CITY LAWYER SELECTION DELAYED TWO WEEKS; NEECE BLAMES DE LEON, MARTINEZ STALLS FOR MORE TIME TO MAKE CHOICE

By Jim Barton

The Brownsville Observer Blog

After what was likely a verbal battle in Executive Session, Brownsville's city commissioners entered the chambers one by one Tuesday night, not looking happy.

Not actually having attended a commission meeting personally in a couple years, only viewing on Brownsville TV, it felt like I'd traveled in a time machine. The mayor and commissioners seemed shockingly older than I remembered.

The obvious discord from Executive Session spilled over into Action on Item Discussed in Executive Session, Item A: Consideration and possible ACTION to hire a city attorney, the candidates being Lysia H. Bowling, Rene E. De Coss, Gerry Linan and Aaron Leal.

Mayor Tony Martinez moved that the item be tabled, since only one of the candidates had been fully interviewed, another partially interviewed and two candidates not interviewed at all.

The motion to table failed, with, at least, Commissioners Longoria, De Leon and Tetreau-Kalifa voting "nay."

"I don't see how we can proceed with a selection before we interview all the candidates. It's simply not fair," Martinez said more than once.

Commissioner Neece reintroduced a Motion to Table, but that also failed.

Neece then whipped out a prepared statement and began reading, obviously angry.

Neece cited the termination of the previous city attorney in August 2017, the formation of a search committee October 2017 with Commissioner De Leon as chairman. Neece named himself as part of that committee as well as prominent locals including judges. Neece claimed one of the candidates did not even have a law licence, but was simply a law school graduate.

"The committee didn't have its first meeting until April of this year," Neece claimed, "with only six meetings scheduled and the chairman not present for two of those meetings. Commissioner Tetreau-Kalifa did not attend any of the meetings."

Commissioner De Leon asked for the opportunity to respond and denied most of Neece's claims, calling one an "outright lie."

De Leon said he had no part in formulating a job description for the position, leaving that up to HR, Human Resources.

"I'm tired of the personal attacks," De Leon added.

Commissioner Neece nervously played with a rubber band during De Leon's response.

(At this point, I went back to the man and woman videotaping the session, asking if the volume on the public address could be turned up. They said they had no control over that.)

Commissioner Tetreau-Kalifa made a statement, then left abruptly.(I decided to leave as well, frustrated over the amateurish use of the public address system. Several of the commissioners are lawyers and are clueless about use of the microphone, let alone articulation, enunciation, etc. The interim city attorney sat on a table with two microphones and spoke directly between them, not being picked up by either. LOL)

Tetreau-Kalifa was in the hall outside chambers.

"Were you angry?" I asked.

"No, I just went to get my phone," the commissioner responded.

"We're hemorrhaging money paying outside attorneys to handle lawsuits, over $150,000 so far this year. We get billed for 30 minutes just asking a question," the commissioner added.

"Martinez and Ben are dragging their feet intentionally because they want someone else, not on the current list of candidates, to be city attorney. They are hoping for a new commission in May that will go along with their plan."

Local attorney Gerry Linan approached. He said he was the candidate fully interviewed. Rene De Coss, who spoke as he passed in chambers, was the one partially interviewed.

The City of Brownsville has been totally dysfunctional for some time with no City Manager, no City Attorney and several critical city positions manned by interims.