This post has been updated.
Former San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg’s attorneys admit he failed to report an autographed jersey he received from Spurs player Victor Wembanyama in January, and asked an ethics panel to dismiss a complaint alleging he used public resources to promote his campaign.
On Monday evening, the Ethics Review Board (ERB) voted to issue Nirenberg an ethics violation and letter of admonition for using city resources to create content for his campaign’s Facebook page.
It dismissed concerns about the Spurs jersey because Nirenberg amended his personal financial disclosure to account for it after the complaint was filed.
The complaint comes as he is exploring a potential bid for higher office. Nirenberg termed out after eight years as mayor.
While he hasn’t said what his next move will be, a new Texans for Nirenberg PAC was filed this month.
Rather than make his case to the board on Monday, Nirenberg’s attorney Frank Burney filed a formal response saying the former mayor had been “an exemplary city official” who “would never knowingly or intentionally violate” the law.
“He expresses regret for this misstep and takes full responsibility,” the letter said.
The original 63-page complaint, filed by government accountability activist Kelly Walls in June, accused Nirenberg of failing to disclose an autographed NBA jersey that retails online for about $1,500.
Nirenberg’s attorney said the issue was an oversight that’s now been corrected. The board agreed that was sufficient.
As for the other portion of the complaint — alleging Nirenberg violated the city’s election code by posting photos of official city business to a Facebook page owned by his campaign — the attorney’s letter says Nirenberg sought guidance from the City Attorney’s office on a social media usage and acted within those guidelines.
“The mayor’s decision to use social media to connect with his constituents was an attempt to meet the people where they are,” according to the letter.
Earlier this year Councilman Marc Whyte (D10) was sanctioned for a similar complaint, arguing at the time that all of the city’s elected leaders could be punished for such actions — including Nirenberg. Walls filed the complaint against Nirenberg days later.
Nirenberg’s letter said he would waive his right to a hearing, and asked that the board “dismiss this complaint; or, in the alternative, impose the least extreme sanctions.”
The Ethics Review Board is comprised of 11 members: 10 members appointed by their respective councilmembers and one appointed by the mayor.
On Monday, ERB Chair Patrick Lang said they’d chosen to issue the letter of admonition —instead of tougher punishments like mandatory ethics training— because the offense was “minor or may have been unintentional or inadvertent.”
Burney attended the meeting and said afterwards: “We appreciate the efforts of the Ethics Review Board and we have no objections to their finding.”
Nirenberg joins a growing number of council members and candidates whose complaints have been taken up by the ethics board in recent months.
Whyte and Councilwoman Sukh Kaur (D1) were issued reprimands in June for campaign-related complaints. It was Whyte’s second time being sanctioned, and Councilman Jalen McKee-Rodriguez (D2) was hit with a violation in January over his handling of a zoning issue.
At Monday’s meeting, some ERB members seemed frustrated with the number of recent violations.
District 8 appointee Jim Reidy said council members should have to sign off acknowledging they’ve received ethics training — as is required for staff members.
“If a regular city employee who goes through [ethics training] on a regular basis has to sign off that they received it … I can’t imagine why the people we’re paying to run the city, i.e. the elected officials, should not go through the same, Reidy said.
