The feud between city officials and former Odessa Development Corporation Vice President Jeff Russell turned downright vicious Thursday, when Russell took to his social media platform and painted City Manager John Beckmeyer and Beckmeyer’s wife as Machiavellian characters so ruthless they’ll use race and city resources as a means to further their political ambitions.
Beckmeyer flatly denied Russell’s allegations.
“I’m actually flattered that Jeff Russell has given me a lot of unearned political prowess,” Beckmeyer said. “I really haven’t been involved in the campaigns. He said ‘John and everybody is at this meeting at John’s house.’ I was there because it was my house.”
As for his wife, Beckmeyer said she doesn’t try to affect city business. He said for years they’ve successfully been able to separate her job as senior political adviser for the Saulsbury family from his jobs.
“I truly have one goal and that is to do the work of the citizens of Odessa at the direction of the city council. There’s been things she could have influence and hasn’t,” Beckmeyer said. “We’ve had to keep that (separation) for years because even when I was with the Republican Party of Texas, the Saulsburys didn’t always agree with what my boss was doing at that point
“You quickly learn when you’re in a political family like that, you don’t let it affect the job you’re doing.”
Last month, the Odessa City Council removed Russell from his post just a few weeks after firing ODC President Kris Crow in a dispute over the ODC’s portion of sales tax revenue and whether it can be spent on the city’s failing infrastructure.
The men issued a news release accusing the council of knowingly trying to use the money illegally. Mayor Javier Joven responded with a post on the City’s Facebook page, stating Crow and Russell were using the ODC as “their personal political and economic organization.”
On Thursday, Russell posted an article in his Odessa Headlines alleging the Beckmeyers provided “strategy and guidance” to local Republican Party precinct chairs prior to the March primaries, but they’ve now turned their eyes toward November’s city council races. He said the couple are “blurring the lines between city employment, public service and political manipulation.”
Russell alleges John Beckmeyer and Teresa Beckmeyer are so determined to get Joven re-elected they signed off on a plan crafted by out-of-town political consultant Matt Armstrong that included “staging divisive events to provoke anger among Hispanic voters and drive them to support Joven.”
As proof of that plan, Russell posted a copy of an email he said was written by Teresa Beckmeyer summing up a March meeting he said was held at the Beckmeyers’ home and attended by both Beckmeyers, himself and Armstrong, as well as Bubba Saulsbury, who attended via Zoom.
Item 1 on the list of strategies for the mayor’s race was “Hispanic voters- (sic)business leaders/owners awareness of importance to keep Javier. Public events, speaking events,” Russell reported.
Listed under the heading of City of Odessa was “1. Social media-more reach, set the narrative.(sic)”
The email also included the following: “Candidate problem. 1) Come out publicly or drop out and let us find a new candidate.” Russell stated in his article this was in reference to Councilman Mark Matta writing inappropriate texts to a City of Odessa firefighter’s wife, which Matta would later admit to in a Facebook video.
Beckmeyer said he did have conversations with Odessa Fire & Rescue Chief Jason Cotton about Matta and the texts, but was left satisfied the situation hadn’t caused any problems within the City.
“I appreciate that Mark Matta came out and went public with it and asked for forgiveness for it,” Beckmeyer said. “He’s a bigger man than many for doing that, but it’s had no effect on the City. It’s not a City issue.”
Russell said that during a second meeting in March, the Beckmeyers confirmed Armstrong would also help Matta and Councilmember Denise Swanner with their campaigns and form several political action committees.
“The Beckmeyers, along with Armstrong, were committed to using racially charged tactics to sway the election In (sic) favor of their chosen candidates,” Russell said in Thursday’s article.
John Beckmeyer acknowledged campaign strategy meetings were held at his house and said he offers his opinion when asked, but he would do that for any candidate.
In fact, he said, he tries to go to every campaign event regardless of whose it is. However, he added that doesn’t try to influence anyone.
“I’m really not involved in the campaigns. It’s not my business to be involved,” he said. “My business is the City of Odessa.”
Beckmeyer insisted he’s not “very political.”
“Even with the Republican Party, I wasn’t very political. I went out and I tried to get a job done,” he said. “I did fundraising. I dealt with all factions of the Republican Party and dealt well with them.”
Beckmeyer denied there were any discussions about promoting racial discord, but said there were discussions about Odessa’s large Hispanic population.
“We have the first Hispanic mayor,” he said. “So would he not be justified in trying to pull the Hispanic population? It would be the same as if it was the first African American mayor.”
Beckmeyer said if there were any “plots” about race it would be to bring the races together.
“That doesn’t even make sense — not in this day and age,” Beckmeyer said of Russell’s allegations.
In an interview, Russell said he doesn’t have any written documentation about how the group planned to create racial division, but pointed to a Joven Facebook video as proof the plan is being carried out.
“It’s this whole kind of nasty New York Democrat style deal of, you know, ‘I’m Hispanic and I’ve been oppressed by the white guys and the rich white elites that have ruled Odessa and they want to take us back to that,’” Russell said. “Just watch the video. It is just laced with really ugly racial overtones in what I believe is an effort to stir up Hispanics.”
Beckmeyer said Joven, Matta and Swanner are running their own campaigns with the help of Armstrong. The first required financial filings by the candidates did not list any expense related to Armstrong.
“Mr. Russell talks about Matt Armstrong. That’s their resource. It’s not my wife,” Beckmeyer said.
Beckmeyer said he suspects his relationship with Russell and Crow began to sour when he declined to terminate some employees they wanted him to fire. Russell denied ever pushing for anyone to be fired.
Russell also pointed out in his article that many people suspect Joven, Matta and Swanner’s campaign videos were made using city resources. While writing about Joven’s Facebook response to their news release, Russell said, “the city’s communication apparatus appeared to have been weaponized to serve the political interests of Beckmeyer and his allies.”
Russell called upon the city council to “stop any abusive use of taxpayer-funded resources by Beckmeyer and should also appoint a special committee to investigate the extent to which the Beckmeyers are attempting to tip the scales in the current council elections.”
Beckmeyer said City resources were not used in the making of the campaign videos.
As for Joven’s statement on Facebook regarding the removal of Russell and Crow from the ODC? “I approved that because we felt like the attack was made at the council, not any individuals. Maybe I should have looked at it in a different way, but we felt like we needed to defend the council and their actions.”
The city manager said that if Russell’s article was a reaction to being removed from the ODC, his anger is misdirected. He had nothing to do with the removal of Russell or Crow and said he only looked into using ODC’s portion of sales tax revenues for infrastructure improvements at the council’s direction.
The article is not a result of “sour grapes” over the loss of his position on the ODC, Russell said.
He also rejected the idea that he’s upset that he is no longer among an elite group of powerful players.
Russell said the only organization he was a part of was the Ector County Republican Party leadership group that existed before an effort championed by Odessan Ronnie Lewis ousted so many local GOP precinct chairs.
“That was the organization I was involved in,” he said. “That was the organization that really tried to promote conservative values and things in our community.”
Russell said he never thought they’d play out the racial division strategy, but once he saw evidence of it, that was the final straw for him. he said that is when he decided to write his article.
Odessa voters need to research what is going on before heading to the polls, Russell said.
“I would like to, at some point in my life, to elect or help elect somebody that when they get elected to office, they don’t become a dadgum politician. They just get in there and work hard and do their job and let the re-election worry about the re-election,” Russell said. “This is what happens when you get people in there. They become politicians. What I see is a lot of scheming and conniving and manipulation. (They’re) trying to do things to get people set up for re-election.”
