In an update to a story, we originally brought to you back in September, the city council today released a report detailing allegations against city representative Henry Rivera.
As we first reported back in September, the city council has been investigating Henry Rivera and his wife, Dora Oaxaca for various violations, including an alleged harassment of a city employee and misuse of city computers. As we exclusively reported, the city council has received a report by investigators which was characterized to us as “brutal” by a source with first-hand knowledge.
There appear to be two issues involving Henry Rivera. One is that his wife, Dora Oaxaca has been accessing confidential information on city-owned computers. The second is that a former employee in Rivera’s office may have attempted suicide due to workplace harassment in Rivera’s office. Neither of the two allegations have been publicly addressed by city officials.
However, before a second city council meeting in December where the item was again on the agenda as an executive session item, it was confirmed to us that Henry Rivera is the target of the investigation.
After coming out of the December city council executive session, the city council took no action on the item. The item was in today’s city council agenda.
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The city council went into executive session at 2:06 in the afternoon to discuss various executive session items. Item number EX7 read, “Complaint regarding elected City Official.”
After discussing eight Executive Session items and an item on the agenda looking to see what the city council can do to help Annunciation House and other non-governmental organizations (NGOs) after the Texas Attorney General sued Annunciation House over the migrant issue, the city council returned at 6:17, a little over three hours after they went into the executive session.
The city council issued a letter of reprimand against Henry Rivera.
The letter of reprimand was issued against Rivera for allowing a non-city employee to supervise and direct the day-to-day duties of a city employee.
The reprimand was also for allowing a non-city employee to access city resources.
The motion was made by Brian Kennedy and seconded Joe Molinar.
The motion to have the mayor issue a letter of reprimand against Henry Rivera was carried with Josh Acevedo, Chris Canales, Art Fierro, Kennedy and Molinar voting in favor of the reprimand. Cassandra Hernandez abstained and Henry Rivera voted against the reprimand.