Grievance filed against Jourdanton city manager

City Manager Bobby J. Martinez was given a three-month extension on his performance evaluation by Jourdanton City Councilmembers as a grievance against him by the finance director looms with no resolution.
DANIEL ELIZONDO | PLEASANTON EXPRESS

Pleasanton Express
By Pleasanton Express Staff |
July 12, 2023

A grievance filed against Jourdanton City Manager Bobby J. Martinez continues to loom with no resolution as city council voted to extend an evaluation period for another three months.

In the midst of all the turmoil, interim legal counsel for the city submitted a resignation letter on Friday, July 7 adding to a much broader scope of questions as the city battles other areas of concern in regards to water meter issues, road repairs and a high turnover rate of employees. Mayor Robert Williams has canceled the July 17, 2023, City Council Meeting due to the unavailability of legal counsel.

After a two-hour deliberation in executive session on Martinez’s evaluation on July 3, the city council granted Martinez a three-month extension to his evaluation. Martinez’s next performance evaluation will be in October 2023.

The Pleasanton Express has not received specific information on the grievance filed by Alvarado against Martinez. However, councilmember Patricia Tymrak-Daughtrey stated it gave her cause for concern.

“I want to be sure that Vanessa’s grievance gets put on the agenda for the council to hear the grievance hearing because we are late in hearing that,” Councilmember Tymrak- Daughtrey said. “Our policy says that we are the supervisor of the city manager. And therefore, it’s the council that decides on the grievance, and I am upset that we are having a personnel performance review before the grievance. I am upset that the mayor took it upon himself to have it diverted away from us and dismissed. And I think it’s important that we hear that grievance in all fairness to all parties before Bobby’s personnel performance review.”

Jourdanton resident Sherrie Rankin publicly expresses her thoughts on city council and Jourdanton City Manager Bobby Martinez prior to the start of the July 3 meeting. DANIEL ELIZONDO | PLEASANTON EXPRESS

Martinez’s evaluation was the major topic at the City of Jourdanton regular schedule council meeting held on July 3 and was part of Martinez’s hiring contract that he signed upon becoming city manager in November with a starting salary of $92,000.

Councilmember Raul Morales requested the agenda item, which was in regard to personnel matters of the employment agreement between Martinez and the City of Jourdanton to deliberate the appointment, evaluation, employment, duties, discipline, any complaints or dismissal as part of his first performance evaluation. The agenda item stated that Martinez did not have a right to be present in the closed session of the city council but may request that the deliberation take place in public. Martinez declined.

Martinez was hired in 2022 by city council members and began his tenure as the city manager on Nov. 28, 2022. The performance evaluation comes at a time for the City of Jourdanton when the grievance from Alvarado was filed recently against Martinez. Alvarado was hired at the same time as Martinez’s appointment.

The Pleasanton Express was notified Tuesday that current interim city attorney Tom Cate had resigned effective July 7 in part due to the grievance filed by Alvarado. Cate was hired by Martinez at a cost of $25,000 to serve on an interim basis after city council terminated the previous legal counsel of Denton, Navarro, Rocha, Bernal and Zech, PC.

“As I stated to the council when I first accepted this position, my primary goal was to keep the city out of the bar ditch, i.e., keep the city out of trouble,” Cate said in his resignation letter. “In my opinion, the current personnel issue involving Mrs. Vanessa Alvarado will continue long after my employment with the city ends. I think that it would be in the best interest of the city to have the new city attorney advise the city on this personnel issue because the city attorney will be defending whatever action the city council takes. If the city was to take action on the issue based upon my legal advice, your new city attorney would have to defend the city based upon that advice.”

Cate went on to say that he took this interim position with the city because “I wanted to help.” Cate stated that after being at the city the past several months, he concluded that “there is so much conflict and turmoil in the city staff and on the council that what little help I have to offer is of no consequence.”

“I would like to report that I have enjoyed my brief tenure with the city; however, I haven’t,” Cate wrote. “I hope that the city staff and council can put their differences aside and work to move the city in a positive direction.”

Martinez was hired by the city council and mayor from a pool of five other applicants, chosen by Public Safety Solutions, LLC, a hiring search firm contracted by the City of Jourdanton.

The Pleasanton Express contacted, Public Safety Solutions, LLC (PSS) to inquire about their process for checking candidates’ work experience and references. PSS told the Pleasanton Express that they do not offer investigative services to entities of potential candidates.

Jourdanton Mayor Robert Williams and city council were contacted by the Pleasanton Express to find out who was responsible at the City of Jourdanton for checking Martinez’s references and work experience before hiring, however there has been no response.

“PSS does not provide background investigative services,” PSS consultant Max Westbrook said. “I have a few references that I provide to clients if asked, however, we encourage the cities we work with to follow their established policies with background investigations, and we always make it clear that we do not provide these services. It is not listed in our scope of work.”

The invoiced amount paid to PSS for hiring a city manager was not readily available to the Pleasanton Express. However, an open records request for the information has been submitted. No response was received as of Tuesday, July 11.

Information compiled by the Pleasanton Express found that Martinez direct city management experience ended 30 plus years ago in 1992.

Before becoming city manager in Jourdanton, he held roles as an adjunct professor in higher education.

His one role as city administrator on his resume was an appointed position from Feb.1989 to May 1990 for the City of Crowley, Texas. The position was newly created and the first time Crowley had an official city administrator. Crowley had a population of 7,000 when Martinez served as city administrator.

The Crowley Review Newspaper reported on May 24, 1990 that Bobby Martinez was fired by a majority council vote of 4-1 in a May 17 city council meeting. On his resume submitted to the City of Jourdanton, Martinez stated that he left the position at Crowley because the city administrator appointment concluded with the new council election.

The Crowley Review article regarding Martinez firing was headlined “Council overrides mayor with vote to terminate Bobby Martinez as City Administrator.” The article’s opening paragraph stated, “A disagreement over the agenda, angry words and the threat of physically removing citizens caused the Crowley City Council meeting on Thursday May 17 to turn into a clash of wills and authority.” The mayor was also later fired by the new incoming council after being charged with official misconduct.

The Crowley Review reported that Martinez had drawn criticism over his handling of environmental issues but also personnel problems including the resignation of the police chief and two long-time public works employees for differences they reportedly had with him.

The Crowley Review reported that a record voter turnout had brought in three new city council members who had pulled together to defeat incumbents in an “often bitter campaign to end what they felt were unfair practices by the council and city administrator Bobby Martinez.” The article went on to state that many of the issues discussed during the campaign centered around the toxic waste problems in Crowley and the morale problems faced by city employees since Martinez took office as city administrator in February 1989.

Martinez was interviewed by the Pleasanton Express after his hiring and offered the following quote in report dated November 9, 2022.

“My first and foremost responsibility is to talk to the mayor and the council members and find out what exactly their top priorities are for the city’s public policy issues and then also spend some time with the department heads and the staff to get an understanding of their needs, and then bring that information back to the city council,” Martinez said. “I spent about 15 years in city management working in cities about two or three times the size of Jourdanton, so I hope that depth and breadth of experience is something that can be helpful for the mayor and the city council as well as the citizens of Jourdanton.”

In an email obtained from Martinez to the council and the mayor regarding fiduciary responsibilities involving the Texas Open Meetings Act, he wrote the following statement about his experience:

“Again, as often stated, and as the council has witnessed, my commitment to fiduciary responsibility for Jourdanton’s ‘common good’ is firmly grounded on my 20+ years of city management and government experiences (under the mentorship of some of Texas’ most highly regarded city managers) – including my own service as a city manager and statewide election to the Texas City Management Board of Directors.”

The Pleasanton Express in reviewing Martinez’ resume submitted to the City of Jourdanton and on his public resume on his LinkedIn profile, showed that Martinez has a total of 11 years of experience in city management, all ending in 1992.

As stated on his resume, after Martinez left Crowley, he then served as an assistant to the city manager for the City of Dallas from 1990-1992.

According to his resume and LinkedIn, his city experience began in 1980, working as an intern for the City of Richardson, Texas, as assistant to the city manager in the human resources department for the City of Tyler in 1981 and as an assistant to the city manager at the City of Austin in 1985, which lasted four years.

In the employee handbook for the City of Jourdanton, Section 4.10, Disqualification for Employment states, “The City Manager, Designee or the Department Head of the applicable department may reject any application, which indicates on its face that the applicant does not possess the minimum qualifications required for the position if: the applicant appears to have made false statements in the application or in the examination or appears to have practiced or attempted to practice deception or fraud in connection with such application.”

Despite Martinez’s evaluation being in executive session, some council members agreed to include interim attorney Thomas P. Cate to sit in on the evaluation meeting even though an attorney is not required for such evaluations. Though executive session meetings are not for public information, interim attorney Cate did tell the city council that there are no restrictions from speaking about the meeting in public.

“When asked by a council person if anyone attending the executive session could talk in public about what was discussed in the executive session, I responded that there is no statutory restriction to keep those attending the executive session from making public statements about the subject matter of the session,” he said. “I also stated that talking about an executive session in public could damage the trust among council members.”

Prior to the executive session on July 3, Jourdanton resident Sherrie Rankin spoke in public comments in reference to the evaluation and raised some questions to the council.

“How many employees have left to retire or move since Sept. 1, 2022?” she asked. “Have all those employees that left been replaced, and have new ones been hired? What has caused the division between the employees and upper management?”