Fallout after the CEO’s Departure
On Monday, March 15th, 2021, the CEO signed her resignation letter. The city council had a meeting scheduled that evening, and Jeff’s by-law amendment was on the agenda.
I had been waiting for the CEO’s resignation to be finalized before reaching out to the council about her departure, but once it was done I emailed the councilmembers, other than Jeff.
I notified them that the CEO had resigned, though I didn’t go into detail that the BoD had asked her to resign at Jeff’s behest. I also raised my concerns to them about Jeff’s conduct, though I still wasn’t willing to accuse him in writing of outright dishonesty.
I was critical of his handling of the CEO:
“After hearing the Board Liaison's concerns [about the CEO], I found them to be unfair and unfounded. In some cases, he considered her to be at-fault for simply following the Board of Director's guidance. I am confident that all of his issues could have been resolved if he had raised them properly, and none of them rose to the level that required her dismissal. Employers have a duty to set clear direction and give clear correction to employees in a timely manner so that they have a chance to improve if needed. The Board of Directors was deprived of the opportunity to provide that to Ms. Blake, and Ms. Blake was gravely deprived of this feedback from her employer. Ms. Blake deserved far better treatment than she received in this matter.”
I also asked to have a new Board Liaison assigned, and I tried to let them know that I was not the only board member that was frustrated by Jeff’s actions:
“I ask that the City Council assign a new Board Liaison. It is clear to me that I am not the only board member who feels that our Board Liaison's actions and inactions led to substantial turmoil and harm to the SEDC and cost us our Executive Director.”
I was also critical of his lack of communication as Board Liaison:
“If there has been a breakdown of communication and direction between the SEDC and the City Council in my opinion it is due to the malpractice of the role by the current Board Liaison.”
And I implored the council to call a joint session:
“If the City Council wishes to have more input on the SEDC's direction, I would implore you to schedule a Joint Session.”
You can read the full email here.
Though I hadn’t copied Jeff on that email, I did email him separately to notify him that I had requested a new Board Liaison. I emailed him out of respect, though I didn’t feel like that respect had been reciprocated.
Council Meeting on March 15th, 2001
That evening, the council discussed Jeff’s proposal to modify the by-laws to name “the City Manager or her designee” as the CEO of the corporation, which also included several other changes. They removed the line from the by-laws which had stated “[the President] shall perform all the duties usually incident to the office of President.” I don’t even know what implications that had on my role as nobody ever explained it to me. If I was no longer to perform the duties incident to my office then who was?
Jeff was still telling the council that they could treat the BoD as an “advisory board”. I still could not reconcile that statement with Texas’ statutes which put all of the powers of the corporation on the BoD.
While discussing the by-law proposal, Frank Millsap made a motion to postpone voting on the item until after a joint meeting with the BoD. Frank later told me that he considered reading my email (from earlier that day) into the record that evening, but he said he didn’t know if I would have been okay with that. I wish he had read it publicly. Mike Felix, Brett Franks, and Michelle Howarth joined Jeff Bickerstaff in voting down the joint session. Brett Franks had said "I know what I want to do and I don't feel like I need to talk to anybody about it." Even after my email detailing that Jeff had conducted himself poorly as Board Liaison they decided to follow his plan. Jeff’s proposal passed on a 5-2 vote, with Cullen King joining Felix, Franks, Howarth and Bickerstaff in approving the change. The video of this meeting is available on the city’s website, or you can watch it here.
While I was hardly surprised that the council had voted down a joint session, given that Mike had ignored my request the previous month for a meeting, it was good to see that they had at least been forced to vote publicly on the issue. The fact that four of the councilmembers voted to not have open communication with one of its boards is appalling to me, especially as I had just asked them for a joint meeting a few hours earlier. They had given Jeff exactly what he wanted, despite all of the red flags I was trying to bring to their attention.