TAFT, Tx — Citizens of Taft took center stage at Tuesday's city council meeting to voice their frustrations over misused funds.
On Monday, 6 Investigates reported that former Taft Finance Director Lee Ann Goben misappropriated at least $30,000 in taxpayer money. A criminal investigation by the Taft Police Department and Texas Rangers is underway.
More than 50 Taft residents attended the meeting.
Amalia Martinez, a Taft resident for over 30 years, told 6 Investigates that "she's never seen anything like this before." She expressed frustration over recent discrepancies in water bills. “When I asked the city employees to give me time to pay my $300 water bill, they told me I didn’t have time—that I had to pay it by the 15th. And this lady stole over $30,000 from us. No. And they want to give her payments? No.”
"I'm disappointed. You guys knew there was a problem years ago. You knew it and you didn’t bother to check into it more," Robin McCarty told the council during public comments. "I'm disappointed. That's my money. That's gone. That's their money that's gone. Are we going to get it back? Probably not."
Financial documents obtained by 6 Investigates show Goben withdrew more than $10,000 from ATMs, made payments of over $12,000 to CashApp accounts, and just over $600 to PayPal. Other purchases included electricity payments, fireworks, movie tickets, and over $3,000 at H-E-B. Many of these purchases were made with a city credit card. According to City Manager Ryan Smith, Goben was never supposed to have access to a city credit card.
"The finance director should never have a credit card in the first place, because they are the check and balance of the city," Smith said.
However, residents objected and voiced their concerns outside of public comments as well.
Due to recent errors in water bills, the safety of utility clerks and staff was a topic on Tuesday's agenda. Council Member Chris Keeney addressed these concerns, saying, "We cannot keep people working in city hall because of—and it's not everybody—but because they're being verbally abused by citizens."
“If the council would stop hiring people that qualify and can do the job correctly, we wouldn’t be going through this," Marcus Adams added after Keeney's comments.
All eyes were on the final agenda item, which focused exclusively on Goben. The council skipped executive session entirely. Chief of Police John Landreth provided an update: "Part of the problem is you have people working here who aren’t willing to go get the mail without putting in mileage. That makes absolutely no sense to me." He continued, "They took advantage of the lack of oversight. There are multiple felony offenses that have been validated, and we're continuing to investigate."
Our concern is the last time we brought it to your attention, I ended up with a month long suspension. So we're still trying to figure that one out. That ain't over, either. But we've got to do it right. That's the bottom line, right? That means not making decisions in closed session. She's going to be held accountable. That's what we need to get. That's what I think they want you to do. What we're going to do for some time and that's what the process is for.
Earlier this year, Landreth notified city leadership about concerns related to the payment of overtime. He then contacted 6 Investigates after he said those concerns were ignored.
When asked by Council Member Alonzo Molina what percentage of the investigation was complete, Landreth said they were only 10% through.
Landreth told 6 Investigates the department is not finished with its investigation but has already uncovered $50,000 to $80,000 in misappropriated funds.
During council comments, Mayor Leonard Vasquez told residents that, whether or not individuals are current city employees, "we can go back and prosecute whoever is doing wrong for the city, and we will do that."
In response to a resident’s question about why Goben's purchases weren’t caught earlier, City Manager Smith said, "The issue is, the city council has consistently changed their city managers—about four or five in the last year and a half to two years." He added, "This was city managers previously that spent that money. So, we can lay blame all day, but the people here now—you can’t say we're not doing anything."
6 Investigates continues to dig into financial documents and will bring updates on this developing story.
