Granbury Recall – High Order Corruption?

3 Elected Officials Sue Their Own City to Stop Their Own Vote

Granbury, TX – Granbury’s recall fight has an astounding new development: three elected officials facing removal by voters are now suing their own city to stop themselves from voting on placing themselves on a recall ballot. You cannot make this up…

Mayor Jim Jarratt, Mayor Pro Tem Bruce Wadley and Councilman Gary “Skip” Overdier filed suit against the City of Granbury on October 6, just minutes before the City Council was expected to set a date for the recall election. The lawsuit seeks to invalidate their respective recall petitions, alleging insufficient valid signatures, “fraud, forgery and other non-accidental defects” by petition circulators, and challenges to the alleged grounds for recall. Those allegations remain allegations, not findings by a court.

But the lawsuit is only the latest development in a sequence that deserves considerably more scrutiny than it has received.

The Granbury City Charter gives residents the power to recall members of the City Council. A recall petition must contain signatures from at least 15% of registered voters from the last general city election, or 200 voters, whichever is greater. It must also identify specific acts of alleged misfeasance or malfeasance. If an official does not resign after the required hearing, the charter says the council has a duty to order a recall election at the earliest date permitted by state law.

Residents filed petitions seeking the recall of Jarratt, Wadley, Overdier, Greg Corrigan and Zeb Ullom.

Then City Hall rejected them.

On July 28, the city announced that the petitions had not been certified after review by the City Secretary and City Attorney. The official explanation was that the petitions did not satisfy legal requirements for valid signatures and did not contain allegations sufficiently specific under the city charter.

That should have been the end of the matter if the city’s determination stood, but it didn’t.

Recall supporters challenged the city’s handling of the petitions in the Second Court of Appeals. Then, on August 24, the city informed the appellate court that, after “further investigation and added review of pertinent legal authority,” City Secretary Carla Walker would present the petitions to the City Council under Section 4.08 of the charter. Subsequently, the appeals court dismissed the mandamus proceeding as moot after the city agreed to move forward.

That reversal raises an obvious question: What changed between July 28 and August 24?

What legal authority was reviewed? What deficiencies were reconsidered? Who made the decision to reverse the city’s original position? And were the signature problems identified in July actually resolved, or did the city simply determine that the petitions should proceed despite them? Those questions deserve answers.

The petitions subsequently moved forward. On September 28 city council meeting, the five officials each maintained there was no evidence of wrongdoing and declined to resign.

So the next step was to call for an election. Or at least it was supposed to be.

On Tuesday, October 6, the council was preparing to schedule a May 2027 recall election when attorney Andy Taylor announced that he was suing the city. Right on cue, city attorney Jeremy SoRelle advised council members to stop the scheduling process. The lawsuit had been filed roughly 30 minutes before the meeting began.

Pipkins Reports has independently confirmed that Jarratt, Wadley and Overdier are the plaintiffs in that lawsuit against the City of Granbury.

That’s right, the three men facing recall by Granbury voters had sued the municipal government they serve in order to prevent those voters from getting the opportunity to cast the recall ballots.

Legally, elected officials have the right to challenge petitions they believe are defective. That is not itself evidence of wrongdoing. But the public also has the right to examine the timing and the extraordinary sequence of governmental decisions surrounding this recall.

First the petitions were rejected. Then, after litigation, they were put back into the process. The officials appeared at their hearings and refused to resign. Then, on the very night the election was headed toward a scheduled date, three of those officials went to court and the process stopped.

For Granbury taxpayers, this isn’t merely another City Hall squabble. This fight has reached a whole new level of corruption. The real question is, will the citizens of Granbury tolerate this?

#PipkinsReports is following all the action and collecting all the documents regarding this election recall. Follow us to stay in the loop.