City will accept District 4 council applications through May 23

District 4 residents who want to be appointed to the Gonzales City Council will have until May 23 at close of business to submit an application to City Secretary Kristina Vega.

Councilmembers met in a special called meeting Tuesday, May 13, to discuss the vacancy created by the successful recall election of District 4 Councilmember Ronda Miller earlier this month.

Attorney Clarissa Rodriguez of Denton Navarro Rodriguez Bernal Santee & Zech, who represents the city, told council members during a teleconference the charter dictates that they must appoint someone to fill the vacancy within 30 days of the date of the election canvass — or by Sunday, June 8.

“The charter sets out the process for your vacancy, based on the recall election, and the only way to process or proceed with this, based on the duration of the term, is to do an appointment,” Rodriguez said.

“How the vacancy process is fixed, or rather handled, is based on the time left during somebody's term that's unexpired, and in this case, the amount of time left based on the vacancy when you did the canvassing is an amount of time under the charter that says it has to be by appointment.”

Rodriguez said Vega had put together an outline of how to solicit applications from the public with a timeline of when to receive those as well as timelines for interviews by the council and a final majority vote to appoint someone to fill the vacancy.

“There's no opportunity for an election or anything else,” Rodriguez said. “Once you get through the process, you take a vote and it has to be by majority vote to appoint a person after you interview.”

District 3 Councilmember Lorenzo Hernandez questioned what would happen if the council found itself in a 2-2 stalemate since there are only four members now and a majority would require three votes unless one member was absent.

“Somebody has to break the pack, because you only have four right now, right?” Rodriguez said. “So there's nobody to break the tie. Correct? Yeah, so then, you just have to vote again. Reconsider. You can table it at that meeting, you can decide to re-interview. We can go into executive session and discuss the process, but to me, because the charter reads specifically, ‘it has to be a majority,’ you just have to take steps to proceed with additional consideration to get to the majority vote.”

Rodriguez said should the council would have to go through the process of interviewing candidates again, they would “cross that bridge when we get there.”

Mayor Isaac Anzaldua asked Rodriguez if the qualifications were the same as any candidate for a general election — they must live in the area and meet all other qualifications under the city charter, to which Rodriguez said, “Absolutely.”

Vega said the process she put together was pulled from information gathered from other cities that have been through the recall process and “I just pulled probably the easiest processes and just kind of modified the form so I didn't create anything. I just used what was already there.”

This includes a prohibition against anyone with a felony conviction status, which is already part of the state election code, as well as the need to provide a background letter so “that way they're stating why they wish to serve as well as, you know, kind of like a biography for them.”

Vega said she will include charter qualifications under Sec. 3.02 to any vacancy notice for the District 4 seat before it is advertised.

The process spelled out by Vega and approved by the council Tuesday night calls for applications to be received from May 14 through May 23 and for a special called meeting to be held at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, May 27, for council members to interview the candidates who meet the qualifications after a verification process by Vega.

Anzaldua said he would like for a questionnaire to be put together by Crow and Vega for applicants so they all would receive the same questions and that no candidate should receive those questions ahead of time.

“I think that's that's fair, so there's no premeditated decision or answer, but yet you can answer here at that time (of the meeting),” Anzaldua added. “It's something that we may not have crossed this bridge before, but we're here now. So unfortunately, we're going to handle the hand we were dealt and we'll make sure we ask all the questions we can.”

Vega said interviews could be conducted either in open session or in closed session using the exception allowed under Sec. 551.074 of the Texas Open Meetings Act, which covers personnel discussions. She advised the council if they were going to hold closed session discussions that the application form should say so. However, any candidate can request to remain in open session if they choose.

“My only concern on the open session would be if you have a number of applicants, and whoever goes first gives an answer, the second one feeds off that and then the third,” Anzaldua said. “You're not necessarily getting an honest appraisal. It could be, by the fourth or fifth one, they're just taking the best answer and compiling it to fit.”

Council members indicated a desire to question candidates in closed session as they have with city manager candidates in the past.

Vega said applications can be mailed in or brought in person to City Hall but they must arrive by May 23 and must be notarized.

Councilmembers also discussed the naming of Robertson Street for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. during the special called meeting. A recap of that discussion will appear in the May 22 edition of the Inquirer.