May an appointed ass't DA accept an interim appointment as a city council member in a town in the county in which he is employed as ass't DA? And if so, may he run for re-election when the next election comes around?

One of our gurus says, he seems to remember there is some prohibition against assistant DA's serving on city councils in the same county.

[This message was edited by Trey Hill on 06-30-03 at .]

See Public Service for recent discussion of this topic and no conclusive answer.

I'm in a fix over this question. I live in a small town & one of our councilmen is moving to a town near Wichita Falls. He was appointed to his seat by the city council, when the mayor took off for another bank job & his seat was filled by another councilwoman. That left her seat open & they filled it with this guy, who is now leaving.

The council asked the city manager to ask me, if I'd consider it. My wife told me to go for it. Our appellate chief thought I might be prohibited from serving on city council. I've inquired with our civil chief (no answer yet), but thought somebody here might know too.

If I am allowed to do it & choose to do it, I'd serve appointed until the election next May, when I could run, or just step aside.

I'd thought about running for school board in my district and am now wondering, if I can serve in any capacity, other than voluntary.

I got word from our civil division that there is no problem with me serving as a city councilman in my town. This due mostly to the fact that I would not be compensated by the town for serving.

Then, I look at Art. 16, section 40 of the constitution & wonder about it. Does my salary from county funds constitute indirect pay from the state?

[This message was edited by Trey Hill on 07-03-03 at .]

I concluded the same thing about 12 years ago. Served one term. I made more people mad because their pot hole didn't get fixed than I did sending their kids to the pen. Good luck.

I'm also fearful that if I did agree to serve, I'd end up de facto city attorney. I don't want to be in that position at all & have told this to the mayor. I've got no experience in municipal law, or labor law, or any of that civil stuff.

I have not yet decided what to do, because I resigned from all my voluntary committees & organizations when my daughter was born. Due to my daddy duties, I'm perpetually behind in all other endeavors: work, yard maintenance & correspondence. Should I add more work to my already-full-plate?

Trey, I have an assistant district attorney in my office who serves on my city council and a legal secretary who serves on another city council within one of my counties. This hasn't presented a problem at all. However, in my humble opinion, your best reason to take a pass at this time is your daughter. Unless you make a whole lot more than my assistants make, you are doing enough "volunteer" work by serving as an assistant district attorney. It seems like my two sons were my "little boys" only yesterday and the older one is entering med school next month and the younger is leaving for college. Trust me, time flies. There will always be time in the future to serve on the city council and to serve the public in other capacities. But your little girl will be grown before you know it. Spend as much time with her as you can. If only I could turn back the hands of time, I guarantee you that I would turn down some of those "extra" commitments and spend that time at home. Please forgive the sermon... My employees with young children hear it over and over. Good luck.

I ran into the city manager at a pre-4th party last night and got a lengthly e-mail from the mayor yesterday and spoke at length on the phone w/ a friend, who's on the council now. They all promised me, it would not be too much time. They rarely have rancor in their meetings and the only times they spend more than 2 hours a month is when they're budgeting.

Now, this is one of the things that bothers me. I was on the local chamber of commerce & served 2 terms as president of the chamber. We kept up the traditional chamber activities, but I wanted to do more. I always wondered why so few business people were on the board of directors of our chamber. It seemed to be more of a civic organization than a chamber of commerce. We did nothing to attract business, or bolster existing businesses. So I came up with a few ideas. All were given "lip-service", but nobody wanted to do anything to implement them. I did single-handedly manage to pull off a candidates' forum last Spring for the local GOP races - we had no opposing candidates on the Democrat ticket. That was a pain in the butt, but I got all the local big race candidates out to my little town, where they spoke to & answered questions from the people in my town. I got lots of acolades for doing this, but I would not want to do it again. I resigned from the chamber when my daughter was born and not-too-surprisingly, they did not hold a forum for the candidates in the general election in the Fall. This made me think, if I want something done, I've got to do it myself.

So my fear is that the city council will be a lot like the chamber of commerce - lots of ideas bantered about, but nothing ever implemented, or attempted. Now, the city manager did tell me that the guy I spent so much time on the phone with is one of those guys who cannot stand to just discuss stuff & take no action. I'll have to speak to him some more, because I do have some concerns as a citizen, which I think should be addressed. As a councilman, perhaps I could actually do something about these things. If I do accept, I can get off easily by not running in May 2004 and be done with it.

Let me ask you, does Art. 16, Sec. 40 of the constitution not prevent me from serving? I assume not, since your assistant does it.