So Wrong on So Many Levels

I’ve been to many, many governing body meetings. Ten years of Council meetings as an elected official myself. Then there were the many years before and after my term of office. As a public information official, I attended county governing body meetings. I’d say I’ve easily attended over 700 governmental body meetings.

But not once, until April 22 at the Bastrop City Council meeting, have I ever seen the presiding official prohibit a member of the public from speaking. We didn’t have time limits on our speakers and some came to every meeting calling us out on our lack of action on this issue or that. Some were relentless, but we listened to them each time. We, after all, were their representatives, those they hoped could fix what they saw as problems in our town.

John Kirkland’s blatantly politically motivated actions last night were shocking. He was way out of line. His use of his position on the dais to silence a political opponent was a clear abuse of power. He should have allowed the former mayor to speak, thanked him for his comments, and moved on. But he didn’t. He rambled on about some illegality, about the former mayor not being able to speak because the vacancy hadn’t been filled. Ridiculous and wrong.

John Kirkland is blinded by his vendetta against Lyle Nelson. Kirkland, not some errant member of the public, circulated the petition to get rid of the mayor. Whether the former mayor was right or wrong in his actions isn’t the issue. He was never charged with a crime and was completely exonerated by the Council’s own investigator. Kirkland couldn’t wait to get him off the Council. Now, it seems, he is hell-bent on keeping him on.

Once the mayor resigned, Kirkland needed to move on. But he hasn’t. The former mayor, whether Kirkland likes it or not, is a citizen of the City. He has the legal right to speak at meetings, to call out actions of the City Council where he sees they need calling out.

What better person to raise issues than one who has been in the system? He has far more knowledge than most citizens. But that’s what makes him dangerous to Kirkland and his ilk. That’s why he’s a threat. He knows the game. He knows the players.

Kirkland’s actions last night were offensive to a free people living in a representative republic with a constitutional right of redress of grievances. They were a vicious attack on government of the people, by the people and for the people. If Kirkland can’t handle the heat, which he apparently cannot, he should get out of the kitchen.

Your Comments Count

Did you know you can comment on bills that are being considered in Texas House Committees? At comments.house.texas.gov, you can register your comments. Can’t make it to Austin and the Capitol for hearings? Take advantage of this. Voice your opinions!

This morning, I commented on two bills: the huge film industry give-away (HB 4568 ) and a bill to prevent Austin from injecting treated water and then later drawing it out from aquifer(s) in Bastrop County (HB 1523). FYI, there is a Senate companion bill to HB4568 that has already passed the Senate, SB22.

“It really doesn’t matter how much money the film industry is bringing to Texas. That, as a rationale for giving them Texas taxpayer money, is not appropriate. If I wanted to support this industry, I would do so with my money by going to movies. I rarely do. What I want is that you don’t take my hard earned tax money for a use that is NOT an appropriate government use. This bill picks winners and losers.

And, just the other day, CA Governor Gavin Newsom was bemoaning the fact that high taxes and regulation were causing the film industry to leave CA (https://www.lifezette.com/2025/04/hollywoods-film-industry-collapses-as-jobs-studios-flee-gavin-newsoms-ca-watch/ and https://www.siliconvalley.com/2025/04/21/can-tax-credits-save-californias-film-and-tv-industry-heres-what-legislators-have-proposed/ and https://deadline.com/2025/04/ca-film-credit-expansion-hollywood-workers-support-1236372913/). That’s right and we all know it. They’re leaving CA and coming to Texas, even without your massive subsidies rewarding them for doing so.

This bill regulates the industry: how much of the movie must be filmed in TX, how many Texans they must employ, and on and on. I’ve written two blog posts about how Texas seems to be turning into NJ with all the housing mandates y’all are considering. Now, you want to turn Texas into CA through incentivizing and regulating the film industry. Have y’all forgotten why people and businesses move here? FREEDOM. Every time you pass a bill like this, you take another step toward turning Texas into those states that many of us fled. I really didn’t think I’d see it in my lifetime, let alone this legislative session. I am ADAMANTLY opposed to this bill, this “incentive”, this tax dollar giveaway to the industry of your choice. They’re coming anyway… y’all just seem to have forgotten why.”

“Forty-one years ago, five months pregnant, I returned to my home and found the notice in my door. We were notified we could not drink our water nor shower in it longer than one minute. Five months pregnant. On my little dead-end street of under 60 houses, there were 11 special ed students, five of us who had placenta previa at birth, one child with cerebral palsy, one who died from leukemia at the age of 5, one born significantly premature, one with tourette’s syndrome, and several miscarriages. All of those birthed children are around the age of 40+. All of us drank that groundwater water while pregnant.

Our wells were placed on the EPA Superfund list in September 1983. Once a water source is polluted, cleaning it up takes years and millions of dollars. My street didn’t pollute the water we drank. Others did but water travels underground. Containing pollution when it happens is extremely difficult.

This bill is critical to protect the water supply in Bastrop County: ranchers’ wells, agricultural well water, city well drinking water. Water moves underground. If Austin injects 1,000 gallons, what’s to say that 1,000 gallons will still be there when they choose to retrieve it? Will they draw Bastrop water, then, leaving Bastrop without the necessary water for its own purposes? If Austin wants to store its water underground, do so in Travis County which is home, according to its own website, to 3 aquifers: Barton Springs and Northern Segments of the Edwards Aquifer, Trinity Group Aquifers, Colorado River Alluvial Aquifer. And, perhaps Austin should concentrate of repairing old infrastructure so it doesn’t lose significant amounts of water via leaking pipes.

Hmmmm…. just musing…. Why is it that urban areas always want to “outsource” their problems to the surrounding counties?”

One Hand Washes the Other

Follow the money. ALWAYS. With an upcoming local election, it’s important to understand how a candidate and ardent supporters interact. Enter John Kirkland and Mel Cooper onto the stage.

John Kirkland is a City of Bastrop Councilman and Mayor Pro-Tem running for re-election. Mel Cooper is the chairman and treasurer for a Bastrop County political PAC: Bastrop County Conservatives. Cooper is also one of the directors of a Texas corporation: Festival de la Cultura, Inc. created 10/19/2023.

Hand washingIn late 2023, Festival de la Cultura, Inc. requested a $25,000 taxpayer funded donation from the City of Bastrop. On October 24, 2023, just five days after the corporation was registered with the State of Texas and one day after the corporation applied (but was not yet approved) for IRS non-profit status, John Kirkland seconded a motion to give Cooper’s corporation $25,000 in taxpayer funded money. It was unanimously approved and check number 152230 was cut to Cooper’s corporation on October 27. (For more details on this transaction, read my blog post The Emperor Has No Clothes.) According to open and public records, neither Cooper or his corporation ever provided an accounting for the use of those $25,000 taxpayer dollars.

In 2024, Cooper sent out emails to his PAC members and supporters containing false information in support of Kirkland-driven initiatives.

A Cooper November 21, 2024 email stated, “Tonight, at 6:30 pm, the Bastrop City Manager, Sylvia Carrillo, will be under attack by a small but vocal political faction seeking her removal, led by Mayor Lyle Nelson and City Council member Cheryl Lee. This group has made allegations, which Sylvia will address and refute with clarity and conviction.”

How did Cooper know that she would “address and refute with clarity and conviction” some alleged attack? There was nothing on the agenda to that effect. There was no listing of any public presentation. There was (and is) no resolution attached to the public agenda.
11/21/2024 Executive Session Agenda item

How did Cooper know that Carrillo would request the discussion be in public session? That decision was only announced during the meeting itself.

Carrillo had a lengthy Powerpoint presentation ready to go for the meeting. It had to have been prepared in advance. For Cooper to have known that Carrillo would “address and refute [an attack] with clarity and conviction”, Cooper had to have been told in advance what Carrillo would do. Cooper had to have been told in advance that Carrillo would request this personnel matter be discussed in public…. because this item was on the agenda as a “Executive Session”, a session closed to the public.

BCC endorsement listCooper‘s LLC gets $25,000 of taxpayer money with Kirkland‘s second-on-the-motion and vote. A few months later, Cooper sends an email calling for Nelson’s resignation (yet he never sent such an email calling for Jimmy Crouch’s resignation). Cooper then sent the November email discussed above to his PAC members and supporters with false and inside information.

Now, Cooper and his PAC are now hawking Kirkland for Bastrop City Council. Of course they are.

In this case, it’s clear that one hand washed the other. But should the soap be $25,000 of your hard earned taxpayer money?

More Sloppy (Illegal?) Gov’t

I wrote extensively on March 30 about what appear to be flagrant violations of the Texas Open Meetings Act (TOMA) by the City of Bastrop with its called meeting on March 31.

But wait! There’s more.

Another meeting has been called. This time for Wednesday, April 2, 2025. The agenda says it’s a Special City Council Meeting. But you wouldn’t know that by scanning the list of meetings. It’s not called a Special City Council Meeting on the list of City Council meetings. It’s called “Pet Microchipping Townhall Meeting”.

What’s a city-sponsored “Townhall Meeting” anyway? There is no such meeting type in the Bastrop Charter or Rules of Procedure. Both the PDF and HTML agendas for this meeting repeatedly refer to a City Council meeting or the Council. The HTML public agenda actually says this is a “Special City Council Meeting”. All references to the Council, on both agendas, are highlighted below. Why would any member of the public accessing either of these agendas think this is not a City Council meeting?

And, did I mention that once again, the HTML version of the agenda says there will be a closed session at 5PM, a “Mayor’s State of the City Address” at 6PM and the meeting starts at 6:30. Yes, it does, and it also says, in the upper right corner, that the meeting starts at 5:30. One agenda. Two different meeting start times. The PDF version of the agenda also says the meeting starts at 5:30. So, which is it?

As a member of the public, I have to guess if the meeting starts at 5:30 or at 6:30. I have to guess if that “Mayor’s State of the City Address” will be given or repeated from the other poorly noticed meeting two days earlier, or not. I also have to guess who is giving presentations and guess at the subject matter. Presentations should be identified along with the presenter on an agenda.

The point of the Texas Open Meetings Act is so that citizens know what is going on at City Hall, what their elected officials are up to, and to allow citizens a forum to express their views on the topics advertised.

Governing bodies and city officials can’t just make it up as they go. This meeting completely fails the TOMA test. It should be properly noticed as a Council meeting with a quorum of the Council in attendance to officially listen to and collect citizen input on this subject.

Sloppy Gov’t or Illegal Gov’t?

At what point does sloppy government actually become illegal government? At what point does the business conducted at improperly noticed special meetings become moot? At what point does a presentation by a council person who is also a candidate become illegal electioneering in City Hall?

On Friday, March 28, notice of a City of Bastrop Special Council meeting was posted. Two versions are provided for the public online: HTML and PDF. I typically grab the HTML version. I took screen shots of that last night.

This morning, while doing a search for “State of the City”, I happened to view, then grab, the PDF version.

What a difference!

  • At the top of the HTML agenda is an Executive Session at 5PM. No rationale for that Executive Session is shown. That is required by law.
  • In the PDF version, that Executive Session has been removed.
  • Is there, or is there not, an Executive Session? If there is, what’s the subject?
  • “Staff and Board Reports” is an item on the HTML agenda. Not on the PDF version.
  • Will there, or will there not, be Staff and Board Reports?
  • The HTML version lists “Presentations” during the meeting, but no indication of the subject of those “Presentations”.
  • How can the public know if they’d be interested in attending to hear those “Presentations” if they don’t know what they are?
  • The HTML agenda includes “Mayor’s State of the City Address” at 6PM.
  • The PDF agenda does not list a “Mayor’s State of the City Address” at all, but rather during the meeting it lists “City of Bastrop Presentation” but not by whom nor the subject matter.
  • Will there be a “Mayor’s State of the City Address” by Council candidate and Mayor Pro Tem John Kirkland? If so, that would seem to be illegal electioneering in City Hall. Perhaps that’s why the item name change.
  • A search of City of Bastrop agendas since 2005 for “State of the City” returns only one other instance of such an address at a noticed Council meeting: in 2023 upon the retirement of Mayor Connie Schroeder.
  • The City website home page shows that a “State of the City” address was just done on September 16, 2024 by the City Manager at a Chamber meeting. The video remains online. So why another one just 6 months later? Could it be there’s an election coming up on May 3?
  • The HTML agenda says the meeting starts at 6:30. The PDF agenda says it starts at 6.
  • So an attendee referencing the HTML agenda will be a 1/2 hour late to a meeting that the PDF agenda says starts at 6PM. Is that a legal meeting? Questionable at best.
  • The HTML agenda says the meeting location is Bastrop City Hall City Council Chambers (top right). The PDF agenda says it is the Convention Center.
  • So an attendee referencing the HTML agenda will go to City Hall. An attendee referencing the PDF agenda will go to the Convention Center.
  • Finally, on the CityofBastrop.org website list of meetings, this meeting isn’t even listed as a “Special City Council Meeting” but rather is listed like this:
    City Council meeting listing
    How is a member of the public supposed to know that this is actually a Special City Council Meeting? If I didn’t look at the agenda itself, I would have guessed this was a meeting of some organization and that it didn’t pertain to me.

So at what point does sloppy government become illegal government? I submit that it has done so with the publication of this meeting if the City Council chooses to hold this meeting in the face of so many notice irregularities.

March 31 Update

After sending an email to the City Manager, City Council members, City Attorney and some members of the press about this “Town Hall”, I received a quick response from the City Manager. While I appreciate her rapid response, her comments concern me.

“This is an informational meeting to give the residents an opportunity to hear from the developer, also learn the history of the project from a timeline perspective and what the local government code actually states, and lastly, where the project stands.”

Since when does a city government hold a meeting that is not a Council meeting or Planning & Zoning meeting to allow a developer to present (sell) his development concept or plans? If the developer wants to hold such a meeting, well, that’s his or her prerogative. But the city should not be doing so.

Will the city do this for every developer that wants a public forum to “sell” interested parties on its project? On what basis will the city turn down the next developer who asks for such a forum? City government cannot discriminate. This isn’t the first controversial development and it won’t be the last.

If the developer were not allowed to speak, but the city wanted to hold an educational meeting about its code and use various completed development examples to explain that code, that would be one thing. But to hold a “Townhall” on behalf of a single developer is completely inappropriate.

The City Charter is Meaningless

Last November, five months ago, y’all who live in the City of Bastrop went out and voted on Charter Amendments: 12 of them to be exact. Defeated were G (57.3% opposed) and L (62.4% opposed). All others passed.

Prop G would have required replacing all gender-specific terminology with gender-neutral terminology in the Charter. Prop L would have allowed the City Manager to live outside the city limits. Both were soundly defeated. Ten were passed.

You wouldn’t know that by the City’s website or the actions of the City Manager and City Council, led now by Mayor Pro Tem and Council Candidate John Kirkland.

Council Overturns Public Vote Results

The Council, in a 3 to 2 vote with John Kirkland breaking the tie, overturned the will of the voters on Prop M. That’s right. They just decided that your vote didn’t count. Why? Because Ken Paxton might sue the City over it. And, the lawsuit might cost $400,000 to defend.

Prop M was the marijuana question. And, for the record, if I were a City of Bastrop voter, I would have voted against Prop M.

Why didn’t Kirkland and his gang put that question’s results on hold until all the facts were in? That would have been the responsible thing to do. Overturning a public vote is an affront to representative government.

And while we’re questioning financial decisions, why didn’t Kirkland put the vendetta against Mayor Nelson on hold until all the investigations were completed? If the City Council is so worried about spending money frivolously on lawyers, why did the Council majority support Kirkland’s spending of taxpayer dollars in the amount of $137,000+ to continuously denigrate an elected official with false allegations? Why not wait until they heard from those allegedly investigating all this?

And what will they overturn next: letting the City Manager live outside the City even though the Charter says she must live in the City? Oh, that’s right, they already did that too.

Charter Ignored in Calling Meetings

The City Charter says “Such special meetings may be called as necessary upon written notice to the City Secretary by the Mayor or by any three of the other members of the Council.”

I submitted Open Records Requests for the November 21, 2024, December 17, 2024, January 17, 2025, January 22, 2025, and March 4, 2025 special meeting calls. None were called in compliance with the City Charter.

Think about it. If the City Council complied with the City Charter, there must be documents requesting these meetings. But, according to city officials, there weren’t.

In every case but the first one, I was told, in writing, that there were no documents responsive to my request. I received only one response and that was to my first request. It was only sent to me after my repeated protestations that there had to be some document(s) calling the meeting. City Manager Carrillo had requested the meeting via email to the Council people. Because 4 Council people replied they could attend, Carrillo contends that is the equivalent of them providing “written notice to the City Secretary”. Except, Carrillo isn’t the City Secretary.

More sloppy government. And, a City Manager and Mayor Pro Tem flagrantly willing to ignore the City Charter that the public voted to put in place. This City Manager and Mayor Pro Tem Kirkland constantly thumb their noses at you, the voting public.

Charter Changes Not Online

The City Charter has not been updated online. The election took place in November and has been certified by the City Council. Yet, the nine approved changes aren’t there. How can any person be expected to understand what this Council is doing, and under what authority they’re doing it?

Leadership Counts

Leadership counts. It’s expected that leadership will follow the rules. It’s not appropriate for City Council and their staff to make it up as they go along. They have reference material to use if they have questions. They can read the Charter just like I can (except it’s out of date). It’s the framework for transparent and open government. When they don’t follow it, they’re doing a disservice to every taxpayer and voter in the City of Bastrop.

Honoring God & Country

Flag of the United StatesApparently, the Bastrop City Council doesn’t need the blessings of our Lord at Special Meetings. Nor do they need to honor our Country and our State.

Last night, Bastrop Mayor Pro Tem John Kirkland opened the meeting and immediately moved to Citizen Comments. It felt odd and discomforting for elected officials to be conducting business without prayer and dutifully honoring our flag. The mayor pro tem and city manager need to modify their special meeting agenda template to include an invocation and the pledges immediately!

Texas FlagIn ten years in elected office, I can’t ever recall starting a meeting without an invocation and flag salute. In our case, our Council President led the flag salute and an individual Council person offered the invocation, except for special occasions such as reorganization meetings or those where a new Council person was sworn in. There, we had invited guests.

Special meetings are simply council meetings called in addition to regularly scheduled meetings and for special purposes. They should open with a prayer and flag salutes just like regular meetings. But in the City of Bastrop, they don’t.

(Update 3/7/25) The “Rules of Procedure for the City Council and Boards & Commissions of the City of Bastrop, TX” revised on September 17, 2024, mandates the Pledges. It states “The Council shall recite the Pledge of Allegiance, first to the United States Flag, and then to the state Flag of Texas.” (emphasis added) That would apply to all meetings. It specifically refers to “regular” meetings of the City Council for invocations, making it optional for all other meetings.

I call on Mayor Pro Tem John Kirkland and City Manager Sylvia Carrillo to immediately add an Invocation and Pledges to the United States Flag and Texas Flag to all City Council meeting agendas. No special guests need be invited to do so. The special guests aren’t the point. The prayers and pledges are.

Not doing so sends a message that prayer is unimportant and that there is no reason for elected officials doing their jobs to honor the flags of this great nation and state. Not doing so is a slap to every single person who has served in our armed forces and who has died for the freedoms enumerated in our Constitution and under which this Council operates.

Let’s get this fixed immediately.