Accountability
San Angelo is not a town where nothing happens. A sitting police chief went to federal prison for taking bribes. The City has previously moved to narrow how residents ask for records. And in three months of 2026, residents filed recall petitions against three separate members of the City Council. That is the environment this project operates in.
The recall campaigns
All three were organized by the San Angelo Data Center Citizen Coalition over the handling of the Skybox/Emergent project — specifically, what organizers characterized as insufficient transparency during negotiations to sell city-owned land.
| Target | Seat | Signatures needed | Filed | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mayor Tom Thompson | Mayor, at-large | 2,971 | Deadline June 22, 2026 | Failed — under 1,900 submitted |
| Joe Self | Council, District 2 | 385 | Affidavit May 29, 2026 | Pending |
| Harry Thomas | Council, District 3 | 47 | July 15, 2026 | Petition filed — certification pending |
A recall petition in San Angelo requires signatures equal to 30% of the votes cast in the last election for that seat. Only 155 people voted in the May 2023 District 3 election — so recalling Harry Thomas takes 47 signatures, while recalling the at-large mayor takes 2,971. Turnout in a municipal off-year election is itself the story here: District 3 has thousands of residents and a recall threshold you could fill from one apartment complex.
Thomas has declined to resign: “I have no plans to resign from my position,” citing more than a decade of service weighing public input. Under city ordinance, if he does not resign within 15 days of formal notice, the Council must order a recall election within 30–90 days. His term otherwise runs to May 2027.
Recall elections are paid for out of city funds. Residents carry that cost regardless of their position on the data center — a point worth holding onto in both directions.
2022: the City moved to limit public information requests
In December 2022, the City of San Angelo pursued plans to limit public information requests. This is directly relevant to why this site exists and why we file as a foundation rather than asking residents to file individually: when a government's instinct under records pressure is to narrow the pipe, individual requesters are the easiest point of friction to squeeze.
Today, requests are funneled through a vendor portal, and the Police Department's Records Division states plainly that it does not accept records requests via email, fax, or telephone — mail or in person only. Each of those is defensible on its own. Stacked, they add up to a process most people will not complete.
We generate a correctly-cited Texas Public Information Act request as a PDF you can paste into the portal or print and mail, we file it for you as the Move Weight Foundation, and we publish the response — including refusals and Attorney General referrals. Use the tool →
Precedent: a police chief in federal prison
Former San Angelo Chief of Police Tim Vasquez was sentenced to 15½ years in federal prison and fined $35,000 for accepting bribes. The investigation was run by the FBI, the Tom Green County Sheriff's Office, and the Texas Rangers, with the cooperation of the San Angelo Police Department and the City.
We include this for one reason. When residents ask hard questions about a land deal and are told the process is fine, the honest answer is that San Angelo's recent history contains a case where the process was not fine, and it took federal investigators to establish it. Scrutiny is not an insult to this city. It is a lesson this city already paid for.
How to participate
Speak at Council
City Council meets the 1st and 3rd Tuesday at 8:30 a.m. at the McNease Convention Center, 500 Rio Concho Drive. You must sign in before the meeting begins to speak. There is also an online public comment form.
Online comment form →Read the agenda first
Agendas, minutes, and full agenda packets are published by the City before each meeting. Reading the packet is the single highest-leverage thing a resident can do.
Agendas & packets →Watch the meeting
Meetings stream to the City's YouTube channel, SATV on Optimum channel 17, FireTV, and Roku. The video record is often more complete than the minutes.
City YouTube channel →File for records
You have a statutory right to almost every record the City creates, with a 10-business-day response deadline. Use our tool and stay anonymous.
Open the records tool →