By Bro Hill
I appreciate the Odessa American allowing me to express my total disdain for the current political state here in the City of Odessa regarding the degraded decorum and unethical tactics currently on display by certain council members and the 18 member Ector County Republican Party Board and its chairperson Tisha Crow.
I sat in disgust last Tuesday night at another Odessa City Council meeting and watched more arrows being lobbed at Councilman Steve Thompson on totally bogus and unsubstantiated claims about his supposed conflict of interest with the city council.
Thompson has proven with documents delivered to the Odessa American and others of his retirement from his former company many years ago, but his critics don’t seem to care about the facts. They feel they should keep perpetuating falsehoods loud enough to make them a fact. This must stop!
The group propagating these lies are the same people that unethically gave and received over $20,000 of in-kind campaign donations to four city council candidates when they were running for office of which none of the candidates reported.
The Republican party was even quoted as saying that the donations were distributed with the candidates’ knowledge and cooperation. Councilman Matta even acknowledged as much at the time saying he would amend his ethics reports when in fact he did not.
This was all reported in the Odessa American on April 13, 2021. The Ector County Republican Party’s leader Tisha Crow was the chair of the group at the time as she is today.
If you want to preach about ethics Ms. Crow and Councilmembers Matta, Swanner and Mayor Joven, if you want to let everyone know how ethical you are, maybe all of you should go on record as to whether you actually gave or received any campaign donations from the Ector County Republican Party, in kind or otherwise, and reported them to the Texas Ethics commission like you were legally required to at the time. Until you do so, please do not be preaching to your choir about how ethical you purport to be, when all of us know you are not.
Bro Hill is a former Odessa city councilman.
