Sugar Land Mayor David Wallace’s recent effort to regulate City Council members’ press releases “was an attempt to get back at me” for raising conflict-of-interest issues over Wallace’s involvement in the Imperial Sugar redevelopment project, Councilman Russell Jones says.
“This whole thing was an attempt to embarrass me,” Jones said Sunday, “and is obviously a violation of free speech rights.”
Wallace said Monday Jones’ statement about the Imperial project and the mayor’s proposed press release policy “are not linked.”
Jones said he was in Europe visiting his daughter during a July 3 council meeting, when Wallace criticized recent press releases Jones had issued, saying they had caused confusion in the community because they made use of a city logo and “look very similar to the official releases from the City of Sugar Land.”
Wallace asked city staff last week to prepare a draft policy prohibiting the use of the city’s logo on press releases that were not generated by the city’s communications department.
The mayor also sought to have a new policy preventing council members and possible other individuals from issuing press releases within a week or 10 days of a council meeting, in order to give the communications department time to issue an official release first.
But Jones said he believes the mayor took that action specifically because of a June 27 press release and statements Jones made that day critical of Wallace.
At the June 26 council meeting, Jones criticized the mayor, who he said had “proclaimed that he was no longer prohibited from participating in council discussions on matters related to the Imperial project,” a development, Jones’ news release said, which he found “disturbing for numerous reasons.”
Noting Wallace had pledged in 2005 that he would not participate in city negotiations with developers in the Imperial redevelopment, Jones said the mayor now was reneging on that pledge.
“I think he needs to show the council now that not only is there no conflict of interest, but that there never was,” Jones said at the time. “We don’t need council members to be making money on major development projects in the city. I don’t want to be associated with a decision-making process that looks like it’s personally benefiting him.”
At the July 3 City Council meeting, Wallace made no mention of Jones statements about the Imperial project, and never even mentioned Jones by name.
However, other council members did. Councilors Michael Schiff and Donald Olson said they would prefer that the matter be discussed further when Jones was in attendance.
“Russell has said things about me in the past and I’ve let it go in one ear and out the other,” Wallace said Monday. “And this is no different. Councilman Jones will have an opportunity to talk about it next Tuesday.”
Jones said Sunday he had emailed Wallace and asked him to remove the agenda item relating to press releases until Jones was back in town. But the item stayed on the agenda.
“My official response is, I’ve been issuing press releases when I feel it’s important to communicate information to my constituents,” Jones said. “They are somehow saying there’s something wrong with me getting word out to my constituents. There’s not.”
Noting that he issues press releases on letterhead that includes his name, title and an old city logo that no longer is used officially, Jones also said “there’s no confusion” between his releases and “official” releases from the communications department.
Wallace disagreed, saying Monday having two sets of press releases with city seals is “creating confusion” and putting forward an “inconsistent message.”
“I’m not trying to suggest that anybody have their First Amendment rights impaired,” the mayor said. “Any council member has the right to speak up whenever they want to.”
“It’s obviously a violation of free speech,” Jones said of the proposed policy, adding, “I’ll ask for an opinion about it from the city attorney.”
