Godley council member arrested outside city hall before first meeting since shutdown

Godley city council member Jennifer Thompson was arrested Tuesday evening shortly before the council’s first meeting since mass resignations triggered the shutdown of city hall.

A video posted to a Facebook group by an anonymous user and provided to the Star-Telegram by multiple residents at Tuesday’s meeting shows Thompson sitting in the back of a Godley police car in front of city hall. Interim police chief Matthew Cantrell said Thompson faces charges of tampering with government records. He would not elaborate.

Thompson has served on the council since May. She was released from Johnson County Jail just before noon Wednesday after posting a $1,500 bail.

She told the Star-Telegram that what she experienced Tuesday evening was harassment, retaliation and public humiliation.

Thompson said she was arrested because she revised an unpublished agenda for the Dec. 27 special-called council meeting and sent it back to the city secretary.

Godley’s interim city attorney Nicole Corr wrote in an email to the Star-Telegram that neither she nor the mayor could comment on an open criminal investigation and directed questions to the prosecuting attorney’s office.

A representative for the Johnson County DA’s office said they would not be commenting because the office is not involved in the case.

First meeting since shutdown

Residents packed the council chambers for the first meeting in a month.

An agenda wasn’t posted for the last meeting scheduled in January, rendering the council unable to meet under the Texas Open Meetings Act, which requires local governments to post agendas 72 hours in advance. Two special called meetings couldn’t meet the quorum requirement because Mayor Acy McGehee and council members Jan Whitehead and Maryann Matthews didn’t show up.

City hall shut down last month after the police chief, city administrator, city attorney and city secretary tendered their resignations and the court clerk retired. Documents obtained by the Star-Telegram show former police chief Jason Jordan’s was given a choice to resign or be investigated over two complaints from other officers that Jordan said were untrue and lacked context. His final day with the department was Nov. 4.

As residents shuffled into the building, a sign still hung on the door telling residents that city hall was closed due to a staffing shortage. Thompson’s seat was the only one empty on the council bench.

And in the room, there was palpable anger over the state of the Johnson County city of less than 2,000 residents. The council heard from seven people in its public comment segment at the beginning of the meeting.

“We have a serious lack of transparency in this city,” one resident said.

“Your silence has spoken volumes,” another resident told the council.

At one point, McGehee got up and yelled at a resident when the crowd became restless, with some claiming that a woman who was criticizing council member Michael Papenfuss had spoken longer than her allotted time.

“Silence,” he said as he pointed a finger at the resident.

As the council got into discussing city business, a shout rang out from the parts of the crowd that poured into the hallway: “Do y’all mind speaking up?”

One resident got up and told McGehee he needed to cancel the charges against Thompson. The crowd murmured that the timing of her arrest was suspicious.

Council members considered an agenda item to place the former city attorney, the former city administrator, the former court clerk and the former city secretary on a “do not hire” list. With Thompson absent, the council rejected the proposal and instead approved a motion to make the four eligible for re-hire.

McGehee told the Star-Telegram following the meeting that he hoped to open the city hall by the end of the week or early next week but that there was still a staffing shortage.

McGehee has lived in Godley since he was 12 years old, he said in an interview after the meeting, and has never seen anything like this happen and that people in the city have always been friendly. He said he was being blamed for everything when he was doing the best he could to keep everything patched together.

Four of Godley’s five council member positions are up for re-election May 6. Filing ends Feb. 17. Council will meet in a special called meeting on at 5 p.m. Feb. 14.