An Austin attorney who specializes in government accountability and transparency and volunteers with the Freedom of Information Foundation believes the Odessa City Council violated the law when they unanimously voted to make Interim City Attorney Dan Jones the city attorney Tuesday night.
According to Tuesday night’s agenda, Item 11 was “Discuss and consider posting the City Attorney’s job position using T2 Professional Consulting.”
Based on that wording, the council should not have voted to appoint Jones to his position, said Bill Aleshire.
“I would say that was not an adequate meeting notice for the public, to put the public on notice that they were actually going to fill the position at that meeting, as opposed to simply post it for purposes of accepting applications,” Aleshire said. “By violating the required notice, that would make any action that they took subject to challenge in an Open Meetings Act lawsuit to have a court mind declare the action they took was in violation of the act and therefore void.”
Aleshire said he found it “ironic” the motion revolved around the appointment of the city attorney.
“It sounds like they need a good city attorney. Even as interim city attorney, the attorney would be obliged to let his client know if they’re about to violate the open meetings act,” Aleshire said. “I don’t see any ambiguity in the wording of the agenda item. It was to be posted and use a particular kind of advertising, this T2 Professional Services approach. To solicit applications is not the same thing as actually filling the position. They did not post a fair description of the action they took.”
After Odessa Mayor Javier Joven read Item 11, Councilmember Denise Swanner responded, “Yeah, I would like to actually just make a motion to fill that position with Dan Jones. He’s done an excellent job. I don’t see that there’s any reason to go through T2 Professional Consultant when he’s already doing a good job with this and I don’t believe that we need to search.”
Councilmember Chris Hanie seconded the motion and Councilmember Mark Matta concurred, saying the city shouldn’t be spending money that didn’t need to be spent.
Councilmember Steve Thompson said Jones deserved the job because he’s performed well since he was named interim city attorney Dec. 13 — the night his predecessor, Natasha Brooks, was fired.
Councilmember Gilbert Vasquez also expressed a desire to appoint Jones to the position after asking a few questions about Jones’ background and Greg Connell said he was “comfortable” with the motion as well.
After voting on the matter, Joven remarked he was looking forward to the “op-ed” in the next day’s paper, to which Jones responded, “Oh, that’d be fun. That’d be good. I like to make the paper.”
The Odessa American sent an email to all council members, Joven, Jones and Interim City Manager Agapito Bernal seeking comment on Aleshire’s opinion Thursday afternoon.
“Oh I’m sure the theme of the story has already been decided, have at it,” Matta responded via email.
Thompson said he recalls the council agreeing it would save the city money not to post the position.
“So there was a discussion about posting it with T2, is my thought. We decided not to do that and just pull off the interim tag and I don’t see what’s wrong with that,” Thompson said. “That’s just my opinion, that’s about what you pay for. I’m not an attorney. I think you’re making a big to do about nothing, but I understand, that’s your job.”
No one else responded.
The Odessa American reported last December that although Jones had routinely “exceeded expectations” on his annual review in recent years, he’d been told his job was in jeopardy in late 2021 after he was sanctioned by an Ector County District Court Judge and “exposed” the city to legal action on other instances.
Jones, who obtained his law degree from the University of Mississippi School of Law, was hired as a senior assistant attorney in early 2019. Prior to that he spent two and half years as a defense and personal injury attorney in Jackson, Mississippi, five years as the district attorney in Mendenhall, Mississippi and 10 years in private practice in Mendenhall. In that role he acted as the municipal attorney for two towns, the juvenile public defender and school board attorney.
According to Ector County court records, Jones was representing the City of Odessa in a car accident lawsuit last year when Judge James Rush of the 244th District Court agreed to sanction Jones on the request of the plaintiff’s attorneys.
Rush found that Jones filed a frivolous motion, signed pleadings that were “groundless and brought in bad faith” and contained unsupportable factual and legal allegations and he filed a motion “for the purpose of harassment and interposed for the improper purpose of causing needless increase in the cost of litigation.”
The judge ordered the city to pay the plaintiff’s attorney for the more than 23 hours she spent on her motion for sanctions at a cost of $300 an hour. The city was ordered to pay $5,000 and Jones was ordered to pay $2,050.
On Oct. 22, 2021, Brooks issued Jones a written warning, warning him in bold that his job was in jeopardy.
According to the warning, Brooks told Jones he’d been told by her not to appear in Rush’s courtroom for the hearing to discuss whether he and the city should be sanctioned and “as a result of your appearance” the city and Jones were sanctioned.
Brooks also noted that on Sept. 24, 2021, he disobeyed her instructions and continued to assign work to a newly promoted employee one day. She noted his insubordinate behavior had been addressed just one day earlier and he’d assured her it wouldn’t happen again.
She also wrote Jones had been told “numerous” times not to work on memorandums of understanding but continued to do so. Brooks wrote one of those MOUs came to her attention and it had “little of professional value.”
“I determined that it provided inadequate protections for the City of Odessa and was forced to intervene,” Brooks wrote.
Four days later, Brooks said Jones overheard a conversation between her and another attorney concerning a client communication. “Later, in response to a question from a city council member, you responded on behalf of the department with incomplete and inaccurate information despite having no personal involvement or direct knowledge of the facts.”
As a result, Brooks wrote “your lapse has exposed the city to legal action, created doubts about the legal department’s professionalism and competency and damaged the professional reputation of a colleague.”
Lastly, Brooks wrote Jones had repeatedly made comments of an “inappropriate” nature to others in the workplace and failed to make changes despite being challenged about it.
Jones responded to the written warning with the following message: “I’ve recently had a lapse in judgment. I apologize for my failures.”
