EDCOUCH — Efforts to remove an alderman from the city council here have again hit a snag after he filed — then dropped — new legal claims over the course of just 24 hours.
Place 5 Alderman Lorenzo “Lencho” Cabrera has been fighting to keep his seat on the Edcouch City Council since officials first placed the subject of his potential removal on the agenda for an April 21 meeting.
The agenda in question offered little clue, simply stating, “Discussion and Possible Action on Removal of Alderman Lorenzo ‘Lencho’ Cabrera from the city of Edcouch Board of Alderman (sic).”
But Cabrera — who was blindsided by the ouster attempt, especially after his repeated efforts to ask what had prompted the issue went unanswered — filed a new motion Friday to drop the lawsuit altogether, potentially ending weeks of legal wrangling.
Cabrera first took the city to court ahead of a May 5 meeting in an attempt to prevent his removal. However, after a July 13 injunction hearing, a judge ruled that Edcouch could place the issue back on the agenda so long as the city used descriptive enough wording.
That ruling led to Edcouch placing Cabrera back on the agenda for Thursday’s meeting.
The council seemed poised to drop the discussion entirely when Place 1 Alderman Rene A. Flores made a motion to table the item.
But before another alderman could second the motion, Edcouch City Attorney Orlando “O.J.” Jimenez asked for a few minutes to review a set of documents he was holding before him.
In Jimenez’s hands was a copy of an amended version of Cabrera’s lawsuit against the city, the same lawsuit where the judge had denied Cabrera’s request for an injunction two weeks ago.
Just hours before Thursday’s 6 p.m. meeting, Cabrera — via his attorney, Jonathon Muñoz — had filed an emergency motion for the judge to reconsider his decision to deny the injunction.
Muñoz also filed an amended complaint citing new legal claims as to why Edcouch should be prohibited from removing — or attempting to remove— Cabrera from office.
In the emergency motion, Muñoz wholly abandoned the arguments he had pursued during the July 13 injunction hearing.
Muñoz had argued that Sec. 22.077 of the Texas Local Government Code should be used to govern whether or not Edcouch could pursue Cabrera’s removal. That section outlines the removal of officers for malfeasance.
But in the motion for emergency reconsideration that Muñoz filed Thursday, he argued that Sec. 22.077 “is NOT applicable to the removal of a duly elected alderman.”
Instead, Muñoz admitted he had previously misapplied his arguments, since Sec. 22.077 applies to “other municipal officers,” not elected officials.
Though elected officials are considered officers of a city, so are high-level city employees — including the city secretary, city attorney and city engineer — and it is those other officers who are described in Sec. 22.077.
Muñoz’s new argument stated it is instead Chapter 21 of the government code that applies to Cabrera because it specifically describes “judicial removal of a member of a governing body…”
It was a claim he reiterated in the amended version of the lawsuit which he also filed Thursday.
Muñoz also filed a third motion ahead of Thursday’s city council meeting.
That motion sought to have Jimenez, Edcouch’s attorney, prohibited from defending the city against Cabrera’s lawsuit.
Muñoz claimed Jimenez is a key witness to the events surrounding the lawsuit, and therefore has a conflict of interest in continuing to represent Edcouch in the matter.
Together, the three motions Muñoz filed had the desired effect — they successfully prevented the city from taking up a discussion to potentially remove Cabrera from the council on Thursday evening.
It all may have been for naught after Muñoz filed the new motion to drop the lawsuit Friday.
