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Mayor Sepulveda rebuts public allegation of nepotism, explains Harlingen Waterworks hiring and seeks record correction
Summary
Mayor Norma Sepulveda publicly rebutted a prior accusation that she had secured Harlingen Waterworks employment for a family member, saying the claim was false and that a legal opinion found no nepotism violation.
Mayor Norma Sepulveda addressed the commission on July 16 to correct statements from a prior meeting alleging she violated nepotism laws by helping a relative obtain work with Harlingen Waterworks.
Lede: Sepulveda said the individual referenced by a former commissioner is not her uncle and that, in any case, Harlingen Waterworks is a legally separate entity with its own board of trustees; the person in question was engaged as a consultant by the Waterworks board, she said, not employed as a city staffer.
Nut graf: The mayor said she requested a formal legal opinion from City Attorney Mark Sasse to confirm there was no nepotism violation. The city attorney’s written opinion, Sepulveda said, concluded the individual was a contractor/consultant (not a W‑2 city employee), is not within prohibited affinity degrees under Texas Government Code or the city charter, and therefore no state or local nepotism rule was violated.
Key points Sepulveda made on the record: - The Harlingen Waterworks is not taxpayer funded and operates as a legally separate entity with an independent board of trustees; the board made the consultant decision without commission oversight. - The person who was hired as a consultant and later interim general manager — Roy Rodriguez — was described as having a long public‑service record including prior Harlingen roles (city engineer and city manager) and McAllen public utility and city manager roles; Sepulveda said Rodriguez was not appointed by her and that any suggestions otherwise were false. - Sepulveda identified a familial relation by marriage (Rodriguez is her husband’s uncle), not her blood relative, and said that relation is not within the prohibited degrees cited in local and state rules. - She emphasized that knowingly false public accusations of criminal conduct cross a line from protected speech into defamation and said she wanted the record corrected.
Ending: The mayor said she would not tolerate false accusations that allege criminal conduct and moved the meeting forward after making the record correction. She also indicated the city attorney’s legal opinion supports her statements that no nepotism violation occurred.
