SAN ANTONIO – Councilman Jalen McKee-Rodriguez has been hit with an ethics complaint over an attempt last month to mislead a semi-truck dealer and cut off its plan for a new dealership at the knees.
But the complaint isn’t coming from the truck dealer, whose representative said they are still negotiating with the councilman.
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McKee-Rodriguez (D2) tried to convince the rest of the city council during an Oct. 17 meeting to annex a piece of Far East Side property owned by Doggett Freightliner into the city limits without the zoning the company had requested. His move came after Ken Brown, a land use attorney representing Doggett, said McKee-Rodriguez had told him a vote on the issue would be delayed.
The councilman was trying to block the company from using the property as either a dealership or parking lot, which residents in a nearby neighborhood opposed. However, the trick failed when the rest of the council voted to delay the issue anyway.
Oscar Zepeda, a North Side resident with no apparent connection to the Doggett project, filed a complaint with the City Clerk’s office on Tuesday.
“Councilman McKee Rodriguez (sic) is a liar,” Zepeda’s complaint begins, before saying the councilman was “caught lying to City staff, the public, and other council members.”
“This, in and of itself, is bad enough. But, compounding the severity of his unethical behavior, he actively attempted to convince other members of City Council to support his lies,” Zepeda wrote.
He specifically accused the East Side councilman of violating the city’s ethics code by damaging public confidence and impeding Doggett’s private interests.
READ MORE: East Side councilman’s failed trick to block semi-truck dealership blows up both plans
Zepeda said he has no financial interest in the project and did not care if Doggett did business in that spot or another.
“This complaint is about a councilman’s refusal to be transparent and his choice to not deal with the public fairly,” he wrote.
Brown said he didn’t know Zepeda and that Doggett would “never pursue anything like this.”
“Why?” he said. “I mean, we have an alternative site. We have a way to go forward. If if I believe that the council member is acting in the best interest of the neighborhood. I’m not going to fault them for that.”
Zepeda did not respond to text messages from KSAT on Wednesday evening or Thursday morning.
In a text message to KSAT, McKee-Rodriguez said “I have trust in the process and am confident that this complaint will resolve itself quickly. My constituents continue to place their trust in me and my team, and that’s something we’ve earned and take pride in.”
Oct. 17 meeting
Doggett Freightliner has been trying to get permission since at least August 2023 to use a 35-acre property at the corner of Weichold Road and I-10, just outside Loop 1604, for a new dealership.
Brown said McKee-Rodriguez had told him a vote on the planned dealership scheduled for Oct. 17 would be pushed to a later meeting. Instead, McKee-Rodriguez pushed to annex the property into the city limits without the zoning Doggett was seeking.
By not telling Brown about his plan until it was too late, McKee-Rodriguez ensured Doggett couldn’t pull its request for annexation ahead of time.
Had it worked, the District 2 councilman’s maneuver would have effectively killed both Doggett’s planned dealership and its backup plan to use the undeveloped land near the Paloma subdivision for semi-truck parking — both of which were opposed by residents in a nearby neighborhood.
McKee-Rodriguez appeared to acknowledge during the meeting he had deceived Brown. He later told reporters the maneuver was a “last resort” as an attempt to protect the Paloma neighborhood.
“I did it to ensure that they weren’t going to be walked all over,” he said at the time.
Negotiations continue
After the Oct. 17 meeting, Brown said Doggett would likely pull its application and move the planned dealership to another, smaller property it owns nearby and use the original property for parking.
“I don’t think I could ever trust him again,” Brown told reporters at the time.
Three weeks later, though, Doggett is still aiming to use the property for a dealership, and Brown has changed his tune on McKee-Rodriguez.
The pair met shortly after the Oct. 17 meeting and “agreed to disagree on, you know, how it unfolded.”
“People are people,” Brown said. “I mean, I believe at the time he thought he only had two options. OK. And after we talked, I said ‘I think there’s multiple options.’”
Brown said they have been negotiating on issues like tree preservation, a 10 foot masonry wall, the size of setbacks from the property line — many of which, he says, the company had already listed.
There were other issues McKee-Rodriguez wanted, Brown said, like signage and arches to block truck access from the neighborhood, which would have to be settled by the city.
A city spokesman said McKee-Rodriguez had not yet made a request yet for either signs or arches.
When Doggett’s annexation and zoning came up again up for a vote Thursday, it was McKee-Rodriguez who moved to delay them to Nov. 21.
Despite the similarities in the setup to the contentious October meeting, Brown didn’t bother to sign up to speak on the items.
“I trust him,” Brown said of McKee-Rodriguez. “I do trust him.”
Next steps
The city is still looking for an outside attorney to determine if the complaint actually constitutes a violation of the city’s Ethics Code.
That evaluation needs to happen by Wednesday, five business days after the package was filed. If so, the complaint will be forwarded to the Ethics Review Board within 10 days of the filing.
Once the board has the complaint, McKee-Rodriguez would have another 10 business days to file a response. Zepeda would be allowed to file a rebuttal, and McKee-Rodriguez would be allowed to respond again to anything new.
If the Ethics Review Board holds any hearings, the city says they will be scheduled and posted 72 hours ahead of time.
When a local attorney filed a complaint against Marc Whyte in May, it took three months before it made it to a hearing.