City of Aledo, Mayor Nick Stanley Official Statement

Part 1

The following is a Official Statement read onto the record for the September 28, 2023 Aledo City Council Meeting by Mayor Nick Stanley. (Audio recording is attached). 

Nick Stanley: 

We are going to go a little bit out of order here, I am going to issue a statement prior to us getting started. Recently there has been a small group of uninformed people who are spreading mistruths on social media and out right lies about me on social media. - No sir, we have posted the proof along with the links for each to check our work. 

They are doing there best to disparage my name. - 

No sir, your actions are doing this. 

The recent Facebook post regarding veterans memorial and my relationship with the folks with 1882 Partners. I will start with the veterans memorial. I have never talked about moving veterans memorial or relocating it nor has our city manager. This is a out right lie. I fully support our nations military men and women and I am eternally grateful for there service. So long as I am mayor of the city there will never be such discussion. In fact, as you will see later in this meeting we are already in discussions and the initial planning phase of the Aledo Veterans advisory board. Which will help with the veterans day memorial day events in Aledo. - 

No sir, we have not said that. What we have said and heard from witnesses at the council meeting is the cities architect stated on the dias - "If that tree happens to die during construction this would make a great place for a veterans memorial". And now you have created a committee on the subject? 

As for the post on social media about me regarding any relationship that I may have with 1882 Partners who have invested in much of the real estate in downtown Aledo. This is a group of local owners who have invested into most of our real-estate in downtown area. This is a group of local owners who have invested heavily in our downtown area and are bringing forward deciding plans for these properties as they care about Aledo and they care about preserving our downtown area. There investment is born out of the desire to protect those properties from a outside developer who don’t care about this this town or our future. - 

No sir, these are your business associates. We have also received numerous reports from developers/business owners that have wanted to come to Aledo or start a business in Aledo only to be met with red tape or phone calls not returned. In order to be able to do business in Aledo, one has to be one of your partners/associates. 

I have no business dealings with this group. Nor do I have a financial interest in anything that they do. My business partner Patrick Beachner and I operate Blue Jack Resources. We are a oil and gas and land services company. He is a partner in 1882 Partners, along with my formal business partner Stephen Slaughter. These two entities have no affiliation. And with that no affiliation there is no collusion on my part where I would stand to benefit financially or otherwise in anything that they do. 

No sir, Patrick Beachner and Stephen Slaughter own Fieldstone Solar, according to the City of Aledo's website you work for Fieldstone Solar as the VP of Acquisitions. (See attached) Also we will include who owns 1882 Partners as a reminder. To be fair, since we brought forward undisputable proof of who is involved with 1882 we have not rechecked state records to see if names have changed. 

There is absolutely no merit to any of these accusations and these post are ultimately chocked up to defamation and nothing more.

No sir, you told the Community News that you only knew these owners from the community. Now you are admitting at least one of them is still your partner and the other is now a former partner?!?! How do you say your guilty without saying your guilty? You really should google the definition of defamation. 

Part 2

Good afternoon, this is PART 2 of analyzing the statement made by the City of Aledo Mayor - Nick Stanley, during the Regular City Council Meeting on September 28, 2023. 

To be very clear, we have ZERO political agenda here. Dumbo and Goofy could run the city as long as they are fair, honest and serve the public as required. This administration is serving themselves and their business partners.

Mayor Nick Stanley:

Now since becoming mayor I inherited an organization that was under performing and mismanaged. After an extensive search we found millions of dollars where missing in unallocated funds. 

No sir, the funds were allocated. It seems that your administration reallocated funds to complete the Bailey Ranch Road Project. We have attached screen shots to help you find the money. Below is a link to the cities web site where you can download yourself. 

Mayor Nick Stanley:

Records and files that were missing from some or that where never kept, month old past due, months old past due bills left unpaid and unaccounted for and staff that where un-performing and basically making costly mistakes in this city. We also faced crumbling infrastructure with no CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PLAN (projects) including Bailey Ranch Road which Is now being fully reconstructed.

No sir, there are pages and pages of capital improvement plan (program) in place. (See attached) There are 12 pages in total for the 2023 adopted budget. You can find it here. There was a CIP for BRR that was 90 percent complete when you took over. Adopted budgets show that BRR was supposed to start FY 2024, but somehow was just completed? We audited the past adopted budgets and found a dozen projects that have now simply disappeared off the books totaling $8,693,000 and in FY 2022 $2,631,000. (See attached) We have heard that BRR cost $2,800,000 to complete, and you and the City Manager have bragged that you paid cash, shouldn’t this have been paid with debt (bond). So, it seems that you killed all adopted FY 2022 projects to fulfill your campaign promise to Parks of Aledo to repair BRR when in fact it was already on the books for years and 90 percent design completed. How did you LEGALLY move funds from adopted projects without council approval? Does the rest of the city not matter to this administration? 

Mayor Nick Stanley:

and a wastewater treatment plant that’s failing and in disrepair and not in compliance with TECQ standards. All those repairs have now been made to that facility and is now fully compilable with TECQ. - 

No sir, didn’t the city manager spend over $80,000 to clean the Sludge tanks only to be told by the engineer that you will have to do it again and it was a waste of money because the small screen needs to be repaired? What did the City Manager do with the waste? Returned it to Aledo and re-run it because the contractor under bid and Fort Worth would not take the waste? Did the vendor not overflow the waste when feeding it back into our system and you had to call everyone in from reading meters to help clean up? Did this not create water billing issues because they could not be read on the dates that needed to be read? In the end it was all for nothing. Are there not plans in place to double the size of the WWTP? Did the city manager not hire someone to run the plant that lacked the experience and did he not in the end fire him? 

Mayor Nick Stanley:

I could go on about the things that this council and I do as mayor in a leadership in this council and staff. And under my leadership this council and staff members we are moving in a positive direction in the state of the city regarding to be better and stronger than it has ever been before. 

No sir, please don’t. Frankly you do not. What you are is a development company for your friends. You act as though this public money is your personal and that you are running a private company. The reality is that there are no REAL problems in Aledo. As proof, where are the failed audits. There are none. I wonder how previous administration (which sir, you were a city council member while all your alleged mis givens were going on) feels about these claims? @KitMarshall, Sharon Hayes, Bill Funderburk and the rest of the "un-performing" staff? Well, we have spoken to a lot of them. They are not too happy. Guess what un-happy people do; they talk. Here is reality, there are no real issues, instead you and the City Manager create issues that don’t exist, make them into big issues and then solve the non-issues. This makes the two of you "hero's" in your own mind. 

Mayor Nick Stanley:

And much of this is thanks to the outstanding work from our City Manager Noah Simon and (unclear) and more professional team that he now has in place. 

No sir we have heard from multiple sources that his time was done at the last city he worked at, and he needed to leave quick. There seems to be a reason for that. We can go into further detail on that later. 

Mayor Nick Stanley

Lastly, I would like to point out that every council member that you see up here is a neighbor, a family member, a businessperson, an unpaid volunteer and a human being striving to serve this community to the best of our ability because we love the city and we love these people. We will not always agree on issues but so long as this council and these staff members are here, we are here to listen and to serve you. Thank you. - 

YES, you are correct, City Council should serve the citizens and not you sir. They are called PUBLIC SERVANTS for a reason. We have noticed that they do not ask questions, they seem to already know how they are going to vote.

Let’s pull the band-aid off here. You have only lived in Aledo for about 5 years, but somehow at 3 years in you knew what was best for Aledo. It’s odd because a lot of these "businesses" in your circle have a formation date in 2020. This is the same year you were let go at SEN Kay Grainger's office, then went to Chris Putnam's office. After Mr. Putnam lost the election, you were out of a job. Seems a little coincidental don’t you think? 

We have been told that your political goals are to replace Judge @PatDeen, any truth to that? It would make sense as you do not seem to care about the citizens of Aledo. You seem to REALLY care about your business partners and your “LIKED” developers. 

More to come. 

#DefendAledo #RulesForTheeAndNotForMe #RecallNickStanley