EDINBURG — The city of Edinburg is moving forward with a charter amendment election regarding indicted elected officials, albeit with some changes.
The city council, by a 3 to 1 vote, agreed to modify the language of the proposed charter amendment that, if passed by voters in November, would allow for suspension of an elected official who is indicted on a felony charge.
The changes approved during a special city council meeting on Friday include the addition of a process by which the council would suspend the elected official instead of having the suspension be automatic upon indictment.
Under the updated amendment, the indicted elected official could only be suspended by a majority vote of the city council and the official would have the ability to testify on their behalf with reasonable notice that the council will be voting on the issue.
Another change is that the amendment would not apply to felony indictments that were issued before the charter amendment goes into effect so it would not apply to Mayor Richard Molina who was previously indicted on 11 counts of illegal voting, a second-degree felony, and one count of engaging in organized election fraud, a first-degree felony.
A jury trial for his case was scheduled for June 2020 but was canceled due to COVID-19 and no new date has been set, according to court records.
Molina was the single vote against the changes to language and against moving forward with the election on the charter amendment. While the other three councilmembers were able to reach an agreement, there was much argument over the legality of removing an official from office before they were convicted on the charges.
Before the changes to the amendment were presented, Councilman Jorge Salinas was ardently against the charter amendment, arguing that it appeared to be unconstitutional and would lead to litigation.
“It’s plain to see, it’s clear and simple, it’s for this guy,” Salinas said pointing to Molina. “This is the Molina law, this is the Molina ordinance, it’s clear to see.”
He then appeared to address former City Councilman Gilbert Enriquez, who is now running for mayor against Molina in the November election and who was the one who proposed the amendment in the first place.
Salinas insinuated that the amendment was a ploy by Enriquez to oust Molina, now his political rival.
“Beat him at the polls,” Salinas said. “Just beat him at the polls and get rid of him.”
Even though he is challenging Molina for mayor, Enriquez told The Monitor earlier this week that his motive for supporting the amendment were not political and were about restoring “integrity.”
“I don’t see this as a political issue, I see this as a common sense issue,” Enriquez had said. “I mean, why would any taxpayer, citizen, constituent in the city of Edinburg want to have an indicted, a felony-indicted elected official representing them and the tax dollars?”
Molina also seemingly addressed Enriquez when speaking out against the amendment during Friday’s meeting.
“I don’t think this has anything to do with integrity,” Molina said. “It has to be done with fairness. There’s 940 plus cities in the state of Texas, 254 counties. This ordinance doesn’t exist on any of those and to think that Edinburg is even considering this is pretty shameful.”
He noted that unlike many of the actions taken by council which are recommended by staff, the charter amended was brought forth by Enriquez.
“With that being said, I don’t think we should go through with this,” Molina added. “I don’t think it’s good, it’s not healthy and it’s not about helping citizens.”
The council discussed the issue further with City Attorney Omar Ochoa during executive session, away from public ears, after which they voted to move forward with the election.
Councilman Johnny Garcia, who had asked for the item to be placed on Friday’s agenda, explained that clarification on whether it was legal to adopt such an amendment was why he wanted to revisit the issue.
“Because this is something that is going to be set in stone for the city of Edinburg,” Garcia said. “So my thing was, I just wanted an attorney to be able to let us know what were the legalities as far as what can be done and what can’t be done.”
Both he and Councilman David White said they now felt comfortable on the legality of the amendment after the discussion they held in executive session and the new language they adopted.
“I’m not going to vote on an item that’s unconstitutional,” White said after the meeting.
“Now the decision goes back to our citizens,” he said. “We just put it in front of them and now they’ll come out and vote. If they like this, they’ll vote in favor, if they don’t then they’ll shoot it down and that’s it, it’s over.”
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