SAN ANTONIO – The Ethics Review Board will consider a complaint Tuesday night against District 2 Councilman Jalen McKee-Rodriguez over an apparent attempt last year to block a controversial truck dealership through trickery.
The board will decide whether to dismiss the complaint or act upon it, though its powers to punish council members are limited.
It’s the second ethics hearing for a sitting councilman in the past six months.
Oct. 17 meeting
During an Oct. 17, 2024 council meeting, McKee-Rodriguez tried to convince the rest of the city council to annex a piece of far East Side property owned by Doggett Freightliner into the city limits without the zoning the company had requested.
It was an attempt 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.
McKee-Rodrigez’s move came after Ken Brown, a land use attorney representing Doggett, said the councilman had told him a vote on the issue would be delayed.
Brown said McKee-Rodriguez came down after the ceremonial items to tell him what he actually planned to do - put it up for a vote, but with the wrong zoning for a truck dealership.
By not telling Brown about his plan at first, McKee-Rodriguez seemed to be trying to keep Doggett from pulling its request for annexation ahead of time and keeping the issue alive.
It was unclear during the meeting whether Doggett could have still withdrawn its application, though Brown didn’t think he could.
In response to KSAT’s requests for clarification, city staff pointed to city ordinances that slap zoning applications with an automatic six-month waiting period if they’re pulled after the item has been called and staff have begun presenting the item. Until that point, an applicant can withdraw the item without a time penalty for resubmitting the application.
McKee-Rodriguez said at the time he was trying to protect his residents and appeared to admit he was trying to trap Doggett.
“Had I let the applicant know we were going to be either denying it or doing this, it was going to be withdrawn and it was going to continue to dangle over my constituency’s head,” he said during his Oct. 17 remarks from the dais.
McKee-Rodriguez’s maneuver prompted an ethics complaint from a North Side resident with no apparent connection to the project, Oscar Zepeda, who called McKee-Rodriguez “a liar.”
He specifically accused the East Side councilman of violating the city’s ethics code by damaging public confidence and impeding Doggett’s private interests.
The councilman has denied wrongdoing and has also said there was no special treatment or harm.
After the initial meeting, McKee-Rodriguez and Brown quickly made up, and a version of the plan passed council on Nov. 21, 2024, and annexed the 35-acre property at the corner of Interstate 10 and Weichold Road, just outside Loop 1604.
The property is now fully within city limits, and the council voted to give it the zoning necessary to build a new Doggett Freightliner dealership.
Brown has also said he plans to support McKee-Rodriguez against the complaint.
Process
Zepeda filed his initial complaint on Nov. 5, 2024. McKee-Rodriguez responded on Nov. 25, and Zepeda filed a rebuttal on Dec. 4. McKee-Rodriguez filed a second response the next day.
A panel of the Ethics Review Board has conducted an initial review and will present its findings and recommendations on Tuesday to the full board, which will decide whether to act or dismiss the complaint.
The city has hired outside attorney Nadeen Abou-Hossa to assist the board.
McKee-Rodriguez’s appointee, chairman Patrick Lang, is recused from the board’s deliberations.
The board reprimanded District 10 Councilman Marc Whyte in August 2024 for using his position for private interests and using city resources in a way not lawfully available to the public. The board also referred Whyte to ethics training.
At the time, Lang described the reprimand toward Whyte as one of the board’s most severe options.