BALCONES HEIGHTS, Texas \u2013 The Balcones Heights City Council will vote Monday night on whether to launch an outside investigation into Mayor Johnny Rodriguez Jr.\u2019s dealings with city staff, as well as keep him away from city employees in the meantime.<\/p>\n
It is not clear what long-term consequences might result from any such investigation, and Rodriguez is already poised to cruise into another two-year term as the head of the 2,700-person suburban city near the intersection of Loop 410 and Interstate 10.<\/p>\n
According to documents in the council agenda packet<\/a>, city council members were briefed about \u201cconcerns, complaints and allegations from City Employees\u201d about the mayor\u2019s conduct with city personnel during a closed-door session of their March 9 meeting.<\/p>\n The specific allegations are not laid out in the documents, but one councilman told KSAT the issues include the mayor having threatened to fire multiple high-ranking members of the city staff.<\/p>\n \u201cJohnny Rodriguez wants power, and he\u2019s abusing the power he has, and he wants more power,\u201d Councilman David Sellars told KSAT in a phone interview Monday morning.<\/p>\n One resolution on Monday\u2019s agenda would authorize the hiring of the Austin Institute LLC to investigate the allegations and report its findings to the city attorney, who would provide the report to the city council.<\/p>\n A separate ordinance on the agenda would dictate an updated set of powers and responsibilities for the mayor and the city administrator until further action by the city council.<\/p>\n It would also suspend the mayor\u2019s access to non-public areas of the Balcones Heights Justice Center and forbid any direct communication with city staff members.<\/p>\n Instead, Rodriguez would have to funnel any communication through the mayor pro tempore, who would, in turn, communicate with the city administrator.<\/p>\n The council appears to have tried to vote on a similar measure at their March 9 meeting, but it is being revisited because of a procedural issue, and the actions \u201cshould be ratified and further clarified.\u201d<\/p>\n Councilman Jimmy Hernandez told KSAT the mayor\u2019s key card access to the justice center had already been revoked.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re trying to eliminate any possible retaliation until the conclusion of the investigation,\u201d he said. \u201dOnce we get the results of the investigations, then we can make a determination of what the next step would be.\u201d <\/p>\n The resolution states that the city council will determine whether \u201cany corrective measures\u201d are necessary once it receives a report on the investigation. However, the resolution does not mention what such measures might be.<\/p>\n Sellars suggested the council would remove Rodriguez from office, while Hernandez said they do not have the authority to do that.<\/p>\n Rodriguez provided KSAT with an \u201copen letter\u201d he said he had sent to the city\u2019s residents.<\/p>\n The two-page latter urged supporters to attend the meeting and to contact council members but did not mention the allegations against Rodriguez.<\/p>\n Instead, he framed the possible council action as part of an attempt to undo progress he said had been made \u201cstabilizing a critical civic asset, protecting your $5 million taxpayer investment, and rebuilding trust with key partners necessary for long-term recovery\u201d \u2014 an apparent reference to the city\u2019s stake<\/a> in the Wonderland of the Americas.<\/p>\n \u201cLet\u2019s be clear: this is not routine governance. This is an attempt to weaken oversight at a moment when strong leadership is essential,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n Rodriguez was mayor from 2000 to 2002 and was elected again in 2025 year by a single vote<\/a>. He is the only candidate<\/a> for mayor on the May 2 ballot.<\/p>\n The Balcones Heights City Council will meet 6 p.m. Tuesday at the Balcones Heights Justice Center.<\/p>\n Read also: <\/p>\n Copyright 2026 by KSAT – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BALCONES HEIGHTS, Texas \u2013 The Balcones Heights City Council will vote Monday night on whether to launch an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":217868,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[17949,84990,82,84,83],"class_list":["post-217867","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-balcones-heights","tag-johnny-rodriguez-jr","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217867","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217867"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217867\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/217868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}