Seadrift councilman calls for mayor resignation, city harbor closed to swimming

At the Seadrift City Council meeting July 8, councilman Paul Gonzales called for the resignation of Mayor Lori Thomas, while criticizing Thomas’ actions as mayor. In addition to the statement, council members also discussed the closure of the city harbor to swimming as well as heard official complaints against the city.

The call for Thomas’ removal by Gonzales was issued in the public comment section of the meeting, during which he cited extreme deficiency in government actions and disorganization caused by Thomas as reasons for her resignation.

“Here are my final thoughts on the short time you’ve been the mayor: you’ve turned this city into a three-ring circus with the Keystone Cops, the Three Stooges and Abbott and Costello,” Gonzales said. “It’s been mentioned several times by Charlene Terrell to call the Texas Rangers or Texas Attorney General to seek illegal activities. I welcome them. Please do. Let us show you we have not done anything illegal. Allow this council and city community to move forward without all the chaos you and your volunteers have brought to this city. It is you who needs to be investigated for your illegal activities which will be discussed during this meeting. I now respectfully ask you, Lori Thomas, to resign as city leader before someone files suit against the city for your uncontrollable actions and failure to follow the law.”

Further into the meeting, council member Tracey Johnson also acted to correct a statement regarding an official complaint made by her, stating that the date that she saw citizens within city hall looking through files was incorrect.

“On my letter, it states Friday, May 30. With the corrected date, it is on June 2 I witnessed citizens in the office going through files,” Johnson said. “Although I did not submit my complaint to the press, the Port Lavaca Wave, I did message the reporter to give him the correct day as well as our city attorney.”

One of those citizens accused in the complaint by Johnson, Deede McGhee, responded back to Johnson’s statement, claiming that Johnson’s complaint was factually incorrect. McGhee continued, stating that it was council member Kenneth Reese who had observed the volunteers in city hall and that Johnson had been at her place of work during the events covered in the complaint. 

“At this time, I demand a public apology from Tracey Johnson. I demand a formal written reprimand be placed in Johnson’s file by the city attorney and I demand for her to retract her statement in her letters as well as the Port Lavaca Wave newspaper as to what she saw. I think this incident has proven that Tracey Johnson does what she pleases without regard to the citizens of Seadrift, and is now proven to spread hateful lies against us. I believe there have been other incidents as well where she has done this. If this issue isn’t proving her sideways attempts to force citizens under her control, then I don’t know what does,” McGhee said.

Council member Alysa Jarvis later stated that city staff confirmed Johnson's presence at city hall at that time.

Seadrift resident Charlene Terrell, who was also identified by Johnson in the official complaint, also spoke out against Johnson while defending her position as a volunteer.

“We came here because Lori had requested help. We had a file with grant papers that was so disorganized. I don’t know everything about grants, but I can file numerically,” Terrell said. “All we were trying to do was help a city that was so broke y’all can’t pay attention. When you say, even tonight, ‘we’ll pay when funds are available,’ that’s not paying a bill, that’s delaying a bill.”

Alongside the correction of the complaint by Johnson, members of council also engaged in a debate about the topic of swimming in the city’s harbor and port. The topic was brought to the forefront following an incident earlier in June where children were spotted swimming in harbor waters and reported to the police.

“I said, if we wanted to, we could restrict swimming and fishing from specific leased areas as opposed to the whole harbor. I’m just throwing out an option for council to consider, since people fish on the turnaround, and we don’t want to restrict fishing from there,” council member Alysa Jarvis said. 

Several citizens spoke about the dangers of allowing swimming in the harbor area of Seadrift, including Cindy Alford, who said she has used the harbor for years with her father.

“As a child, we used to haul our boat out on the drydock and the bottom of our boat was copper, and when you scrape copper, guess what? It goes into the harbor. Back then, it didn’t matter. Everyone did it. Now the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality would be down here choking every one of us,” Alford said. “Swimming should have been eliminated in that harbor years ago. There’s bilge pumping that goes in there because that’s the last thing a shrimper does at night, he pumps his bilge. There’s waste from the bay that comes in and out — those are all commercial industries, all those dump into that harbor.”

Council voted, with council members Gonzales, Alysa Jarvisa and Kenneth Reese in favor and council members Tracey Johnson and Tanya Cunningham voting against, to take action to further restrict entrance to the harbor to swimmers, as well as place additional signs warning against such actions. However, Chris Williams, who identified himself as the parent of two of the children involved, spoke out against the policy and defended himself and his children alongside his wife.

“As most of you know, the police were called on children fishing and swimming at the harbor. A couple of those kids belong to me.” Williams said. “On June 20, the police were called on a boy for swimming. The second time in seven days. Both called seven days apart and had the same story. A boy jumped in the water in front of a boat. The truth was bent a little in each story.”

Seadrift Police officer James Easley also returned to the meeting, requesting for the removal or nullification of items in his personal record regarding a period of time during which he was put on administrative leave. 

This follows a previous item during the June 10 meeting and subsequent motion made by Gonzales to terminate Easley from the city’s police force. Easley responded to this motion, stating that such actions were retaliatory in nature and had created a “hostile workplace.” No action was taken by council regarding the file during the July 8 meeting, but Gonzales stated that Easley’s termination would still be discussed at a future meeting. 

“Several complaints have been filed against me by council member Gonzales. I believe these are retaliatory in nature and now I feel I am claiming that this is a hostile working environment. In closing, I remain committed to serving the city of Seadrift with professionalism and integrity with full respect for the rule of law,” Easley said. 

Following a closed session, action was taken by Thomas and council to reallocate the assignment of their respective departments. Gonzales was removed as department head of public safety and reassigned as head of parks and recreation. Johnson, meanwhile, took Gonzales’ place and council member Reese took Johnson’s previous position as head of public utilities.

For more information on future meetings and to review city council agendas, visit Seadrifttx.org. Seadrift city council meets at 6 p.m. every second Tuesday of the month at Seadrift City Hall.