Tag Archives: Open Meetings Law

local news, media news

When to close an ‘open meeting’

I tend to view the provisions of the Texas Open Meetings Act through a fairly strict prism, meaning that exemptions granted should be interpreted strictly.

What do I mean? The act allows governments to close their meetings to the public when discussing pending litigation, real estate transactions or personnel matters. It’s the last of those provisions that has caught my attention.

The Princeton City Council plans to go into closed session soon to discuss who it wants to select as its Place 4 council member, replacing Keven Underwood, who resigned from the council after serving nearly three years; Underwood is battling some health issues … and I certainly wish him well as he continues that fight.

But is a city council member the same as, say, the police chief, the fire chief, the city manager or any other full-time paid staffer who draws a paycheck from City Hall? I submit that, no — he or she is not the same.

Which brings me to my point about the Open Meetings Law. Its exemptions are understandable and are more or less clearcut.

I long have interpreted the law to exempt discussions involving the disciplining of city employees, or their hiring and firing. I never have considered a member of the governing body to fall under the “personnel” provision used to talk about a pending appointment to that very governing body.

I am going to presume the Princeton City Council consulted with its legal counsel on this matter before deciding to go into executive session to talk about Underwood’s successor. And that the city attorney gave his blessing to the decision to keep it secret.

I also get that the council members are entitled to speak candidly about potential applicants and perhaps don’t want their true feelings about an individual to be known by everyone in town.

It’s just that the city council is not a “paid position” the way someone who answers to a municipal administrator is paid. The city councilman or woman is the “boss” at City Hall … and doesn’t belong in the same category of employee as the people who report to the council.

Thus, these laws designed to keep matters crystal clear at times get a bit murky.

education news

Be careful with Open Meetings Law

You run into this once in a while: a governing body will convene an executive (or closed) meeting to discuss something that in the strictest sense of the word doesn’t qualify as an item worthy of such secrecy.

It happened the other evening at a Princeton (Texas) school board meeting that I happened to be attending.

The Princeton Independent School District board of trustees met in regular session to discuss school business. During the course of the meeting, the board convened three executive sessions to discuss employee grievances; it’s all according to the Open Meetings Law that governs public governing bodies’ conduct. The board convened an executive session then reconvened its public meeting to vote on what it had discussed in secret. Then it went back into private session. This happened three times.

Then the board welcomed two new members who were elected in Nov. 8 school district trustee election. They swore them in and bid goodbye to two outgoing trustees.

The board then convened a fourth secret session. Why? To discuss election of its officers for the coming term. I believe that fourth session was an inappropriate reason to convene an executive session. Trustees cited personnel matters as their reason for speaking out of public earshot. That’s not right.

Personnel matters, as I interpret the Open Meetings Law, deal with paid employees. They do not cover elected officials’ duties. A better way for the board to handle it would have been to keep meeting in public and then go through the motions of selecting a board president, vice president and secretary.

Now, in the grand scheme this isn’t a scandalous breach of transparency. It was a routine process that boards such as the Princeton ISD board go through every year.

Taking this routine matter into the closet, though, was an unnecessary attempt to shroud it in secrecy.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

education news, local news

When does ‘informal’ allow for secrecy?

Lubbock, we might have a problem.

The Texas Tech University System Board of Regents well might have violated a key provision in the Texas Open Meetings Law when it cast an “informal vote” in executive — or secret — session that gave Chancellor Bob Duncan a vote of no confidence.

The regents, meeting in Lubbock, voted 5-4 in delivering the no confidence declaration. Duncan, who’s been chancellor of the university for four years, then announced his retirement effective at the end of August.

The Open Meetings Law is pretty clear. It says that governing boards cannot cast votes in secret. They can deliberate out of public view, but must vote in the open.

It has been reported that regents voted “informally” in secret. As I understand the law, that’s a non-starter, folks.

Here is how AGN Media reported it: Duncan on Monday, a few days following that vote in executive session, announced his retirement after four years as chancellor of the Texas Tech University System.

For that matter, what in the name of transparency does an “informal” vote mean? Does it mean that the board can change its mind? Or that it really didn’t mean to deliver the no confidence vote in the first place? Or … that it’s all open to negotiation?

I seriously doubt the Open Meetings Law makes exceptions for “informal” votes.

As one with a keen interest in these sorts of matters, I would appreciate a thorough explanation. So would the rest of the Texas Tech University constituency.

I’m all ears.

local news

Code of conduct? Go for it!

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Amarillo’s City Council might be heading for perhaps its most productive round of change yet.

Council members are considering the adoption of a code of conduct for the governing body.

The five-member body met in a work session and decided to consider such a code that governs now council members interact with the public, city staff and each other — and how the council should operate in executive, or closed, session. As Councilman Brian Eades — the council’s senior member — noted of the proposed code of conduct, “It’s something we’ve never had to have before.”

Perhaps it’s time.

Yes, council members have behaved badly at times since the new crew took office this past spring. There’s been a good bit of public sniping, some snarkiness among council members and allegedly some hard feelings among council members and certain city staff members.

The code ought to include how the council should conduct itself when it’s meeting officially in public session. It also ought to stipulate — and I do not know if city guidelines do so already — that council members should not interfere with staffers’ performance of their duties as instructed by their administrative supervisors.

I had heard through some back channels that there had been a bit of administrative meddling from council members in that regard; if so, that has to stop.

The three newest council members ran on a platform of “change.” Some of it has been good; some of it has been, well, weird.

If the change agents who were elected are ready to adopt a comprehensive code of conduct that ensures professionalism and collegiality — even in the face of disagreement — then the city will be making some serious progress.

Go for it, gentlemen.

 

local news

So many questions at City Hall

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Amarillo City Council members decided to start their new tenure off with far more than a bang.

It went off like a volcano.

Place 4 Councilman Mark Nair called for City Manager Jarrett Atkinson’s resignation. He was joined by his pal in Place 3, Randy Burkett. That’s two votes against the manager.

Where does a city councilman’s authority begin and end here? Can one, or two members of a five-member governing body make such a call?

The two men also called for the resignation of Assistant City Manager Vicki Covey, who then agreed to quit.

Given that the assistant city manager is hired by the city manager, do council members have any actual authority to call for a city manager subordinate to resign?

Suppose Atkinson doesn’t quit. Suppose he wants to go to the mat. He then can ask for a public airing of the grievances against him. State open meetings law exemptions do not require that personnel matters be kept secret; they only allow for it.

Would the City Council — in the interest of the transparency on which its three new members campaigned — be willing to discuss all this in the bright light of day?

The city is knee-deep — and maybe even deeper than that — in plans to redevelop its downtown district.

What does all of this mean to the city’s efforts and does it derail it if the top municipal administrator is no longer in the picture?

Change has arrived at City Hall. The new guys said they wanted to shake up the way things had been done.

Something tells me we’re about to see whether we reap the benefits of that change — or pay for it.