The Texas Rangers will not be investigating Odessa Mayor Javier Joven for allegedly violating the Texas Open Meetings Act or the Odessa City Charter.
However, Major Wayne Matthews has offered to help Ector County District Attorney Dusty Gallivan refer the matter to the Texas Attorney General’s Office.
“My experience with these matters has been the Texas Attorney General’s Office is a secondary resource for examining complex or ambiguous conduct by a governmental administration that may be of a criminal concern,” Matthews wrote.
Gallivan said Wednesday morning he has not yet decided if he will ask the AG’s Office to investigate.
Assistant City Manager Aaron Smith was fired March 1 after he approached Gallivan, the Rangers and the AG’s Office asking them to investigate Joven following the Dec. 13 termination of City Manager Michael Marrero and City Attorney Natasha Brooks. During that meeting, Joven didn’t allow members of the public to speak on the terminations in advance of the vote. The council voted to fire the pair again on Jan. 9 after allowing the public to speak.
Smith also asked for an investigation to be launched because Joven hired T2 Professional Consulting to help replace Marrero for $338,000 within hours of the terminations, perhaps violating the city’s charter, which states contracts must be vetted by the city’s legal staff and city manager before they are signed. It also states the city council has to approve all contracts requiring the appropriation of funds.
Interim City Attorney Dan Jones didn’t sign the contract until two days after it was executed and a $50,000 check was cut. Interim City Manager Agapito Bernal never signed it.
Joven has said Smith was fired because he interfered in an investigation, but has declined to comment further.
According to records the AG’s Office forced the city to turn over to the Odessa American, Smith went to the Odessa Police Department in February to report a city employee for tracking a female Odessa Police Department officer with GPS, actions he thought might be criminal.
Smith, who is currently a finalist for the Siloam Springs city administrator position in Arkansas, filed a whistleblower lawsuit against the city in April.
His attorney, former Ector County District Attorney Bobby Bland, said Wednesday they are proceeding with that lawsuit, but declined to comment further.
The Rangers have also decided not to investigate Joven about his emails.
Longtime Odessa businessman Ronnie Lewis asked Joven be investigated after Joven admitted in February he routinely deletes his emails.
In a February Odessa American interview, Joven said, “The one thing that I was taught, you get an email, you destroy it, you don’t keep anything. This is what’s being taught in every faction, destroy this, this, this and this, you just delete. You keep nothing.”
In a later radio interview, Joven gave conflicting information when asked if he’d deleted emails.
“I didn’t. I don’t have any government official emails. This is a false narrative once again by the local paper to be able to create something that is completely false. I have over 3,000-4,000 emails and we know that some of our IT people have been leaking our emails and they’ve been going through and the thing is, it’s been vetted. That is a completely totally false narrative by the local paper.”
Public officials are required to keep their email dealing with public business regardless of whether the email is related to a government-issued email address or a private one.
Kelley Shannon, executive director of the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas, said it’s important for officials to keep their emails.
“Public records should be retained for a reasonable period of time so citizens can view the documents and hold their government accountable. In fact, the state sets retention schedules for all sorts of local government records. A routine practice of deleting official emails quickly so that no one can view them isn’t in keeping with the spirit of the Texas Public Information Act,” Shannon said.
On Wednesday, Lewis said he’d still like some answers.
“I’d like to know the truth, but after recently becoming aware of our mayor’s prior work experience, I can see where it could be just a total lack of experience and professionalism as opposed to something shady,” Lewis said.
According to Joven’s biography on the city’s website, he spent 10 years as a sous chef and pastry chef. He also lists himself as the owner of a roofing company, but Lewis said he hasn’t been able to find anyone who has hired Joven to replace or repair their roof.
“If it was another mayor, one that wasn’t in their group, Jeff Russell would be investigating this,” Lewis said, referring to the Odessa Headlines publisher and Republican precinct chair.
Lewis said he hopes the citizens of Odessa are paying attention to what’s going on and vote accordingly next November.
“You know, if the Texas Rangers or Dusty Gallivan won’t investigate, it’s something that I hope the voters would be aware of. It’s just another (example) of non-conforming from our mayor. It seems like it’s OK when he non-conforms, but nobody else can,” he said.
Joven did not respond to an email seeking comment.
