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DONNA — One week to the day after a county court-at-law judge ruled he didn’t have the authority to hear a dispute between warring factions of the Donna City Council, the majority faction has succeeded in firing City Attorney Robert J. Salinas.
The city attorney’s firing came during a specially called meeting Monday afternoon a week after the judge, who found the dispute needs to be heard by a higher court, also dissolved a temporary restraining order meant to prevent Salinas’ firing.
Place 2 Councilman Joey Garza Jr. made the motion to terminate Salinas’ services during the lunchtime meeting, saying he’s lost faith in the longtime lawyer who has served several stints as Donna’s legal counsel.
“I’ve lost trust in Mr. Salinas. I’ve known him for a long time, but, at this point, it’s in the best interests of the city,” Garza said.
The motion was seconded by Place 3 Councilman Ernesto Lugo.
A moment later, the two men, along with Place 4 Councilman Oscar Gonzales cast their votes to fire Salinas, while Donna Mayor David Moreno vociferously voted against the motion.
Place 1 Councilman Jesse “Coach” Jackson did not attend Monday’s meeting.
Monday’s action wasn’t the first attempt by the majority faction of the council to terminate Salinas’ services.
Indeed, that faction has been trying to oust him for more than a month, ever since Salinas advised the council that Donna was obligated to hold a municipal election this November for the Place 2 and 4 seats on the council.
But the two incumbents sitting in those seats, Gonzales and Garza — and ultimately joined by Lugo — argued that a 2021 charter amendment election to expand elected term lengths from three years to four should apply to them.
In his professional legal opinion — one later upheld by the 13th Court of Appeals — Salinas said the term length expansion didn’t apply to Gonzales and Garza because they were elected during the same election that voters approved the charter amendment.
Since then, that faction has been determined to retaliate against him, Salinas said.
“It is directly related to the issues of the election,” Salinas said after Monday’s meeting.
“Previously, they had given me a two-year contract, I think, hoping that I would change my mind and give them a political opinion instead of a legal one, and I do not give political opinions,” Salinas added a moment later.
The city attorney didn’t mince words.
“This is a retaliation,” he said.
But when asked why the councilmen were pushing back so hard, not only on holding the election, but on terminating Salinas, the city attorney said he didn’t know.
“I think that is a question that the majority of the citizens are asking. … Why this push? Why the push not to run?” Salinas said.
“I don’t know. The only thing I can think of is perhaps there are some commissioners that have a personal agenda that is not necessarily an agenda that’s in the best interests of the city of Donna,” he added.
Salinas isn’t the only one who thinks some on the council are singling him out. The mayor, too, said he feels that Salinas is being “targeted” over his professional opinion about the November election.
“Right after that is when all this — and I call it ‘targeting’ — when they started targeting the city attorney,” Moreno said.
“Just two weeks prior to the appeals court giving their decision, everybody (on the council) sang the accolades of Mr. Salinas. … We decided on a two-year contract with him” the mayor added.
According to the terms of that contract, which The Monitor obtained via a Texas Public Information Act request, Donna agreed to pay Salinas a sum of $17,500 per month, or about $210,000 per year.
The city’s economic arm also contracted Salinas to provide legal services for an additional $10,000 per month, or $120,000 per year.
Moreno said “it’s not right” that so soon after agreeing to keep Salinas on for two more years, the council majority has now worked to fire him.
Both Moreno and Salinas say the majority faction took advantage of an administrative waiting game to do so.
Last week, when the judge ruled that he had no authority to hear the Donna council dispute, he also ordered the case be transferred to a higher court — one with a state district judge that does have jurisdiction.
But since then, the case has remained mired in the transfer process and has yet to be assigned to a judge.
With no TRO to protect his employment, they majority faction deliberately took action, Salinas said.
“Yes, they did. Certainly, unquestionably so,” Salinas said.
But the three councilmen themselves declined to comment on the matter.
Councilman Garza declined, saying he had attended Monday’s meeting during his lunch break.
Gonzales and Lugo, meanwhile, clamored into their pickup trucks and sped out of the city hall parking lot before reporters could question them.
But Lugo did speak during a similar meeting last Friday.
During that specially called meeting, the council had been set to deliberate the hiring of an outside attorney to investigate Salinas for alleged violations of the Donna City Charter.
But when the matter came up for discussion, Lugo instead said he no longer felt an investigation was necessary.
“This is not a question and answer period for me because the courts have already decided. They ruled, they heard this case already and they ruled, and they ruled in my favor and in Mr. Gonzales’ favor,” Lugo said.
“They ruled against Mr. Salinas and they ruled against our Mayor David Moreno,” he further said.
But again, the complaints brought by the city attorney and mayor — and, similarly, the counterclaims made by Lugo and Gonzales — have yet to be heard by a judge as the case awaits a transfer of venue.
The freshman councilman further surmised that the only reason members of the public had crowded into Donna City Hall on Friday was to witness a spectacle.
“Most everybody here is, because, you know, it’s funny, it’s crazy,” Lugo said.
Immediately, the chamber erupted in a raucous chorus.
“This is our city! It’s not funny,” one resident said.
“It’s far from funny. We’re tired of all this already,” another said.
Lugo referred to the brouhaha as “a circus, a publicity stunt, at best,” adding that he, too, had lost faith in Salinas as a city attorney.
“This is ridiculous and that’s my comment. That’s all I have to say and I want to be done with this. We need to move forward,” Lugo said.
Moving forward didn’t last long however. Though the council decided on Friday not to initiate an official investigation against Salinas, the decision to fire him on Monday was equally swift.
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