City Council votes 5-3 to advance removal process for Mayor Guajardo; mayor responds<\/a><\/p>\nThe council approved the measure in a 5-3 vote Tuesday night, marking the first time in city history that formal removal proceedings have been initiated against a sitting mayor.<\/p>\n
In a social media post Wednesday, Guajardo called the effort a \u201cthreat to democracy,\u201d arguing that voters \u2014 not council members \u2014 should decide her future. She also tied the dispute to ongoing debates over the city\u2019s water supply, defending desalination as critical to Corpus Christi\u2019s growth and saying she plans to continue fighting both the removal effort and water issues.<\/p>\n
The next key step is expected April 14, when council members will meet to determine how the proceedings will move forward.<\/p>\n
The petition was launched in August by activist Rachel Caballero and has gathered more than 2,200 signatures \u2014 less than 1% of the city\u2019s estimated population of 315,000.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Some residents voiced support for removing the mayor.<\/p>\n
\u201cI regret voting for her, I did vote for her … I hope they do remove her,\u201d one resident said.<\/p>\n
Others questioned whether the issue should take priority over more pressing concerns.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not sure the question at issue \u2014 whether or not a particular FEMA map was altered \u2014 is the most critical question facing us right now,\u201d another resident said. \u201cWhat we really need is water.\u201d<\/p>\n
Former Mayor Joe McComb, who lost to Guajardo in the 2020 election, criticized the removal effort and said it risks distracting from urgent infrastructure challenges.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe has not done anything that justifies what they\u2019re trying to do to her, and that\u2019s wrong,\u201d McComb said. \u201cEven if you disagree with somebody, you disagree with them and you go on \u2014 you don\u2019t go out there and try to get them thrown out of office just because you don\u2019t like them.\u201d<\/p>\n
McComb also pointed to the city charter in explaining what could happen if the mayor is removed. Under those rules, the at-large council member with the most votes would become mayor pro tem \u2014 which would currently be City Councilwoman Carolyn Vaughn \u2014 until the next election in November.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe charter says that there becomes a vacancy in the mayor\u2019s office \u2026 the person in the at-large position that gets the largest number of votes becomes the mayor pro tem,\u201d McComb said.<\/p>\n
He warned the ongoing dispute could damage the city\u2019s reputation while critical issues remain unresolved.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe sad part about it is, the city of Corpus Christi \u2014 we\u2019re not only getting a black eye, we\u2019re getting two black eyes, one for the water and one for the way the council\u2019s acting on this thing,\u201d McComb said.<\/p>\n
While there is no precedent involving a mayor, the last time a Corpus Christi elected official was removed from office was in 1987, when City Councilman Frank Mendez was ousted over alleged ethics violations in a 5-3 vote.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"City council advanced a petition to remove Mayor Paulette Guajardo over Homewood Suites investigation, begins process that could…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":220605,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[155,157,156],"class_list":["post-220649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-corpus-christi","tag-corpus-christi","tag-corpus-christi-headlines","tag-corpus-christi-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220649","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=220649"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220649\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/220605"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=220649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=220649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=220649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}