Chad Magill hasn’t given up hope on retaining his city council seat, Mark Scott will not be impeached and the next city council will include four new faces, including the mayor — unless, of course, Magill garners enough votes after the official canvass Friday, Nov. 18, to retain his at-large seat.
The last meeting of the current city council on Tuesday, Nov. 15, was a mix of both the courteous and the uncongenial. Most departing members exchanged gifts and gracious goodbyes early in the meeting while Magill watched, unwilling yet to concede the race. 
Magill came in fourth in a field of six, missing a re-election bid by 215 votes to Paulette Guarjardo. The top three candidates for at-large will be seated at the next council meeting Dec. 13. Magill is waiting for 660 overseas and provisional ballots to be counted by Nueces County Clerk Kara Sands. Deadline for overseas ballots was Monday, Nov. 14, while deadline for provisional ballots was Tuesday, Nov. 15. The deadline to finalize votes is Nov. 22. 
"God has a plan. We are so grateful and appreciative of so many great people believing in our ability to serve the people of Corpus Christi," Magill wrote on his Facebook page after the election. "No doubt, we gave everything we had every single day — and proud of what we have truly accomplished for our city in such a short amount of time."
Meanwhile, another departing member, Mark Scott, also declined formal goodbyes since he had already left the council once. He resigned effective Sept. 14 but returned when informed he would remain a member of the council until replaced. He quit so he could run for mayor in 2018. If he had stayed, one lawyer advised, he would be subject to term limits and ineligible to run for six years, not two. 
The council hired an outside lawyer who backed up the majority opinion that Scott was considered a member of the council until replaced. Since the council had no intention of replacing him with the November election looming, it was believed Scott would not be eligible to run. Another caveat existed, however, the lawyer informed them. Because of a change in election dates in 2012, Scott had not served a full two-year term and was therefore eligible to run again in two years. 
An item to impeach Scott for missing five consecutive meetings while this back-and-forth was carried out drew some heated discussion — without Scott in the room. It died when council member Carolyn Vaughn, District 1, withdrew her motion. Vaughn was handily re-elected in her district.
City attorney Miles Risley informed the council that Scott could not be impeached because there isn’t enough time before his term ends. With that announcement, Vaughn withdrew her motion. 
Scott returned to the council dais to finish the meeting, which included a resolution opposed to giving Texas Commission on Environmental Quality greater authority to issue boil water notices. The city was forced to issue boil water notices by TCEQ three times in 10 months, most recently this summer. 
Paperwork is not a reason to issue boil water notices, states the resolution. Reasons should be based on whether the water is fit to consume.
The cities of Houston, Denton and San Antonio passed similar resolutions. Deadline to send comments on the rule changes is Nov. 22.