{"id":180932,"date":"2025-08-27T23:17:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-27T23:17:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/180932\/"},"modified":"2025-08-27T23:17:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-27T23:17:10","slug":"dallas-ousts-newly-hired-inspector-general-due-to-charter-violation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/180932\/","title":{"rendered":"Dallas ousts newly hired Inspector General due to charter violation"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Dallas City Council discharged Inspector General Timothy Menke<\/a>, a longtime law enforcement executive, Wednesday after weeks of discussing how city officials bungled his hiring process. <\/p>\n

Last November, voters approved a charter proposition<\/a> that established an independent office of inspector general and called for its top officer to be \u201ca competent practicing attorney of recognized ability.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, Menke, who began his job on June 30 and has decades of experience investigating governmental fraud and misconduct, is not an attorney. <\/p>\n

During the meeting, council members did not publicly discuss the rationale behind the vote. They also didn\u2019t get into what caused the error. <\/p>\n

Political Points<\/p>\n

Get the latest politics news from North Texas and beyond.<\/p>\n

By signing up, you agree to our\u00a0Terms of Service<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Privacy Policy.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an unfortunate setback but had to be done to have the IG\u2019s qualifications align with those in the charter,\u201d Deputy Mayor pro tem Gay Donnell Willis, who had long advocated for creating an independent office during the charter process, told The Dallas Morning News. \u201cI am still very much a believer in the need for an independent inspector general to suss out fraud, waste and abuse.\u201d <\/p>\n

Willis said the council and staff will also explore ways to determine how the oversight occurred, as did council member Paula Blackmon, who noted that officials are now examining ways to improve internal processes. <\/p>\n

Around the U.S., inspectors general can come from various backgrounds. They could be attorneys, auditors, law enforcement officials and prosecutors. <\/p>\n

A job listing<\/a> for the position didn\u2019t specify that the applicant needs to be an attorney, although it does mention that a master\u2019s degree or a doctorate in jurisprudence is preferred, and calls for the applicant to possess a skillset that demonstrates legal acumen.<\/p>\n

Last year, council members had extensive discussions about picking a skilled firm to lead the recruitment. They wanted to avoid mistakes they had seen in the previous search for the new city manager, which had been riddled with issues. <\/p>\n

The brochure for the position featured Houston\u2019s skyline instead of Dallas\u2019, and the management of the search,<\/a> at the time carried out by former council member Tennell Atkins, former chair of the ad hoc administrative affairs committee, led to a behind-the-scenes fight in the City Council that erupted publicly<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The City Council then hired MGT Consulting Group. <\/p>\n

For weeks, the City Council spent time in closed session interviewing candidates. The Dallas Morning News sought public records regarding the resumes of the candidates who applied for the job and the communication between council members, who held the final approval. The request was sent to the Attorney General\u2019s office for review. The city withdrew its request for the attorney general\u2019s ruling Wednesday and partially released documents that still provide no clarity about the oversight. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Dallas City Council discharged Inspector General Timothy Menke, a longtime law enforcement executive, Wednesday after weeks of…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":168223,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5135],"tags":[5229,1596,14840,14841,80,358,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-180932","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-dallas","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-dallas","10":"tag-dallas-city-council","11":"tag-dallas-city-hall","12":"tag-politics","13":"tag-texas","14":"tag-tx","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-united-states-of-america","17":"tag-unitedstates","18":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","19":"tag-us","20":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115103284796847839","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180932","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=180932"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180932\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/168223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=180932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=180932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=180932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}