The ill conceived ordinance that would have put the city in conflict with the Texas Public Information Act was taken off the table at this week’s city council meeting (3/5/2013).
The public and the newspapers did a good job on this one by paying attention to what council was up to and making our voices heard.
The item was originally placed on the February 26, 2013 agenda. The city representative from district 2 (soon to be termed out of office) made the motion to accept the proposed ordinance at its’ first reading. Council then decided to retire into executive session to get legal advice. When council came out of executive session the motion was passed unanimously without any discussion.
Then the public got involved.
The ordinance was on the March 5 agenda for the mandatory second reading. This time the same city representative asked that the item be removed from the agenda and re-written. The representative made comments about how the proposed ordinance did not accomplish what council was trying to do and how poorly worded it was. The city attorney offered to bring the author (from an out of town law firm) to the podium to try to explain what was written. The representative declined indicating that the wording was not salvageable. Council voted unanimously to delete the item from the agenda. The activist city attorney then asked if it would be acceptable to bring the issue back as a resolution instead of as an ordinance. Our city representative said yes.
What happened here?
Council loved the proposed ordinance before the public got involved. If they voted for the ordinance without reading it then we have one set of problems. I believe they knew what it said and were hoping to run it through council before we were aware.
Once the public got involved council ran from it like it was a Public Information Request.
Where was the city attorney on this? Why are we paying an out of town law firm to generate such junk?
This kind of thing goes on every week at city council.
Thankfully we got what we deserve this time.
That is until they try to sneak something through next time. It will probably be in the form of a resolution. Resolutions do not need public hearings so they can do this as part of a consent agenda.
We deserve better
Brutus
elpasospeak 