City manager, police chief turn in resignation

WEIMAR – On Thursday, June 15, the city council held a special meeting to discuss personnel matters pertaining to City Manager Mike Barrow.

Council went into executive session which lasted about two hours.

After the session, council walked back into the council chambers. Barrow also walked back, in but collected his name plate and walked out along with Mayor Koller and some other city officials.

After Mayor Koller and all city council were present, Koller opened the public session and Councilman Stephen Helmcamp made a motion to accept Barrow’s resignation effective immediately. A second was made by Councilman Kurt Scardino.

Mayor Koller opened the floor for additional discussion. No discussion was made.

Mayor Koller then asked for a vote from the council. Those who voted yes were Councilman Helmcamp, Councilwoman Becky Roberts, Councilman Roy Ulrich and Councilman Scardino. Councilman Kevin Janecka voted no.

The motion carried with a four to one vote.

City officials said that Barrow has been employed with the city since March 2015.

Eagle Lake City Manager Tink Jackson was in attendance at the city council meeting. He said he did not go into the executive session but did speak to Barrow in private occasionally at the meeting.

Jackson told the Citizen, “There’s been a lot of stuff in the press about the officer with the Eagle Lake situation that ended up in Weimar and with all of the stuff that’s been going on, I just felt it’s important to be there in case anyone wanted to ask questions about what actually happened, and I was going to be there to answer those questions, but it never came to that, so I was just there to make myself available in case they wanted to know what really happened in Eagle Lake.”

The situation being referred to is when former officer Christopher Cannon, who was employed by the Eagle Lake Police Department from September 2022 until December 2022, later went to work for the Weimar Police Department until being terminated in February 2023, as previously reported by The Citizen.

Cannon’s termination was a result of what Weimar described as “falsehoods” alleging Cannon of bigamy. Since then, Cannon was indicted on two counts of tampering with or fabricating evidence by a grand jury in March and arrested in April, which stated that Cannon was aware of an investigation into the allegation of bigamy when he presented falsified documents, according to a previous report by The Citizen.

Cannon was later arrested in April again for tampering with a government record after the City of Columbus Municipal Court Clerk reported to the Columbus Police Department that Cannon had presented an insurance card ahead of his trial for tickets relating to a crash that occurred in December 2022 when he was off-duty with ELPD, according to a release.

In May, Cannon was arrested in Rosenberg for impersonating an officer at a construction site. A report brought up during the recent Weimar city council meeting on June 8, which said that Cannon was seen in a police-style uniform with a gun in his holster and was in possession of a Weimar PD badge, according to ABC 13, the KTRK affiliate in Houston.

Barrow’s resignation comes on the hills of Weimar Police Chief Todd Jacobs, who submitted his resignation notice on Monday, June 12. The city said Jacobs’ employment will end on July 14. They report that Chief Jacobs has been employed with the city since October 2015.

As noted in previous city council meetings, the city manager is over the police chief.

City officials said they have put notices out and have started to advertise for both positions.