Public Information

City Hosts Open Government Symposium

Lawyers attending for education credits abound,
much of day has little to do with city practices

Part 1 of a 3-Part Series

by Ken Martin
© The Austin Bulldog 2013
Posted Monday April 22, 2013 8:40am

“Under the fundamental philosophy of the American constitutional form of representative government that adheres to the principle that government is the servant and not the master of the people, it is the policy of this state that each person is entitled, unless otherwise expressly provided by law, at all times to complete information about the affairs of government and the official acts of public officials and employees. The people, in delegating authority, do not give their public servants the right to decide what is good for the people to know and what is not good for them to know. The people insist on remaining informed so that they may retain control over the instruments they have created.”
— Texas Public Information Act, Government Code Section 552.001(a).

Last week, the City of Austin demonstrated its renewed commitment to let citizens in on the process of governing. The City hosted a groundbreaking effort to focus public attention on the issues related to open government.

Hosting the symposium was a big step into the sunshine for a government agency that has gone through some traumatic experiences over the last couple of years.

Those experiences included a criminal investigation for violations of the Texas Open Meetings Act, which resulted in deferred prosecution agreements signed by the mayor and council members (except Kathie Tovo, who was elected after violations occurred), and a lawsuit filed by The Austin Bulldog that triggered major reforms in the city’s handling of electronic communications during the county attorney’s investigation. (More about that later.)

Mayor Lee Leffingwell read opening remarks Wednesday morning to a nearly empty City Council chamber. (Click link for video.)

“We believe that transparency fosters the public trust and it's very important to us,” Leffingwell said. The symposium offers “an opportunity to talk about the law and the process of open government and to learn from each other....”

It took the City of Austin 15 months to establish a formal procedure but, finally, the 368 members of the city’s 51 boards and commissions are going to be brought into the city’s e-mail system.

The action is needed to bring the city into compliance with the Texas Public Information Act by enabling the city to collect, assemble, and maintain e-mails about city business that board and commission members send or receive. This will allow the city to search the city’s server to find information responsive to public information requests and produce those records for inspection.

For many years the city’s website for each board and commission listed each member’s personal e-mail address.

“This is easily the most well thought-out policy addressing this issue, both from the private device/account and city server side, that I have seen,” said Joseph Larsen, special counsel to Sedgwick LLP. Larsen is an expert on open government laws and a volunteer attorney for the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas. “... overall I think this could serve as a template for policies for other City officers and employees and for other governmental bodies.”

This is the third and final phase of improving the city’s handling of electronic communications in response to our lawsuit, The Austin Bulldog v. Mayor Lee Leffingwell et al filed March 1, 2012, and the county attorney’s ongoing investigation of the City Council’s violations of the Texas Open Meetings Act that The Austin Bulldog exposed January 25, 2011.