Document Tampering Allegations & a Resignation Reversal

Flatonia Cuts Ties With Longtime City Attorney Beck (Who Also Works for LG) After New Claims

The Flatonia City Council cut ties with its City Attorney, Angela Beck, at a meeting Tuesday night after allegations that Beck tried to alter a document that the Fayette County Record requested through the Texas Public Information Act (PIA).

Beck is also the long-time City Attorney for La Grange.

“We are grateful to Mrs. Beck for her service to the City from 2007 to present,” said Flatonia City Manager Sarah Novo in an interview with the Record Wednesday morning. “At this point, the City will be looking in a different direction for our future needs.”

According to a pair of letters obtained this week through the Texas Public Information Act, new Flatonia City Secretary Heather Ambrose says Flatonia City Attorney Angela Beck directed her to possibly violate state law and provide an altered document to the Record. The document that Ambrose says Beck tried to have altered was the report from independent investigator Ron Oliver concerning costly mistakes and expenses by former City Secretary Melissa Brunner, which the Record detailed in a series of articles last month.

Beck’s request to alter the investigation report was part of a host of complaints that pushed new Flatonia City Secretary Heather Ambrose to the brink of resigning her position. Ambrose reversed course at Tuesday night’s City Council meeting and decided not to resign after Council agreed to address Ambrose’s complaints.

The City of Flatonia hired Ambrose just four months ago to replace Brunner. Brunner left the City last August with early retirement and three months of exit pay following an investigation that revealed costly mistakes, expensive travel and questionable purchases by the City Secretary. Beck provided legal advice to the City Council during the separation negotiations with Brunner.

The letters obtained this week were internal communications between Ambrose and City Manager Sarah Novo.

“I have come to realize that the problems that have plagued this organization (the City of Flatonia) are not resolved because they are fundamental to the core of the leaders and the town,” Ambrose wrote in one of the letters dated April 23. “Until that changes, Flatonia will in my opinion continue to be a revolving door of leaders.”

The other letter from Ambrose to Novo says that Beck asked Oliver “to revise the final report, which was already submitted to the City, to state that the spreadsheets (attached to the report) were some type of working documents. She explained that by (Oliver) doing so, she would be able to prevent the documents from being provided as part of (The Record’s) public information request.

The Record eventually obtained those spreadsheets, and they were key to unravelling the story reported last month.

“I did not dictate any changes to Mr. Oliver,” Beck said in a statement to the Record on Wednesday. “It should be noted that Mr. Oliver and I collaborated on language in the report throughout the various drafts prior to October 10, 2020 and I frequently corrected things included in those drafts.”

Beck said she believed the spreadsheets were “working documents” exempt from disclosure.

“I did not want to keep anything from the public,” Beck said. “The author of the report stated the spreadsheets were work papers. As work papers, they were worthy of being reviewed by the Attorney General before release to determine if they met the definition of work papers. Following that process in this case, as I have in many other cases involving PIA requests and other exemptions, is the usual procedure that I follow.”

Ambrose further alleged that Beck downloaded files from a City computer and delivered them to Brunner after Brunner left the City.

“When I started, I learned the former City Secretary had requested copies of all of her files that she had saved to the City’s computer,” Ambrose said in the April 23 letter. “There were hundred of personal documents saved. In my experience, if you choose to save to your work computer, it’s the risk you take. The computer software and hardware are City property, and the employee has absolutely no rights. But our City Attorney, without the bat of an eye, agreed we should give them all to her. When we explained how broad the request was and that there would be hundred of files to look through to be sure they were not City documents, we were dismissed, in my opinion. Instead, Angela Beck came to my office and made a copy of the external hard drive where I had saved the documents. I have no idea what those files contained.”

Later in the letter, Ambrose said the incident took place on the night of a Council meeting.

The Record asked Beck on Wednesday about the content of those files.

“You should direct that to the Flatonia City Secretary as the Public Information Officer,” Beck said. “I have no authority to release those documents to you.”

Ambrose’s letters provide additional details into mismanagement by prior administrations in City Hall:

“The (City Cemetery) is also a big concern for me,” she wrote in the April 23 letter. “The records are a jumbled mess … There are records in the vault, the safe, the storage room, various offices and file cabinets. The eternal rest of people who trusted the Cemetery Association and the City is at stake. I put myself in their shoes of how I would feel if my mother, father or other loved one had to be disinterred because of the City’s failure to maintain records.”

She wrote about one citizen who scorned her after she could not find the deed to a cemetery lot he owned. Ultimately, Ambrose wrote that she recommended filing cemetery deeds with the County as a permanent record.

“Angela Beck says it’s not necessary, and legally, it may not be,” Ambrose wrote. “However, seeing the mess that we have here, I wish they had been filed. I asked Angela about a month ago if the Cemetery Deeds need to be filed in the Courthouse, should not be, or if it was up to us. I never received a response.”

At the meeting this Tuesday, Councilman Dennis Geesaman acknowledged the issues Ambrose raised and said they would be addressed. Geesaman asked Ambrose if she still wanted to resign. When she said no, some citizens in the audience clapped.

“When I took on the position, I don’t think I really understood what I was coming into,” Ambrose said in an interview with the Record on Tuesday. “With all the changes that happened and what I was going to face when I got here, to clean things up and make things right, if I was going to continue, there were some things that had to happen and I didn’t think those things were possible. I think the City Manager didn’t want me to go, because she has a lot on her plate. And there were some City Council members that didn’t want me to go. I said I would stay if we could resolve some of these things.”

At the meeting, Councilman Allen Kocian praised Ambrose.

“I think you are a godsend, to help the City get back to a positive attitude that it needs,” Kocian said. “You are going in the right direction, and Sarah (Novo) is going in the right direction. You ladies need to get applauded and patted on the back for what y’all have done.

I’m more proud of this City than I have ever been before. Y’all have pushed forward with what you need to do and haven’t looked back. I look forward to seeing y’all for a very long time.”

“Y’all have done a good job,” said Councilwoman Cathy Steinhauser.

“I plan to be here and do the best job I can,” Ambrose said after the meeting. “I’m happy for the outcome and I’m hopeful for the changes.”