Judge orders newspapers to return DVDs with e-mails

From the Beeville Bee-Picayune

A district judge ordered an editor for the Beeville Bee-Picayune and a reporter for the Alice Echo News Journal to return DVDs containing personnel records and thousands of e-mails taken from Coastal Bend College without its permission last spring.

Bee County District Court Judge Mike Welborn ordered the newspapers and seven other individuals to turn the DVDs over to the Jim Wells County district clerk, which released the discs requested through the Texas Public Information Act.

The information on the discs, as well as any paper copies of the information on the discs, are to be temporarily sealed until a Jim Wells County district judge can review the information privately to determine whether it can be released to the public. A hearing was set for Aug. 6 in Judge Richard Terrell’s 79th District Court in Alice.

An attorney representing the college Philip McKinney filed for a temporary restraining order against the nine individuals in June in an attempt to halt the further distribution and dissemination of the information on the discs.

He said the information includes Social Security numbers and driver’s license numbers of numerous college staff, as well as e-mails between he and the college staff.

McKinney said those e-mails contain discussions and strategy he plans to use to defend the college in any lawsuits filed against the college by former employees.

McKinney, and his co-counsel Larry York, told Welborn that the information on the discs was stolen from Coastal Bend College in February by a former computer specialist.

Anthony Sanders, who was the college’s PC & network supervisor, admitted in court documents that he copied the files on a flash drive, or portable recording device, on Feb. 9 at the request of Kathryn Patton, personnel director for the college. He said Patton had asked him to “back-up” information on her computer.

Although his assistant did the actual work of copying information off of Patton’s computer, Sanders said he later copied the information on two DVDs, giving two to Patton and keeping a copy of each disc for himself.

Sanders said he made extra copies of the information because he believed the information was public information and because he believed the college staff was deleting or destroying the files to keep them out of the public domain.

Herald Democrat wins libel case over campaign coverage

SHERMAN — The Herald Democrat prevailed in a lawsuit filed against the paper by Roy Floyd of Bonham who accused the paper of libel in its coverage of accusations by political rivals that Floyd had removed campaign signs on election day in 2004.

In an opinion from the Court of Appeals, Sixth Appellate District of Texas stated “We agree with the Herald Democrat that Floyd presented no evidence of actual malice. Because this issue is dispositive, it is not necessary for us to decide the remaining issues raised by the Herald Democrat.”

The newspaper had appealed an earlier court’s ruling that denied the newspaper a summary judgment in the case.

City to pay former manager $250,000 in TOMA case

EDINBURG — A jury awarded former Elsa city manager Joel Homer Gonzalez $250,000 for his wrongful termination, The Monitor in McAllen reported.

Gonzalez sued the city in 2003, alleging that its leaders violated the Texas Open Meetings Act, Whistleblower Act and Public Information Act, according to a statement from Gonzalez ’s attorney, Michael Pruneda.

The case stems from a May 2003 legal opinion the Elsa city attorney issued saying then-mayor Tony Barco was working under a conflict of interest because he held city and county posts, according to Gonzalez ’s attorney.

The city fired Gonzalez shortly after a city commission meeting that was to have discussed the legal opinion. Gonzalez ’s attorney argued that the city fired him after he tried to stop that meeting because the notice had not been properly posted.

Former city attorney sues

EL PASO — Former El Paso City Attorney Lisa Elizondo, who last year accused Mayor John Cook of firing her out of ethnic prejudice in 2005 in a federal lawsuit, filed two more lawsuits against the city and the mayor last month, the El Paso Times reported.

In the two latest suits, one filed in 34th District Court and the other in County Court at Law No. 3, Elizondo charges that City Council violated the Texas Open Meetings Act on the day she was fired and that Cook slandered her by telling a former council member that she was having sexual relations with former Mayor Joe Wardy and the city’s former chief administrative officer.

Cook said none of the remarks Elizondo attributes to him in the lawsuits are true.

DA: School didn’t break law

GALVESTON — District Attorney Kurty Sistrunk did not find enough evidence to show that the school district violated the Open Meetings Act in the way it posted notice of a special May 2 meeting, The Daily News reported.

After the meeting, during which trustees voted on only two items, a resident complained that the district failed to post notice at least 72 hours beforehand, as the law requires.

According to Sistrunk’s investigation, the school district allegedly created the agenda at 11 a.m. April 30 — only 55 hours before the 6 p.m. meeting. However, he said it was possible for a computer-generated document ’s properties to indicate the latest time the document was altered and not the time of its creation.

DA: Cedar Park meeting OK

GEORGETOWN — Williamson County District Attorney John Bradley has closed an investigation into possible open meetings violations in Cedar Park and will not prosecute any officials, he said after meeting with the city attorney, the Austin American Statesman reported.

At least one city council member and a former mayor raised concerns in March about how executive session items were posted on the agenda.