Town Supervisor Julie Oakley is leaving Lakeway for a career at a countrywide accounting firm, according to a assertion she unveiled Wednesday afternoon. Her final working day in her present role will be Sept. 2.
Oakley named the new occupation a the moment-in-a-life span management opportunity for her professionally, and mentioned it also will give her overall flexibility to aid her treatment for her mother, who has been battling Alzheimer’s diseasein West Texas.
“I am proud of dedicating 12 a long time of my life to the Metropolis of Lakeway, serving as finance director, assistant town manager, and for the previous three decades as your city supervisor,” she mentioned. “While I am very psyched for this subsequent move in my specialist journey, I also know it will be difficult to go on from this incredible group, obtaining labored with numerous city team members for far more than a ten years.”
Oakley is the issue of a lawsuit by a Lakeway resident who is suing her and a number of metropolis leaders, boasting Oakley did not satisfy the residency prerequisite for her career.
Christopher Levy submitted the match in district courtroom on June 14 on behalf of himself and other voters, citizens and taxpayers in Lakeway. The lawsuit alleges that Oakley, who was supplied the position by the Town Council in November 2019, does not reside in Lakeway, which is necessary for the human being in her posture.
The residency necessity for the town manager is many years previous, and people voted to maintain that language in the charter in November 2020. The option to improve the charter language was rejected by 64% of voters in that election.
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The charter dictates that the metropolis supervisor can be appointed by a the greater part vote of the Town Council and ought to reside in just the town “within a acceptable interval of time right after accepting appointment.”
Metropolis officials stood by Oakley when the lawsuit was filed and reported she was not in violation of the constitution.
“The City’s placement is basic. The Town Supervisor is a resident of the City of Lakeway, and she, the mayor and town council users named in the lawsuit are in compliance with the Lakeway Metropolis Constitution,” spokesperson Jarrod Clever mentioned in a statement. “The City of Lakeway thinks this lawsuit is politically enthusiastic, is without having benefit, and has been filed only to harass town staff members and the city’s community officials.”
Levy said the lawsuit will continue irrespective of Oakley’s departure due to the fact he wishes to handle the systemic difficulties in the city’s govt that he felt led to a conspiracy among elected officials to knowingly retain the services of and use Oakley irrespective of her not dwelling in the metropolis.
“We have to make absolutely sure this never comes about all over again in Lakeway,” he said. “We have a procedural issue here with a cabal of persons who have been considerably outside the house the bounds of their roles as town leadership and fully outdoors the boundaries of the city charter.”
Levy also said he thinks the timing of Oakley’s departure is suspect, supplied the ongoing lawsuit.
Oakley said in her resignation statement that the lawsuit is not aspect of her selection to leave the metropolis.
“While the timing is merely coincidental, I want to be very clear that this determination does not have to do with the frivolous, politically determined lawsuit just lately filed,” she wrote. “I was now two months into the job interview procedure when we were being made aware of the lawsuit.”
Mayor Tom Kilgore said he is proud of what Oakley has attained in her time in Lakeway and expressed dismay at the steps of people toward her in latest months, including the lawsuit in which he is also named as a defendant.
“While I am supportive of her generating this final decision to advance her career on a countrywide degree, I am also dismayed by the actions of specified people inside of the Metropolis of Lakeway in excess of the earlier many months who have threatened the security of Julie and her spouse and children,” he wrote. “In these months, our metropolis supervisor and her relatives have been kept underneath frequent surveillance, with 1 or extra individuals normally pursuing her to her Lakeway home from Town Hall late at night, or by now waiting around for her at her Lakeway property. No metropolis staff, male or woman, ought to be exposed to a harassing ecosystem.”
Levy took problem with Kilgore’s description of gatherings, which he felt was an attempt to discredit the lawsuit. He said the surveillance information in the lawsuit was gathered lawfully by pros.
“There’s never ever been any contact by law enforcement with my legal staff about supposed stalking and harassment of Julie,” he stated. “(His statement) is defamatory, it really is inflammatory, it really is preposterous and it is just entirely unbounded in simple fact, and I problem him or any person in the management of Lakeway to say normally.”
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Kilgore also recommended Oakley for controlling the town by means of the pandemic and by the wintertime storms in 2021 that left numerous without the need of energy or h2o for days.
“We, myself and my fellow council users, thank Julie for earning the metropolis of Lakeway a greater position for all of our residents,” he said. “We take pleasure in her hard perform and determination, and wish her the ideal on this following move of her expert journey.”
