Hawk Cove, Texas, December 12, 2013. The Hawk Cove Municipal Court opened its letter to Delores Spence with a frank admission: “We are confused as to whether you want to change your plea for your recent citation.” The letter is on City letterhead, 1585 Maria, “From: Dwain Moore, Municipal Judge,” “Re: Citation,” and signed.
The court’s instructions
- To appeal: “If you are going to appeal the citation you received and by-pass the trial by jury, you must come to court and change your plea to guilty, and request and inform the court that you are going to appeal to Hunt County. You will have five days to make a decision.”
- Then the bond: “After you change your plea you then have 10 days to have your attorney post the appeal bond which is double your fine of $214.00.”
- Or a jury: “Please let us know if you are going to appeal or if you want to go ahead with a jury trial in which case, we will still need the bond posted within 10 days.”
The letter calls it “your fine” while asking which plea she wants. It does not say what the citation was for, what ordinance it cited, or who wrote it. We hold no copy of the citation itself and no court record of how it ended.
What was new that fall
A newspaper legal notice announced that “The City Council of the City of Hawk Cove has passed Ordinance No. 2013-04 regulation signs, providing an offense and a penalty,” and, directly below it, Ordinance No. 2013-05 “regulating door to door solicitation, providing an offense and a penalty.” Each notice ends with the printer’s mark “(10-11t1).” Our copy is an undated clipping, so we date it about October 2013. We hold neither ordinance’s text.
The clipping comes to us pasted on a page beside an unsigned handwritten note: “Ordinances Created By City to remove Citizens Rights To Door to door Petition & to have Political Signs on personal Property.” The note is somebody’s opinion, not the City’s, and it is posted as held, along with the scribbles across the clipping.
The two records do not mention each other. The ordinance notice is dated about October 2013; the court’s letter calls the citation “recent” on December 12, 2013. We leave the dates side by side.
2017: the paperwork version
On a City form dated 3-06-2017, on letterhead, the signer acknowledges: “I, [signature], have received Ordinance No. 2015-006, pertaining to Rules and Regulations of Commercial Signs in the City of Hawk Cove.” The signature reads Delores Spence. Two months later she was on the ballot for Mayor: the City’s canvass of the May 6, 2017 election gives Joseph Kelley 7 early votes and 71 on election day, and Dotty Spence 1 early vote and 30 on election day (canvass minutes, May 17, 2017, p. 1).
The signer also wrote on the form. Her handwritten note, her account, reads in full:
- “Was forced to sign this form by Hawk Cove Chief & Officer Guffey When placing Signs for 2017 Election. Required to get Written Permission from property owners as this is a Commercial Sign ord. I saw no relevance to Political Signs.”
- Beside the date: “Updated from ord# 2013-04.” Across the top: “Interference With Public Electio[n].”
Those are the signer’s words, written on her copy, not a finding by anyone. The printed form itself mentions only commercial signs. It does not mention elections, political signs, a citation or a fine, and it has no City signature on it. We hold no copy of Ordinance 2015-006.
Highlights
- About October 2013: legal notice of Ordinance 2013-04, regulating signs, “providing an offense and a penalty.”
- December 12, 2013: the Municipal Judge writes that the court is “confused” about Delores Spence’s plea on her “recent citation”; the appeal route begins with a plea of guilty.
- March 6, 2017: she signs a City receipt for Ordinance 2015-006, commercial signs, and writes on it that she was made to sign “When placing Signs for 2017 Election.”
- May 6, 2017: she runs for Mayor and gets 31 votes. She later served as Mayor; that story is in Petition to Remove the Mayor Ends Six Days After the Election.