Posts published in “Day: March 9, 2017”

Galena Park, Texas — In an interview with North Channel Star writer Allan Jamail, the former Galena Park Police Chief Edward Mata said that on February 28, 2017, he met with Mayor Esmeralda Moya and Water & Sewer Commissioner Rodney Chersky, where the mayor told him to resign or he’d be fired for insubordination.

Mata said Mayor Moya told him she felt he was insubordinate when he refused her instructions to remove a former Commissioner Maricela Serna at the February 21st council meeting where Serna and some citizens were speaking out of order.

Mata said, “I told the mayor I disagreed with her, I was not insubordinate, I told her she herself failed to follow the Meeting Rules for keeping order in the meetings by her not having first given Serna a warning.”

Mata said he reads the Meeting Rules almost before every council meeting.

Furthermore Mata said, “The mayor positively did not instruct me to remove Serna or anyone else specifically. When I heard citizens speaking out of order, I then noticed the mayor raising her hand and pointing towards a group of citizens in attendance and she said, ‘Mata.’”

The former chief said he thinks he handled the situation correctly. “I ordered those speaking out of order to stop or they’d be removed, and because of my warning the meeting became orderly.”

Mata continued to say in his defense had he arrested someone without a violation of the Meeting Rules or any law violation then both he and the city could have been sued. He went on to say, “The official minutes of the meeting will support my claim of the mayor never instructing me to remove anyone.”