Tomball City Manager Jan Belcher forced city council members who opted not to extend her contract last month to make public their thoughts on her job performance when she chose to have her job evaluation held in an open meeting Oct. 19.

The Tomball City Council was scheduled to go into an executive session at the end of the meeting to discuss Belcher’s assignments and duties. However, Belcher opted to have her job evaluation held in an open session. During a Sept. 21 meeting, the council met in a private session without Belcher to discuss her contract. After the council voted not to renew it, Belcher said she was never given any goals or direction on how to improve or what to work on.

In addition, Mayor Gretchen Fagan said at the Oct. 19 meeting that council members were given evaluation forms on Belcher’s job, but those were not completed.

Fagan also said she asked council members to e-mail her their issues with Belcher, but did not receive a response.

“No one wanted to put anything in writing,” she said.

Following a public comment portion of the meeting, during which at least two dozen members of the Tomball community voice their support for the job Belcher has done, each council member was asked to discuss their thoughts on her work.

“I have no issues,” council member David Quinn said.

Councilman Mark Stoll claimed that on two occasions, Belcher made disparaging statements to outside parties about the current council.

“You spoke at the Houston Association of Developmental Trends Committee luncheon prior to me being elected, and because of different circles that we travel, I was told that you spoke very negatively about the city council last year when they did not pass the tax increase,” Stoll said. “And as a city manager who works and reports to city council, I don’t think that is proper etiquette.”

Stoll, however, would not name the person who made the claim to him, and Belcher denied making such a statement.

“I absolutely never would have disparaged the city council for any decision you make. I’ve said repeatedly you can have any tax rate you want, and if you want major capital improvements, you have to find the funding,” she said. The remarks were taken out of context.”

Stoll and councilman Derek Townsend, both of whom were elected in May and are serving their first term, claimed that Belcher had ordered city employees not to talk to council members.

Townsend said he wants to have the opportunity when researching a city issue to talk with the proper city employees to educate himself, but said some employees have been instructed not to discuss such matters with the council.

“I have never told city employees that they may not speak with you,” Belcher said. “I’m happy to do any work the council as a body asks me to do. We’ve answered every question that any of you any of you have ever had.  If you will simply call me, e-mail me, ask me for information and let me direct the staff as to how best to provide that to the entire council so that you can use that to base your decisions, I am happy to do that.”

Quinn said that he believes that should council need an answer to a question, they do so in an open meeting as a council, rather than an individual council person outside city hall.

“We need to remember what our responsibilities are and what our duties are,” he said. “Once we leave this council chamber, we are not council, we are on the council when we sit in this room. This is where our authority is. I think for us to go out and look for things, to question outside of this council chamber, is a big mistake. Quite frankly I’m pretty disgusted about this whole situation.”

Council member Bill Webb asked Belcher if she had discouraged a possible developer, whom Webb could only identify as “a former Harlem Globetrotter,” about building a large-scale sports complex in the city.

“What I told him was that if he wanted the city to use bonding capacity, the city does not have bond capacity to do a multi million project, and that he might want to look for grants,” Belcher said.

City councilman Warren Driver said he and Belcher discussed her job performance over the phone, and that he would “leave it that way.”

“You should have talked to all of us,” Driver said. “You should not have put this on the public agenda.”

Belcher said she attempted to speak privately with each council member, but Stoll declined to speak with her over the phone, Webb was in the hospital and she was unable to contact Townsend.

Near the conclusion of the meeting, Fagan attempted to have council members provide her with a list of goals that Belcher could work toward in order to possibly receive a contract extension.

Stoll, Townsend and Webb each said they had lost some amount of trust with Belcher, and that identifying goals to achieve would be problematic.

Townsend recommended utilizing a set of performance indicators previously approved by the council as the guideline for Belcher to follow in the next 90 days, and the rest of the council agreed.

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