Police union calls for resignation of Mount Pleasant City Manager

MOUNT PLEASANT, Texas (KTAL/KSHV) – The largest municipal police officer’s union in Texas is calling for the resignation of Mount Pleasant’s city manager over what they say was an attempt to violate open meeting laws.

Ahead of Tuesday’s city council meeting, City Manager Ed Thatcher sent an email to all department heads, warning them not to allow their employees to attend the meeting.

“Everyone, I want to make sure I notify y’all that you are welcome to come to city council tomorrow, however, none of your employees are welcome to attend. I will put each of you in charge of making that happen. If any employees attend, they will not be held accountable but you, the department director of the employees will be held accountable. Call me if you do not understand. Thanks. Ed.”

Mount Pleasant City Manager Ed Thatcher, in an email sent to city department heads on Monday, April 4, 2022

Thatcher sent the email after a discussion regarding a request for a mid-year pay adjustment for the city’s police officers was added to the agenda. He told KTAL/KSHV Tuesday afternoon that he sent the email because he heard a lot of employees were going to show up and cause a disruption, making it difficult for the council to do their business.

The police department is asking for $100,000 to address pay rates officers say do not comply with the city’s own pay scale ordinances, leaving the department struggling to retain officers.

“Over the last couple of years, it’s been tough on law enforcement, hiring, and retention. A lot of agencies across the country have struggled with this, so we’ve fallen victim to that as well, so we just want to be aggressive in how we recruit and a big part of that is the compensation that you offer people,” said Mount Pleasant Police Chief Mark Buhman.

The chief says he’s lost 28 employees over the last five years, including some senior officers. One senior officer, Ashton Lewis, says he put in his resignation on the same day as the city council meeting.

“I made the decision based on the totalities of the circumstances. We’ve been trying earnestly to get some type of headway in terms of earnings or some type of a competitive pay scale set in place and time and time again, we have been pushed off or ignored to a certain extent and it is not been done it,” Lewis said.

Lewis says he is now applying with another agency after working in Mount Pleasant for 14 years.

“Right up to 2019, the pay was competitive with our with neighboring municipalities. It was certainly competitive. However, economics has changed since then considerably and the city has failed to grow in that respect.”

On Tuesday afternoon before the meeting, Thatcher sent out another email to the city’s department heads reversing the directive, telling KTAL/KSHV that he did so after it was brought to his attention by the city attorney that banning city employees from the public meeting is against Texas open meeting law.

In spite of the reversal, Texas Municipal Police Association field representative Tyler Owen addressed the council during Tuesday’s meeting and asked for Thatcher’s resignation, asserting that he should have known better, having served in city government for more than 40 years.

“It’s a violation of our members here in Mount Pleasant PD, it’s a violation of their civil rights and if any of our members being police officers violated somebody’s civil rights, we would have an issue there,” Owen said.

Thatcher did not respond verbally to Owen’s comments during the meeting but appeared to dismiss the call for his resignation by chuckling briefly before the next citizen approached the podium to speak during the public comment period.

Following the comment period, the council went into executive session and the discussion regarding police pay was ultimately tabled until budget discussions for the next fiscal year get underway.

KTAL/KSHV reached out to Thatcher for comment. So far, he has not responded.

Owen says the TMPA is consulting with the union’s attorneys and plans to reach out to Texas Attorney Generla Ken Paxton regarding Thatcher’s actions this week.