A Dallas commission has found City Council member Adam Bazaldua in violation of the ethics code for a Facebook comment where he wrote that a constituent sounded “foolish.”
The city’s Ethics Advisory Commission on Tuesday found that Bazaldua violated a section of the ethics code stating that city officials shall not make comments or take actions that are “abusive,” “derogatory,” “rude” or make “personal attacks upon the character, integrity, or motives of others.”
The violation stemmed from a complaint filed in May by Pamela Grayson, who argued that Bazaldua violated the ethics code by making personal attacks against her on Facebook and revoking his co-sponsorship of an Earth Day event she organized.
In a screenshot of the Facebook comments, Bazaldua says “you sound very foolish, you evidently don’t know much about me.”
“This is the only one of the allegations of the complaint that really gave me pause,” said Thomas Perkins, the commission’s vice chair. “The ‘foolish’ comment stuck out to me.”
The seven-member commission voted in favor of recommending that the City Council send Bazaldua a “letter of admonition.” The correspondence is basically an official warning, and Bazaldua’s fellow City Council members will decide whether to send the letter in a future meeting. Bazaldua represents South Dallas’ District 7.
“Our elected officials are held to higher standards,” said Tim Powers, the commission chair. “I know that much of this social media commentary can come in the heat of the moment. I wish that all of our citizens had the level of respect for the other so that inflammatory language did not come to the fore, but that seems to not be the society that we’re in right now.”
Bazaldua’s attorney, Philip Kingston, argued that the ethics code did not “restrict the rights of council members to speak truthfully to constituents.”
“Even council members, when attacked, need the ability to set the record straight,” he said. Kingston, a former City Council member who represented District 14, was found in violation of the city’s ethics rules in 2017 for filming a campaign ad in his City Hall office.
Bazaldua’s hearing was originally scheduled for July, but the council member requested a delay to give him sufficient time to prepare and to avoid it conflicting with his and his lawyer’s travel plans.
Grayson filed an ethics complaint after she received an email the morning of the event from a Park and Recreation athletics field supervisor, who said it was “no longer considered a City-sponsored event,” and the permit was canceled. Grayson claimed Bazaldua “spitefully had the permit withdrawn” and that “Parks and Recreation is in collusion with Bazaldua to hurt us.”
Bazaldua said he later learned former campaign workers for an election opponent would be helping organize the event, and he pulled his sponsorship to avoid violating the ethics code.
According to Bazaldua’s evidentiary response, Grayson “misrepresented the nature of the event” to Bazaldua and Park and Rec staff.
“I was in no way trying to cancel this event,” Bazaldua said during the hearing. “I feel like there was a long string of disingenuous communication.”
Park and Rec director John Jenkins said staffers tried to contact organizers the evening before the event and that morning to inform them they would need to pay fees.
The ethics commission dismissed complaints related to the permit’s cancellation.
“While I am grateful that the Ethics Advisory Commission did find that Adam violated the standard of civility, I still feel that the key retaliatory act of forcing the acceptance of a sponsorship and then pulling it based on hurt feelings from a social media exchange should have been addressed as well,” Grayson said in a statement to The News after the hearing.
