The June 15 letter from Aleshire is in response to a report released by the city June 9, in which attorney Martha Dickie stated Goodwin violated the Bee Cave Home Rule Charter by "impermissibly giving orders to subordinates, and impermissibly pressuring subordinates of the city manager to communicate information to Goodwin before that information was made known to the city manager."
Council originally initiated the investigation into Goodwin on May 18, and following the executive session of the June 9 meeting, voted to submit Dickie's report to Goodwin and allow for his response June 17.
Dickie interviewed nine people as part of the investigation, including Mayor Kara King, Council Member Andrea Willott, City Manager Clint Garza and police Chief Gary Miller.
"It is apparent that Goodwin has regularly involved himself in many of the minute details of the administration of the business of the City," the report states. "This pattern of conduct from Goodwin may well be a leftover from the days before the City became a Home Rule City by adopting the Charter in 2013. However, the Charter makes clear that the administrative tasks in which Goodwin has involved himself are to be carried out by the City Manager only. Moreover, the Charter specifically and explicitly prohibits Goodwin from involving himself in these administrative tasks."
City Manager Clint Garza said June 15 despite Aleshire’s request to cancel the meeting June 17, city officials cannot legally do that since it has already been publicly posted.
Council may elect to table the agenda items or not take action with regard to Goodwin’s removal from office, among other options, Garza said, but he added he does not know what may happen during the meeting.
Bee Cave Council Member Jon Cobb said June 15 that while he feels Goodwin did violate the city charter, he is not sure if there are enough votes to remove him from office.
Aleshire’s letter to council makes several arguments against the investigation into Goodwin, including one that has been brought up in recent council meetings regarding whether a council member may be subject to investigation and possible removal for actions committed during a previous term of office.
“Therefore, if Council were to vote for removal under these facts, it would be an unconstitutional, and perhaps ultra vires, act subject to a court injunction to stop,” Aleshire’s letter states. “Such an interpretation of Charter § 3.03(C) is so ridiculous and unreasonable, no person would have been given fair notice by reading that Charter language that it would be applied in such an unprecedented, retroactive fashion, basically barring CM Goodwin from ever holding office in Bee Cave again.”
The letter goes on to assert that council should reject the interpretation of the charter that if a newly elected member of council ever violated the charter at any point, no matter how long ago, that member would forfeit the office to which he or she was just elected.
Cobb said June 15 that while ambiguities pertaining to a council member’s removal from office could be read into the charter, specifically with regard to actions alleged to have been committed during a previous term of office, the findings in Dickie’s investigation largely refer to actions that came to light after the deadline for another candidate to run against Goodwin had passed but prior to his May 12 swearing in to a new term.
Therefore, Cobb said, the investigation is still valid.
Aleshire said Goodwin’s April 1 resignation from his position as acting mayor, which came days after allegations against him were brought into the public forum, should have forced any investigations against him to cease.
“There was no need to be paying high legal fees for an investigation of an alleged violation of the Charter in the past because no removal from office can be done of a person who has already resigned even if he was re-elected,” Aleshire’s letter states. “The June 9th report was, from a legal standpoint, dead on arrival as irrelevant and is not worth a penny of the tax dollars spent on it.”
Among other counterarguments levied in the letter to council, Aleshire also stated Goodwin has not received proper notice of what he called vague and indefinite allegations against him and therefore has not had sufficient opportunity to prepare a defense to the June 9 report. This would effectively be denying Goodwin proper due process, the letter states.
To conclude, Aleshire said he wonders if proceeding with the June 17 meeting might be setting a due process standard council members would want to see applied to themselves or any city employee accused of allegations in the future.
"Cancelling the meeting and dropping this matter altogether would be in the best interest of the citizens of the City of Bee Cave,” the letter states. “In light of the situation, it is not my intent or CM Goodwin’s intent to attend the meeting on June 17.”
Neither Goodwin nor King were available when contacted by Community Impact Newspaper for comment as of the publishing of this story. This story will be updated as events unfold.
