State’s chief election officer works to head off election misinformation

AUSTIN — Texas Secretary of State Ruth Hughs announced ahead of the 2020 primary and general elections that her office will join fellow members of the National Association of Secretaries of State in #TrustedInfo2020, a social media-based education effort to prevent misinformation.

Federal funds to assist county in buying out flood-prone properties

AUSTIN — Land Commissioner George P. Bush on Nov. 14 announced the Texas General Land Office's approval of $21,155,575 in Hurricane Harvey funds for Fort Bend County to conduct a buyout program.

In the late summer of 2017, record-heavy rainfall brought by Hurricane Harvey catastrophically flooded streets and homes. Fort Bend County will use the funds to conduct a buyout program targeting approximately 100 homes most vulnerable to flooding.

In explaining my work, I sometimes say that there are thousands of really good journalists in rural America, but all too often they are the only person in their newsroom that fits that description. They suffer from the isolation of rurality, with fewer opportunities than urbanites to rub shoulders and exchange ideas with their professional peers.

Q: When citizens are gathering petitions to call for a rollback election are there any restrictions on the use of county resources to create materials advocating the county’s position? What about after the rollback election has been called? Can you point me in the right direction for this?

For days, I had been planning my Thursday escape from the editor’s desk, determined to keep an appointment in Oklahoma City. As any native Texan should, I kept one wary eye on the weather forecast. 
Just four days earlier, I had covered our Fall Foliage Festival wearing shorts and flip-flops. But on Monday morning, the National Weather Service advised that a new weather system might bring light rain and snow to some parts of the Panhandle.

Voters approve 9 of 10 proposed constitutional amendments

AUSTIN — Voters rejected only one of 10 proposed amendments to the Texas Constitution in the statewide election held Nov. 5.

The House and Senate, in the 86th Regular Session of the Texas Legislature that ended in May, approved the propositions for voters to decide. Results are as follows:

Prop. 1, permitting a person to hold more than one office as a municipal judge at a time, failed with 681,139 “yes” votes — or 34.56 percent of votes cast — to 1,970,765 “no” votes or 65.44 percent.

Voters to decide on proposed amendments to state constitution

AUSTIN — The state's 10-day early voting period ran from Oct. 21 to Nov. 1 with Election Day on Nov. 5.

On the ballot are 10 proposed constitutional amendments, special elections and local political subdivision elections, including those for mayor, city council, school board, municipal utility districts and other local entities.

Governor issues disaster declaration for storm-stricken counties

AUSTIN — After severe weather struck north and east Texas on Oct. 20, Gov. Greg Abbott issued a disaster declaration naming a list of counties in that region.  

Among the counties named are: Cass, Collin, Dallas, Ellis, Erath, Hunt, Kaufman, Lamar, Panola, Rains, Rockwall, Rusk, Tarrant, Van Zandt and Wood.

Terrorism prevention programs across Texas to receive funding
AUSTIN — Gov. Greg Abbott on Oct. 15 announced $61.2 million in Homeland Security Grant Program funding to support state and local efforts to prevent terrorism and prepare for threats that pose the greatest risk to the security of Texans. 
The awards, released primarily to cities and counties across Texas, include 264 projects under the State Homeland Security Program and 136 projects through the Urban Area Security Initiative.

Q: One of the city councils we cover came out of executive session after one hour behind closed doors. A member then made a motion “to discuss what was discussed” in executive session. Another member seconded the motion. The question was put to a vote. It passed unanimously. But curiously, there was no further discussion. 
And to top it off, we asked for documents related to the matter and were told no such documents existed. However, as we eventually found out, the documents we requested did exist but we got them too late to include any details in our story.