removal should either recuse themselves or be disqualified from participating.
That’s because the council members — Everett Roy, Roland Barrera, Sylvia Campos and Gil Hernandez — were on the council that in 2024 considered tax incentives for a downtown hotel project.
The incentives sit at the crux of events that petitioners allege show misconduct of malfeasance by the mayor.
Guajardo has denied allegations of any wrongdoing.
John Flood, among Guajardo’s attorneys, has asserted in the motion that there would be questions of impartiality, should the four council members participate in the proceedings.
They are witnesses, according to Flood’s motion, and “have an interest in the outcome of the impeachment and have a bias in favor or against a party in the matter.”
Hernandez, Roy and Barrera supported the tax incentive award in the first of two votes, while Campos abstained.
In the second vote, Roy and Barrera had supported the incentives, while Hernandez abstained and Campos voted in dissent.
In a May 27 email, Barrera announced he would recuse himself from removal proceedings and that “all further proceedings in this case shall be conducted without my presence,” adding that he didn’t believe he could “fairly and impartially serve in both the role of witness and decision-maker during the process.”
“I take my elected responsibilities very seriously and believe it would be a disservice to both the office I hold and to the integrity of the removal process for me to serve in dual capacities,” he wrote. “In order to preserve fairness, public confidence, and integrity of these proceeding, I respectfully recuse myself from participation in deliberations and judgement related to this matter.”
Roy has also recused himself.
The incentives
Critics have said Elevate QOF, the company granted the $2 million in incentives in 2024, had used misleading means as part of their pitch for the funding.
An allegedly altered screenshot from the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency’s website, used as part of a presentation, did not show the date or release number of a press release announcing new flood maps.
Developers had originally told city officials that the funding was to go to amenities, as well as increased costs of hotel construction due to the flood maps.
Supporters have said that the funding was ultimately earmarked for the economic development components, not flood mitigation, and that changes to the screenshot had been an unintentional oversight or not relevant to decisions to award the $2 million.
In the petition filed with the city, signers accuse the mayor of being aware of the accusations against the developers but had advanced an item to consider the tax incentives anyway.
Articles of Impeachment, in part, allege Guajardo perjured herself during depositions taken as part of a lawsuit that seeks to dismantle the ordinance approved by the council that had awarded the tax incentives.
Both developers and Guajardo have denied any wrongdoing in the matter — the mayor, in part, saying efforts to remove her from office stem from opposition to the Inner Harbor desalination project.
A law enforcement investigation and administrative legal investigation did not find wrongdoing — however, supporters of a removal hearing have said the previous inquiries did not address ethical questions that could be explored in removal proceedings.
The federal case
Flood had made similar arguments about the council members’ participation in the tribunal as part of a request for a federal preliminary injunction.
Hal George, in a response to Flood’s filing in court, had pointed to the “Rule of Necessity,” which means in this context that only the City Council has purview over the removal hearing and cannot be disqualified.
He had also asserted that an injunction would be speculative and premature, since the proceedings haven’t yet been held.
Stephen McMains, who represents in the federal case five council members who had voted to move forward with removal proceedings, also addressed the subject in a motion to dismiss filed with the court.
The attorney — representing Hernandez, Campos, Carolyn Vaughn, Eric Cantu and Kaylynn Paxson — wrote that there wouldn’t be another reason to call the four council members as witnesses, except that they had been part of the 2024 vote.
It would make the City Charter’s provisions on impeachment “essentially toothless,” McMains wrote in the filing.
“Any time a council member wanted to perpetuate a fraud, all they would have to do is say they would call the other members who went along with their fraud as witnesses and nullify the tribunal,” he asserted.
An order by U.S. District Judge George C. Hanks, shown as signed May 26, denied the preliminary injunction requested by Guajardo but in his initial filing didn’t provide his reasoning, noting in the filing that he would “issue an opinion in short order.”
The opinion did not appear on the docket as of early May 27.
New filings in pretrial hearing
The mayor’s legal team and petitioners’ attorney had earlier this month filed witness lists and a series of motions that had been, at one point, intended to be considered in the first pretrial hearing scheduled May 18.
In that meeting, attorney and former county court at law judge Terry Shamsie was appointed as the council’s legal adviser in the proceedings.
However, additional action was delayed to pretrial hearings set for May 27 and June 2.
Doug Allison, an attorney representing competing developer Ajit David in a lawsuit related to the incentives — and now representing the petitioners in the City Council removal case — filed on May 26 a slew of exhibits he intended to include in the removal hearings.
They were shown in council documents as including depositions, to include those given by Guajardo, City Manager Peter Zanoni, developer Philip Ramirez, Assistant City Manager Sony Peronel, former assistant city manager Heather Hurlbert and former Corpus Christi Regional Economic Development Corp. CEO Mike Culbertson.
Exhibits shown on the list also include screenshots of the FEMA release; CCREDC documents; City Council documents and videos; David’s emails and texts to city management; audio from a recording of a conversation between David and Zanoni; as well as some of the mayor’s text and phone call history.
City documents, as of early May 27, did not show a list of exhibits Guajardo’s attorneys intended to file in the removal proceedings.
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: Pretrial for Mayor Paulette Guajardo’s removal hearing postponed
Reporting by Kirsten Crow, Corpus Christi Caller Times / Corpus Christi Caller Times
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