City staff call elected officials bullies
Dec. 17—While Tuesday's canning of Odessa City Manager Michael Marrero and City Attorney Natasha Brooks has dominated the headlines the last few days, there's someone else many are talking about: Downtown Odessa Executive Director Casey Hallmark.
After a handful of people got up to blast the city council for voting 5-2 to fire Marrero and Brooks without explanation, Hallmark went up to the podium to add her two cents, but she shocked many when she took it even further.
She accused new council member Chris Hanie of screaming at her and said Mayor Javier Joven told her the police department is full of murderers and she needed to watch her back. She also accused council member Mark Matta of bullying and intimidating her.
Speaking to Joven, she said, "The dirty politics have made this job unbearable. You came to my office so many times. You were right here when I went to shake your hand three weeks into my job and you told me you'd accept my letter of resignation. You told the public to fire me and rescind my offer because I'm a 'crazy liberal.'"
She went on to say how sad she is as a lifelong Odessan.
"This is my city. This is our city and you're making a mockery of it. The way that you come to council and fight and belittle people. The things that you do behind the scene is absolutely repugnant," Hallmark said. "I love my city. I absolutely love my job, but at some point somebody has to stand up and say 'This is bananas, you guys cannot and should not treat city employees this way.'"
She is not alone in her view of certain members of city council.
"Toxic"
Prior to Tuesday night's vote, four City of Odessa employees expressed their anger and sadness at the thought of losing the pair and described the atmosphere at city hall as "toxic."
All of them requested anonymity for fear of reprisals. In interviews after the fact, they spoke of Hallmark's "bravery" and said people are even more fearful now that they've seen what can happen when someone gets cross ways with the council.
"They're really, really scared. Who's next? That's the general sentiment," one said. "It's a very sad time to be a City of Odessa employee."
Requests for interviews were sent via emails, text and voice mails were sent to Joven and the rest of the city council before and after the meeting seeking comments on the employees' allegations.
City Secretary Norma Aguilar Grimaldo said the soonest Joven would be available is Jan. 9 as he's going out of town.
District 1 City Council member Mark Matta released this statement Thursday:
"We are dedicated to working with the staff to make this a successful and unified transition. At this moment, we want to assure the city employees that we are in a great position and have their best interests in mind. We are prioritizing city-wide initiatives and confident that our city management will match those initiatives with our highest performing and most capable leaders. We as a council look forward to introducing these plans and involving the community as we improve Odessa. I am very proud of our city employees and will work with them to make this city not only a great place to work, but also a great city to live."
District 3 Council member Gilbert Vasquez, who voted against firing Marrero and Brooks, said he had a favorable impression of them, but hadn't had a chance to really evaluate them. He was sworn in Nov. 22. As for the employees, they "certainly have the right and freedom to express their views and concerns."
In a text following the meeting, Hallmark said her decision to speak was spontaneous, but "I did what I felt was right and I'm proud of that."
On Thursday, Hallmark said she hasn't filed any formal complaints because she feared retaliation, but did tell her supervisor after every incident.
"I have been reached out to by over 50 city employees who said they were thankful I stood up and spoke my truth. Many are fearful of retaliation and have been with the city for 10+ years so they have way more to lose," Hallmark said.
She declined to comment further, saying she is seeking legal counsel.
Speaking separately, each of the four employees speaking anonymously said the working environment at the city has grown "toxic" in recent months. They said a growing number of employees have come to believe Joven, Matta and council member Denise Swanner targeted Marrero and Brooks because they were not "yes men."
All three were elected in a run-off election in 2020 after failing to gain the 50% needed in their races to win out-right. Joven served as District 5 Council member from 1996 to 1999 when he resigned abruptly at the end of his second term. He ran in 2010, but lost.
"Certain council members claim to be doing the things that will benefit the city, but in reality, they're only trying to benefit themselves. They want to push their agenda," one employee said.
Better things to do?
The city council should be more focused on pressing issues such as infrastructure, instead of becoming a sanctuary city or banning game rooms, some of the employees agreed.
"It seems like a power grab and I think it's also an opportunity for glory. 'I'm someone's boss and I get to say what happens.' They're just taking the opportunity to really humiliate people. It feels like they're just tossing their weight around."
Yet another said, "I think it is a blatant abuse of power and a gathering of power by certain individuals on our city council. They're reaching out to city employees directly as opposed to the way it's supposed to be in a council/mayor government. It's quite uncomfortable and it's almost to the point where you feel bullied."
Brooks and Marrero were evaluated in October, but at that time Joven did not have the votes he needed to fire the pair. Three new council members, Chris Hanie, Greg Connell and Vasquez, were sworn in Nov. 22 after running unopposed.
At the start of Tuesday's meeting, Pastor Jackie Brem of Second Baptist Church gave the invocation which included the following, "We ask that your will be done in this meeting as it's done in Heaven. That it not be our desire, our wants, our thoughts, but that it be your desire, your will and your wants."
Recall and lawsuit
Community leaders Gaven Norris and Gene Collins, like the four employees, believe what Joven, Matta and Swanner have done flies in the face of that prayer.
After Tuesday night, Norris said he intends to file a federal lawsuit by early January against Joven and the council and Collins said he'll be launching a recall attempt.
While one of the employees personally thinks Joven, Matta and Swanner are right when they complain about the pet projects of others, one employee said they'd like to see more consensus building and compromise.
"They talk about being Christian and doing the Christian thing. Well, the Christian thing is to not get vengeance, to not do things for spite," they said. "Anytime we get a new council I think, 'OK, this is going to be the one that's going to learn to work together' and so far they haven't."
One employee pointed out all council members are expected to undergo training following their election with the Texas Municipal League, but it's clear they either didn't pay attention or they've willfully ignored what they've been taught, they said.
"I'm just flabbergasted that some of the things they're doing are just basic, 'You don't do this. This is now how this is done.' You don't reach out to city employees and demand things directly or circumvent your city attorney's office," one said.
The ordinance recently passed making abortion illegal in Odessa wasn't written by Brooks; it was written by someone within her department, the employees agreed.
"It was pretty much common knowledge it was unnecessary as our governor had already instituted a sanctuary state," an employee said.
Pushback
Some of the employees said Brooks may also have drawn the ire of Joven, Swanner and Matta over their desire to get rid of game rooms, even with some of them going so far as to suggest the city seize the 8-liner machines, risking lawsuits to do so.
"She follows the letter of the law and she doesn't give people answers that they want to hear if they're not legally correct," one employee said. "I feel like there are people that want to hear what they want to hear whether it's legal or not, whether it's appropriate or not."
Marrero, too, has a strong sense of duty, the employees said.
"He's the perfect person for the job because of his history with the city and because of his devotion and dedication to the city. He's smart and he wants to do what's best for the community," one employee said.
Marrero and Brooks work long hours and every weekend to see to the needs of city residents and not just the ones who live in certain areas of town, an employee said.
"I've seen them both work really, really hard. They work really late hours, they come in on the weekend and miss spending time with their families just to make sure the job is done and it's done well," the employee said. "It's a shame that their dedication is being used against them and that people just want to get rid of them just because they don't get their way or because they have power and they want to wield it. "
Another employee, who has worked in multiple cities throughout Texas, praised Marrero.
"He's got very good leadership skills. He's very calm. He think things through. He's talking through problems and he's coming up with different solutions," the employee said.
The trio is not unusual in that they are trying to convince the community Marrero and past council members are responsible for things not going the way they wanted, one employee said.
"They're saying, 'I'm going to do better than the last one.' So Mayor Joven had to do this sanctuary city thing because that was part of his campaign platform. He couldn't let it go even after the governor made Texas a sanctuary state," the employee said. "Whenever I go off to conferences or training, I'm hearing, 'Oh my God. Really?'"
Low morale
The city employees all said morale amongst city employees is at an all time low because the mayor and council members have made it a habit to circumvent department heads and "micromanage staff."
They are now subject to being "interrogated" and they fear any small mistake could be "weaponized." They also feel one wrong word to the wrong person could get them fired, one employee said.
"There have been rumors of a purge for months and it's from people who aren't even council appointees," one employee said. "We're scared for our livelihoods. We work here. We live here, too. There are just a lot of people with a lot of questions about what's going to happen."
Another employee put it this way, "We're trying to raise the bar, but when you have people who are in powerful positions act the way they're acting and treating people the way they're treating them it's hard to keep the morale up."
Yet another employee said prior to the meeting, "My biggest fear come Wednesday morning is they're just going to completely clean house and in doing that, they're going to lose experience and knowledge and the city's just going to suffer. They're going to end up with the people in charge and their agenda."
No supervisors feel they can ask employees to go above and beyond "when they're just miserable about what's going to happen to our leader, Michael Marrero...and they have to worry 'am I going to have a job tomorrow or do I need to start looking?'"
While there are those on Facebook suggesting every regime make changes in key positions, that's not true at the local level, one employee said.
"We have staff here that's been here 40 years and they don't leave the city because they're dedicated and those same staff people, their parents were with the city 30 to 40 years prior to them," the employee said. "This is a legacy city. Once you get with the city, if you love what you do, you don't leave. However they're ready to leave and that's kind of sad."
One of the employees who spoke Monday said they thought "common sense and common decency" would prevail, but predicted it wouldn't.
"We have a brand new assistant city manager who's coming in and saying, 'I just moved my family here and the whole place is ready to walk out,'" an employee said. "That's a fact. There's eight of us that are willing to turn in our retirement paperwork. It's a concern. It's a real concern."
Another of the employees said people are sometimes willing to work under less than ideal circumstances if they have great bosses, but are less willing to do so when those bosses are forced to leave.
Those folks who can't leave town or retire are going to be "stuck," they said.
"Someone's going to have to take those directives from them and it will be whoever's willing to sacrifice their integrity and their ethics and I'm not one of them," an employee said.
It's just a lot different place to work than it used to be, they said.
"It used to be a really positive workplace. Even when we disagreed, we still worked together to get the job done, whether it was making sure people's trash got picked up or people had water in their homes or businesses. It was a place where you could put in the work and you'd be recognized for that work and you could feel good about what you were doing," one employee said.
Fake Facebook profiles and Facebook pages like Odessa Headlines, Odessans for Ethical Leadership and the Odessa Accountability page are not helping matters, either, they said.
"I think it affects morale more than council realizes. They're not operating in a vacuum. We hear their comments. We see their interaction with pages that speak negatively about us and the work we do. We see they 'like' their posts and we take that as an endorsement of those views," an employee said. "It's hurtful because we're just regular employees who work here, who live here, who just want to get the job done."
One of the four employees described Matta, Joven and Swanner as "extremists" and they and their friends use Facebook to bully people.
"How do you fight something like that? How do you work against it or even work with it to try to continue doing your job daily? It's tough," the employee said.
During her three-minute speech Tuesday, Hallmark said she's been attacked on Facebook.
"I am not an elected official. I didn't sign up to be paraded around on Facebook pages that you all support. I did not publicly embarrass myself or publicly shame myself ever," Hallmark said. "I am proud of what I do. I think we have done great things for downtown. I hope that I continue to do those things. I hope that I'm not retaliated against for speaking up against you."
The attitudes of Joven and Swanner are particularly hard to bear, one employee said.
"It's very difficult to explain the feel of the room when they start. It starts with the mayor of course and his condescending manner, but Swanner's the worst of them. She's apparently got her own little Facebook world that she's created and she's bullying people through Facebook," the employee said.
Resentment is also growing among those who see Joven, Matta and Swanner placing so much of an emphasis on giving Odessa Fire Rescue employees raises.
The city is in danger of losing more than just OFR employees if compensation for other employees isn't addressed, too, a couple of the employees said.
After firing Marrero and Brooks, the council voted 5-2 to give immediate raises to OFR employees, dispatchers and police officers.
The city needs people to maintain and dispatch emergency vehicles, people to fix potholes and billing and collection clerks to handle the bills, they said.
"The council has chosen to uplift one group, but they've done so at the expense of others," an employee said.
