Litigation

City Sued Over Public Records

Brian Rodgers lawsuit alleges failure to lawfully
respond to requests on three high-profile topics

by Ken Martin
© The Austin Bulldog 2015
Posted Friday, June 12, 2015 1:41am
Updated Saturday, June 13, 2015 2:57pm

Longtime civic activist Brian Rodgers filed a lawsuit late yesterday against the City of Austin over the city’s alleged failures to comply with the Texas Public Information Act (TPIA) in responding to his requests for records involving several controversial matters.

The lawsuit seeks an expedited hearing on a mandamus to order the City of Austin to supply all information that Rodgers asked for in three public information requests.

“This lawsuit demonstrates that the claim by management of the City of Austin that it is dedicated to ‘transparency and accountability’ is a farce,” states the lawsuit, filed on behalf of Rodgers by attorney Bill Aleshire of Aleshire Law PC. (Brian Rodgers, Plaintiff, v. The City of Austin, Defendant, Cause No. D-1-GN-15-002291.) Aleshire represented The Austin Bulldog in two TPIA lawsuits against the City of Austin in 2011.

Rodgers’ public information requests involved:

• Correspondence between City officials and the Downtown Austin Alliance while plans for a light-rail election were being devised.

• Records about how the plan was formulated to allow some 700 acres of Walter E. Long parkland to be turned over to a for-profit developer without getting voter approval as required by the Austin City Charter.

• Records about the city’s failure to timely respond to notice from the Texas Department of Transportation and losing the opportunity to purchase surplus property on Bull Creek Road that could have been developed as a park but instead went to a private, for-profit developer.

Aleshire e-mailed a copy of the lawsuit to Mayor Steve Adler late Thursday. The Austin Bulldog e-mailed a request for the mayor’s comments  Thursday evening. Adler did not immediately respond to the e-mail. or a voice mail message left for one of the mayor’s staff members.

Late Friday afternoon, an Adler staff member sent a prepared statement from Adler: “I can’t comment on pending litigation, but the City of Austin should and must comply with all provisions of the Texas Public Information Act, including the production of responsive information when sought by the general public.”

City’s inattention, inaction unlawful

Locals United Against Citizens United

Pay 2 Play documentary, panel discussion focus
on reducing influence of big money in elections

by Ken Martin
© The Austin Bulldog 2015
Posted Friday January 23, 2015 11:52am
Updated Friday January 23, 2015 12:24pm

On the fifth anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s January 21, 2010, decision in Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission, a sold-out showing of a documentary, followed by an hour-long panel discussion, indicates there is considerable local interest in overturning corporate personhood and money as free speech.

The film by John Ennis, Pay 2 Play: Democracy’s High Stakes, released in September 2014, was shown to a full house of about a hundred people at the Alamo Drafthouse Village Wednesday evening. The 90-minute documentary focuses on multiple congressional elections in Ohio, the corrosive effects of unlimited spending from such figures as the Koch Brothers, and features numerous nationally known experts, among them Professor Noam Chomsky, Professor Lawrence Lessig, economist Robert Reich, and convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

The film asserts that for corporations, politics is a game akin to Monopoly that is rigged in their favor. The film also focuses on numerous ways that people are engaging in political struggles across the country to fight back, from the Occupy movement to street artists, from candidates running for office to public protests.

Zimmerman Lawsuit Dismissed and Sanctioned

The Austin Bulldog’s anti-SLAPP motion approved
after second hearing, damages and cost assessed

by Ken Martin
© The Austin Bulldog 2014
Posted Wednesday January 7, 2015 3:02pm
Updated Wednesday January 7, 2015 4:22pm to define SLAPP

Council Member Don Zimmerman’s defamation lawsuit against The Austin Bulldog was dismissed today by Judge Amy Clark Meachum of the 201st District Court, based on approval of The Austin Bulldog’s anti-SLAPP motion (to dismiss a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation).

Zimmerman filed the lawsuit October 15, 2014, during his election campaign, in response to The Austin Bulldog’s article published October 9, 2014. The article was based on court records that say the court ordered he “shall have no possession of or access to” the minor child. The petition that led to the court order states, “Respondent (Zimmerman) has a history or pattern of physical and emotional abuse directed against M.Z. (his daughter Marina Zimmerman).” On June 16, 2014, Zimmerman signed and approved an Agreed Order stating the “Court finds that the material allegations in the petition are true.”

Judge Meachum awarded defendant Austin Investigative Reporting Project (dba The Austin Bulldog) $8,400 in attorney’s fees for the work of Peter D. Kennedy of Graves Dougherty Hearon & Moody PC, who represented the Bulldog, plus court costs and other expenses of $579, and a sanction of $1,000.

The ruling followed two hearings, held December 18 and January 5, concerning The Austin Bulldog’s motion to dismiss Zimmerman’s lawsuit under the Texas Citizens Participation Act, enacted in 2011 “to encourage and safeguard the constitutional rights of persons to petition, speak freely, associate freely, and otherwise participate in government to the maximum extent permitted by law and, at the same time, protect the rights of a person to file meritorius lawsuits for demonstrable injury.”

Section 27.009 of the Act states if the court orders dismissal the court “shall award” court costs, reasonable attorney’s fees, other expenses, and “sanctions against the party who brought the legal action as the court determines sufficient to deter the party ... from bringing similar actions described in this chapter.”