City legal staff now down to 2 attorneys

In the hours before City Attorney Natasha Brooks was terminated by the Odessa City Council Dec. 13, the city had six attorneys. It now has two.

In addition to losing Brooks, the city lost Assistant City Attorney Laurie Means, who announced Jan. 6 she had accepted employment elsewhere. Senior Assistant City Attorney Monique Wimberly resigned Jan. 13 citing the “disintegration of work environment; political process became too intertwined with position” and another Senior Assistant City Attorney Jan Baker, said Jan. 17 she was “ready to retire.”

The city’s legal department, which is budgeted for seven attorneys, was already short one attorney. They never filled the position of Senior Assistant City Attorney Robert Carroll, who died at the age of 34 in January 2021.

Interim City Attorney Dan Jones and Interim City Manager Agapito Bernal did not provide answers to the following emailed questions:

>> How will the loss of these attorneys impact the case flow at Municipal Court?

>> How will the loss of these attorneys impact the workload at City Hall? Specifically, writing contracts? Offering legal opinions to council? Fulfilling open records requests? Handling civil matters, such as lawsuits?

>> While going through the hiring process, does the city intend to hire outside counsel to assist Dan and Kevin McKethan? Have you determined an hourly rate for those attorneys and what is that rate?

>> Do you anticipate any difficulties in replacing these attorneys given the media coverage of the terminations of Natasha Brooks and Michael Marrero and the T2 contract?

>> Also, what would you like to say about Monique Wimberly stating as the reason for her resignation: “Disintegration of work environment, political process became too intertwined with position”?

In an email copied to Bernal, Jones wrote back:

“Thank you for your interest. These are great questions. Let me share with you that anytime a team member leaves or joins an organization that impacts the structural dynamics of the team. My role is to assess the team where they are, identify opportunities for efficiencies, and work with the team to implement new roles, norms, and responsibilities.”

According to city documents, assistant and senior assistant city attorneys prepare and prosecute municipal court cases, serve as legal advisors to city staff on civil issues, compose, review and approve contracts, resolutions, ordinances, public communications and other legal documents. In addition, they monitor changes in state and federal regulations, standards and legislation regarding cities.

Since Dec. 13, when both Brooks and former City Manager Michael Marrero were terminated, 17 city employees have tendered their resignations or retirement papers and a newly appointed assistant fire chief asked to be demoted to battalion chief.

The city lost a handful of long-time employees to retirement since Dec. 13, including Odessa Fire Chief John Alvarez and Assistant City Manager Cindy Muncy.

Randi Pineda, who worked in the city manager’s office as an assistant even before Marrero’s time, turned in her resignation Jan. 4. Her resignation stated, “due to recent developments, I have sought employment elsewhere.”

Among the reasons cited by other city staff for their resignations: financial issues, a spouse’s job change, low pay, another job offer, relocation, scheduling conflict and personal reasons. Among the departments losing people, Odessa Fire, Parks and Recreation, Municipal Court, Odessa Police Department and public works.

The city was also hit hard by retirement and resignation announcements in the weeks leading up to the terminations of Brooks and Marrero.

OFR training chief Martin Moya retired, Vanessa Ramirez, deputy director of public works took a position with another organization, Director of Development Services Randy Brinlee announced his retirement, Solid Waste Operations Manager Jose Jimenz retired and Billy Talley, a housing construction manager with Community Development retired.

Odessa City Council member Steve Thompson predicted there would be a mass exodus of city employees following Brooks’ and Marrero’s termination. So did a handful of city employees who spoke on condition of anonymity and said Mayor Javier Joven, Mark Matta and Denise Swanner have created a “toxic” work environment by micromanaging city staff.

Joven and those city council members who voted to terminate Brooks and Marrero declined to specifically address why they were considering terminating despite the fact they had just been evaluated in October. Since that time, Joven has said the city needed a change in day-to-day operations. He has declined to elaborate, citing pending litigation.

Odessa attorney Gaven Norris has filed a lawsuit against the city because Joven did not allow citizens to address the council prior to the Dec. 13 vote to fire the pair. Citizens were later allowed to comment at a special meeting held Jan. 9 to re-fire them.

Joven has also said Marrero has hired an attorney.

On Saturday, during a Coffee with the Mayor event, Joven said city employees have not been responsive to constiuents.

He cited the time Council member Swanner put together a committee of contractors and developers to discuss the permitting process. They met once and city staff put up resistance to any changes, he said.

In another instance, it took not days or weeks, but months for a company to get its new water meters inspected and approved, Joven said.

“Things like that were happening on a constant basis and developers and community members, vendors were getting nowhere with this department, that department, this department, that department and they would just finally call me and that’s where I’m being accused of micromanaging, but the thing is, they were at their wits end because their developments, their businesses, their constructions were being held up and this costs them money,” Joven said.

“Every time there’s a call, there has to be a call back. Every time there’s a click on our website, (information has to be gotten) within three clicks. Somebody needs to call them back. That’s where we’re not customer friendly and that’s where we’re going to get to.”

Joven, Swanner and Matta did not respond to texts seeking comments for this story.