Thursday, March 28, 2024

Not so fast

Posted

After a couple of election cycles, the often-divided Granbury City Council has reached a point where its members work well together.

Pretty much.

There could be another rough election cycle ahead, though.

Mayor Nin Hulett and Mayor Pro Tem Tony Mobly told the HCN on Monday that they will work together to thwart a possible run for the center seat by councilman Tony Allen.

Both said they have been told that Allen plans a mayoral bid.

Hulett said that several people told him they heard it directly from Allen during a meeting of a local political group that includes Tea Party or former Tea Party members.

Allen told the HCN that he doesn’t know who the Tea Party members are and said, “I never told anybody I was running for mayor.”

He didn’t rule it out, though. He said that he may run for mayor or for re-election to the Place 2 seat he has held since June of 2010. If he runs for mayor he will have to resign from his council seat.

The filing period is July 20 through Aug. 19. Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 5.

“I bet I’ve had 100 phone calls asking if I was going to run for mayor,” Allen said.

Hulett expressed doubt that Allen has much support.

“I haven’t found anybody (who supports him), to be honest with you,” he said.

Alleged actions by Allen – which he denied – led in February of last year to the creation of an ethics policy and, later, the appointment of an Ethics Commission.

Hulett said that he recently asked Allen “eyeball to eyeball” if he had been telling people that he intends to run for mayor. Allen “never would answer the question,” he said.

Hulett said that he had not yet made a firm decision as to whether he will seek reelection but said that he and Mobly have agreed that if he steps down, Mobly will run.

“I didn’t plan on making a decision this quick, but it looks like I’m going to,” said Hulett, who has served as mayor since late December of 2012.

Hulett, at that time mayor pro tem, stepped up to fulfill the duties of then-Mayor Rickie Pratt, who suffered a stroke shortly after Christmas that year. In 2013, Hulett was elected to the seat and has held it ever since.

There have been some clashes on the council during those years, but the council has changed during the last two election cycles.

Fellow council members with whom Allen was once allied lost their bids for re-election or chose not to run again.

“It’s a great council that works together,” Hulett said of the current group. “It was a long time coming. You don’t have to worry about watching your backside.”

When asked whether he includes Allen in that assessment, Hulett stated: “I think he’s trying to be part of the team, or maybe he feels like he has no choice. He understands where he stands. He knows he has to be on board as a council member or else he’s going to be left out.”

ANOTHER FACE-OFF?

Mobly said that he will not challenge Hulett if the mayor decides to run again. The two are friends, and Mobly said he feels that Hulett does a good job as mayor.

However, Mobly said he would not hesitate to compete against Allen.

“I would look forward to it,” he stated.

Mobly and Allen, now the longest-serving council member, have a history of butting heads.

In 2017 Mobly proposed that the council adopt an ethics policy because of a situation in which Allen allegedly phoned Ovilla City Hall claiming to be a Hood County News reporter and threatening to write a negative article about that town’s City Council.

The call was made just days after the HCN published a Letter to the Editor from Ovilla Mayor Pro Tem David Griffin praising Mobly, who once lived in that town.

According to Griffin, the phones at Ovilla City Hall have a caller ID system that displays a caller’s phone number but not the name associated with the number.

City Secretary Pam Woodall told the HCN that the things the caller said were so odd that she jotted down notes as well as the phone number.

Griffin told the HCN that when he Googled the phone number he found that it belonged to someone named Tony Allen.

The number matched the cell number that Mobly and the HCN have for the Gran-bury councilman who bears that name.

The council did ultimately approve an ethics policy and last year created an Ethics Commission to investigate any ethical complaints filed against Granbury elected officials.

Shortly after the HCN reported on the Ovilla incident, Allen stated at a City Council meeting that he would not run again.

It was during a break in that meeting that bed and breakfast owner Tom Baker said Allen threatened to have city staff inspect his business after Baker encouraged the council to take action in the Ovilla matter.

Editor Roger Enlow contributed to this report.