City entertains changing policy to open records requests

On March 21, Bandera City Council discussed a possible change to their Open Records Requests (ORR) policy under Chapter 1 General Provisions, Article 1.06 Records Management. The new ordinance would allow for Public Information Act request limitations as authorized by law.

Mayor Rebeca Gibson asked City Secretary Jill Shelton to lead the council through the development of the ordinance, which was put onto the agenda by Councilwoman Linda Palmer.

According to Shelton, the city office has been inundated with ORRs.

“We have had several people who continually flood our inbox with open records requests, she said.” During the last several months, I had over 35 requests, 23 of those being from one person. One of those requests alone was over 800 pages long on two different requests from the Dietrichs. I’ve spent weeks and weeks and weeks filling these requests, not only filling them but having to contact everyone on council, the city administrator, all staff members; and they just continue to keep coming in the same words, different words. So this is kinda’ just to stop that abuse, I guess you can call it, harassment.”

Shelton said she received a phone call last month by someone who said he was going to fill her inbox full of emails and keep her busy with ORRs for over a year.

“So I’m being called and threatened and it’s gotten to a point where I can’t get anything else done. So this is step one to stop people from doing this,” explained Shelton.

When asked by Councilman Jerry Russe what the new limit would be, Shelton told him it would limit the requests to 36 hours annually with a monthly time limit of 15 hours.

“It’s a two-step process. We have to adopt the ordinance first, then we can adopt the policy. This is how the attorney has suggested that we do this,” said Shelton.

Russe told Shelton his interpretation of the ordinance was that it did not actually limit a person to 15 hours per month, only that the city could start charging $15 per hour for the ORRs after the limit has been reached.

Shelton said that was not her understanding but could not verify with the city attorney because he was out due to a family emergency. She added the attorney already worked on the ordinance with City Administrator William Cox prior to the meeting.

According to Cox, the proposed ordinance was adopted from another city as they were going through their own growing pains.

“Charging for the ORRs after 15 hours might help, I guess, but is that what we’re trying to accomplish? That’s what I’m curious about,” stated Russe.

Palmer expressed she had hoped for the attorney to be present so that he could answer any of the council’s legal questions.

“My understanding is that it won’t stop people from filing ORRs, but they will be keeping track of the ORRs, who’s filing them and then the amount of time that’s going to be spent filing those ORRs. It’s costing the city as well as putting our city secretary behind on doing her dayto- day tasks. My intention is not to stop people from getting public information at all,” said Palmer.

“Nor do we have that ability,” added Gibson.

Council voted to table the discussion until the attorney could be present.

Before the close of the discussion, local resident Erick Matta, spoke to the council.

“I appreciate your candor, Mrs. Palmer, but I would say that it’s kind of concerning when the City Administrator is influencing policy. You guys are the policy makers. It’s highly unconstitutional and it’s really bad optics,” he said.

“So there’s no greater way than to be inundated and start passing ordinances like this. You can view this however you want, you can say that it’s abuse, but that is a right that citizens have, and it doesn’t matter how much people do that.”

Mata said state law does allow the city to charge, but it would open a “hornet’s nest” if approved and the power was abused.

“Your city secretary has a problem with it. I’m sorry, that’s the job. That’s just the way it is. It happens in cities, state governments, federal government, all over. It’s this sense of lack of transparency; it goes to some of the issues you guys are dealing with right now. You might not like it but you have to be transparent. It’s gonna’ look really bad for you guys,” he said.

The Texas Public Information Act, Texas Government Code Chapter 552, says that (a) 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. The provisions of this chapter shall be liberally construed to implement this policy.

(b) this chapter shall be liberally construed in favor of granting a request for information.