For months we’ve been hearing nothing but glowing remarks from Odessa City Manager John Beckmeyer and Jamie Tisdale from the Odessa Accountability Project about what a great job Chris Adams is doing as the city’s new equipment services director.
Since he began in June 2023, Adams has convinced the city council to create the city’s own tire shop and to fuel its own vehicles.
Beckmeyer has said the tire changing shop will save the city $50,000 a month alone and Adams has said the city will save $750,000 the first year by fueling its own vehicles.
Adams has also been praised for going above and beyond to find parts for Odessa’s failing garbage trucks and finding new trucks with quick delivery dates.
Has the new tire shop and fuel delivery changes really resulted in cost savings for the city? We’ll find out because we just filed Texas Public Information Act requests asking for those figures.
But there are some things we do know and we think you should know them, too.
First, Adams is the reason the city is being sued again.
Last week, Southern Tire Mart filed a lawsuit against the city alleging Adams, for some unknown reason, has hostile feelings toward the company and as a result the city has intentionally violated Texas law by purchasing tires from a competitor for the last year.
The lawsuit alleges Adams falsely claimed STM double billed the city by more than $180,000 and did not retract that statement despite being shown documents disproving it.
We also know Adams has ticked off a lot of people by getting the city council to purchase millions of dollars in vehicles from out-of-state dealers instead of from hometown dealerships.
Most recently, the council voted 6-1 to purchase 24 white and one black Ford F-150 police responder 4X4 trucks from Phil Long Ford in Denver, Colorado, for $1.3 million.
But here’s something else we know … we know that Adams has been violating city policy by driving back and forth to Lubbock in a city-owned vehicle.
We also know he got a slap on the wrist for it.
According to emails obtained by the Odessa American through the TPIA, Ector County Commissioner Don Stringer sent Beckmeyer an email on Aug. 1 saying three constituents informed him about Adams’ commute.
“Apparently, Mr. Adams has moved to Lubbock. This (in) and of itself is not a problem. The problem is he has been observed using the taxpayers’ Ford Explorer to commute between Odessa and Lubbock. As a taxpayer myself, (I) request a formal investigation into this matter,” Stringer wrote. “I trust that the City of Odessa has active GPS monitoring which will confirm or put to rest these accusations. There is no room for this malfeasance in our community. I look forward to your reply after your investigation.”
Instead of replying to Stringer, Beckmeyer responded to City Attorney Dan Jones, stating simply that the situation has been addressed.
Jones asked if anything had been put in writing.
“To my knowledge, I do not knowing of anything in writing or how it was addressed, other than telling Chris Adams not to use the vehicle,” Jones wrote.
Beckmeyer responded one minute later with, “No. That is how it was addressed.”
Stringer was informed of just that. He let it go with a “thank you.”
So what is the city’s vehicle policy?
“Vehicles are not for personal use and cannot be used to serve personal purposes, even during working hours.” However, if they live in Ector or Midland county they can use their assigned vehicles for “normal home-to-work commuting” if they could be called in to work at any hour.
The punishment for violating the policy? “Appropriate disciplinary action, up to and including termination.”
We also know that Beckmeyer was informed on July 19 that Adams was among the few department heads who didn’t have a vehicle allowance and Adams began getting a $6,000 allowance that began a couple of days before Stringer complained.
Yep, Adams gets $500 a month car allowance and get this — that’s higher than any other employee in the city! Deputy City Manager Gabi Bernal gets $325 a month and Beckmeyer, Jones, and Communications Director Monica McDaniel (who, after her most recent raise gets $161,200 a year) only get $300 a month for their vehicle allowance. Most other department heads get around $250.
So, he gets a vehicle allowance and still drives a city-owned vehicle back and forth to Lubbock?
Now we don’t know if Adams lives in Lubbock, but we’re pretty sure he does because he’s a real estate agent there and his Facebook page says he lives there.
Sure, he did the right thing and filled out an outside employment agreement with the city stating he’s a Realtor in his free time, but come on. It’s 278 miles round-trip to Lubbock and he was using a city vehicle to make it?
Between that, the lawsuit and the dissing of our local dealerships, we’re not so sure Adams really is all he’s cracked up to be.
And if that lawsuit costs the city more than what the city ends up saving through the fuel program and the tire shop, we’ll know he isn’t.
Speaking of lawsuits, we’re sure you remember that former assistant city manager Aaron Smith filed a whistleblower lawsuit against the city in April 2023.
Smith claims Mayor Javier Joven and other city officials got mad at him when he said Joven and the rest of the city council unlawfully fired City Manager Michael Marrero and City Attorney Natasha Brooks and Joven unlawfully hired the consulting firm T2 for a city manager search.
Anyway, Ector County District Court records indicate the city’s outside counsel, Jeff Whitfield, is trying to prohibit Smith’s attorney, Bobby Bland, from deposing Bernal, Jones, Joven and HR Director Charles Hurst.
Whitfield says Bland blew a March 14 deadline to gather evidence under the state’s Level 2 Discovery Control Plan. In legal terms, Whitfield said the “discovery period” ended on that date and yet Bland didn’t ask for dates to depose those folks until May 16.
Whitfield also said Bland, without conferring with him, filed a schedule of events with Ector County District Court Judge John Shrode and the judge granted it “leaving the defendant with no opportunity to object or respond to plaintiff’s misleading request.”
Joven, Jones, Bernal and Hurst got word on July 26 they’d be deposed on Aug. 26 and Aug. 27, Whitfield wrote in his Motion to Quash.
Bland responded to Whitfield’s motion stating the lawsuit clearly stated that discovery would be conducted under the state’s Level 3 Discovery Control Plan and the defense never objected.
It wasn’t until June 18 that the defense said discovery would be conducted under a Level 2 plan, Bland wrote.
The former Ector County District Attorney also said he provided Whitfield a proposed schedule of events back in May and he never responded.
Bland also pointed out Whitfield didn’t complain about the scheduling order the judge signed until more than 30 days had passed.
Whitfield has asked Shrode to cancel the schedule submitted by Bland and Bland has filed a motion in opposition to that.
If the schedule stands, depositions would have to be completed by Oct. 13 and the case would have to be mediated by Oct. 25.
If the judge’s schedule allows, the case could head to trial Dec. 2.
