Commissioners skip open meeting notice requirements

ANGLETON — Several members of the Brazoria County commissioners court told The Facts that they did not interview county engineer candidates as a group to avoid complying with the Open Meetings Act.

The court voted in February to hire the mayor of Angleton for the job, even though he was never interviewed in an open meeting.

The new engineer also said he was asked to meet with two commissioners at a time for the job interviews so the court would not comprise a quorum.

“They didn’t break the law, but they violated the spirit of the law,” Wanda Garner Cash, president of the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas and TPA treasurer, told the newspaper. “Clearly, what the commissioners did was a subversion of the Open Meetings Act that guarantees public access to public business. Taxpayers should be concerned when their elected representatives look for ways to avoid complying with state law.”

Judge unseals terms of district’s settlement

GALVESTON — A U.S. District Judge made public the terms of a settlement between the Santa Fe school district a Jewish student’s parents who sued alleging the district did not protect him from harassment.

The district paid the family $325,000, half from tax dollars and half from its insurer. Both the district and family had declined to discuss the settlement.

The judge ruled the terms were public after the Houston Chronicle and The Galveston County Daily News filed petitions seeking the information’s release. Even though the family’s case was filed in federal law, the newspaper’s attorneys asked the judge to uphold the spirit of the state open records law that makes public terms reached between a public entity and another party.

Palacios council censures 1 of its own members

PALACIOS — The city council reprimanded one of its own members last month and passed a resolution censuring the man.

The resolution says the council member repeatedly violated the Open Meetings Act by discussing non-agenda items and showed disrespect for the mayor and other council members during meetings.

The city administrator said the councilman had made such statements on at least four separate occasions.

Lake group loses challenge

AUSTIN — A state district judge last month dismissed a legal challenge brought by the Friends of Canyon Lake against the Guadalupe-Blanco River Authority.

The lawsuit included allegations that the agency violated the Open Meetings Act by not properly posting an agenda when it voted to submit an application to the state for rights over a water pipeline.

The lawsuit may be the last challenge to the $75 million water pipeline proposal from Canyon Lake to Bulverde, Boerne, Fair Oaks Ranch and San Antonio.

Judge changes venue for daily’s libel case

TYLER — A visiting state district judge granted a change of venue request by the Houston Chronicle to move a libel case out of Smith County.

The court agreed to the change after finding that the reporter named in the suit lives in Parker County and other evidence the newspaper presented. Two Smith County prosecutors and a former chief prosecutor sued the newspaper and parent company Hearst Corp. for what they say were malicious statements published in a Sunday edition article.

UT board cannot meet in Mexico 

AUSTIN — The attorney general’s office ruled that the University of Texas System Board of Regents cannot hold a public meeting in Mexico even with videoconferencing.

Attorney General John Cornyn wrote the opinion and said the Open Meetings Act would prohibit the meeting “regardless of whether the board broadcasts the meeting by videoconferencing technology to all geographic areas in Texas where component institutions of the UT System are located.”

TV station seeks access to sexual assault tape

AUSTIN — A Brazos County district attorney planned to ask the attorney general’s office whether it had to release a videotape showing three men sexually assaulting an unconscious woman with various objects, The Bryan College Station Eagle reported.

KPRC/TV in Houston filed an open records request for the tape, which was introduced as evidence in the trial that resulted in conviction of the three men in February. The judge, attorneys and several witnesses viewed the tape but spectators were unable to watch when it was played for the jury in court.

The men made the tape in 2000 while sexually assaulting the woman who had passed out after a night of drinking. The tape later came into police possession during an unrelated investigation at the same house.