The Dallas Morning News writes about the Tarrant Regional Water District.
Read what the Water District spokesperson had to say. YOU can't afford not to.
Kudos to Dallas for having a real "news" paper. Y'all come back real soon!!
And for the rest of you, there's an election coming up. Pay attention!
Bennett’s lawsuit alleges that the real debate and discussion of water district business — decisions on the pipeline route and awarding of multi-million-dollar design, engineering and construction contracts — takes place not in the public meetings of the board of directors but in secret committee meetings.
Notices about the time, place and agenda of those committee meetings are neither posted publicly ahead of time nor do they appear on the water district’s web site, according to Chad Lorance, a spokesman for the water district.
A little background is in order here for readers unfamiliar with local governments in Texas.
The Texas Attorney General has ruled repeatedly that a governmental body such as a tax-supported water district cannot create committees to deal with a public issue and then allow the committees to meet in secret and make decisions in secret.
I asked Lorance for a legal rationale for why the water district’s committees should not be subject to the state open meetings law. He did not answer directly.
Instead, he cited another statute found in the Texas Water Code. It says, “A meeting of a committee of the board, or a committee composed of representatives of more than one board, where less than a quorum of any one board is present, is not subject to the provisions of the open meetings law.”
One could infer from Lorance’s citation that the water board committees purposely structure their meetings to include less than a quorum to avoid violating the open meetings law. But he did not say that.
“All 339 actions were unanimously adopted by the board,” the lawsuit concluded.
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