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Don’t be fooled by the name of the Texas city called Godley.
It’s anything but. In fact, one could make the case that it’s quite the opposite.
It’s a dictatorship. At only two square miles, it’s a small one at that, but it’s still one-man rule.
I realize this is a hefty charge for The Watchdog to make about a town of 2,600 people in northwestern Johnson County.
The dictator is Mayor Acy McGehee, who recently lost a no-confidence vote by his City Council. The May 23 vote, which also called upon the mayor to resign, passed 4-0 with one abstention. The vote was symbolic without legal force. This dictator isn’t quitting.
For this report, my concern is not so much that the mayor is breaking rules and hiring new staff members without the knowledge and approval of City Council. It’s not that he keeps canceling council meetings on a whim. It’s not even that he made the decision by himself to temporarily shut down Godley City Hall after mass resignations of town employees.
My problem with McGehee is what he allegedly did to Jennifer Thompson, a council member until May who follows my Watchdog Nation philosophy that elected officials have a sacred duty to ask a bunch of questions.
I use the word allegedly because since the mayor declined to talk to The Watchdog, I don’t know his side of the story. But I do know one aspect of this, the most troubling, is that he played a role in Thompson getting arrested in the minutes before a council meeting was to begin. She spent the night in the Johnson County jail.
With Thompson in jail, council votes that night were ties, and in Godley, the mayor gets to break the tie.
Thompson’s arrest
Go back to the night of Feb. 7. Thompson arrives a half-hour early for the scheduled council meeting. Thompson, 42, who works as an expert on municipal government finances, noticed that a police car with two officers had pulled in behind her at Godley City Hall.
As Thompson later told a reporter for The Daily Beast, one officer told her: “We have a warrant for your arrest. We need you to vacate the vehicle.”
“What am I being arrested for?” she asked.
The second officer said, “After I handcuff you and get you in the car, I’ll show you the warrant.”
The handcuffs were tight. In the car, the officer waived the warrant in front of her but didn’t let her read it.
At the Johnson County Jail in Cleburne, 11 miles away, the council member was tossed into a cell with other women.
“They were pretty scary,” she recalled. “I’m like, ‘Oh crap, I’m about to get my butt kicked.’”
A jailer directed her to Stall One.
“I need you to strip down,” the jailer said. “Everything comes off.”
Thompson removed everything, including silver hoop earrings that belonged to her grandmother.
“Now I need you to squat, pull your butt cheeks apart and cough three times,” the jailer told the naked elected official.
When Thompson asked if this was necessary, the jailer barked, ”You heard what I said.”
Later, Thompson told me, “I was mortified.”
Arrested for what?
Thompson was released the next day, minus her grandmother’s earrings, which were lost. What was the crime she supposedly committed?
She made editing suggestions to the City Council agenda to add items the mayor didn’t want to talk about. After the city secretary complained about Thompson’s aggressive attempts to add items, Godley police wrote a warrant and got a judge to sign it.
Thompson was charged with tampering with a government record.
What was the mayor’s role? In the arrest warrant, it states that police “spoke to Acy McGehee who is the city of Godley mayor.” He told police that the city secretary “was the only one responsible for assembling items for [a] council agenda.”
County prosecutors quickly declined to take on this bogus case, and the charges were dropped. But it caught the attention of Godley residents who supported her. Thompson returned to the council and intended to run for reelection.
Then in another move out of the dictator’s handbook, Thompson handed in her paperwork to run for reelection. But the same city secretary who complained about her agenda editing suggestions notified Thompson that her candidacy was rejected. No reason was given.
Thompson says she plans to run against the mayor next year.
‘We look like fools’
Turns out Thompson didn’t need to run in May. Those who won seats picked up the ask-a-bunch-of-questions philosophy.
At the May 23 meeting, the mayor tried to squelch debate on a no-confidence vote when he announced he was ready to move on to the next agenda item. Outcry from council members and residents killed that notion.
Mayor Pro Tem Michael Papenfuss said a dark cloud hovered above the city.
“We look like fools,” he said. Thompson’s arrest was “a sad scenario.”
“I’ve lost confidence in you,” he told the mayor.
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Councilman Scott Yarbrough said, “Either work with us or go home to Mrs. McGehee.”
The mayor didn’t appear too worried. A former Fort Worth police officer 50 years ago, he was Godley’s first police chief. He worked as an operator at Comanche Peak nuclear power plant until he retired.
Thompson told me the mayor says he represents Old Godley. She says the town doesn’t function properly. Record-keeping is poor or non-existent. Employee retention is a massive fail.
Godley is a weak mayor city, with the mayor voting only to break a tie. The power to hire and fire is in the hands of the entire council, not one individual.
Yet on his own, the mayor hired an interim city secretary, a court clerk, public works staff, city attorney, police chief and fire chief.
As of a week ago, there were openings for city administrator, city secretary and city attorney.
Thompson said she’d like to find a lawyer who will help her protect her civil rights.
In a victory, the new council has voted to check off at least one item on Thompson’s good government bucket list.
The council voted for a detailed forensic audit. It’s a big step in the little town to make things right.