YOU ... break the law in TEXAS - if you just promise to not do it again and be good, well we'll toss the whole thing out. We paid for the investigation and any "defense" the members had. It's okay to break a law you know exists if you promise not to do it again, and take courses on understanding a law that understanding in the first place is a pre-requisite for serving.
Travis County attorney says he found open meetings violations but will not prosecute Austin City Council members
By Sarah Coppola
American-Statesman Staff
Travis County Attorney David Escamilla said Wednesday that his office found “multiple violations” of open meetings laws during its nearly two-year investigation of the Austin City Council.
But he said he decided not to file criminal charges in part because the council has taken steps to make its deliberations and records more public.
In a long written statement Wednesday — his first detailed comments about the inquiry since launching it in January 2011 — Escamilla said his office had reviewed more than 30,000 pages of notes, texts, emails, cellphone records and other documents from Austin council members. “We found that (they) regularly deliberated outside of the public’s purview by use of almost every modern communication medium that exists,” he said.
“We found probable cause to believe that multiple violations of the Texas Open Meetings Act had occurred.”
However, he said: “This was never an investigation into corrupt practices. There was never even a hint that any of the City Council members were involved in self-dealing, nor was there any evidence that any council member was engaging in these (private) deliberations in order to benefit a friend or political supporter.”
Seven current and former council members have signed “compliance agreements” with Escamilla in which they deny they broke any laws and agree to take courses in open government laws and to keep following such laws. In exchange, they will not face fines or charges.
If they fail to comply with those terms over the next two years, Escamilla said he could file criminal charges for new violations and any that were part of the original investigation.
Open meetings violations can carry fines of up to $500 and as many as six months in jail. Council members expressed relief that the inquiry has ended.
“I’m glad to have this matter resolved,” Council Member Chris Riley said in a statement Wednesday. “Our city government should always be open and accessible, and these agreements reflect our shared commitment to making sure it stays that way.”
Escamilla began the investigation after frequent City Council critic Brian Rodgers filed a complaint saying council members were routinely meeting privately, in groups of two or three, to discuss city business in the days leading up to council meetings.
Escamilla wanted to know if the council was trying to circumvent the Texas Open Meetings Act, which prohibits elected officials from secretly deliberating about upcoming votes and from creating “walking quorums,” in which they relay information to each other to know a vote’s outcome in advance.
Early on, council members turned over to Escamilla and reporters hundreds of emails, a few of which contained stinging remarks about city leaders and caused embarrassment at City Hall.
In each council member’s compliance agreement, Escamilla details examples of possible open-meetings violations he found, including four or more council members — a quorum — discussing significant city issues through phone calls and emails.
The issues include a possible settlement of a lawsuit over a fatal police shooting; a vote related to a controversial water treatment plant; and the job performance of City Manager Marc Ott.
Since the investigation began, the City Council has changed some of its open-government policies, including ending the small private meetings and instead holding public work sessions — long, wide-ranging discussions — two days before each council meeting.
The council also agreed to forward all future messages about city business sent to their private mobile devices to their city accounts so that those messages would clearly be subject to open records laws.
Escamilla cited those changes as among the reasons he decided not to file criminal charges. He also noted that prosecutions of open-meetings violations are rare and tough to prove; that the practice of meeting privately in small groups was in place long before the council members took office; and that the council was not entirely to blame for its open-meetings problems.
“Our investigation revealed that the council members were not well-served by city administration. We could not identify anyone at the city with meaningful responsibility for ensuring compliance with the Texas Open Meetings Act,” Escamilla said.
Escamilla said the city has agreed to: offer city employees more training on open government; improve how it retains and gathers records to respond to public-records requests; and create an executive-level job to ensure compliance with open meetings and open records laws.
Over the past two years, the City of Austin has spent about $383,000 out of contracts worth $444,000 hiring three private law firms to advise city officials and the City Council on Escamilla’s investigation and open-meetings matters. Escamilla hasn’t tallied how much his office spent on the inquiry, but said this summer that eight assistant county attorneys were working on it on an as-needed basis.
Every current council member except Kathie Tovo has signed the agreement with Escamilla; Tovo was not on the council when the inquiry began. Her predecessor, Randi Shade, has signed it.
http://www.statesman.com/news/news/l...eetings/nSnBG/
