Bastrop City Council files ethics complaint against mayor, says he interfered in inquiry

The Bastrop City Council has filed an ethics complaint against Mayor Lyle Nelson, saying he interfered in an investigation of a city contractor with whom he had a romantic relationship, according to the document.

The complaint, filed in January, says Nelson refused to give officials eight and half months' worth of the communications between him and Susan Smith, who is being investigated for misuse of public funds while she was the chief executive officer of Visit Bastrop.

Visit Bastrop is a marketing company that promotes tourism, and it is funded by more than $1.5 million of the city's hotel occupancy tax. Nelson initially denied that he had been involved with Smith until 232 pages of intimate text messages between them were discovered on her work iPad, the complaint said. He then admitted to the City Council "that there was a relationship that was sexual in nature and apologized to council for lying about the same," the complaint said.

Nelson said Wednesday that he had not interfered in the investigation.

He declined to comment on the nature of his relationship with Smith. "That's between me, my family and my God," he said.

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The mayor also said an attorney hired by the city concluded in a report that Nelson had no knowledge of the alleged misuse of funds by Smith. The attorney's report said that "the Mayor denied any knowledge of misuse of public funds, and my investigation to date uncovered no evidence otherwise."

"I turned over all the official documents they requested including texts, messages and emails," Nelson said. "There is no credence to the claim I did not turn over all the information required by law."

The ethics complaint was made after the City Council received a report in December on an investigation it had asked for about interactions between Nelson and Visit Bastrop officials.

The council approved the investigation in August after four Visit Bastrop employees complained to the city's human resources director, the city manager and a City Council member that Smith had misused public funds while pursuing an "inappropriate relationship with Lyle Nelson," the complaint said.

During the investigation, a forensic audit of Visit Bastrop showed that from 2021-23, approximately $70,000 in public funds from the city were spent on Visit Bastrop credit cards and approved by Smith without itemized receipts or other required documentation, the ethics complaint said.

"Some amount of the misreported public funds have been identified to have been used in pursuit of a romantic relationship with Lyle Nelson while he was a city official," it said.

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"Mayor Nelson knowingly and actively interfered with the investigation by refusing to provide records between him and CEO Smith that are likely to identify dates, times, and locations of misreported public fund expenditures over approximately 8.5 months of time (10/3/22 to 3/23/23 and 6/5/23 to 8/11/23)."

Nelson refused to provide the requested information, according to the complaint, saying that he was not a public official until June 2023 when he began his term as mayor. But that was false, it said, because he was a member of the city's economic development corporation and also a council member and mayor pro tem in the years before he was mayor.

Smith initially claimed she has no records between her and Nelson because she regularly deleted all messages on her business phone, according to the complaint. The text messages that investigators found on Smith's work iPad included 51 discussions between her and Nelson "regarding spending for meals, travel and entertainment, some of which are already proven to have been an improper use of public funds," the complaint said.

It said Smith was put on administrative leave and later took a job elsewhere.

A hearing before the city of Bastrop's ethics commission about the complaint against Nelson is set for 1:30 p.m. March 25. The City Council cannot fire Nelson but can take other action, such as issuing a public or private censure against him, according to the complaint.

This article includes material from Statesman freelance reporter Aaron Sullivan.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Ethics complaint claims Bastrop mayor interfered in investigation