I’ve had the privilege to sit down and talk with Tommy on multiple occasions and I consider him someone to be respected. He has a stellar career and tons of past experience to work with. Burleson is lucky to have him as the interim and hopefully the new city manager coming soon.
I was no fan of Langley, for multiple reasons. Most here don’t know but Langley left the city of Denton with a pending multi million dollar lawsuit, and Denton lost. Langley was already here when that lawsuit completed. The details of the lawsuit can be found on google
Move forward to May 2023 and Langley leaves Burleson, but not before another lawsuit aimed at his own actions filed against the city of Burleson, once again for retaliation against a whistleblower. Want to know more about it, google “v Burleson”. This newest multi million dollar lawsuit against the city of Burleson was filed early May, AFTER Langley turned in his resignation and accepted a position in Kyle Texas
How many Director level professionals left or were forced out of our city….plenty. I believe this most recent lawsuit makes the 8th in less than 4 years. You’ll have to read this current lawsuit to see what Langley is being accused of.
Who worked alongside Langley….Tommy did. I believe an investigation needs to take place before he is considered as a possible replacement to become City Manager
Look at Monday nights city council agenda, and scroll down to the Executive Session portion. Burleson and our tax paying citizens deserve a quality candidate that doesn’t target upper management and whistleblowers. If Langley did something illegal, that should be rectified thru the state. If anyone helped him pull that off, they should be investigated too
Stay informed Burleson. You can get a lot more out of council meetings by attending in person, and paying attention. Much more than reading articles or watching video replays of previous meetings
Bill, I checked Google and other search methods the way you said to search for the case and nothing came up. Could you provide other details to the case so we can find them?
I have the basic 19 pages of the Original Complaint filed, which has the names of additional city employee and a few personal details which I don’t believe need to be revealed by me. The case was filed in the US District Court, Northern District of Texas, the Dallas Division. It has a Civil Action# 3:23-CV-00948
The Petitioner’s attorney is the very same attorney who successfully won the lawsuit against the City of Denton and Langley, which was appealed and won that appeal. That case was more than $3M
The dollar amount for this lawsuit against Burleson has not yet been established, for the former Director had 18 years of unblemished service with Burleson, not even any bad write ups that I could find. He will undoubtedly be suing for back pay, lost future pay, lost incentives, 401K investments, health insurance and other benefits which longtime city management receive. He had at least another 15+ years he could’ve worked for the city, easily reaching a 35 year employment service goal, which offers many additional milestones for retirement and additional incentives
I have not yet received the Original Answer to the Original Complaint, which I believe won’t hold much of any water
This makes 2 cities in a row, which Langley has been accused of retaliation against whistleblowers. It’s also mentioned that Langley was being accused of illegally seeking to spend ARPA funds of I believe a $150,000 amount. It was noted that anything over $50,000 requires approval by a majority vote of council
I have questions as to the spending/reallocation of additional ARPA funds, as well as money that seems to shift around, sometimes too often….and not for which applications it was promised to the citizens. This I why I mentioned a citizen could learn so much more by attending these regular and special session council meetings, in person of course, as well as committee meetings involving finances, budgets and more
The easiest question is why the retaliations, and why will we be left to pay for all the damages. Then one must consider did the ink poison the well. This is my concern, for for last city manager I feel created some long lasting turmoil. And I believe a truly seasoned professional who didn’t learn the ropes from his boss needs to take over the ship, to right our course
I haven’t missed a regular council meeting in well over 3-1/2 years, and have attended most every other special session and most all the committee meetings too. I saw problems before and called some of the out publicly. Now I want better for our city. The replacement of two problem children types are just the start. Now I want a city manager I can completely trust. That process could take the council 3 to 6 months to complete. Rushing to elevate a replacement might allow possibly more regrettable outcomes for the taxpayers and the city as a whole
Tommy Ludwig seems like a qualified candidate. Very well written!
I’ve had the privilege to sit down and talk with Tommy on multiple occasions and I consider him someone to be respected. He has a stellar career and tons of past experience to work with. Burleson is lucky to have him as the interim and hopefully the new city manager coming soon.
I was no fan of Langley, for multiple reasons. Most here don’t know but Langley left the city of Denton with a pending multi million dollar lawsuit, and Denton lost. Langley was already here when that lawsuit completed. The details of the lawsuit can be found on google
Move forward to May 2023 and Langley leaves Burleson, but not before another lawsuit aimed at his own actions filed against the city of Burleson, once again for retaliation against a whistleblower. Want to know more about it, google “v Burleson”. This newest multi million dollar lawsuit against the city of Burleson was filed early May, AFTER Langley turned in his resignation and accepted a position in Kyle Texas
How many Director level professionals left or were forced out of our city….plenty. I believe this most recent lawsuit makes the 8th in less than 4 years. You’ll have to read this current lawsuit to see what Langley is being accused of.
Who worked alongside Langley….Tommy did. I believe an investigation needs to take place before he is considered as a possible replacement to become City Manager
Look at Monday nights city council agenda, and scroll down to the Executive Session portion. Burleson and our tax paying citizens deserve a quality candidate that doesn’t target upper management and whistleblowers. If Langley did something illegal, that should be rectified thru the state. If anyone helped him pull that off, they should be investigated too
Stay informed Burleson. You can get a lot more out of council meetings by attending in person, and paying attention. Much more than reading articles or watching video replays of previous meetings
Thank you for sharing this, Bill. That’s super interesting.
Bill, I checked Google and other search methods the way you said to search for the case and nothing came up. Could you provide other details to the case so we can find them?
I have the basic 19 pages of the Original Complaint filed, which has the names of additional city employee and a few personal details which I don’t believe need to be revealed by me. The case was filed in the US District Court, Northern District of Texas, the Dallas Division. It has a Civil Action# 3:23-CV-00948
The Petitioner’s attorney is the very same attorney who successfully won the lawsuit against the City of Denton and Langley, which was appealed and won that appeal. That case was more than $3M
The dollar amount for this lawsuit against Burleson has not yet been established, for the former Director had 18 years of unblemished service with Burleson, not even any bad write ups that I could find. He will undoubtedly be suing for back pay, lost future pay, lost incentives, 401K investments, health insurance and other benefits which longtime city management receive. He had at least another 15+ years he could’ve worked for the city, easily reaching a 35 year employment service goal, which offers many additional milestones for retirement and additional incentives
I have not yet received the Original Answer to the Original Complaint, which I believe won’t hold much of any water
This makes 2 cities in a row, which Langley has been accused of retaliation against whistleblowers. It’s also mentioned that Langley was being accused of illegally seeking to spend ARPA funds of I believe a $150,000 amount. It was noted that anything over $50,000 requires approval by a majority vote of council
I have questions as to the spending/reallocation of additional ARPA funds, as well as money that seems to shift around, sometimes too often….and not for which applications it was promised to the citizens. This I why I mentioned a citizen could learn so much more by attending these regular and special session council meetings, in person of course, as well as committee meetings involving finances, budgets and more
The easiest question is why the retaliations, and why will we be left to pay for all the damages. Then one must consider did the ink poison the well. This is my concern, for for last city manager I feel created some long lasting turmoil. And I believe a truly seasoned professional who didn’t learn the ropes from his boss needs to take over the ship, to right our course
I haven’t missed a regular council meeting in well over 3-1/2 years, and have attended most every other special session and most all the committee meetings too. I saw problems before and called some of the out publicly. Now I want better for our city. The replacement of two problem children types are just the start. Now I want a city manager I can completely trust. That process could take the council 3 to 6 months to complete. Rushing to elevate a replacement might allow possibly more regrettable outcomes for the taxpayers and the city as a whole
Thank you for sharing! I’m going to look this up
The “business over breakfast” meetings, are these open to the public or private?
Those are member-only events.
Well written piece! I learned a lot about what a city manager does. I guess I thought the mayor did these duties.
Thank you for clarifying that the O’Brien Rentals is not owned by you