(picture by author)

20/10/2020

Racism, sexual harassment and sexual advances, City Council micro-managing staff, threatening employees, interference in job promotions, conflict of interests, and spreading false and malicious statements. These are all serious accusations, and the lack of anonymity in investigating these complaints plummeted staff morale and motivated a number of employees to leave.

[Attached] is city employees' complaints about current City Council members. The complaints about council members' conduct covered many alarming topics, and due to attorney-client privilege, it is no longer public information for our citizens. The city requested a ruling from the Attorney General (AG) to withhold this information from the public. An email from the city open records office explained that due to a third party involved (attorneys), the city chose to withhold information from its citizens using attorney-client privilege.

Complaints filed are documented showing incident type, external investigators, risk level, priority, date opened/closed, etc. For every complaint on a council member, there was no risk level documented, no priority documented, and the only investigator listed on one complaint was former city attorney, Ric Navarro.

The first complaints (from 1/11/2019) raised issues concerning racial discrimination. The complaint specified "unjustified" pay raises in the office that demonstrated an anti-Hispanic bias. Below is an excerpt from the report.

"Every Caucasian member of the City Manager's office has been afforded a merit raise EXCEPT the Hispanic staff. The City Manager, City Secretary, and the city HR Director, all white employees of the City, have been awarded thousands of dollars in raises, clandestinely, over all other Hispanic employees. These raises have taken place quietly, without real merit and without the approval of a voting general public."

The second complaint (from 1/11/2019) specifies Councilmembers' interference with the daily operations of city employees, a direct violation of the City Charter, (which included councilman Ken Medders threatening employees) and raised discrimination concerns about Councilman Joseph Rico "interfering" with pay raises, hiring, and advancement of Hispanic employees, along with accusations against Mayor McNulty for observed sexual advances. Below is an excerpt from the report.

"City Council has repeatedly harassed and interfered with the day to day and long-term operations of city staff and employees. Ken Medders … has verbally threatened at least four employees on six different occasions. Two of them, more than once. He is a bully… and has physically forced an uncomfortable presence on employees on several public occasions. Joe Ricco has interfered with the promotion, hiring, and advancement of Hispanic employees on at least 14 occasions. He has forced the City Manager, HR, and department directors to eliminate, delete or modify positions that were leaning towards Hispanic employees or candidates — this is in clear contradiction to city policy of city council interfering with normal employees. He continues to overexert his influence to do so. The mayor of South Padre Island has been observed, inebriated…on several occasions, and (was) overheard to have said (after a severe storm, paraphrased), "I don't care if power is restored to the fucking island, I have to leave on Friday to buy furniture." He has also made at least three different female employees feel uncomfortable with his sexual advances through guidance and direction."

The third complaint and the lengthiest of all (from 18/2/2020) reported Mayor McNulty, Councilman Joe Ricco, and City Manager Randy Smith for several accounts of violating the City Charter & City Policy.

MAYOR PATRICK MCNULTY:

"Continuously" violating [Section 2.05, Subsection (c)] of City Charter
- "Interference with Administration. Except for the purpose of inquiries, and investigations under Sect on 2.09. The Council or its members shall deal with City officers and employees who are subject to the direction and supervision of the City Manager solely through the City Manager, and neither the Council nor its members shall give orders or direction to any such officer or employee, either publicly or privately."
  - According to the city staff member, "In addition, the Mayor has failed to properly address conflicts of interest by recusing himself from decisions and/or influence which could have a direct effect on his business financially."
Potential Violation of [City Policy 700.01]
- Standards of Performance Behavior and Conduct, Prohibited Activities (13)
  - "Unauthorized disclosure of confidential information."
- Standards of Performance Behavior and Conduct. Prohibited Activities (16) "Coercion, intimidation, or threats against citizens, supervisors, co-workers, City Officials, or other."
  - According to the city staff member, “He also continually has staff perform work for his business. He submits applications that are not filled out and asks staff to fill in or requests staff to fill out the forms completely for him. When staff refuses to do his work for him, he works through the City Manager to pressure staff to assist him. This is a direct violation of City Policy 700.0.”
- Standards of Performance Behavior and Conduct Prohibited Activities (17) "Making or publishing false, vicious, or malicious statements about the City, or a City employee or citizen, or others."
  - According to the city staff member, "When his projects are delayed due to his lack of response to requirements, he tells his clients that it is the City's fault, specifically the Building and Planning departments. He tells untruths to clients, citizens, and other staff privately and publicly."

Apart from statements above, the staff member listed many city codes that he/she believed the Mayor violated, “I also believe that the Mayor has violated several other Conduct policies including but not limited to:”(Click here to view)

When this complaint was filed (18 February 2020), there was still a Planning Department for the City of South Padre Island. The staff member stated in the complaint,

“He continually doesn’t install Soil and Erosion control measures on his projects, which are required and are included in his drawings as required to get the permit. When staff approached him on this, he threatened to sue the City. He has performed several jobs since that and still doesn’t install the silt fencing or construction entrance. In addition, he has had stop-work orders placed on him for working without a permit (during his tenure as Mayor). The environment for staff in the Building and Planning department has become hostile. The Mayor successfully spreads false narratives about the department, so the community members, Councilmembers, and other staff are now blaming the Building and Planning Department for delays that were not their fault. This environment has emboldened community members to act in a similar manner, by questioning every decision, asking for variances and exceptions, getting angry and making false claims.”

CITY MANAGER RANDY (RANDALL) SMITH:

Section 3.04 (4)
- "Provide that all laws, provisions of this Charter and acts of the City Council, subject to enforcement by the City Manager or by officers subject to the Managers direction and supervision, are faithfully executed."
  - According to the staff member, "The City Manager has failed to protect staff from rampant harassment by Mayor and Councilmembers. (The) Mayor and Councilmembers have had free and direct access to staff to give orders and directions, which is a direct violation of Section 2.05 Prohibitions, subsection (c)."
- 2.05 Prohibitions, subsection (c) (already shown).

COUNCILMAN JOSEPH RICCO:

Section 2.05(c)
- According to the staff member, "He has also loitered around a meeting he wasn't invited to in order to corner staff into an impromptu meeting to discuss his building permit delays, which were caused by his contractor (the Mayor), and of course, the Mayor was telling him that it was the staff causing the delays."

One of the responses sent by the Director of Operations (Wendi Delgado) to the anonymous staff member was a message directing him/her to the Board of Ethics.

"The City of South Padre Island has a Board of Ethics and a Code of Ethics adopted by the City Council to address matters involving elected officials. Complaints of ethics violations need to be submitted through the processes and procedures established by the Board."

The anonymous staff member responded through Lighthouse service,

"I have reviewed the Handbook and Procedures for the Board of Ethics. However, there is no method for submitting anonymously. I was informed that Lighthouse Services was the way to make anonymous reports. I fear retribution as the environment is already hostile. I fear that members of the Board of Ethics may be politically tied to the Elected Officials and going through that process would not improve my situation, other employee's situations, or have a positive effect of uprooting chronic and systematic unethical behavior and conduct. I urge you to reconsider your ruling. I would like to remain anonymous."

[Note: The Chair of the Board of Ethics is Christina Dijkman, wife of Councilman Kerry Schwartz.]

The City's final response declared that the report was now closed in the system.

"The City Council established by Ordinance a process and procedure to address ethics complaints and City Administration does not have the authority to modify or override that process. If the reporter wants to file an ethics complaint, it needs to be reported through the established processes." [NOTE: This process requires the staff member who complained to give up their anonymity before a complaint can be investigated.]

In the attachments filed with Lighthouse Services (a third party vendor used to make anonymous complaints in the workplace), every complaint about current council members was either closed or unfounded. The City Manager, Randy Smith, or the Director of Operations, Wendi Delgado, (who were recipients of report distribution) relayed to the "reporter" (the staff member who filed the complaint) that, to make a complaint against a council member, they must surrender their anonymity in front of the members of the Board of Ethics, the Council member(s), and the entire city on video.

The Lighthouse Services agreement does not protect the anonymity of staff members who submit complaints on City Council members, because it conflicts with the South Padre Island Code of Ethics. The conflict is that a complaint against an elected official must go through a specific process in which the reporter must give up their anonymity. The last time the Board of Ethics amended their handbook was 2011, with the intent to protect city officials running for election by incorporating a fee of $250 to submit a complaint. The motion of a modification to charge $250 did not pass at this meeting.

[click here to view meeting that meeting]