Updated Information on HB305

January 27, 2005

    This is full copy of an exchange between myself and Christie Goodman, Chief of Staff for Representative Goodman, regarding HB305.  I believe that the intent of the legislation may be good but please read this for yourself.  One thing is sure, Christie is responsive to our input.  What we do not want, is for our elected officials to construe this bill in some way to avoid the requirements of open meetings.

----Original Message-----

From: rcw@ronwest.org [mailto:rcw@ronwest.org] 

Sent: Friday, January 14, 2005 10:31 AM

To: Toby Goodman

Subject: Web E-mail Feedback

E-mail Address:  rcw@ronwest.org 

 Name:  Mr. Ron West 

  Inetmail: Subject:  HB305 

Dear Representative Goodman,

As a citizen of this state and a resident of NRH, I cannot tell you just

how dangerous your HB305 is to open government.  Our city is basically

closed to the citizens and controlled by a majority on the council that

flouts open meeting regulations already.  We have a city charter that is

routinely violated and a city attorney tells us to hire an attorney to

find out who enforces the charter.

 If anything, our laws need to be strengthened regarding open 

meetings and open records.  We need accountability for city charters and

definitions of who will enforce the laws.  As this is written, city

councils can violate laws, ignore state laws, violate ethics and no one

is responsible for enforcing anything.

I urge you to consider pulling HB305 because city councils don't need

any help in further closing our local governments,

Regards, 

Ron West

817-284-3645

RE: Web E-mail Feedback

From: Toby.Goodman@house.state.tx.us

10:09 AM

To:  rcw@ronwest.org

I am studying the impact of HB 305 at this time and will make a decision

on this bill in the next few weeks.

Rep. Toby Goodman

Christie Goodman wrote:

Mr. Ron West,

My name is Christie Goodman, and I act as Chief of Staff for Representative Goodman.  I am responding to your e-mail concerning HB 305 and the recent editorial in the Fort Worth Star Telegram.  I do not know if you have read the bill language, but if you have not, then I would encourage you to read the bill in its entirety.  HB 305 actually goes farther in attempting to correct the problems that you outline in your e-mail.  I will attempt to answer all your questions and concerns, as they were written in your e-mail.  I first should begin by stating that I attended the Open Meetings conference that Representative Goodman discussed in his editorial.  I had read the Open Meetings Act prior to attending this conference, however I was surprised to learn that there are a number of interpretations of the Act.  Unfortunately, the Attorney General's Office is often unable to provide governmental entities with definite answers to their questions regarding open meetings.  The law is ambiguous and it is often left to the interpretation of the individual governmental entity's attorney.  There is a vast difference in the interpretations of this Act.  You provided an example of how one governmental entity may interpret this Act rather liberally.  Likewise, there are cities and other governmental entities that interpret this Act extremely conservatively.  The intent of HB 305 was to tighten the Act, so that such broad interpretations of the Act where not available to governmental entities.  The specific situation that you outline would clearly violate Section 551.143 (c) (3),  if this legislation passed.  There would be no room for broad interpretation.  The section reads as follows:

 (c)  Subsection (a) does not prohibit a group of members of a governmental body from meeting in numbers less than a quorum to discuss public business or public policy over which the governmental body has supervision or control if: (3)  the content of the discussion is not privately shared or discussed with any member of the governmental body not present before the information is shared or discussed with a quorum of the governmental body in an open meeting.

 Therefore, it is clear that the type of situation you outlined would be a violation.  The city manager might have the ability to have an exchange of information with a councilmember, however the city manager could not then take that information to any other council member prior to an open meeting.  I am currently working with a number of groups regarding the language of this legislation.  If you believe that there is specific language in the bill that could be changed to tighten up the intent, please feel free to call or e-mail me with such language changes.

 You also stated that legislation should be passed that would clearly define who oversees city government.  I am not sure how to clarify this situation.  Currently, the law seems clear that possible violations of the Act by city governmental entities are reported directly to the District Attorney.  The District Attorney is charged with investigation of such potential crimes.  I am not sure if you would like to change that line of authority, so that some other entity would be responsible.  If you think that some other entity should be faced with that responsibility, I would be happy to listen to your suggestion.  Otherwise, the law would remain as it is with a citizen making complaints to the District Attorney and the District Attorney making a determination as to if the complaint warrants investigation and if a subsequent investigation warrants charges.

 I appreciate your concern about this legislation and would like to assure you that we have been, and continue to seek input from all stakeholders in an attempt to define a clear piece of legislation that would not violate the intent or spirit of the Open Meetings Act.  I have included a link below that should take you to HB 305 text.  Please feel free to call me or e-mail me with suggested language changes that might help tighten the legislation.

 79(R) HB305 Introduced - Bill Text

 Christie Goodman

Legislative Liason

Office of Representative

Toby Goodman

512-463-0562

 Dear Christie,
It is very nice of you to respond to my email.  That is refreshing since in our city, the Mayor has encourage all council members to disregard
input from anyone who disagrees with them on any subject.  Per your invitation I would like to see the following verbiage added:

(c)  Subsection (a) does not prohibit a group of members of a governmental body from meeting in numbers less than a quorum to discuss public business or public policy over which the governmental body has supervision or control if: (3)  the content of the discussion is not privately shared or discussed with any member of the governmental body not present before the information is shared or discussed with a quorum of the governmental body in an open meeting.  (4) this specifically prohibits the one by one communication from one city official to another via any method in order to avoid open meetings violations. 
I am not a lawyer so this language should probably be addressed by a qualified person but you can see what we need in North Richland Hills, Texas.

Further as to enforcement actions, we desperately need a way to escalate complaints to the Attorney General of Texas.  Currently, most District Attorneys (all elective) are closely allied with the various elected officials in their counties.  They have a vested interest in support such elected officials and this can and does include ignoring complaints from citizens.  In Tarrant County, the District Attorney is virtually unreachable and his underlings routinely discard complaints without investigation or consideration.

I will read the entire text of this bill and may contact you further with your permission.

Thanks again for the response. 

Ron West
817-938-1383
Publisher of NRHOnline

-------- Original Message --------

Ron,

I apologize for my late response to your last e-mail.  I would like you to know that it is of the utmost importance to Representative Goodman that we listen and hear the voices of his constituents.  While, you are not a constituent of Representative Goodman, this legislation would affect you, and it is important that we consider your concerns.  I encourage you to continue to remain involved in the process.

 We are still looking at language to tighten up the intent.  When Representative Goodman was first constructing language, he looked at including language that included a number (4) that would have read: "the members of involved are not knowingly conspiring to circumvent the chapter."  However, he decided against adding the language because the language already exists in (a) of the chapter.  Therefore, it seemed redundant at the time.  Representative Goodman is not opposed to including such language if it would be helpful.  The specific language that you outlined is very similar to (3), therefore there is a question of redundancy.  The language in (3) very specifically points out that it is a violation, if the members of the group extend the information to any other member of a governmental body before an open meeting.  I am currently working with a number of individuals to tighten up the language, and perhaps the language you suggested could be used as an extension to (3).  I'm not sure it is needed independently.  Additionally, I'm not sure that it does anything that we are not already doing. 

 The Office of the Attorney General has developed a "Open Government" division.  There has been limited discussion regarding extending their power.  However there is not a bill, that I am aware of, to extend the power of the Office of the Attorney General, at this time.  I have included a link below that should take you to the Open Government Division of the Attorney General's Office.

 Texas Attorney General

 Please do not hesitate to call or write to me with any additional concerns regarding HB 305.  I hope that I have been helpful in addressing some of your concerns.