My Formal Complaint to the Sachse City Council
I submitted the below complaint to the City Secretary at the council meeting on March 7th, 2022:
Mayor Felix and City Council,
I’m writing to file a complaint against Mayor Pro Tem Jeff Bickerstaff for actions taken against the Sachse Economic Development Corporation and its Board of Directors. This is not intended as a complaint of a violation of the Code of Ethics but is rather submitted as a general complaint.
On February 1st of 2021, I had a phone call with Jeff Bickerstaff. On that call, he made a request to have an item on the Board of Directors’ February agenda to discuss Leslyn Blake’s employment as Executive Director of the SEDC. He stated that the council was looking for a change, though they couldn’t force us to remove her. In that call, he went so far as to offer to reach out to legal representation to get the wording correct for her dismissal. I have since learned that the council had never discussed the issue of Ms. Blake’s performance as Executive Director and that there was no truth to his statement telling me that the “council” wanted her dismissed.
As Board Liaison, he had no authority to dictate the agenda item for the board’s meeting, so he had to make the request to me. Operating as Board Liaison, he lied to me so that I would use my authority as President of the board to give him the agenda item that he personally wanted. He deliberately manipulated me into believing that the request for her dismissal was coming from the city council, though that was not true. The first explicit complaint I am making is that he lied to me while we were both operating in our official capacities as related to the SEDC.
At a meeting of the Board of Directors on February 26th, 2021, Jeff Bickerstaff informed the Board of Directors that he had given Ms. Blake direction on how he wanted her to build the SEDC’s Strategic Plan which was directly contrary to the direction Ms. Blake had received from the Board of Directors. The Board of Directors is the proper authority over the SEDC as mandated by Texas statutes and the SEDC’s charter. It was improper and unethical for the Board Liaison to bypass that authority to give direction to the Executive Director, especially to give direction that was counter to the previously established instructions she had received from the Board of Directors.
At a meeting of the Board of Directors on March 18th of 2021, Jeff Bickerstaff admitted that he had kept the Board of Directors in the dark about issues that he was having with Ms. Blake. He admitted that he was taking issues directly to Ms. Blake, bypassing the authority of the Board of Directors. Jeff Bickerstaff blamed Ms. Blake for his own failure to communicate his issues to the Board of Directors. He repeatedly refused to accept that he had an obligation to bring SEDC issues to the attention of the proper authority, which is the Board of Directors.
The SEDC’s Articles of Incorporation state clearly “The affairs of the Corporation shall be managed by a board of directors…”. There is no indication in any city document which gives the Board Liaison any authority in the affairs, and Jeff Bickerstaff’s attempts to interfere with and bypass the board’s authority were unethical and improper. The second explicit complaint I am making is that as Board Liaison he interfered with and bypassed the proper authority of the Board of Directors to manage the affairs of the Sachse Economic Development Corporation.
Spencer Hauenstein
7819 Hillsdale Drive
Sachse, TX 75048