Is there a court date set to address this?
The fight over who is legally entitled to serve as Fort Bend County Judge is now disrupting the basic workings of county government, with officials clashing over whether Commissioners Court can legally conduct business and whether the county’s own attorneys can advise it behind closed doors.
Democratic Commissioners Grady Prestage and Dexter McCoy walked out of a June 25 meeting after arguing that interim County Judge Daniel Wong no longer had the authority to preside. They have not returned, leaving Wong and Republican Commissioners Andy Meyers and Vincent Morales as the only three members participating in meetings.
County Attorney Bridgette Smith-Lawson has also called for Wong to step down and has asked a judge to remove him from office.
At the July 16 meeting, the dispute created new complications as the County Attorney’s Office questioned whether the three remaining officials constitute a legal quorum and later said its attorneys could not participate in a closed session because of their ethical obligations.
Wong, Meyers and Morales pressed ahead, approving county business by 3-0 votes.
Among the items approved by the three-member court were more than $58.9 million in bills and other disbursements, a slate of engineering agreements and several legal settlements. The engineering items included a proposal aimed at preventing the Pinion Court subdivision from becoming a cut-through route to the freeway.
See here and here for the most recent updates. The dispute from this latest meeting, which may or may not have had a quorum depending on Wong’s status, included a disagreement about whether the County Attorney was required to attend and if a private attorney hired by the county could substitute if the County Attorney was absconding on their duty. I don’t know when one or both of the lawsuits over this is scheduled for a court hearing, but sooner would be better. As I’ve said, I don’t know what the legalities of this unprecedented situation are, but it’s clear at this point that Someone Is Very Wrong about it, and if that someone turns out to be Wong and the Republicans, then they’ve been conducting a lot of business that would seem to be illegitimate. There is potentially a very big mess that will need to be cleaned up if that is the case. So yeah, let’s get this before a judge ASAP, before it gets any messier.
No court date set yet, apparently. It looks like Wong’s attorney is accepting service on his behalf, and he hasn’t yet filed an answer. So things will be up in the air for a while longer, I’m afraid.