10 April 11 - 17, 2024 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents “But we couldn’t get hold of everyone,” Hefner says. “They were annexed that very night, and some of them didn’t find out about it until the next night. They couldn’t believe they’d done that to us.” P atel told a reporter for NBC5 news that he was an activist for those af- fected by involuntary annexations shortly before a Jan. 19, 2023, council meet- ing to annex 100 tracts of land. Though the Wilmer Citizen was no lon- ger operating, a new website appeared to take its place: “Wilmer News: Exposing the Truth.” It introduces a cast of characters from the city with questionable dealings, and warns in bold lettering: “Pay Close at- tention to Jeff Steele and Michael Halla in this story.” Patel also blamed Steele and Halla and claimed they had been working with Rader since the mid-2000s to bring land into the city. As for the city attorney, Patel claimed that Halla had other reasons to encourage the city to fight lawsuits using a local gov- ernment code, though that strategy had been a loser in court since 2008. “The financial burden of his own prob- lems has led this city attorney to essentially act in a manner that would not be in the best interest of the city,” Patel says. “Halla extend- ing these lawsuits to the point they are at now has allowed him to continue billing Wilmer for counsel that is ultimately going to fall on another lawyer’s desk at another law firm. He is ultimately prolonging the inevitable, which is the settlement of all these suits.” Whether Halla will even be available to represent the city in court is in doubt. In No- vember 2021, Halla was running late to a council meeting in Ferris and was speeding at 102 mph on Highway 664 and distracted by his cellphone, according to a Jan. 9, 2023, report by FOX 4 news. At the time, Halla was a contract city attorney for Ferris and eight municipalities in the area. DPS investigators claim Halla struck and killed Edward Beltran, 36, and his 5-year-old son Ethan. They were crossing Highway 664, nearly home from their basketball game with family members at the elemen- tary school across the street. Halla was arrested in early January 2023 on two counts of manslaughter. He spent a night in jail and posted the $100,000 bond. He was dropped by Ferris as city attorney and rejected a plea deal that would have sentenced him to 15 years, according to the Sept. 16 court document. He will be heading to trial later this year. In the September 2022 lawsuit, Patel showed that his property “was improperly added after the adoption of the Annexation Ordinance in 2008.” He won the lawsuit in early February. He received $221,610 in actual damages and additional damages of $445 per day at 8.5% interest after Feb. 4 until the city ap- proves his plat for the RV park, and was awarded attorney fees of $332,833 against the city. In the Feb. 5 court document, the judge wrote that the annexation ordinance that council had passed “was null and void.” The city filed an appeal in early March. Patel had also gotten entangled in a defa- mation lawsuit by Steele, the current mayor, Shelia Petta, and former council member Candy Madrigal and the city administrator Rona Stringfellow, both of whom would later drop out of the case. They had sued him over his social media posts. “The City attempted to make a deal re- questing us to drop our lawsuit in return they wouldn’t file the personal defamation charges,” Patel wrote in a late August email to the Observer. “They are using a separate attorney for that matter. I told them they can kiss my ass, so the result is this defama- tion suit.” Some of his posts were captured by Steele in a July court document: “On May 7, 2023, Patel posted a picture of Jeff Steele in the ‘Wilmer Only’ Facebook public group stating ‘Do not vote for Jeff Steele for any city council or any Wilmer positions. Ready to screw up Wilmer with more Ware- houses.’ Patel declares ‘Looks like Jeff Steele should be worried about all of his illegal an- tics with that Shelia Petta lady will come to an end soon,” according to the July 12, 2023, lawsuit. Other posts include, “Jeff Steele and all his back door deals with the inland port De- velopment,” “your demon child Jeff Steele is now amongst people with value and integ- rity on the city council and he’s scared,” and Steele and another person not named “have been terrorizing this town since before 2010 and it’s slowly now coming to an end.” Patel countered in court that the defa- mation suit was filed to stop him from fighting the annexation case. Since June 2011, Texas has had an anti-SLAPP law — strategic litigation against public participa- tion — that bans the use of defamation claims as a tool to silence critics exercising free speech. In Patel’s Feb. 6 court document, the judge reprimanded Steele and Petta for hav- ing the “gall to argue” that it was a private dispute instead of a public one. Patel’s state- ments “pertained to a controversy sur- rounding the City’s illegal and improper annexations of property and are therefore regarding a matter of public concern.” Patel received a $16,000 check from Steele, and the defamation case was dis- missed. H efner is tired of living in the black hole. She no longer has to worry about the city annexing her. State law changed in September and now allows property owners in a city’s ETJ to file a petition with the city to remove their properties from the ETJ. In Hefner’s case, it turned her doughnut hole into a black hole and means she must con- tinue to rely on the county for police and fire protection. Because her attorney had filed the law- suits prior to council’s vote in late 2022, He- fner wasn’t annexed into the city, which meant she could petition the city to release the property from the ETJ. Of course, it doesn’t mean the city won’t try again. Laws passed by the Legislature, a string of smackdowns in court and years of political turmoil have apparently failed to discourage Wilmer’s leaders much. Hefner’s request to have her property re- moved from Wilmer’s ETJ was her least ex- pensive defense. She says her family had already spent about $1,200 on legal fees and didn’t want to keep spending retirement money to fight a lawsuit. They received the city’s blessings to remove the property from the ETJ in October. Miklos says several of his clients have pe- titioned the city to be removed from the ETJ. He expected the rest of them to be wrapped up soon. In late February, the city settled another lawsuit, but it’s still fighting a lawsuit by TK Real Properties Investments. The property owner filed suit in early January 2023, a few weeks after its land in the ETJ was annexed into the city. Now more property owners are selling their properties and leaving the area. Al- drich says he sold his and moved last month. Hefner was shocked to learn in March that her neighbor across North Goode Road had sold his property. “When you grow up here, most of us are either dead or gone,” she says. “I inherited this place from our parents, and I want to move and go to the lake.” Understanding why isn’t difficult. There also isn’t much left of the Wilmer that long- time area residents had known. Most of the involuntary annexations have already taken place, and the zoning changes weren’t far behind. Unless a property owner has the money, time and energy to go to court, a judge can’t order Wilmer to back off an an- nexation, even if it’s invalid. Quintero from Texas Public Policy says the property owners’ only recourse is to ap- proach the Dallas County District Attorney’s Office or the Dallas County attorney with enough facts to initiate an investigation. “Your DAs and county attorneys have been susceptible to local politics and too of- ten have not been inclined to pursue charges due to the political pressure,” Quintero says. “A lot of times property owners are left without legal recourse. The Texas AG doesn’t have the authority or the resources to step in and hold cities in account. It is something that the legislation will need to remedy.” Mark Graham New and shiny large warehouses dominate the streets of the formerly rural Wilmer. Unfair Park from p8
