Leftwich responds to defamation lawsuit filed by Hall

HARLINGEN — Facing a defamation lawsuit from former city attorney Brendan Hall, City Commissioner Robert Leftwich says Hall and his attorney, former commissioner Eddie Medrano, tried to use the courts to scare him away from taking action to remove Hall from his post.

In an e-mail to the Valley Morning Star, Leftwich said:

“The fact is that the lawsuit is frivolous and baseless, and given the subsequent threat contained in a letter issued by Medrano to myself and the city, after the filing of the lawsuit, that they would sue again if I were to exercise my duties as a commissioner in matters related to Mr. Hall.

“(Medrano’s) threat … just shows that the suit was an attempt to intimidate me from fulfilling my obligations to taxpayers in exercising my oversight duties.”

By filing a lawsuit against him, Hall and Medrano hoped to stop him from continuing to get Hall fired, Leftwich said.

“They want to sue me as an individual, but then tried to bully me into not performing my duties as an elected official through threats of additional court action against not just me, but also the city and the other commissioners as well,” he said.

He also took issue with earlier statements by Medrano that he was not technically a city commissioner the first time he placed items to remove Hall on the agenda, Leftwich said. Medrano had based his statements on Leftwich’s status as a commissioner-at-large before the May 9 election.

“I had already been declared the winner in my race and effectively was commissioner-elect for District 2 when they sued me,” Leftwich said. “But I was the incumbent for Place 4 when I first began to look into cost control solutions concerning our legal department’s escalating budget,” he said.

On June 10, a letter from Medrano was hand-delivered to Mayor Chris Boswell, City Manager Craig Lonon and Leftwich:

“We hereby give you notice of the existence of a ‘conflict of interest,’ as defined by the City Charter and Texas state law, regarding Commissioner Robert Leftwich taking part in any discussion or vote as a commissioner, that pertains to any personnel issue regarding Brendan Hall’s position as city attorney.”