Converse cleared of lawsuit stemming from a 2019 city council ouster
The city of Converse stands cleared of a lawsuit filed against it by one of its council members after a recent Fourth Court of Appeals ruling dismissed the charges.
The lawsuit stemmed from an October 2019 council vote to remove Silvas from her council seat. Kate Silvas, elected to the Converse City Council in November 2018 after eight years as the city’s Economic Development Corporation executive director, was ousted on Oct. 22, 2019, by a 4-0-1 council vote.
Discussion at that Oct. 22, 2019 meeting centered on the councilwoman’s multiple requests of several city officials for public information, including copies of all city budgets and audits for the past 20 years, copies of all text messages sent and received by City Manager Le Ann Piatt since April 2018, and copies of all EDC budget and audits since it was created in 2000.
Two of the more than two dozen requests Silvas made were directed to two city staff members — one to then-city secretary Holly Nagy, and another to the late John Quintanilla, former community services development director.
The city charter forbids council members from directly interacting with staff without first contacting or consulting with the city manager.
“Requesting information is expressly allowed in the charter,” Silvas stated in March 2021, after a district court ruling had allowed the case to go forward.
“Converse was running a deficit in revenues for permits of more than $250,000,” Silvas said at the time. “I was only fulfilling my duties as an elected official. I have a duty to be informed before voting on public business.”
Silvas was re-elected to council in November 2020.
The appeals court opinion was written by Judge Patricia Alvarez, who was joined by Justices Irene Rios and Lori Valenzuela.
Alvarez explained that Silvas in her suit sought two types of relief, declaratory judgment and injunctive relief, both of which were challenged by the city and its legal representative, attorney Scott Tschirhart, of Denton Navarro Rocha Bernal & Zech.
A court review “concluded injunctive relief was not available” in the case. “We dismissed Silvas’s claims for injunctive relief in their entirety,” the Feb. 9, 2022, opinion stated. “We also dismissed all of Silvas’s declaratory relief claims except for Silvas’s ‘ultra vires claims’ against the city officials.”
“Ultra vires claims” are used to allege that public officials are doing something they shouldn’t, or
refusing to do something that they should.
In the appeal, the city contends the councilwoman’s remaining ultra vires claims are moot “because … Silvas did not allege any ongoing actual or imminent injury, and any prospective relief cannot remedy her complaints.”
Silvas had argued from the beginning that the City Charter gives city council “no express authority… to seek to remove a member of the city council or make declarations regarding forfeiture,” as stated in the opinion.
“Defendants have taken action that has the effect of removing, hindering, and/or obstructing Kate Silvas from her duly elected office,” Silvas contended, as was pointed out in the legal memorandum.
Silvas claimed the defendants violated the open meetings section of the Texas Government Code by “refusing to produce public information lawfully requested by Silvas and seeking to deprive/punish Silvas for exercising her statutory rights to make a request for such information.”
In its conclusion, Alvarez wrote, “Having reviewed Silvas’s pleadings, we conclude that she lacks standing to pursue her remaining ultra vires claims because she did not plead facts to show (1) a concrete and particularized or actual or imminent injury; or (2) her requested prospective relief would likely redress her past injury.
“Because Silvas no longer has standing to maintain her ultra veres claims, we reverse the trial court’s March 2, 2021 order and dismiss those claims,” the opinion stated.
The appellate court did remand the case to trial court regarding any award of court costs and attorney’s fees.
Dennis Drouillard, Silvas’s attorney, said the opinion shows that Mayor Al Suarez “and his allies did everything they could to keep running from a trial court fight.”
The appeal’s court decision “basically said it was at this point moot, because people had restored her to office,” Drouillard said. “The ruling leaves open the determination of the fees. In order to determine the fees, the court will still have to look at the wrong that was done to Ms. Silvas by Al Suarez and his allies.”
