Brittany Kelley
KYLE — Findings from an investigation into the allegations about former Kyle Mayor Travis Mitchell’s relationship with American Structurepoint, Inc (ASP) was shared at the Oct. 19 Kyle City Council meeting.
Council initially approved an agreement with PNT Law Firm to conduct an investigation between Mitchell and ASP — which employed him after his 2025 resignation — in May 2026.
According to the investigation report, the law firm was hired to answer whether Mitchell had a conflict of interest during the time the city’s contracts with ASP were approved, in accordance with Texas and local law, and if so, what the legal implications are.
Chris Peele, PNT attorney, immediately shared that there were no violations of the Texas Local Government Code or the Texas Penal Code, nor was there any indication that the city’s contracts with ASP were influenced by Mitchell. However, city charter and ethics code provisions regarding disclosure were violated.
The investigation consisted of 20 interviews, including current and former employees and council members, though three interview requests for former council members Bear Heiser and Robert Rizo, as well as former city traffic engineer Spencer Keane, went unanswered. Additionally, ASP and Mitchell refused to be interviewed, but had attorneys provide statements, which denied claims of wrongdoing, shared that he is not a shareholder and stated that his first day of work was Dec. 16, 2025.
Contracts, master agreements, Mitchell’s resignation letter, financial disclosure reports, text messages, council meeting documents, board meetings, recusal forms, Facebook pages, ASP’s website and more were all reviewed by PNT, said Peele. Communications between Mitchell and ASP, as well as their financial records, were not observed, as investigators do not have the ability to subpoena.
“There have been allegations and concerns about Travis Mitchell that stretched back further,” said Peele. “But we didn’t have any evidence that that existed. We had plenty of witnesses who pointed to prior allegations of corruption … but we noted that those prior allegations did not result in any findings to action by the city. So, we didn’t use those to sort of bootstrap or influence our evaluation of the facts that we found. We started with a clean slate.”
Witnesses were unable to point to specific evidence of improper influence conducted by Mitchell and although he’s now employed by ASP, it’s not enough to prove that there was any actual wrongdoing, he explained, adding that when PNT reviewed video footage of alleged incidents, “the recollection of the what happened in the meeting didn’t match up with what we actually saw.” In fact, most of the time, ASP was either selected by an outside contractor or after a full request for qualifications process done by city staff, said Peele.
Peele then began outlining a timeline for the last six months of Mitchell’s tenure, where there were disclosure violations. According to witnesses, the former mayor was initially aiming to take a job with Kinder Morgan around the time of his resignation announcement in July 2025, but that opportunity “must have” fallen through around September of that same year.
In October 2025, Mitchell was off camera during a vote of amendments to a contract that would affect ASP and was therefore considered absent. A week later, during a TML conference, he shared that he had interviewed with ASP, said Peele.
City attorney Aimee Alcorn-Reed then sent him a conflict of interest form Nov. 6, after Mitchell notified her that he had taken a job with ASP. His final council meeting was Dec. 2 and there were no items with ASP on the agenda.
Mayor Yvonne Flores-Cale also shared a recording of a meeting she had with Mitchell Dec. 22, on his last day as mayor and a day before she took office. In this, Peele stated that Mitchell reveals that he told ASP to stop negotiations until after the November election and that he “skipped out on votes” because he didn’t want to “break the rules,” which is evidence that he knew he had a conflict of interest.
Ultimately, PNT believes that there were two primary violations under City Charter Section 12.02 Acceptance of Gifts, also violated by ASP, and the city’s Code of Ethics 2-171 Improper Economic Benefit.
The first stated that no officer or employee of the city shall accept, directly or indirectly, a gift, favor or privilege exceeding any nominal value or employment from any utility, corporation, person or utility having or seeking a contract or doing business with the city. The Code of Ethics states the outside employment should be known by council and community, so that it can be factored into the votes or current work.
Alcorn-Reed stated that she will connect with the city’s ethics attorney to see if there is a comprehensive guide for council to handle the violated codes.
“I know there’s a lot of people that were concerned about the price of this, which was $150,000, but in essence, if we can find that that was a violation and we have the $311,000 that is up in question right now [and] we have the information to support that, we could ultimately not pay that or put that on hold,” said Flores-Cale.
She was referring to the vote that occurred prior to the item regarding Mitchell and ASP, which resulted in pausing a $311,604 amendment with ASP for work on the eastern portion of the Bebee Road Project, until the Ethics Commission could review the investigation. The motion to pause passed 5-1, with council member Lauralee Harris dissenting. Council member Claudia Zapata was not in attendance.
“I’ve heard some comments about voiding contracts, just to be clear, and I think city attorney Alcorn-Reed stated this already, but a violation of 12.02 does not make the contract void; it makes it voidable,” said Peele.
Council also voted 6-0 to approve a motion to reduce the rates for water and wastewater for out of city customers to 120% of the inner city rates, to an applause of residents. This comes a year after the outside city rates increased by more than 70% for the 2025-26 fiscal year.
This change will decrease city revenues by $2,139,706, or 30.9%, from $6,931,226 to $4,791,520. These revenue differences will not by absorbed by city customers, explained interim city manager Perwez Moheet. Instead, it will come from the fund balance, since there is a slight surplus for this fiscal year, but there will have to be a rebalancing in the future: “Now is the ideal time, if we’re going to make any changes.”
Because the change requires an ordinance vote, council will have to approve it for a second time at the Nov. 17 meeting, said Perwez. Then, it will take effect for the December billing cycle.
To listen to the full discussion, visit bit.ly/3VTMx2x.
Kyle City Council will meet next at 6 p.m. Nov. 10 for a special meeting.
