{"id":364895,"date":"2026-07-08T04:00:07","date_gmt":"2026-07-08T04:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/364895\/"},"modified":"2026-07-08T04:00:07","modified_gmt":"2026-07-08T04:00:07","slug":"council-staffer-accused-by-mayor-of-leaking-information-departs-city-hall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/364895\/","title":{"rendered":"Council staffer accused by mayor of leaking information departs City Hall"},"content":{"rendered":"

SAN ANTONIO \u2013 A San Antonio City Council staffer the mayor publicly suggested may have leaked information about her security has left City Hall for the private sector.<\/p>\n

District 7 Chief of Staff James Branch\u2019s last day with the City of San Antonio was Monday, according to a letter Branch provided to KSAT 12, though the letter itself was dated June 10.<\/p>\n

That was shortly after Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones sent a May 20 memo<\/a>, which she later posted to social media, stating Branch had access to security detail information for her home and had failed to comply with a San Antonio Police Department Internal Affairs probe of how the information leaked to the media.<\/p>\n

KSAT broke the story about the mayor\u2019s unprecedented security measures<\/a> last fall. Multiple sources provided details about the home protection plan. Branch was not one of those sources.<\/p>\n

Reached for comment Tuesday, Branch supplied KSAT with an unsigned copy of his June 10 resignation letter to Councilwoman Marina Alderete Gavito but provided no further statements. <\/p>\n

Branch made no mention of the mayor\u2019s allegations in his letter. Instead, he praised Alderete Gavito for her leadership and called her a \u201cmentor, a confidant, an advocate and a friend\u201d during his three years with her office.<\/p>\n

\u201cDuring our time together you have made me feel like I am family, and while I am excited to see what the private sector holds for me, I know that our journey together is not over and I look forward to watching you lead our city for years to come,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n

In a statement through a spokesman Tuesday, Alderete Gavito said Branch had been an important part of the District 7 team.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been fortunate to have him play a key part in our collective success, and I wish him all the best in the next chapter of his career,\u201d the councilwoman said.<\/p>\n

Alderete Gavito announced Monday she had picked La-Tieka Sims, who had previously led the district office\u2019s constituent services team and managed community events, as her new chief of staff.<\/p>\n

In her May 20 memo, Jones stated that 115 SAPD officers have been interviewed as part of the department\u2019s investigation. One of those officers noted that a council aide had access to the security information.<\/p>\n

The memo, which does not name Branch but references the District 7 Chief of Staff, states he did not comply with requests from Internal Affairs from October to March to take part in an in-person interview.<\/p>\n

Branch instead provided a statement through his legal counsel, according to the memo.<\/p>\n

Though Jones never accused Branch outright of leaking the information in the memo, she stated that by not appearing for an interview he prevented a \u201cfull and thorough investigation of a major security breach.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alderete Gavito has frequently clashed with Jones through the mayor\u2019s first year in office. <\/p>\n

She and Branch\u2019s attorney blasted the mayor in separate statements earlier this summer for \u201cbaseless\u201d and \u201cunfounded\u201d attacks.<\/p>\n

The councilwoman said she stood by Branch\u2019s integrity, and his attorney said Branch had \u201cnothing to do with the disclosure of the Mayor\u2019s security information.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read also:<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 by KSAT – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN ANTONIO \u2013 A San Antonio City Council staffer the mayor publicly suggested may have leaked information about…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":364896,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[3084,2112,82,84,83],"class_list":["post-364895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-city-hall","tag-gina-ortiz-jones","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\/364895","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=364895"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364895\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/364896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=364895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=364895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=364895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}