| City Will Use Attorney General in Attempt to Block Release of Trinity Info |
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| by Sam Merten | Mon, Sep 17, 2007, 03:34 PM |
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The letter I received was dated Sept. 13 and was from Jesus Toscano, an administrative assistant with the City Attorney’s Office. Dear Mr. Merten: This letter responds to your open records request received by the City of It seemed as though I stumbled on something juicy, but I quickly learned I wasn’t the only one. The day after my request, Councilmember Angela Hunt submitted a request of her own. Dave Levinthal of the Dallas Morning News had also submitted a request on August 30. What are the odds? Apparently Levinthal relied on a source who tipped him to Hunt’s request because he submitted the exact same request, adding this at the end: “As this request is similar in content and scope to a request filed on this same day by City council member Angela Hunt, I further ask that the city treat this request with equal care and haste, and that material responsive to both of our requests be produced to each requestor at the same time.” So Hunt, Levinthal and I got this letter from the city along with a copy of the one they sent to Attorney General Greg Abbott and copies of each of our requests. The letter from the city to Abbott describes the concern by the City Attorney’s Office regarding some of the requested documents and cites Sections 552.107, 552.111 and 552.137 of the Public Information Act as reasons the information may be protected. Section 552.107 refers to protection of information within the attorney-client privilege and information ordered by a court to be kept confidential. Section 552.111 isn’t as straightforward. It says an interagency or intraagency memorandum or letter that would not be available by law to a party in litigation with the agency can be exempt from public disclosure. This is from the Public Information Handbook: …protects from disclosure intra-agency and interagency communications consisting of advice, opinion, or recommendations on policymaking matters of the governmental body at issue. The purpose of withholding advice, opinion, or recommendations under section 552.111 is “to encourage frank and open discussion within the agency in connection with its decision-making processes” pertaining to policy matters. Section 552.137 deals with the confidentiality of email addresses. Copies of the information and comments stating the reasons why the Act excepts the information from disclosure will be mailed to Abbott’s office by Sept. 20, according to the letter. Now I could be wrong and maybe there are some documents involved in pending litigation that are exempt from release, but this looks like a desperate attempt to keep information from the public before the Nov. 6 vote.
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Comments (3)
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written by Wylie H. , September 17, 2007 Simply despicable conduct on the part of the City. Not surprising, unfortunately.
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written by Sal "The Muckraker" Costello , September 18, 2007 Sam, Sam, Sam, You must be under the impression that we have an open government. No sir! They can drag out your request for months - as the AG digests the stall tactics. Just pay your taxes and be a good sheep now. : ) Sal Costello http://salcostello.blogspot.com/
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written by j ratliff , September 18, 2007 Unfortunately, Sam, your experience is not all that unusual. At least it seems that the city has finally stopped using the 3-year-old FBI investigation as a never-ending excuse for not being able to even process your request until some unspecified date in the future. The open records act is more of gamesmanship to the city than about real open government. Write comment
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On Aug. 29, I submitted an open records request in an effort to dig up some documents related to the Trinity River Project among other things. Then I received an interesting letter from the City of 
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