Public Information

As reported by The Austin Bulldog January 25, County Attorney David Escamilla is conducting an inquiry about a complaint that the Austin City Council may have violated the Texas Open Meetings Act.

This is a serious matter and the city is taking it seriously. In lieu of the private meetings that for years have been held among the mayor and council members to discuss items on the Thursday council meeting agendas, the council is now holding work sessions to discuss the agenda in posted open meetings.

If the mayor and council members should be found to have in fact violated the Act, they may be subject to criminal prosecution under Section 551.143 of the Government Code, a misdemeanor punishable by a fine of not less than $100 or more than $500; confinement in the county jail for not less than one month or more than six months; or both the fine and confinement.

The Austin Bulldog is publishing selected text excerpts from each of the exclusive interviews conducted with the council members before breaking the story. The complete copyrighted MP3 audio file for each interview is linked at the bottom of each article for easy access. You may listen to these recordings to gain a better understanding of the published excepts within the context of the complete interview.

Council Member Bill Spelman was interviewed in his office at City Hall on Monday, January 24, 2011. The recording runs 38 minutes 52 seconds.

The Austin Bulldog: 
I don't want to take too much of your time so let's jump right in. As I said in my e-mail requesting an interview I'm developing story about working relationships among the mayor and the council members and understanding how these folks work together to develop public policies. One thing that stands out of my mind is the four of you are pretty transparent on how you spend your time on council duties because you publish your calendars online.

Bill Spelman:
 Right.

The Austin Bulldog: 
Do you have any ideas about why (Mayor) Lee (Leffingwell), (Mayor Pro Tem) Mike (Martinez) and (Council Member) Sheryl (Cole) don't publish their calendars?

Last Tuesday night’s meeting of the Georgetown City Council had its tense moments, as several motions died aborning, without even winning the second needed to open a discussion.

Council Member Patty Eason’s Agenda Item Q drew about a dozen citizens to the meeting:

“Discussion regarding public concerns relating to press reports about improprieties in the conduct of certain city business over which the Council exercises authority and for which Council is responsible.”

Early in the meeting, under action from the council’s executive session discussions, Eason offered a motion to direct city staff to hire independent counsel to research City Attorney Mark Sokolow’s employment agreement to determine its validity, who wrote the agreement, and the timeline and sequence of events leading up to its execution.

Eason’s motion would have further tasked the independent counsel to investigate the hiring of Assistant City Attorney Bridget Chapman.

Pat Berryman, who is serving in her second term as a member of the Georgetown City Council, was paid a lump sum of $13,600 by the City of Georgetown in an apparent violation of the Texas Constitution.

The payment was requested by Berryman as reimbursement of expenses from July 2008 through December 2009.

The payment is reflected in a copy of Council Member Berryman’s city payroll record obtained from the City of Georgetown using the Texas Public Information Act.

During the entire period for which Berryman claimed reimbursement, she was a state employee working for State Senator Steve Ogden (R-Bryan), according to state payroll records obtained from the Secretary of the Texas Senate through an open records request.

Section 40(b) of the Texas Constitution prohibits a state employee who is a member of a governing body from drawing a salary. A state employee serving as a council member may be reimbursed for actual expenses but must prove that the expenses equal or exceed the amount reimbursed.

Council Member Berryman has not met that requirement.

The $13,600 she was paid represents 17 months at $800 a month.

Berryman’s e-mail to Sokolow lists 16 items, or types of expenses. The e-mail provides no indication of the amount of expenses incurred for any or all of these items. Berryman provided no receipts for the stated expenses.

The new schedule was based on recommendations of a compensation committee appointed by the council to study the matter.

The compensation schedule authorized:

• “Base compensation” of $450 a month for the mayor and $300 a month for each of the seven council members.

• An “optional stipend” of $800 a month for the mayor and council members.

The minutes of that council meeting do not fully explain the compensation, but the minutes specify—as the compensation committee recommended—that the mayor and council members “would not be required to explain their reason for accepting the stipend.”

To facilitate these payments, the city devised a form that provided boxes to be checked, to either accept or decline each form of compensation

A warning was printed on the form: