Did you know that
Mayor Virdell admits to a
secret,
illegal council meeting?
The video below shows Mayor Virdell admitting to a secret, illegal "closed
meeting" to approve $50,000 for a dredging project. This is a clear
violation of the Texas Open Meetings Act.
The City Manager Brenton Lewis, Mayor Virdell, and Council Members
Hopson, Puryear, Hazel, Miiller, and Keller all had training and took a
test on the Texas Open Meetings Act, so this was not a simple mistake, but
rather an overt action to hide the discussion and decision on dredging,
the alternatives, and the choice of contractor. Why did they do this in
secret meetings? We will never know - because they were secret! It must
have been important to someone for the city manager and elected
officials to audaciously break the law and cheat the people of their
right to participate and control their local government.
This is the reason for the Open Meetings Act and stated by the best
paragraph in Texas Law:
Texas Code Sec 552.001 …
government is the servant and not the
master of the people. The people insist on
remaining informed so that they may retain control over the
instruments they have created.
By definition in Black's Law Dictionary, this is
corruption. The
Llano Assistant District Attorney, Gary Bunyard, did a
flawed
and superficial investigation of this corruption; falsified data to
support his case; admitted that he had a conflict of interest with Mayor
Virdell; and didn't interview the complainant or any participants. This
statement is
documented here in a good discussion of the cover-up capability of the
legal system to protect government.
Proving that illegal closed and walking meetings took
place is difficult because of their nature – they are secret and
clandestine. However, in this case, it should be easy to prove since we
have three distinct types of conclusive, undeniable evidence – despite
ADA Bunyard’s assertion that it is “insufficient.”
1. Audio & Video Evidence – In a
scheduled, videotaped, city council meeting, Mayor Mikel Virdell
admitted that, in a closed meeting, council decided to contract with Chanas
Aggregates, LLC for $50,000. The video shows that council members did
not ask a single question and were able to answer questions. This
demonstrates that they had already discussed it and had decided.
2. Published Evidence – The meeting
agenda item for that meeting indicates that “The Elected Officials and
Staff have for several months explored the various avenues…” This is a
written admission of the secret meetings.
3. Outcome Evidence – The outcome of
the secret meeting(s) was a contract with a local contractor that was
not in the dredging business - despite the stated objective of
determining the best approach to dredging. The amount of the contract
was just under the competitive bid requirement, but extras were excluded
from the contract which would have pushed the cost past the $50K
threshold. The scope of the contract was arbitrary to keep the cost just
under the $50K threshold.
Fortunately, Llano has an extraordinary District Attorney, Wiley McAfee,
who supported the move of this complaint to the Texas Attorney General's
Office where it is now being investigated. DA McAfee has built a skilled
team with an
impressive record and our hope is that he will help rid Llano of the
corruption and lawlessness, for this is but one of many examples.
In response to a Texas Public Information Act
request, the City of Llano said that the meeting referenced by Mayor
Virdell in the video was properly held but the Texas Attorney General's
Office found that not to be true. The Office of the Texas Attorney
General Criminal Prosecutions Division is now investigating.
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