Although the Beaumont City Council members violate the city charter, or rules of local law that govern the city, “on a daily basis,” according to City Attorney Sharae Reed, there is little to be done about the councilmembers’ indiscretions.
The revelation, expressed as the end of the Beaumont City Council meeting held Aug. 6, came even as the elected body pondered the alleged charter violations of councilmembers interfering with the duties of City Manager Kenneth Williams during the recent selection of a new police chief.
Councilman Audwin Samuel, who first balked at the council’s handling of the police chief selection process and demanded the opportunity to seek an Attorney General’s ruling on the matter, left to take a phone call during the meeting at the same time the matter came up for discussion. Failing to have a seconding councilmember in support of the conversation concerning an AG ruling, the matter died – until councilmembers resurrected the commentary during the end of the meeting.
Councilman A.J. Turner questioned the city attorney as to what can be done to elected officials that do not follow the charter. Turner, never stating the elements of the alleged infraction in any detail, argued that the council should be transparent in its dealings.
Reed expressed, yet again as she has during similar discussion regarding the council’s affirmation of the new police chief and the handling of the hiring process, that she is unaware any charter violation has been made – at least not in that instance. Daily, with council calls to department heads and interjecting into employee dealings, however, the council consistantly defies the charter, she added.
In regards to any impropriety on any council member’s part, Reed continued, the Attorney General has little recourse to reprimand a local elected official. The most the Attorney General could do, she said, was to censure the aggrieving party. Censures, though official sounding in nature, are essentially as defined “an expression of formal disapproval.”
“Typically, a censure has no bearing,” Reed said. “You can’t remove an elected official from their post, you can’t expel them from meetings. For lack of a better term, it’s a slap on the wrist – if that.”
According to Reed, any punishment meted out on a councilmember that does not follow the city charter is up to the council.
“Council has not adopted an ethics committee, an ethics policy, or anything like that,” Reed further pointed out. “There’s no one in our organization to enforce the charter.”
Additionally, Reed said, “The AG will not give advisory opinion, and they will not interpret the law as it should be, only what the law is.”
So, as the city attorney explained, writing the Attorney General frivolously was ill-advised and completely unnecessary. A thin line exists, Reed acquiesced, from council providing guidance to staff and interfering with staff duties – but it is a line that she does not believe the elected body crossed in the hiring of the new police chief.
“Councils govern councils,” Williams said to sum up the conversation. “I’ll make you aware of it, but it’s up to you to address it.”