Whipped Cream Difficulties

There’s a town in Montgomery County, near Houston, called Patton Village. I have it in my head that Patton Village was one of the notorious Texas speedtraps up until a few years back, when The Ledge basically shut all of those down. (Edited to add: I hate using Wikipedia as a source, but it does seem to confirm my recollection with externally sourced links.)

Anyway, Patton Village is apparently trying to disband the city police department. I say “apparently” and “trying” because the mayor tried to hold a city council meeting yesterday. The meeting was posted at 8 PM on Tuesday.

This is a problem. You see, the Texas Open Meetings Act requires 72 hours notice for such meetings. (There is a “public emergency” exemption, but I gather the mayor did not declare such. And while I am not a lawyer or expert on the Open Records Act, I feel confident in declaring that the law strictly defines what constitutes a “public emergency”. Russian Chinese North Korean troops in the streets? Probably. Disbanding the police department? Probably not.)

Anyway, the mayor and two council members showed up for the meeting, but one of the council members walked out after declaring the meeting illegal. Shortly after that, the mayor apparently came out and told the police officers that she was shutting down the department and calling in the county sheriff. Shortly after that, when the media showed up, the mayor said there “were not enough there for the meeting and refused any other comment.”

But wait! The story gets better!

The mayor, two other city officials, and four police officers are under indictment!

A grand jury indicted [Mayor Pamela] Munoz on 10 corruption-related charges, ranging from abuse of official capacity to theft by a public servant.

(The others indicted are the city secretary, two court clerks, and the four police officers, who are named in the HouChron story.)

But wait! It gets even better! Why were these folks indicted?

The officials were accused of using police cars, bought with federal grant money, as collateral to get bank loans that they then dipped into for personal use, the Chronicle reported in March.

Somehow I missed this story when they were indicted. I must have been distracted by shiny objects.

Really, isn’t that just about the most stupid example of municipal corruption you’ve ever heard of? Using cop cars as loan collateral? And what about the banks? Don’t banks inspect the collateral before accepting it? I mean, I could see these folks claiming that they were personal vehicles, but I’d at least expect the bank to want to look at the title. (And I would assume the title would be in the name of  “City of Patton Village”, not “Pamala Munoz” or one of the others charged.)

Plus, you know, if I’m a bank officer, and I go out to look at the collateral being offered, and I see it has a light bar and sirens and a shotgun rack and a BIG FREAKING SEAL on the side saying “Patton Village Police Department”, I’m going to be asking some questions. Just saying. Perhaps I overestimate the intelligence of the average banker.

By the way, the HouChron story is largely (but not entirely) based on reporting by the Montgomery County Police Reporter, who the HouChron credits, and who I do want to provide a link to as well.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 5th, 2012 at 8:30 am and is filed under Clippings, Cops, Law, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.