MARLIN, Texas — During a special-called meeting Monday night, Marlin City Manager Elza Daviss accused Mayor Susan Byrd of overstepping her authority, including using Daviss’s signature stamp without permission while she was on medical leave.
- Marlin City Manager Elza Daviss accused Mayor Susan Byrd of violating city charter rules, including unauthorized use of her signature stamp during a medical leave.
- Daviss also claimed the mayor endangered a city employee by sending them to work in a rat-infested facility without proper protection.
- The City Council spent over an hour in executive session reviewing the grievances and ultimately referred the matter to the district attorney for further investigation.
- The mayor issued a statement in response to 25 News on Tuesday (see below)
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:
"And this is an example of some of the history that Marlin has had to deal with beginning and ending with corruption,” said Marlin city manager Elza Daviss.
During a special-called city council meeting on Monday, members spent more than an hour in executive session, reviewing grievances, complaints and personnel matters related to both the city manager and mayor.
City manager Elza Daviss alleged Mayor Susan Byrd violated several rules, regulations, and provisions of the city charter.
Daviss claimed Mayor Byrd used her signature stamp without permission to sign a document while she was out on medical leave.
"It has my name on it but I was not here. Again, another example of her overstepping her bounds,” said Daviss.
Daviss stated she was out on leave from March 12th-june 10th but the letter stamped with her signature was dated May 21st.
She also says the mayor sent a city employee to work at the animal control facility without proper protective equipment.
The employee later reported the facility was infested with rats.
"She was sent down there last week, all week, to clean out that building. Again, this undermines my authority with my staff, and it puts staff at risk for possible harm,” said Daviss.
During the meeting, council member Scottie Henderson said during the city manager's leave - the city was forced to deal with major issues on its own.
"The council has done a whole lot of work and these people that have filled in have done a lot of work. I know what we've been going through here dealing with the water and all the situations that we've had…there are going to be some mistakes made,” said Marlin city council member Scottie Henderson.
But Daviss claims that the mayor's recent actions interfered with her ability to do her job effectively.
"Because of these boundaries that the mayor consistently keeps overstepping, I am unable to do my job, I have no control over my staff, I have no control over documents that go out with or without my name on it,” said Daviss.
The council says shortly before the meeting started, Mayor Byrd provided a written response to Daviss's allegations.
The council chose not to read the response in public.
The city council tabled all action related to these matters but did confirm that they have been turned in to the district attorney for further investigation.
The mayor provided this statement to 25 News:
“The City Manager was not forthright with allegations and assertions she made against the Mayor and City employees. Nor was she forthright with claimed defenses to complaints made against the City Manager. Council members are in the process of reviewing the evidence and will take appropriate action when their reviews are complete.“
