County outlines its role in city of Marion operational issues
(Marion) — The city of Marion’s cry for help is getting a much-needed nod from the Guadalupe County Commissioner’s Court. Tuesday, the court unanimously approved a petition request from Marion citizens to hold an election this fall to fill seats on the city council.
As reported by the Seguin Daily News, the Marion City Council has faced a crisis not only because it does not have enough council members but also because the city failed to call for a May election, leaving them with only two council members. One of the vacancies also includes the position of Mayor. Mayor Daniel Loyola is among those who recently resigned.
Since the council’s disbanding, a level of instability has taken over the municipal operation, leaving folks confused and concerned about not only operating but also continuing to pay the bills.
Helping to navigate the citizens of Marion with this petition request has been Commissioner Pct. 4 Stephen Germann.
Germann says as a commissioner, his hands are tied to do more. However, he hopes that putting Marion on the ballot will help the city correct course.
“Back in March, there was a series of mistakes made by the city of Marion. Their normal election should be held in May and they failed to get their ballot turned in to the election office. Again, just by a series of mistakes. Since then, what has happened is there is not a quorum on the city council in Marion and so, Marion can not conduct most of its business. With that being said, following this local government code Section 22.011, 42 citizens of the city of Marion have petitioned our court to call for an election which will be on November 5 and hopefully by getting this election going, the historic city of Marion, it’s government can go back to functioning again. Let’s hope that that happens,” said Germann.
Despite the appearance of assisting Marion, Guadalupe County Judge Kyle Kutscher made certain that the public understood the court’s action.
“I know the local government code is stated in the agenda item. To be clear, I’ve had a lot of phone calls, a lot of correspondence with court members; the local government code dictates to counties in the state of Texas of what we can and can not do. The local government code section that is referenced in our agenda item specifically states that filling the vacancy in municipal office under special circumstances, that specifically talks about the petition requirements on the at least 26 tax paying voters, and it states that if the county receives a petition with that many voters under that section of local government code, the county shall hold the election. I want it to be clear, we do not have a choice when you refer to this section of the local government code that when that petition is submitted, we are required to call the election,” said Kutscher.
By calling the election, citizens of Marion are now being encouraged to consider filling for one of the available seats on the council including the position of Mayor.
Meanwhile, the steps that have led to this week’s decision by the county to involve itself continue to be questioned.
Mayor Pro-tem Abigaile Maberry, along with Deshon Blyden, attempted to explain how the council went from full representation to basically none. Maberry is essentially one of the last two standing aldermen.
“We elect two councilmen and one Mayor and on the odd years — so ‘23 should have been an election for a Mayor and two councilmen in May. We elect three councilmen in the even years. So this past May, three other councilmen should have been elected. In May of 2023, we received no applications for the election for either the councilmembers that were open or the Mayor’s position. Therefore, immediately due to the Texas Constitution, those two positions — it was Councilman (David) Bauch and Councilman (Shane) Pawelek and at the time Mayor (Victor) Contreras both crossed over into a hold over clause. That hold over clause states that people will stay in office until they are replaced. Councilman Bauch immediately vacated his seat which put the alderman to four. We then had an election in November. Again, no one ran for council. We had two applicants for Mayor. Mr. Loyola won that election and we immediately saw Councilman Pawelek vacate in a November meeting,” said Maberry.
However, Maberry says the watering down of council members continued beyond the new year.
“At that point in time, council was down to three members. We met for the December meeting, the January meeting and a very contentious February meeting. The morning of our March meeting, our third councilman, Councilman (Darrell) Grimley resigned. At that point in time, we had received five applications. One of them included Councilman Grimley’s application to the city of Marion to be held in the May election. No one outside of the city’s office, the city secretary, the Mayor and the city attorney, were aware that the election was actually not called. We did not find that out. Council was not officially told until April 27 via an email by our then sitting Mayor.
By then, it was too late to come to ya’ll and request the election to happen in May. At that point, our city attorney had also issued a request to the governor’s office for an emergency election but that letter actually did not go until June 11. So, that is why this had to be fast forward to ya’ll,” said Maberry.
Over the last several months, there have been reports of tension, arguing, and finger-pointing in various directions.
Resident Juan Loyola, who spoke before the court, says the lack of transparency continues as the city operates with almost zero leadership.
“It’s very concerning when citizens have the question of, ‘does this councilmember have permission to have a trailer on a commercially zoned piece of property?’ And when that is a question –– the public loses trust when these questions can’t be answered, or the documentation can’t be provided along with the idea of having animals on a piece of property that is not supposed to have animals on it. I’ve seen statements from employees concerning violence in the workplace, which also seems to be the bullying, the harassment — there can’t be any room for this in local government. The chief of police –– he’s owed money from the city, which can become very dangerous because now, the chief is involved in the politics. That is very very concerning to me as a citizen so I just wanted to bring this to your attention because there’s a lot of things that are happening behind the scenes and the public wants to know. The public wants to know –– is there money missing from Marion? The answer I’m hearing is ‘no’ but the public still wants to know so that we can get over it and get past it. Marion wants to move on,” said Loyola.
Melissa Tovar was also among those who spoke before the court this week. Tovar is not even a resident of Marion but has found herself involved in helping to restore whatever piece of city government that she can. In fact, she admitted before speaking that she did not know that the county calling for the election would be a mandate and not a choice.
“We didn’t even realize up until last week, I suppose, that the petition was even a thing. So under guidance from Commissioner Germann and information from Senator Campbell’s office was how we found out about the petition and myself and some citizens worked actively to get that petition handled. We actually had it done in less than a day which I think is a testament to the level of concern that citizens have for what is going on and how desperately we want things to be back on the right track,” said Tovar.
Despite the court’s action, how the city of Marion will operate until November 5 remains a question. Personnel issues and budgeting factors need to be addressed before the city’s new fiscal year gets underway on October 1.
Meanwhile, Judge Kutscher says the county has no obligation to get to the bottom of Marion’s woes and only hopes that the election is the first step toward stabilizing its future.
“A lot of people reach out to the county wanting us to get involved. We do not have the authority to oversee and regulate municipal government. We are partners to other entities like cities. We care about the city of Marion just like every other city because they are county residents but we do not as commissioners court or Guadalupe County have the direct authority and/or ability to regulate what another city does big and/or small. If there is misappropriation of funds, if there is misguidance, if there is decisions being made — that is something that has to be taken through the legal channels. That’s not something that I as judge or us gentleman as commissioners can get involved in and/or redirect. Again, we care about it. We can help try to bring people together to talk and help to facilitate things and even voice concern but I think there is a common misconception that goes on because I have received those phone calls personally about the county needs to step in and do something and we do not have that ability,” said Kutscher.
Filing details for the Marion City Council are expected to be released by the county as soon as possible. The county has yet to determine whether those candidate filings will be accepted at the county judge’s office or at the Guadalupe County Elections Office.