When the Beaumont City Council convened a special called executive session to begin the process of replacing retiring City Manager Kenneth Williams, it did so behind closed doors — as the law allows. Executive sessions exist for a narrow set of purposes, and one of them is the sensitive business of personnel decisions. The public accepts that tradeoff in exchange for a basic guarantee: that the people in the room are there to serve the city, not themselves.
That guarantee appears to have been broken.
City Attorney Sharae Reed was present in that closed session, as she routinely is, in her role as the council’s legal advisor. That is a position of enormous trust. When council members speak candidly about what they want in a city manager — their priorities, their concerns, their bottom line on salary and qualifications — they do so believing that their attorney is a neutral counselor, not a competing candidate listening for an edge.
According to what has come to light, Reed was considering applying for the city manager position at the time of that executive session. She did not disclose that to the council. When the session concluded Feb. 20 and the council announced a deadline for applying of 5 p.m. Friday, Feb. 27, she was the last applicant sliding in at 4:45 p.m. on that final day.
Let that sink in.
Every other applicant for this position came to the process blind — no knowledge of what the council privately values, no insight into the internal dynamics shaping their decision, no sense of what would make a candidate stand out. Reed, by contrast, sat in the room. She heard it all. And she said nothing about her personal interest in the outcome. The question should also be asked, did Reed know who the other applicants were when she made her last-minute jaunt to the city clerk’s office to apply?
This is not a close call. It is a textbook conflict of interest.
Under the Texas Disciplinary Rules of Professional Conduct, attorneys are required to avoid situations where their personal interests conflict with their duties to their client. Reed’s client is the city of Beaumont, which means, ultimately, the people of this city. Quietly contemplating applying for a position while advising the council on how to fill that same position is precisely the kind of dual interest the rules are designed to prevent.
The Texas Open Meetings Act compounds the concern. Executive sessions are closed to the public specifically to protect the integrity of sensitive deliberations. They are not a private briefing for prospective applicants. Reed’s presence — once she had begun weighing whether to seek the position herself — transformed a privileged legal setting into something far more troubling: a competitive advantage obtained through access no outsider could have.
One might argue that Reed had not yet formally decided to apply when the session occurred. That distinction carries little weight. The ethical obligation to disclose a potential conflict arises not when a decision is finalized, but when the interest first emerges. An attorney who is “considering” applying for a job her client is trying to fill has an obligation to say so — immediately, plainly, and before sitting in on any discussion about that search. Reed did not do that.
If she believes she would make an excellent city manager, she has every right to make that case.
But, ambition does not suspend professional ethics. The manner in which she pursued this opportunity — silently, from inside a closed session — undermines the very transparency that Beaumont’s residents deserve from their government.
The city council now faces its own reckoning. Whether knowingly or not, members allowed a conflicted advisor to guide them through one of the most consequential personnel decisions they will make. They should seek an independent legal opinion on whether proper process was followed. They should consider whether the search itself needs to be restarted with an outside counsel overseeing the legal dimensions of the process. And they should ask, plainly and publicly: What did Sharae Reed know, when did she know it, and why didn’t she tell them?
The residents of Beaumont deserve a city manager selection process that is beyond reproach, one where the best candidate wins on their merits, not on inside knowledge. Right now, that assurance does not exist. That needs to change. The city needs to be completely transparent and release any minutes, recordings, or notes about the content of that secret executive session so the people may judge for themselves if there was any advantage granted this applicant by her official position and, if any ethical violations occurred, they should be investigated by the Texas Bar Association.