AG rules on candidate’s conversation with reporter

BELTON — A justice of the peace did not automatically resign by informing a newspaper reporter on Dec. 31 that he was running for another office, Attorney General Greg Abbott ruled.

The AG was responding to a request from the Bell County attorney who asked whether the JP’s statement to the newspaper amounted to a resignation.

“Assuming that the private conversation did not result in any publication of the information on Dec. 31, a finder of fact could reasonably conclude that there was no announcement on Dec. 31,” the AG wrote in Opinion No. GA-0210.

Under Texas Constitution Art. 16, Sec. 65, automatic resignation is triggered either by announcing one’s candidacy or by becoming a candidate.

The opinion said “We are not aware of any judicial or attorney general opinion addressing whether an office holder’s statement made privately to a reporter constitutes an announcement according to (the state constitution.)  However, prior opinions of the office indicate that an announcement must be both certain and public to trigger automatic resignation.”

 

Brownsville ISD keeps reporters out of meeting

BROWNSVILLE — Brownsville Independent School District officials may have violated open government laws by keeping reporters out of an otherwise public meeting, The Brownsville Herald reported.

School bus drivers were protesting a decision to suspend 170 jobs for the summer. They, along with the public, were invited into a meeting with administration officials, but police officers with the school district barred the media from entering the building.

School district officials refused to say who gave the order.

“It was a misunderstanding,” Drue Brown, the school district spokeswoman, told the Herald. “... That’s all we are going to say to it.”

State board members must attend training

AUSTIN — A Travis County judge dismissed charges against two State Board of Education members and one former member, alleging they violated the state’s open meetings laws during a lunch meeting almost four years ago, The Baytown Sun reported.

The two current state board members must take an open meetings class as part of an agreement made before the judge dropped the charges.

David Bradley, the Beaumont Republican who represents Baytown, was one of the three who met at an Austin deli in August 2000 with three potential financial advisers. Bradley and the others, Joe Bernal, D-San Antonio and former member Bob Offutt, R-San Antonio were indicted on class C misdemeanor changes in August 2002 along with the three advisers.

The members also on the board’s finance committee were reviewing the advisers investment performance of almost $2 billion in public funds, Bradley said. Since that time Bradley has maintained he did not circumvent the Texas Open Meetings Act.

For Bradley and Bernal, the agreement includes taking a 90-minute course related to the specific requirements of the Texas Open Meetings Act. Any Texas school board members who are new to their jobs must take a 60-minute course.

The other four men are prohibited from entering into any new contracts handling taxpayer money during the next year. For all six men, a conviction of anything more significant than a traffic violation also would mean a violation of the agreement.

12% fail to comply with senator’s request

AUSTIN — A state senator who authored the Texas racial profiling law said nearly 70 law enforcement agencies have failed to comply with his recent open records request for racial profiling data for 2002 and 2003, The Associated Press reported.

Racial profiling is a serious issue, said Sen. Royce West, D-Dallas. The Texas Legislature approved legislation that prohibits racial profiling, the targeting of people because of their race.

Agencies also are required to collect data on traffic stops resulting in traffic citations or arrests and to compile the data in annual reports and report it to local governing bodies.

West said he issued open records requests to nearly 600 police and sheriffs’ departments asking for the data. A second letter went out in June to about 140 departments that had not responded and the office said it has heard from about half of those.