The June 28th special meeting

The meeting started about 5:30, with the invocation given by Councilman Scott Giddings. I arrived about five minutes late and missed this. There were maybe 15-20 citizens and visitors present (and Tribune Herald reporter Erin Quinn). The Council then went into Executive Session until 6:29 pm, then (back in open session) a motion was made (by Scott Giddings, seconded by Gil Lillard) to retain independent outside counsel to review the allegations against the City Manager/Police Chief. The motion passed by unanimous vote. Mayor Weber then read a statement (with copies to the media):

"The multitude of various allegations raised against the City Manager/Police Chief led to an internal City review which found no basis for any of the matters as alleged. The City Council, however, believes it is in the best interests of the City to request an external review of these allegations to remove any doubts some might raise about the veracity of the internal review. We have thus decided to engage outside independent counsel to conduct a separate review and, upon completion, provide a report to the City Council. Thereafter, a summary of the findings prepared with the assistance of the independent outside counsel will be provided to the citizens of Woodway. The outside counsel we hope to hire is Barney Knight, who has extensive experience in municipal law and is very familiar with how Texas municipalities operate. This is a personnel matter and on advice of legal counsel there will be no further comment at this time."

The Mayor did ask the audience, who had waited in the lobby during the Executive Session, if there were questions or statements from visitors, though this was not an agenda item.

Rodney Kroll asked about the proposed outside counsel’s background in financial matters, and whether an audit would be included in the review. He also stated that the citizens of Woodway were very tired of all this.

Barbara Tennison said that she was on the Council when the decision to hire Yost Zakhary as City Manager was made. The Council at that time recognized his skills in management. Having observed his performance over the past ten years, she remains confident that it was the right decision. She asked the new Council members to have the courage that, when the review comes back “clean as a whistle”, to keep the City management just as it is.

The meeting adjourned about 6:50 pm. The next regular meeting (the only one scheduled at this point) is Monday, July 12th (two weeks away).

What I would add: The Council approached this issue with a great deal of care and forethought, and with much consultation with the City Attorneys. We arrived at an approach and identified outside counsel that we feel will accomplish an efficient, credible review reasonably quickly and at a modest cost to the City. The unanimous vote represents the Council's confidence that these allegations will be effectively dealt with.