Chronicle of public information act request to Temple P.D.

Original Request

Reply

So I went to the Department to pick up the information and this is what I was furnished.
TempleResponse.pdf
While I was there, I noticed there was no sign posted. The Texas Public Information Act requires a government agency to display a sign that displays the rights of the requestor.

Nope, no sign. Here is a close up of the sign visible on the right of the photo:

The above was representative of the interaction I had with the department. The records guy was not very helpful but there is no sense in raising a fuss there, I followed up with another e-mail.

A few days later, I received this response from the "Office Assistant":

Here is the request - OPEN RECORDS REQUEST_041113SCAN.pdf
Here is the interesting thing about an AG request. Since the requester does not get a copy of the information, all an agency has to do is "forget" to send information in their possession and the AG rules only on information sent. If they only send information they know is exempt, the response is always in their favor or as they desire it to be.
The catch is, since it is not permissible to see what they sent, it is almost impossible to prove the information sought was not submitted for the AG to rule on.
The other problem is 99.9% of people who take the time to make a request give up after the initial rejection. It's not like the government would lie or do something unethical.
Sure enough this is the response from the AG:

The AG open records people crack me up sometimes. They are not stupid. You have to check the line that goes: However, you must release the basic information, including a detailed description of the offense, pursuant to section 552.108(c) of the Government Code.
Ms. Rodriguez is standing behind the police department and has not made "a detailed description of the offense" available. The response narrative said "See offense report" and the offense report narrative was determined to be excepted information.

On 4-26-13, I called to follow-up on the e-mail above and was told Ms. Rodriguez was in a meeting and unavailable. I left a message but she did not return my call by close of business. I was not particularly shocked about that.
I also filed a complaint with the County Attorney.

They did not have a clue what to do with this. After jacking me around for 45 minutes, a guy names Guess came out to talk to me. He acted like I was the stupidest person on the face of the planet. Then I received this response:

It must be great to be so important you have assistants to send e-mail on your behalf. Minor thing? Probably but here is the response I provided to the County Attorney.

As  of close of business on 4-26-2013, I have received no response to the above. Have no fear, I was not holding my breath on this one either.
Perhaps next week, almost a month after the initial request, someone with integrity will stand up and make the public information available.

Go-along Get-along and an IPad

For your consideration.
Waco Trib Opinion - The weeks long feud between fiscal-minded McLennan County commissioners and Precinct 7 Justice of the Peace Jean Laster Boone over her quest for a county-paid iPad had to end eventually.

The Trib overlooked a couple of things I think are important from the 3-19-2013 Meeting of the Court.

Judge Boone mentioned in her comments one Judge was using an IPad to do “Magistrations”.  This is the process of arraignment and setting bond for someone  arrested and charged with a crime. Taxpayers pay for a Jail Magistrate but on the weekends, the duty falls to a rotating list of Justices' of the Peace. Commissioner Jones in an attempt to make the problem go away, negotiated the purchase price down to less than $700.00.

This is important because later in the meeting. Commissioners approved $4,800.00 budget amendment from the Justice Technology fund for Justice of the Peace Precinct 5.

Here is where it gets interesting. Judge Boon had originally requested to use funds from the Technology fund and was denied. The Court has some interesting discussion between the two items.
1. Some evidence was offered that a $700.00 IPad might be able to do the same thing as the system which cost almost $5,000.00. Commissioners discussed this but offered that might not be the case.
2. It was pointed out the video system is dated as soon as it is installed and has been problematic since inception. Problematic to the point court testimony indicated one Judge refused to use the system.
3. Pct. 5 JP might not be assigned jail duties for a while making the approval less than immediately necessary. It was suggested, since there was time, to research if the equipment was really necessary. The County Judge intervened and saved the day causing Commissioners to approve the budget amendment and spend a bunch of money because that, rather than finding solutions to problems, is what they do best.

You are welcome to your opinion about whether an IPad is necessary but don’t think for a minute this had anything to do with fiscal responsibility on the part of the Court.

R.S. Gates on Residency

There was an article in the Waco Tribune-Herald recently where County Judge Scott Felton was quoted saying some applicants did not live in the precinct. Sure enough, I received the following inquiry from the judges’ office.

Some years ago, the court appointed a man to office  who turned out not to “live” in the precinct he was appointed to serve. At the time, I did not feel it was a concern of mine since that person was not my representative. When the court took action and made that elected official my elected official, I took issue with the residency.  A complaint was filed because the address used to establish residency didn’t even have a residence on it. It was unimproved land with a mailbox. Concerned citizens, three to be exact, filed a complaint with then District Attorney John Segrest. In his response, Mr. Segrest cited case law and determined case law indicated “intent” to reside at a location in the future was sufficient to meet the requirements of the law.  I was wrong and the appointed official was entirely within the law to claim the address to establish residency.

  In the interim, several candidates for office have had their residency challenged. None, that I am aware of, with any success .

Today I suspect the issue of my residency will come up so I wanted to take the opportunity to explain.

Over a year ago, my youngest child joined the Army. He was the last local grandchild of my in-laws living at home.  My in-laws have two younger grandchildren living in the Ft. Worth area.  There was some discussion of my in-laws moving closer to the grandchildren still living at home. At that time I decided we would move to their home in Eddy. It was closer to my work, had more acreage, a great garage among other things which would make it a prudent move for new empty nesters.

I believe much of the controversy related to residency issues is because those questioned about the issue take cover and avoid discussion. That is just not my style.  I am providing a public statement because I don’t have anything to hide.  If you believe the Texas residency law is overly broad, we agree. It is, however, the law.

Some may desire to interpret the law differently than in the past. I do tend to elicit some extraordinary circumstances but it really only highlights the hypocrisy of individuals terrified the person they dedicate so much time to vilifying  might have the opportunity to demonstrate how utterly silly they are being.

Decide for yourself.

Some you win.

I am always amazed how condescending government employees can be when confronted with a public information act request. They explain how they do this every day and attend annual training on the subject.

Take a moment to consider Attorney General Request #459770. An arrest affidavit was requested and when furnished, it had been redacted. Requestor was of the opinion that a document on which a magistrate relied to make a probable cause determination was not subject to redaction.

Please note the person who determined requestor was not entitled to the information was not some lowly clerk making just above minimum wage. Ms. Cost is a licensed attorney and Assistant General Counsel for the Texas Department of Public Safety.

It should be noted the communication related to this request were very professional and no implication otherwise is intended.

The point of this write up is simply that if an attorney can be wrong, and an average citizen prevail in an interpretation of the Texas Public Information Act, why would you take the word of a clerk in your local police department? Why would you rely on the determination by a city manager or your commissioner?

It is pretty common for the Office of the Attorney General to “gig” an agency who makes a request that has already been answered. In the letter above, that “gig” is found in the next to the last paragraph.
I have not read the original request referenced in that paragraph but it appears someone put together a scheme to dispense with dealing with all the annoying public information act requests. It appears the plan was to have an opinion on had so they could simply reject a request with no further scrutiny. The AG doesn’t do that.

  So does it sound like General Counsel Phillip Adkins (pictured left) is following the spirit of the the Texas Public Information Act?

From the Act: 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.

You have to wonder if Phil ever read that part of the law.

Absence of outrage.

What does $111,525.00 mean to an election?

For fiscal year 20111-2012, Commissioners’ Court authorized a budget of $111,525.00 for courthouse security.


The chart above shows the monthly budget was exceeded by 100% three months into the budget. The chief deputy campaigned for the Republican nomination for Sheriff as an experienced administrator. A novice administrator would have realized if they were spending twice the monthly budget three months into a 12 month budget, it would be prudent to advise the Commissioners’ Court of the potential shortfall.

While that did not happen until the budget was seriously in the red, this is where the real story starts.

The Chief Deputy received the endorsement of a local law enforcement association and some officers of that association were the beneficiaries through working security at the courthouse. Before you consider if the tax money was used to buy an endorsement, read the rest of the story.

The budget came up short by $2,107.50 at the end of April. There has been no real explanation provided for the violation of Texas Local Government Code 111.092.

Sec. 111.092.  DEPARTMENTAL EXPENSES NOT TO EXCEED APPROPRIATIONS.
The county auditor shall oversee the warrant process to ensure that the expenses of any department do not exceed the budget appropriations for that department.

County Auditor Stan Chambers said he advised the Sheriff to advise the Court in response to this request.

No record has been found indicating any member of the Commissioners’ Court was aware of the above letter. Instead, this is what was filed with the Court.

 

The budget information above was provided prior to consideration by the court but some additional information was included in the minutes found on-line.

Even though the email above indicates the information was in the possession of the respondent when the first public information act request was filed, it is not the first time information was withheld but later included in the minutes.

One last interesting point is 19th District Court Judge Ralph Strother appeared before the Commissioners’ Court to petition for additional funding for courthouse security. Judge Strother is the senior judge and basically the boss of the County Auditor. No one asked about compliance with Sec. 111.092. Neither did anyone ask the Judge why, when the Sheriff had established the precedent of expending forfeiture funds to cover deficits in courthouse security and Commissioners’ Court approved adding $50,000.00 to the budget, why was it the responsibility of the Court to pilfer other line items when the money existed.

You can decide for yourself. One explanation would be that the Sheriff could not petition the court for additional funds because that would call into question of his hand picked successor to manage the budget. The Sheriff then used forfeiture funds to cover the deficit to prevent the issue becoming public prior to the May 31st election.

One final note, the budget request for next fiscal year is $75,000.00. The Sheriff made the case that prosecutions by District Attorney Reyna was largely responsible for the increased budget expenditures. It was noted that they were holding two grand juries instead of one. No explanation was offered why it was prudent to reduce the budget by almost 50%. It was additionally noted that no more security expenditures would be necessary because the Sheriff is not going to cover the security with existing personnel. Again, you can decide if this is a direct result of there being no election to buy an endorsement for next year. Perhaps the district attorney is going to reduce crime by 50% next year and the additional courthouse security will not be necessary.

Apparently no McLennan County elected official or candidate is very concerned about it.  Now be a good little taxpayer and forget all about it and go read a story about TomKat divorce.

Parnell McNamara Fact Check

A reoccurring mantra in the local sheriff’s race is that Parnell McNamara is not a certified Texas police officer.

Here are a couple of things that might have slipped by the naysayers.

The City of Waco hired Alberto Melis as the Chief of Police a few years ago and he was then licensed in Florida. He was Chief of Police in the Lauderhill police department. Today, Chief Melis is the Chief in Douglas Arizona. Saying Parnell McNamara is not qualified is the same as saying the City of Waco hired a man unqualified for the position.

Even closer to home, when McLennan County Criminal District Attorney needed a Chief Investigator, he hired a retired Deputy U.S.  Marshall for the post.

Decide for yourself if it is important considering it was not a concern for the City of Waco or our own Criminal District Attorney.

The latest diatribe is kind of two fold. One that McNamara is promising much he will be unable to deliver and the converse that his plans will result in increased taxes.

It used to be a logical statement that only Commissioner’s Could raise taxes. That is to say the Sheriff could not raise taxes without the approval of the Commissioners’ Court. While factually true, McLennan county taxpayers have recently found two items, courthouse security expenditures and outside care of prisoners costs, where expenditures by the Sheriff have to be covered by the Court.

Those two items are not the source of the opposition to McNamara. Cited are his stated goal of increasing drug enforcement activities and in a recent Waco Trib letter to the editor, performing DWI blood draws at the County Jail.

Both of these go back to the original premise. McNamara would have to “sell” this to Commissioners’ Court to secure funding. It goes back to “checks and balances” forged by the founding fathers. 

Pursuit of knowledge

“Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.” James Madison

The thing that cripples many people when it comes to religion or politics is the fear of appearing to have a lack of knowledge on one subject or another. I prefer to look at it as only a fool professes to be all knowing.

I recently asked my county commissioner for clarification on an issue. He denied responsibility and when I offered evidence to support my position, he said “I am wasting my time talking to you. Get out of my office.” I remembered the county judge recently had a similar reaction to the local news media.

I am not foolish enough to believe an honest dialog can take place with a politician. It appears they are of the opinion if you don’t swallow their propaganda hook line and sinker, you are an idiot.

Consider the Favorite Quote on Kelly Snells’ Facebook page.

After visiting with Commissioner Snell, I can picture him longing for the days when Heretics were boiled in oil. Like he believes he is divinely endowed with the office and any question of his actions is heresy.

This is the actual quote, unmolested by the perversion of political delusion:

"Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds. The mediocre mind is incapable of understanding the man who refuses to bow blindly to conventional prejudices and chooses instead to express his opinions courageously and honestly."

--letter to Morris Raphael Cohen, professor emeritus of philosophy at the College of the City of New York, defending the controversial appointment of Bertrand Russell to a teaching position, March 19, 1940.

Snell was asked about a social media forum for the Commissioner Pct. 1 contest. His response “I said a long time ago I’m not going to be concerned by something I can’t control, and I can’t control what’s on a free Facebook page.”

Not surprising that this turned up.

Let there be no doubt, Kelly Snell REALLY likes Kelly Snell.

There were two specific items I was attempting to gain clarity on:
1. The Texas Constitution requires government to hold a public hearing before taking action to increase total tax revenue. That is a constitutional limitation on government. Notice the law does not say increase the tax rate, it covers any increase in revenue. You decide if the error is trivial.

2. On August 17th, 2011, a letter was drafted in the office of the Criminal District Attorney of McLennan County by Alex J. Bell. In the letter, he indicates the jail magistrate is in violation of the Texas Constitution for holding two offices of emolument. This appears to be a constitutional limitation on government. Commissioners voted to continue with the services of the magistrate even though the District Attorney's office said he was in violation of the Texas Constitution. Here is a link to that correspondence.
http://www.pasotx.com/Snell/DA%20Ltr%20081711.pdf