Editor's Note/Correction: In the April 4 issue of the Post-Signal, there was an inaccuracy in the piece “Pilot Point votes against TGAA deal.” The statement in question read, “Ambrosio also asked who presented the ILA to Odessa. Wilder answered Aaron Harris, who is not listed anywhere on the city’s website. A video of the Aug. 8, 2023, council meeting where the TGAA was accepted by Odessa shows Matt Armstrong presenting alongside Martinez de Vara.” However, the council to whom Matt Armstrong presented on TGAA’s behalf on that date was the Kennedale City Council. Aaron Harris, who was mentioned in the piece, presented about the TGAA on Feb. 13, 2024, to Odessa, and Anthony Wilder presented to the Odessa council on April 23, 2024. The remainder of the piece stands.
The Pilot Point City Council said no to the Texas Government Accountability Association at its meeting on March 27 after addressing concerns with the quality of the contract and the lack of transparency from the organization itself.
Mayor Pro Tem Andrew Ambrosio led the conversation against the TGAA after Executive Director Anthony Wilder presented the organization and its proposed Interlocal Agreement to council.
“It's a nonprofit non-partisan entity, and our goal is to increase transparency and ethical standards at the local levels,” Wilder said. “There’s two things with the membership— one is the interlocal agreement with other cities who have already done it, and the second is the transparency and ethics policy.”
Ambrosio, joined by council members Chad Major and Ray Dane, first spoke on the questions of transparency from the TGAA.
“My concerns are you’re holding the cities that are signing your ILAs to transparency and no conflicts of interest, but through my research, there are conflicts of interest in your organization that you’re not being transparent with,” Ambrosio said.
He first questioned the potential conflict of interest in Kingsbury, one of the TGAA’s two current members, where Art Martinez de Vara, a city attorney for Kingsbury, is also the organization’s general counsel.
Kingsbury Mayor Shirley Nolen confi rmed that Martinez initially spearheaded the organization’s introduction to Kingsbury.
“One of the gentlemen that has been getting this off the ground is Art Martinez de Vara,” Nolen said. “He was one of the guys starting it or got involved early on and thought of us as a city that’s always willing to look at and see if it’s something we’d be in- terested in.”
Ambrosio also asked who presented the ILA to Odessa. Wilder answered Aaron Harris, who is not listed anywhere on the city’s website. A video of the Aug. 8, 2023, council meeting where the TGAA was accepted by Odessa shows Matt Armstrong presenting alongside Martinez de Vara.
Emails between previous Odessa City Manager John Beckmeyer and Armstrong also show Beckmeyer negotiating the contract with Armstrong before the council had given him direction to do so.
Nolen also confirmed Armstrong has worked with Kingsbury.
Despite working on behalf of the TGAA repeatedly, Wilder said Armstrong is not connected to the organization.
“If you’re referring to an article that was posted [by The Post-Signal], that referred to an individual who is not part of the organization,” Wilder said.
Ambrosio and Dane also disagreed with the language of the ILA itself.
“It’s a bad contract,” Ambrosio said. “It’s very easy to get into— it’s impossible to get out of this contract and that’s concerning to me, it’s a bad contract.”
Wilder said the fact the ILA forces cities to hold a general election to exit the agreement followed by two more years of dues is to “put teeth into the ILA.”
“I would never want to enter into an agreement when you could cancel the agreement at any time, but a city couldn’t do it except by holding an election and then had to wait two years before it could become effective,” Dane said. “That doesn’t make sense to me.”
The council directed City Manager Britt Lusk to look into alternative options for increased transparency.
Kennedale, Texas, similarly rejected TGAA’s offer, and council member Bryant Griffith spoke during the meeting’s public forum about why.
“TGAA represents a nonpublic entity that isn’t beholden to the same laws and standards as the city,” Griffith said. “Any elected official that supports this notion is either too lazy or too incompetent to execute the duties of their offi ce.”
The organization was originally brought to council by Mayor Elisa Beasley, who was subsequently the sole vote against rejecting the ILA.
“We talk about transparency all the time and there are people filing TEC complaints and just lots of slinging around when it comes to transparency and very little communication, and I felt like this was an opportunity for us to say, ‘Hey, as a city, ... let's put our information out there,” Beasley said. “Regardless if it’s TGAA or anyone else, are there other opportunities for us to hold higher transparency?”
Later in the meeting, after returning from executive session, council moved to purchase the MHMR building as well as approved extending Lusk’s contract by one year and giving him a 3.6% raise and a severance plan.
“He has six months and would get one months of severance for each year thereafter for a maximum of 12 months of severance,” council member Brian Heitzman said.
Beasley was the sole opposing vote.
