Sign up for TPR Today, Texas Public Radio's newsletter that brings our top stories to your inbox each morning.
An independent attorney for the San Antonio Ethics Review Board (ERB) found that a series of allegations made against District 1 Councilmember Sukh Kaur do not constitute violations of the city’s ethics code. The ERB will hear two of the seven allegations.
The ethics complaint against Kaur was made by Julisa Medrano-Guerra, one of the opponents hoping to take her District 1 council seat in the May election.
Medrano-Guerra filed an ethics complaint in April that accused Kaur of violating seven sections of the city’s ethics code.
In an email sent by the independent attorney Nadeen Abou-Hossa to the Medrano-Guerra campaign that the campaign shared with TPR, Abou-Hossa said accusations under two of those sections did not provide any factual evidence, and a third ethics code section contains within it the language that it “shall not be used for the basis of an ethics complaint.”
Accusations under two more sections of the ethics code relate to alleged inaccuracies or incompleteness of Kaur’s Personal Financial Statement, which Abou-Hossa said in the email to Medrano-Guerra’s campaign were brought to Kaur’s attention and which she was required to amend.
In a press release from the Guerra-Medrano campaign titled “ERB To Eat Sukh Alive PR.pdf,” the campaign accused Kaur of committing “perjury” by filing an incomplete or inaccurate Personal Financial Statement. It added that the campaign “will pursue criminal perjury charges and are preparing a report for law enforcement review” if the amended report has any substantive differences from the initially filed report.
The Julisa Medrano-Guerra campaign.
Abou-Hossa said the ERB would consider accusations that fall under sections of the city code relating to political activity and public property and resources — the Medrano-Guerra campaign has accused Kaur of having her chief of staff electioneer for her while in his official capacity.
Medrano-Guerra’s press release said Abou-Hossa’s independent review determined that Kaur “did violate” the city’s ethics code, but Abou-Hossa did not make any final determinations on that issue, something that is the ERB’s duty. Instead, she said she had determined “the alleged violations should be forwarded to the ERB.”
In a statement, Kaur said she believed the ERB would side with her.
“Given that the Medrano Guerra campaign has admitted to hiring a private investigator to follow me, this political attack comes as no surprise,” she said. “I remain confident that the [E]thics [R]eview [B]oard, through its established process, will find no merit in these allegations.”
Kaur did not confirm whether her initial Personal Financial Statement contained any inaccuracies.
Disclosure: Sukh Kaur is a former member of Texas Public Radio's board of directors.
