MAR 14, 2025 - PART 1

FALSE - Mayor Nick Stanley ran for Mayor because it is on his path for his political career. Ultimately, he would like to land in Austin. After being released from Kay Granger's office he immediately moved to Aledo to get into our politics. Joining P&Z, EDC then Council and eventually Mayor. It appears shortly after moving to Aledo he partnered up with Cultivate Aledo and 1882 Partners. 

He had only lived in Aledo for 3 years when he became mayor. How does a resident of 3 years know anything about our rich heritage? How did he know what was best for our community? It seems more logical that with him being a member of Cultivate Aledo that he is trying to cultivate us into there ideology. 

FALSE - "I am hear to listen, I want to hear from my neighbors" - only if you are in his circle, bow the knee, kiss the ring or drink the koolaide. The moment that you have anything negative to say or do not agree with him you are silenced. In most cases he blocks you from his official social media page. Many have reported that he does not return phone calls or emails. This is simply campaign talk. One public official shared that it took 18 months to return his calls once Mayor Nick Stanley took office. 

He does not allow citizens to voice opinions at council meetings. He only permits  citizens to speak 3 minutes at the beginning of the council meeting. He does not want to hear from us regarding specific agenda items unless it benefits him. It is pointless to attend city council meetings to voice your opinion. The decisions of the mayor and council have been made prior to the meeting. They all know an agenda item will pass prior to voting.

FALSE - "Under Mayor Stanley's leadership" - That is a BIG issue with the City of Aledo, our mayor by law does not have the legal authority to LEAD our city, unfortunately he believes that he does. By law, a competent city manager is supposed to be running the city. Instead, you have two people with little to no experience with city government making decisions. Our mayor is supposed to be a icon of the city and that is all. He has the legal right to start and stop council meetings, vote in the event of a tie and his powers end here. That is all the legal authority he has. If he is going to claim leadership then answer these questions:

• Why is city hall a toxic work environment?
• Why are there always issues with water billing?
• Why does Public Works not have personal protection equipment?
• Why is there not transparency at city hall? 
• Why are there not detailed budgets for the public to see? 
• How does it take only one week for one of your partners to receive exclusive use of public land for parking for a building which he owns? 
• Why do you use subcontractors for key positions instead of hiring staff?
• Are you protecting tax payers or are you using tax payer money for your business partners development plan?

FALSE  - "Passed two audits", you need to understand that, you do not pass or fail a city audit. A city audit is a snapshot in time and they only select a sample of accounts to audit. In the end, the auditors state that, "In our opinion the financial statements referred to above present fairly to all material respects to the financial position of the governmental activities."

The City of Aledo's fiscal year is OCT thru SEP. Mayor Nick Stanley was elected May 2022. TECHNICALLY Mayor Nick Stanley has had only ONE audit that was completed under his tenor as mayor that he can take credit (which by law he does not have this power, but we will humor him) for, fiscal year ending 2023. This would be from OCT 2022 thru SEP 2023. The audit for 2022 would include the previous administration and the audit for 2024 has not been completed. 

FALSE - "By scrubbing our budget"  - He killed numerous previous council approved projects and redirected the funding to Bailey Ranch Road so he could brag about keeping his campaign promise. BRR already had a repair plan in place. On the DIAS he

stated "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."

He never presented proof of these allegations and there where not millions of dollars missing. See his entire speech here. 

It was discovered and proven that he did have a professional and personal relationship with Cultivate Aledo and 1882 Partners. Despite Mayor Nick Stanley publicly stating twice that no relationship exist. 

City Hall has spent money frivolously:

• Redesigned City Hall
• New logo
• Monogram chairs at the new city hall
• Granite floors at the new city hall
• High employee turn over
• Poor management of the waste water treatment plant
• Hired contractors for key staff positions
• Hundreds of thousands of dollars on a ice rink
• The Library, using tax payer funds to relive the library of its current location so the property can be sold. 
• Renting property from 1882 Partners, LP (his business partners) instead of using the community center for a temporary city hall. 
• Spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on a water bill audit, when you knew the real issues with the water billing. (more to come on this later). 

FALSE - "more efficient City Hall" - The City of Aledo City Hall has become a TOXIC WORKPLACE and we have reported on this extensively here at RNS. There have been at least 24 employees/contractors that have come and gone since this administration has taken over. Most key positions are subcontracted out, this is a very expensive option and there is NO oversight. A paid contractor is rarely going to tell the paying customer that they are wrong or NO. The fox is watching the hen house. 

FALSE - "making City Hall more transparent" - It is extremely difficult to get information from city hall. Some examples: 

• Mayor Nick Stanley is unwilling to release a complete copy of his campaign finance reports showing how much money was raised and spent in his 2022 campaign. A copy of his Campaign Finance Report obtained in 2023 showed that he had raised $10,750 in contributions. Additional details below.,
• RNS has submitted several request for documents via FOIA/PIR only to be told that the documents did not exist. We even asked "are you really sure" and was affirmed that the documents did not exist. More to come on this.....
• The City of Aledo does not provide details on yearly budgets. What we see is a budget from a 100,000 foot view. When pressed for additional information we are told "I will work on that and get back to you."

On MAR 29, 2023, after a FOIA/PIR request for Mayor Nick Stanleys CAMPAIGN FINANCE REPORT a copy was received which included 18 pages and showed that he had raised $10,750 in contributions, spent $2,798.54 in political expenditures. He had a balance of $7,951.46. on form C/OH executed on APR 5, 2022 by Mayor Nick Stanley. 

Included in the packet was form C/OH executed on APR 29, 2023 showing TOTAL POLITICAL EXPENDITURES of $2,204.98 with TOTAL POLITICAL CONTRIBUTIONS of $.00, and a contribution balance of $4,716.48.

On FEB 23, 2025, a FOIA/PIR was sent to the City of Aledo for a copy of Mayor Nick Stanleys Campaign Finance Report from 2022 to current. A complete report was not received. Instead, the 2022 report only shows form CTA signed on JAN 24. 2022, and did not include form C/OH. For context form C/OH provides detail on monies received and monies spent. When the city secretary was pressed for more information her response was:

"These are the records that we have regarding campaign finances.  Please note that campaign finance reports are not yet due for the May 2025 election.  There were no additional documents in the 2022 election file."

At this point it was decided that we would share what we had from 2023 and the city secretary's response was this: 

MAR 7, 2025 - Good morning, Thank you for that information.  I will look again to see if it was misfiled.

As of the writing of this post, MAR 14, 2025, there has been no further information provided by the City of Aledo. We doubt that we will receive any additional information.

Where is that money? Where is the complete report? Where is the transparency?