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Most residents do not watch City Hall for entertainment. They watch because they want basic government to work. They want development handled correctly, legal issues managed competently, and leaders focused on getting things done instead of fighting each other.
That is why this matters. On April 2, City Attorney Grant Lowry of Boyle & Lowry withdrew from representing the City of Princeton, effective immediately. Council’s April 13 agenda already includes executive session discussion involving an interim city attorney, while also listing active litigation matters involving Sicily Laguna Azure, LLC and North Collin Special Utility District. This comes less than four months after Princeton’s city manager resigned in December. Boyle & Lowry had originally been selected by council in June 2023.
Quick Read
- Princeton’s city attorney withdrew from representation on April 2, effective immediately.
- Council’s April 13 agenda includes discussion involving an interim city attorney while litigation remains active.
- The resignation followed a broader fight over legal services, PD 46, and how concerns inside City Hall were being handled.
- According to Councilmember Cristina Todd, she had raised concerns about PD 46 earlier, but those concerns were initially written off before the matter was later revisited.
- The mayor’s own public posts show he later pushed to bring PD 46 back to council, arguing it had not been processed correctly and that material details had not been fully disclosed at the time of the vote.
- This comes less than four months after Princeton’s city manager resigned and amid broader turnover across city government.
The dominant pattern is no longer just turnover. It is turnover colliding with deeper fights over legal judgment, process, and trust inside City Hall.
First the city manager. Now the city attorney. Before that, Place 4 became vacant after Councilmember Ryan Gerfers stepped down. Gerfers’ resignation should be understood on its own terms. He cited serious health concerns and said he could no longer serve at full capacity. That is different from the broader internal conflict story. But it still left the city with another gap in continuity.
The city attorney’s withdrawal letter cited Rule 1.16(b)(1), (4), and (7) of the Texas Disciplinary Rules of Professional Conduct. That language matters. It does not automatically prove illegal conduct, but it does show the city lost its legal counsel in the middle of active city matters.
The mayor’s own public posts add context, but they are not the full context. According to Councilmember Cristina Todd, she had repeatedly raised concerns about PD 46 and pushed for the city to revisit the matter. Todd said staff took those concerns to legal counsel, and legal later came back saying the issue was fine and did not need to return to council. She also said Mayor Eugene Escobar Jr. had been told she was wrong. According to Todd, when the mayor asked legal counsel to identify the laws proving her concerns were unfounded, they were unable to clearly do so. Todd said she then asked the mayor to meet with her directly so she could walk him through the issue herself. According to her account, that meeting changed the direction of the dispute. In the mayor’s later public screenshots, he showed a March 30 communication stating that he wanted PD 46 returned to council because he believed it had not been processed correctly and that material details had not been fully disclosed at the time of the council vote. Taken together, those accounts suggest the issue was raised earlier, initially written off, and only escalated into a broader fight over legal judgment, process, and accountability after continued pressure and direct review. Todd said the situation also highlights a broader issue inside local government, that elected officials are often told to defer to experts, but that this case shows the importance of asking questions and working collaboratively to ensure decisions are fully vetted. She added that one voice can be dismissed, but when multiple voices come together, those concerns are harder to ignore.
That broader context is what makes this bigger than one resignation. This was not a quiet personnel change. It came after visible friction over legal services, after disputes over agenda control and controversial city matters, and while the city is still dealing with active lawsuits. That is not normal churn. That is instability at the top of government.
And it does not appear confined to the top. The Princeton Journal has learned of additional recent turnover affecting other parts of city government, including planning and zoning, public works, inspections, finance, and administrative support. According to information provided to the Journal, recent departures have included the planning and zoning administrator, planner, planning assistant, public works director, inspection leadership, public works support staff, finance staff, the assistant city manager, and the interim city manager. Not every one of those departures has yet been fully documented in the public record by date. Even so, the broader pattern is becoming difficult to ignore, especially in a city already described by insiders as understaffed.
That has real consequences. A city cannot run cleanly when legal representation is unstable, top leadership keeps changing, staff continuity weakens, and internal conflict keeps spilling into public view. Every departure adds pressure. Every gap slows decisions. Every internal fight makes it harder to govern.
The deeper issue is not one attorney, one mayor, or one agenda item. It is whether Princeton’s government can function like one government. Fast growth puts pressure on weak systems, unclear authority lines, and personality conflicts. Princeton has grown quickly. What residents are seeing now is what happens when that pressure reaches a government that still looks divided against itself.
For residents, the question is no longer just why one attorney resigned. The question is why so many important positions keep turning over while public disputes, internal friction, and cleanup statements keep piling up. That is the issue worth watching now.
The warning is straightforward. Cities do not lose trust in one moment. They lose it when instability becomes routine, when turnover becomes expected, and when governing starts to look more like internal combat than public service. Princeton is not there by accident. And residents have every reason to expect better.
