The town known for its springtime classic car show and picturesque Fourth of July celebrations has been rocked by the firings and resignations of city officials, complaints of an unresponsive City Hall and allegations over sewage spilling into a rent home’s crawlspace and killing calves along a creek.

The unrest has seeped into the campaigns for Saturday’s city election. One city council candidate in Valley Mills, Arley L. Harris Jr., said he is running in Saturday’s election to “get people the answers they deserve.”

To big-city folk, it may seem comical, the travails of a small town. The joke may be lost to Brittany Lannen, who said 10 calves on her land died last summer after sewage leaked into a creek, or the relatives of former Mayor Jerry Wittmer, who are worried that

The recent resignation of Valley Mills’ 25-year volunteer fire chief was the latest in a City Hall shakeup over the last year. At least six city employees and officials have been fired or resigned in that time.

Since Mayor Josh Thayer took office in May last year, the Valley Mills public works supervisor, city secretary, and city clerk have been fired. At least one city attorney has changed out, Council Member Bill McKain “stepped away,” and Volunteer Fire Chief David Fisk resigned.

McKain said Wednesday he “stepped away” because of all the personnel turmoil.

“I don’t look for any further involvement in it,” McKain said.

David Fisk, former chief of the Valley Mills Volunteer Fire Department, talks with state environmental inspectors last week about a sewage leak under a house he owns.

The town is in an uproar.

Candidate Harris, a truck driver who makes his home in Valley Mills, said he knows many senior citizens who live near him who cannot get answers to their concerns at City Hall.

“Maybe some of us can get elected (to the city council) and get these people the answers they need,” Harris said Thursday. “Then City Hall won’t turn a blind eye toward them.”

Harris also said he has heard of all the speculation surrounding the departures of city officials over the last year and he hopes to bring resolution.

The mayor said he has lived for 10 years near a house that now has a sewage leak and does not see the issues with the sewers on the north side of town.

“There’s no problem with the lift station (near there) or the sewer lines,” Thayer said.

The lift station that pumps sewage from the downhill side of a northern neighborhood along Farm-to-Market Road 56 is “fine,” Thayer said in a special called council meeting to discuss the station Monday.

On Tuesday, Texas Commission on Environmental Quality inspectors checked the lift station and found it in good working order.

“This is the fourth time since February that TCEQ has checked this lift station, and it’s fine every time,” Thayer said Tuesday after the check.

The former city public works supervisor for Valley Mills, Rick Henderson, who worked there for four years, and until a few weeks after Thayer took office, said Tuesday that the lift station needed regular check-ups and maintenance to keep working properly.

He also said he pumped sewage out of the nearby manhole from time to time, as needed.

Donna Veteto, who grew up in the 1960s and 1970s in a house across the street from the lift station and whose mother still lives in that house, also tells a different story than the mayor about the manhole and the lift station.

“Oh, yes, we know about that lift station,” Veteto said Tuesday. “The manhole near my mother’s house often fills up with sewage. Or it did until last fall.”

Now, the crawlspace under a house next to the lift station, that Valley Mills’ former Volunteer Fire Chief David Fisk has owned since February, fills up with sewage, Fisk said.

Fisk said Tuesday that he pumped 1,000 gallons of sewage out from under the house’s crawlspace in April.

Lannen, who owns land east of the lift station and east of the house that Fisk owns, and also wrapping around north to including the banks of an intermittent stream bed downhill from the lift station, had 10 calves die last summer on her land.

“The calves get down there to the streambed, that doesn’t usually have water in it, without their mothers and they drink,” Lannen said Tuesday.

She said she thinks it was sewage leaking from the manhole and from under the house Fisk now owns that killed her six calves and four from her tenant.

Inspectors from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality also checked the house Fisk now owns and the lift station next to it Tuesday.

“It’s slowly filling up again,” Fisk said of the crawlspace under the home, while pointing through a cover he opened for the inspectors to see. Fisk also said he cannot rent the house because of the powerful smell of sewage from under the home.

In a text message, Fisk said he resigned as fire chief at the regular fire department meeting April 19 because he is in process of suing the city over the sewage leak.

The mayor said he received Fisk’s resignation letter the day after he was sent an anonymous public information request for the volunteer fire department’s financial audits that also implied mismanagement.

Fisk said he never got the information request, that it went to the acting fire chief after he resigned.

The first firing

The first city official to be fired was Henderson, around June 9, 2021, he said Tuesday. He said he was not fired in a city council meeting.

Neither Thayer nor City Attorney Adam Hill responded to any of the Tribune Herald’s questions this week on any of these firings. Hill said the council had not authorized him to speak about the firings.

Thayer has not returned any calls or messages left at City Hall about the firings.

Hill took the city attorney position during Thayer’s term, replacing attorney Alessandra Gad, who had worked for the city under Wittmer’s term.

Henderson said Wittmer hired him as supervisor of public works in the summer of 2017. Over the next four years, he performed maintenance on the Valley Mills water and wastewater systems, all city buildings, and made sure grass on all city property got mowed, Henderson said.

Unemployment documents from the Texas Workforce Commission that Henderson provided state that he was fired for “job abandonment.” Job abandonment means a prolonged absence from work, without a prior arrangement.

The only work Henderson said he missed after Thayer became mayor was a day following his mother-in-law’s heart attack around June 8, 2021. This was about a day before Henderson was fired.

Henderson also said that just a few days before his firing, he reported to the mayor and a city council member that one of the city plumbers doing work on the sewage treatment plant was not properly licensed.

The second official fired

Valley Mills City Council Member Nick Guerrero said an internal city investigation led to the second firing, that of the city secretary.

The former city secretary, Celia Rogers, was released from duty in July, in a 4-1 city council vote of “no confidence.” Mayor Pro Tem Curtis Wiethorn voted against.

Valley Mills Police Sgt. Kelli Bomer said Tuesday that Valley Mills Police Department does not conduct investigations of city officials. Bomer said she believed the mayor conducted such investigations.

The mayor has not answered the Tribune-Herald’s questions about these firings.

“The city turned over findings to Bosque County Sheriff’s Office, where the investigation is still ongoing,” Guerrero said. The sheriff’s office did not respond to the Tribune-Herald’s questions about whether it is conducting a related investigation.

Guerrero also said that any findings in connection with former Mayor Wittmer during the investigation of the city secretary were turned also over to the sheriff’s office.

Investigations of public officials are normally carried out by the Texas Rangers, whose spokesperson said they are not investigating Wittmer or Rogers.

No cases have been filed against either Wittmer or Rogers, at either misdemeanor or felony level, in Bosque County, up until at least Wednesday, a check with the offices of the District Clerk and County Clerk in Bosque County on Thursday confirmed.

The third official fired

Lana Klemcke worked as both city clerk and city secretary, after the city secretary was fired in July. Klemcke would become the third city official fired.

An investigation by the mayor found that Klemcke overpaid herself for three months while she was temporary city secretary, Bomer said Tuesday. Chelsy Phillips, the new city secretary, fired Klemcke in December.

Klemcke’s unemployment paperwork from the Texas Workforce Commission indicates she was fired for overpaying herself.

She said Tuesday that she set up her payments according to the wage in an agreement between her and the city for her to work as both city clerk and city secretary. She said she only saw the agreement once.

Klemcke also said that the mayor had to initial each direct deposit payment to city employees while she was city secretary.

“If I was paying myself at the wrong wage, he should have pointed it out to me when I brought the payment forms to him for his initials,” she said Tuesday.