Criminal Complaint filed with the DA aginst City Hall and Cit Council.

My Friends,

After repeated requests, from most of you, we went ahead and filed the following complaint with the DA's office. Some of you don't like to open PDF attachments so for your convenience you can read the complaint as an e-mail text bellow.
We have the " Exhibits" only in a PDF format. In case you want to see any of the attachment please e-mail us and we will send you the requested attachments right away.


Sim Portnoy
1623 Falcon Dr
Corinth, TX 75006
November 11, 2009
The Honorable Paul Johnson
Criminal District Attorney
Denton County
1450 E. Mc Kinney, Suite 3100
Denton, TX 76209-4524

Dear Mr. Johnson:

I am writing to ask you to protect the residents of the City of Corinth from the Corinth City Council and City Hall. I am coming forth and asking you to determine if “Official misconduct” per TEX. LOC. GOV’T CODE:

“Official misconduct” means intentional, unlawful behavior relating to official duties by an officer entrusted with the administration of justice or the execution of law. The term includes an intentional or corrupt failure, refusal, or neglect of an officer to perform a duty imposed on the officer by law.

, “Oath of Office,” per City of Corinth Home Rule Charter ARTICLE VII 7.06, “Failure to Forfeit and Vacate” per City of Corinth Home Rule Charter ARTICLE III 3.04 A.2. violations where committed or and if the DA finds additional violations. Can retroactive and immediate Cure or Remedies be applied based on the following facts and information:

A. For Fiscal years 2008 and 2009 the Corinth City Council failed to direct an independent audit of all city accounts by a certified public accountant as required. (See Attached Exhibit A, Page 20, Section 9.12):

B. The city council entered into an engagement with a Rutledge Crain & Company, PC CPA firm, in years 2005-2007 to conduct independent audits in clear violation of Section 9.12 of the Corinth Home Rule Charter by stipulating in the contract that the independent audits for 2005 through 2007 were for city staff use only and not for public record (See Attached Exhibit B, Page 8, last paragraph).

C. Failed to satisfy generally accepted accounting standards of municipal fiscal management and failed to comply with the requirements of the Texas Local Government Code (TLGC), Title 4, Subtitle A, Chapter 103, Sections 103.0001, 103.002, & 103.003 (See Attached Exhibit “C”)

D. For the past five years, current and past city councilman exhibited Substantial Noncompliance with City of Corinth Home Rule Charter section 9: “Municipal Finance” and Section III “The City Council”, Subsection 3.04 A.2. “Forfeitures and Vacancies” (See Exhibit A, Page 5):

1. Failing to hold a meeting and vote to have an independent audit.
2. Failing to publish such audit.
3. Failure to make financial audits, transactions, budgets, and performance audits available for examination by the taxpayers.

Question: Do the above-mentioned violations A – D constitute “Official Misconduct”,
“Oath of Office” according to their definitions, and therefore is the city council subject to the “Vacate of office” provision? What are the proper remedies to “cure” these violations of the Corinth Home Rule, Section 9.12 (See Exhibit A)

E. City council also violated City Ordinance No. 05-04-07-10 Code of Ethics, Section 5: Enforcement, Subsection E, in failing to create the Corinth Ethics Committee and/or Advisory Board since 2005 even when the non-compliance was brought to their attention. See Exhibit “D,” page 6

Question: Does the above-mentioned violation in item E constitute “Official Misconduct”, “Oath of Office,” and therefore is the city council subject to the Vacate of office provision? What is the proper remedy to “cure” this City Ordinance violation?

In addition to Home Rule Charter violations, we respectfully request the honorable District Attorney’s office to investigate the following:

(1) The Corinth City council voted in a secret meeting to pay resigning City manager Clovia English $ 72,322 above her deserved $120,000 separation package in return she signed a "Gag" agreement. We believe that this agreement between Ms. English and the City of Corinth did not serve the city resident’s best interests; instead, it transferred the consequences of council’s questionable behavior to the taxpayers. In conversations with council members Mayfield and Bryan, they defended the agreement as the initial employment agreement between English and the city. Please see the attached entering Employment agreement, (Exhibit “ F”), exiting Separation agreement (Exhibit “ G”), and an article from Denton Record Chronicle written by Peggy Heinkle-Wolfe dated May 1, 2008 (Exhibit “H”).

Did the Corinth City Council violate the powers granted to them by the Corinth Home Rule Charter under Article II, Sec. 2.01, “K” (Exhibit A, page 2) and commit “Official Misconduct” and violate their oath of office?

(2) I, Sim Portnoy, on Feb, 4th 2009 requested the volunteer application (Exhibit “E”) and mayoral approval letter for P&Z committee member Jay Ross. At the time of my 2-4-2009 public information request, I was told the city did not have either of the requested documents. I requested that the city put in writing that they did not have them. City Secretary Kim Pence and City Manager Jim Berzina refused to provide me such a letter.

(3) On April 3, 2008 city council voted in favor of a mysterious “donation” (Exhibit “K”) of $474,000 from the CEDC to the City of Corinth for the for the rehabilitation of a little known , city owned building, Woods Community Center. The project was halted at a later date when the city was caught re-categorizing Sales Tax Revenue as the above-mentioned “donation”. The project was not halted before runoff and drainage surveys were conducted at an approximate cost of $66,500. We suspect the above-mentioned drainage study was shared with the potential buyers of an adjacent tract, Ashton Gardens, & developers Vaughn Andrus to help increase the property value at the expense of the taxpayers.

Did the city council misuse public funds by providing tax money for engineering services to a private entity?


(4)Minutes, including high importance instrumental documents that assisted City Council’s vote taken on April 17, 2008 to grant Gateway Development $135,000 disappeared from the CEDC minutes. The city posted revised minutes on the city website (See Exhibit I). The revision came after citizens questioned granting $135,000 to Gateway Development. I could not find any subsequent vote for the revised minutes approving the removal of said documents. Fortunately, I captured the entire document before its removal. (See Exhibit “J”)

Did the Corinth Economic Development Committee and City Council commit “Official Misconduct” by revising approved minutes and removing instrumental documents without a vote?


(5)In June, 2008 I ordered a “Call Information Report” from the Corinth Police Department that contained all police activity between November 1, 2008 and May 25, 2009. After going through the report and summing up all types of criminal activity and responses by the CPD, I noticed that the weekly crime reporting page in the local newspaper “The Lake Cities Sun” makes no mention of any of these activities. However, there were very detailed crime histories for Hickory Creek, Lake Dallas , and Oak. I brought this disparity to the attention of CPD Chief Bradley during a phone conversation in August, 2009. She informed me that she had the same concern and she addressed it with the Lake Cities Sun editor where he responded to her that he was directed to edit the weekly crime report for the City of Corinth. Lake Cities Sun is the official newspaper for the City of Corinth, and the city spends about $20,000 with the newspaper annually.

Is the removal of crime data from the Lake Cities Sun’s crime report page for the City of Corinth a violation of law, contract, or an unethical practice otherwise cured by the powers of the District Attorney’s Office?


Sincerely,
Sim Portnoy

Citizens of Corinth for Transparency and Accountability