The City of El Paso is now suing the Texas Attorney General to try to avoid turning over emails and other documents that were requested for a citizen back in September.
According to the El Paso Times the city claims that “the personal emails, letters, memos and other documents of the mayor and City Council members should not be subject to public information searches even if they regard city business”. Also requested were copies of communications between city officials and business people linked to the Triple-A baseball team. According to the Times the city issued a statement saying “Those documents do not meet the statutory definition of public information”.
The Attorney General has ruled to the contrary and has told the city to turn over the documents. The basic path that the Attorney General applies to the Public Information Act request in cases like this is:
- Does the city have the information (and it is not a violation of a person’s right to privacy)? If so, turn it over.
- Does the city pay for or control the email account being used? If so, turn it over.
- If the email account is paid for privately, does the email discuss city business? If so, turn it over.
Another case like this has already gone to court and the judge ordered the information to be turned over. The case is now on appeal.
It looks like the city will lose this court case. So why are they challenging the Attorney General, especially if nothing is wrong?
Could it be the principal of the thing? Preposterous! The law is clear, the case law is clear, and I have not seen much evidence that the people running the city can even spell principal, much less have one.
What are they trying to hide? This tactic will allow them to delay, but why? Have they violated a law? Are they worried about their images in the next election?
As far as the communications between the city staff and business people, they should be turned over without delay if they were discussing city matters or if city email accounts were used. The law is clear on this.
A committee in the legislature is even considering changes to the law, in part to make clear that the modern methods of communication (text messaging, emails) are specifically included in the law. Currently the possession of and content of messages become the basis for declaring them to be public information.
Think about what the city wants to do. If a government official can conduct government business in secret on his or her own device, what will keep them from doing everything that way? That would be wrong.
Why are they spending our money on a high profile case with out of town lawyers when the intent of the law is clear and they will ultimately have to turn over the documents? Why do they want to keep these documents secret as long as they can? Who are they protecting?
I can only conclude that there is something they do not want us to know.
We will eventually.
We deserve better
elpasospeak 
I assume there is a voting record from CC on hiring their attorney and filing this case. This record needs to be exposed to see which CC members voted in favor of filing this lawsuit. Or will a open records request have to be submitted to get that information. This can be a very strong issue in the spring municipal elections…..as with for the Mayor’s race.
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