Burnet County commissioner addresses conflict of interest allegation
Burnet County Precinct 2 Commissioner Damon Beierle addressed an anonymous letter that accused him of violating a local government code during the Commissioners Court meeting Oct. 8. Staff photo by Elizabeth De Los Santos
Burnet County Precinct 2 Commissioner Damon Beierle on Oct. 8 publicly addressed an anonymous allegation that he violated a local government code concerning conflict of interest.
During the Burnet County Commissioners Court meeting Tuesday, Beierle said he did not violate the code and would fully cooperate with an investigation conducted by an out-of-county prosecutor.
The anonymous letter containing the allegation was received by the Commissioners Court on Oct. 1. It referred to instances when the court voted to allocate sponsorship dollars to tourism events for which Beierle’s entertainment company provided services. The commissioner abstained from these votes.
Beierle is part owner of Double Eagle Entertainment, which mostly provides musical acts for events. The company does not directly receive sponsorship funds, but county money is used to sponsor the events as a whole.
“I don’t make a commission on them or anything like that,” Beierle said. “But common sense always told me to abstain because of my ethics and morals. … In your brain, you’re like, ‘I can’t vote on this.’”
While Beierle abstained from the funding votes, Local Government Code 171.004 also requires a conflict-of-interest questionnaire (CIQ) form be filled out.
The anonymous letter claims Beierle violated the code by not filling out the questionnaire in two separate instances in May 2023, something he admitted to during a Commissioners Court meeting on Sept. 12, 2023.
The two events recorded in the court’s official minutes from May 2023 are:
- a May 9 tourism sponsorship vote to allocate $3,600 to the Burnet’s Jackson Street Jams concert series;
- and a May 23 tourism sponsorship vote to allocate $5,000 to the Marble Falls Summer Concert Series.
According to Commissioner Beierle and legal counsel he consulted, an official would need to both fail to abstain from voting and fail to file a CIQ to violate Local Government Code 171.004.
“I called the county and district attorney, who called another prosecutor in another county, and they came back and said it takes two actions to violate the code. And not doing both violates the code,” he said.
Beierle admitted that before the Sept. 12, 2023, meeting, he was not aware of the requirement to file a questionaire but had consistently abstained from voting on any matters in which he had a conflict of interest.
“Before Sept. 23, I did not file a CIQ, but I did abstain 100 percent of the time. Ever since I learned of it, I have filed a CIQ. My intent was always to do the right thing,” Beierle said.
In response to the anonymous letter, the Burnet County Attorney’s Office referred the matter to neighboring San Saba County Attorney Russ Baker to investigate.
“We take any complaints from the public seriously,” said Assistant Burnet County Attorney Colleen Davis. “Because we work so closely with all members of the Commissioners Court, it was not appropriate, ethically, for our office to look into this. So we did reach out to another prosecutor, and they are going to do a thorough investigation and make recommendations for any follow-through they think is necessary.”
Commissioner Beierle emphasized he will cooperate with the investigation.
“If that prosecutor decides that there is a violation, then I will walk through that like anybody else would.”
You can watch a recording of the Oct. 8 Commissioners Court meeting on the Burnet County Government’s YouTube page.
5 thoughts on “Burnet County commissioner addresses conflict of interest allegation”
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Every voter in Burnet County needs to watch the County YouTube channel recording of the CC Meeting. Decide for yourself if the meeting was accurately reported. The links to the video and the drop box containing 122 pages of emails between the Judge & Baker Tilley are posted on the Daily Tribune FB page in the comments under this article. Go download and read them.
Seems like the Daily Trib missed the story here….the real story from the meeting is Oakleys emails to Baker Tilly and the audit report. Please start reporting for the people of BC not just the commissioners court.
I am proud of you Mr. Beierle. You have been a wonderful commisioner
So there will be this in-depth article about a conflict of interest, but no reporting about the corruption revealed by the county judges emails in reference to the Baker Tilley audit. Burnet County tax payers paid $20,000. 00 for this fake audit. Wake up Burnet County, you are being lied to.
It’s funny how both the local newspapers neglected to report on the bigger news out of the commissioner’s meeting regarding the audit of the Sheriff’s office. During the meeting, citizens read into the record an email from Oakley to Baker Tilly. In the email, Oakley instructed Baker Tilly to add and remove particular details from their report so it could be used as a basis for a criminal investigation and prosecution of Sheriff Boyd. “Judge” Oakley later did not want to share the results of the Baker Tilly audit with his fellow commissioners or the public who forked over $20,000 of taxpayer money. So much for transparency, huh “Judge”?