Public Information
Auditor faults Austin’s public information process
Law Enforcement Lobby Blocking Family Access to Info About Deceased Suspects
Court Guts Open Meetings Act
Public Information Now Harder to Get
Tab for Public Records $133,000
New Public Info Procedure Questioned
Big Win for Public’s Right to Know
Big Win for Public’s Right to Know
No more hiding identities of the public officials
who do government business on private e-mails
by Ken Martin
© The Austin Bulldog 2016
Posted Monday April 11, 2016 2:09pm
Updated Tuesday April 12, 2016 10:54am (to add link to Corpus Christi Caller-Times coverage)
Updated Wednesday April 13, 2016 1:28pm (to add link to Watchdog.org Texas Bureau coverage)
Updated Thursday April 14, 2016 1:46pm (to add link to FierceGovernmentIT coverage)
Updated Wednesday April 20, 2016 3:07pm (to add link to FindLaw publication of opinion)
More than five years after The Austin Bulldog filed a lawsuit against Mayor Lee Leffingwell, the other six council members, and the City of Austin, the Austin-based Third Court of Appeals on April 8, 2016, handed down a landmark legal decision. The court ruled that government officials are not “members of the public” and when they use private e-mail accounts to conduct public business they will forfeit the right to keep their e-mail addresses concealed from the public.
The Third Court’s ruling advances the public’s interest in holding government officials accountable. The decision is of vital interest in government and legal circles, and it triggered a front-page story in the Austin American-Statesman as well as articles in both the Texas Tribune and Law360.com, a national publication covering the legal industry.
The decision serves notice to elected officials and others in government service that they ought to do the public’s business through their government-issued e-mail addresses—and not hide public information by using personal accounts.
“Any time a public official uses a private e-mail account for public business—that’s highly suspect,” said Attorney Joseph Larsen, special counsel to Sedgwick Law in Houston and a board member of the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas.
Decision will have wide impact
Daugherty’s Civil Case to Continue
Daugherty’s Civil Case to Continue
SOS Alliance also seeks a new special prosecutor and
judge to reinstate criminal complaint against Commissioner
by Ken Martin
© 2015 The Austin Bulldog
Posted Tuesday January 5, 2016 2:15pm
The Save Our Springs Alliance won a victory in the form of a December 10, 2015, ruling by District Judge Stephen Yelonosky that will allow a trial on the merits in the civil case against Travis County Precinct 3 Commissioner Gerald Daugherty.
If the case goes to trial the SOS Alliance will seek to persuade the court to order Commissioner Daugherty or Travis County, or both, to change policies enacted last spring regarding retention of and access to public records.
Bill Bunch, executive director of the SOS Alliance, told The Austin Bulldog he will seek a finding by the court that violations of the Texas Public Information Act did, in fact, occur.
Bunch said such a finding would provide a basis for changing the policies to make sure that no violations like this occur again in the future.
In the beginning the lawsuit was about whether Daugherty had properly complied with the Act by providing all records requested by the SOS Alliance May 31, 2013. In Daugherty’s deposition and a court hearing held July 13, 2015, it was clear that he had not done so, but those records are no longer available. The larger issue for the SOS Alliance was whether it could find ammunition in those records for slowing or halting plans to build State Highway 45 Southwest over the sensitive Barton Springs portion of the Edwards Aquifer.
The case for getting more records is now moot, but Bunch wants to prevent the commissioner and Travis County from ever again failing to retain public records or allowing their destruction.