By Karen Gleason
The 830 Times
Writer’s note: The writer was not present for the meeting. This story was written from a review of the video recording of the meeting posted on the city’s Facebook page.
Six of the seven members of the Del Rio City Council voted Tuesday to approve a resolution appointing Ana Markowski Smith as the new city attorney.
The council held a special meeting Tuesday, and the agenda for the meeting had only one item: an executive session “regarding the appointment, employment, evaluation, reassignment, duties, discipline or dismissal of a public officer or employee – city attorney.”
The council met in a special session on July 7, at which it approved the recommendation of Interim City Manager Manuel Chavez to appoint Smith as city attorney. Smith was serving as city attorney at the start of the new year.
A majority of the city council voted to fire Smith in February. The council then reversed itself in March, rescinding Smith’s termination and accepting her resignation instead.
During Tuesday’s special meeting, the council went into executive session immediately following the meeting’s opening ceremonies.
After about an hour and 15 minutes behind closed doors, the council returned to open session, and Mayor Al Arreola announced no action had been taken while the council was out of public view.
Arreola then asked if he had a resolution, and Mayor Pro-tem Randy Quinones, reading from a document he held, said, “Motion to approve Resolution 2026-097, a resolution by the Del Rio City Council confirming the appointment of Ana Markowski Smith as city attorney for the City of Del Rio, Texas, pursuant to authority under City Charter Sections 47 through 49 and providing for an effective date, with a salary of $140,000 annually and a start date of Aug. 3, 2026.”
Arreola then asked for a second, and Councilman Leno Hernandez Jr. gave the second.
Arreola asked if there were any questions, and Councilwoman Carmen Gutierrez said, “Discussion?”
Arreola invited Gutierrez to continue, and she said, “With all due respect to Ms. Smith and to my council colleagues, council received a formal complaint on the hiring process, and I would have advocated for an independent outside investigation that would have cleared Ms. Smith’s name as well as the city administration.”
Here, Arreola interrupted the councilwoman, saying, “Hold on, hold on,” and called for one of the contract attorneys who joined the meeting via Zoom, asking, “Can this be discussed?”
Gutierrez said, “No, I’m just stating.”
The contract attorney, who did not identify herself on the record, responded, “It’s not on the agenda to be discussed that there was a letter received, so it should not be discussed in open session at this time.”
Arreola said, “There couldn’t be any comments on this at this time, right, Pamela?”
“Yes, that is correct,” the attorney replied.
Arreola then said, “Anything else or any other comments in regards to this? If not, I’ve got a first and a second. All in favor?”
Arreola, Quinones, Hernandez and three of the other council members present — Councilman J.P. Sanchez, Councilman LeRoy Briones and Councilwoman Elsa Reyes — raised their hands to indicate they were in favor of the motion to approve the resolution.
When Arreola asked, “Against? Abstain?”
He looked at Gutierrez, who had not raised her hand.
Arreola asked her, “You’re abstaining or against?”
“I’m saying no,” Gutierrez said.
“You’re against?” Arreola asked.
“Yes,” Gutierrez said.
“One against and six in favor,” City Secretary Mari Acosta said.
The mayor then adjourned the meeting without further comment.
Contacted after the meeting and asked if she planned to bring up the hiring complaint at some point in the future, Gutierrez joked that she is likely to incur “an ethical violation for being ethical” for bringing up the complaint at all.
Gutierrez added, “Ms. Smith is already hired, so my thing was why rush it? Let’s check this thing out. If a person complains to me about anything, say, about the city pools, I send the complaint to the city manager, and I say, ‘Will you please check it out and see if we need to do something?’ In some cases, the city is in error and we rectify it.
“In this case, I felt we should wait and do our due diligence and make sure everything is fine before Ms. Smith’s start date.”
The writer can be reached at delriomagnoliafan@gmail.com.
