Open Records - Opening the Door to Closed Government!

                                                            by Ron West

        The incumbents and their spokesmen are already talking about the "cost" of responding to open records requests from citizens.  Unfortunately, the real cost, is the lack of open records so that such requests would not be necessary.  Regardless of the cost, this is one of the most valuable tools that can be utilized to inform the citizens and voters about documented city activities.  Since they have   $3,766,573  budgeted for sundries in the current year budget, surely our city can afford to respond to legitimate citizen inquiries under Texas Open Records Act. 

    When Mr. Barth questioned the costs in the recent city council meeting, he missed the point of the necessity of such requests regarding new ordinances or changes to existing ordinances.  Since the council makes no prior disclosure, only by multiple requests applicable to existing documents would there be time for citizen comments prior to enactment.  The city is allowed 10 working days to respond to any request and comments would have to be made at a council meeting prior to the one where the ordinance was on the agenda - so to get the information out - IF IT WERE EVEN AVAILABLE - would require multiple requests about every 15 days.  Since the city has elected to totally close such information, only one request was made that was denied.

        The following are recent examples of Open Records Requests and the responses received from the City Secretary:

#5/11/05 - Triggered by allegations from Councilwoman Johnson in this and the prior elections regarding my association with TAIG.

Filed:  5/11/05 at 1:14PM

Dear Ms. Hutson:

This is a request under the Texas Open Records Act, chapter 552 of the Government Code (formerly V.T.C.S. article 6252) as well as Article I, Sec. 8 of the Texas Constitution, the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, the common law of the State of Texas and any statue providing for public access to government information.

I request that I be sent copies of the following documents or, if there are a large number, be permitted to inspect the following documents and receive copies of the ones I would like:

    1)    Any document or documents, of any kind, created in any city department indicating that any web site that I am personally associated with is a "hate site" as indicated by recent incumbent campaign material. 

    2)   Any information, documents, or websites,  published by or created by the North Richland Hills Police Department regarding a web site specifically identified as: www.taig.org  

    2a)   Any other documents that may exist within the North Richland Hills Police Department that may or may not have been published in any manner that relate in any way to www.taig.org

    3)   Any written guidelines as to what constitutes a web site that is a "Hate" site that exist within the police department or any other department of North Richland Hills city government.

    4)   If any documents exist that show www.taig.org as a hate site, please provide supporting documentation as to who made the the decision to classify it as such, what supporting material was used and who approved such identification and publication.

    5)   Any other documents within any department of the city, including the police department, relating to www.taig.org.

    6)   Any documents containing my name, Ron West or Ron C. West,  with respect to any web site on the internet that have been created at any time by any department within North Richland Hills city government in the last three years.

    7)   Any documents in the possession of the city,  created by Councilwoman JoAnn Johnson,  that contain any mention of www.taig.org or my name, Ron West or any variation of either, for the last three years.

    7a)  Any documents in the possession of Councilwoman JoAnn Johnson,  that contains any mention of www.taig.org or my name, Ron West or any variation of either, for the last three years.

    8)   Any documents of any kind from, or created by, the city manager, assistant city managers and any elected official that contain any mention of www.taig.org that have been created or distributed in the last three years.
   
If you have any questions about the nature or scope of this request, please call me at the phone number listed below. If you determine that all or some portion of the information requested is excepted from required disclosure, I request that you provide me with the portions of the requested information that are public and reasonably segrable from that which you believe is excepted. If any records are in active use or in storage, please certify this fact in writing and set a date and hour within a reasonable time when the records will be available, as required by section 552.221 of the Act. If you determine that all or some portion of the information requested is excepted from required public disclosure under a particular exception, I request that you advise me as to which exceptions you believe apply. If you rely on previous determination, please advise me of the applicable court decision or Attorney General's opinion. If there is no such determination, please advise me of the request for such an opinion, as required under section 552.301 of the Act, and a dated copy of your letter to the Attorney General. I call your attention to section 522.353 of the Act, which provides penalties for a failure to release public records. I am prepared to pay reasonable costs for copying, within the guidelines set by sections 552.261, 552.262, 552.263, 552.267, 552.268, 552.269.

Thank you for your attention to this and I expect to hear from your office within ten days.

Sincerely,

Ron C. West
6304 Glenview Drive
North Richland Hills, TX 76180
817-938-1383   

The response from City Secretary Patricia Hutson: 

(Click Here for a full copy of her letter.)  Unfortunately, this is really not a response since Ms. Johnson mailed out a campaign card prior to the election containing slanderous statements about www.taig.org .  Apparently, Ms. Hutson did not contact Ms. Johnson which leaves one wondering what other documents exist regarding this request that were not provided.

5/17/05

The following request was triggered by the City's refusal to explain the Non-Departmental Budgets and the transfers of funds that exceeded the approved budget by the City Manager.

5/17/05 - 5:22PM

Dear Ms. Hutson:

This is a request under the Texas Open Records Act, chapter 552 of the Government Code (formerly V.T.C.S. article 6252) as well as Article I, Sec. 8 of the Texas Constitution, the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, the common law of the State of Texas and any statue providing for public access to government information.

I request that I be sent copies of the following documents or, if there are a large number, be permitted to inspect the following documents and receive copies of the ones I would like:

    1)    Any document or documents enacted by the City Council that authorized or authorizes the transfer of moneys between city funds as applicable to the current year budget.

    2)   A copy of the ordinance applicable to the current year budget enacted by the City Council that authorizes the City Manager to make inter departmental and inter fund transfers as needed to avoid over expenditure of accounts. 
        
If you have any questions about the nature or scope of this request, please call me at the phone number listed below. If you determine that all or some portion of the information requested is excepted from required disclosure, I request that you provide me with the portions of the requested information that are public and reasonably segrable from that which you believe is excepted. If any records are in active use or in storage, please certify this fact in writing and set a date and hour within a reasonable time when the records will be available, as required by section 552.221 of the Act. If you determine that all or some portion of the information requested is excepted from required public disclosure under a particular exception, I request that you advise me as to which exceptions you believe apply. If you rely on previous determination, please advise me of the applicable court decision or Attorney General's opinion. If there is no such determination, please advise me of the request for such an opinion, as required under section 552.301 of the Act, and a dated copy of your letter to the Attorney General. I call your attention to section 522.353 of the Act, which provides penalties for a failure to release public records. I am prepared to pay reasonable costs for copying, within the guidelines set by sections 552.261, 552.262, 552.263, 552.267, 552.268, 552.269.

Thank you for your attention to this and I expect to hear from your office within ten days.

Sincerely,

Ron C. West
6304 Glenview Drive
North Richland Hills, TX 76180
817-938-1383

The Response from City Secretary Patricia Hutson:

        This is such a non response that I sent the following to Ms. Hutson upon receipt of the above letter.

Dear Ms. Hutson,

I am in receipt of your letter dated 5/23/05 and find it to be non-responsive to my open records request.    Your response of "The information you have requested is available in the 2004-05 Annual Budget. The budget and ordinance adopting the budget is available on the city's website at www.nrhtx.com."   Appears to be both incorrect and incomplete.

In particular, item 1, specifically requests that I be permitted to see "Any document or documents enacted by the City Council that authorized or authorizes the transfer of moneys between city funds as applicable to the current year budget".  The prior sentence specifically requests copies of such documents.

The budget for this year was enacted on 9/13/04 under Ordinance #2802.  Per my request, I want to view that ordinance.

I have done extensive searches on the city's website and under the online code to no avail. 

I am also unable to find any reference to authority to transfer funds anywhere in the budget after
using the search facilities provided by Adobe.

This follow up is to request that you comply with my open records request and provide the documents
requested for my viewing or otherwise provide specific reference to pages on the website that can
be viewed that are responsive to my request.

Please either provide the required information or notify me as to when I can make arrangements to
view the information requested.

Regards,

Ron West
 

    As you can see, Open Records Requests are quiet tedious to initiate and often do not produce results even when the requested records exist.  The most interesting of my requests so far were sent in an attempt to see new laws that our City Council planned to enact during a time frame where citizens could comment on the ordinances.  After consultation with the State Attorney General, our city informed me that such information was electively not disclosed to citizens.  The current method in NRH is to post new laws on the Council Agenda and then to pass them without any provision for citizen input or comment.  This election shows just how closed our local government is and why reliance upon Open Records requests is a poor second to truly open and responsive city government.  (Incidentally, most cities do first readings and invite citizen comments prior to enacting new laws.)