Former commissioner seeking to clear her name

Daniela Ochoa Gonzalez, who resigned from the city’s Zero Waste Advisory Commission after the City Auditor issued a report saying that she had improperly participated in matters before the commission regarding her employer the company she had contracted with, Texas Disposal Systems, is seeking action at Tuesday’s meeting of the city’s Ethics Review Commission. Through her attorney, Mariano Conde de Frankenberg, Ochoa Gonzalez has asked the commission to state that the City Auditor Kenneth Mory exceeded his authority. Specifically, Ochoa Gonzalez wants the commission to find that City Code does not give the auditor any authority to conclude that a City official violated conflicts of interest provisions and to publicize such findings to the City Council. According to Frankenberg, both of these responsibilities reside solely with the Ethics Review Commission. The commission already has on its agenda a staff report on the auditor’s procedures in this case and will consider whether to file their own complaint against Ochoa Gonzalez. (This post has been corrected to reflect that Ochoa Gonzalez was a contractor and not an employee of TDS.)