From the AP, via The Star-Telegram:
DALLAS — A cement company has file a federal lawsuit alleging that Tarrant County and the cities of Fort Worth and Arlington, along with other area governments, violate state laws by giving preference during bidding to companies using cement made using environmentally friendly methods.
The firm in question is Ash Grove [...]
The campaign for speaker of the state House is in full swing, and it’ll soon be coming to a mailbox and answering machine near you, Bud Kennedy writes in the Star-Telegram:
Armed with a recent court ruling allowing a bombardment of campaign advertising, the Midland Republican’s friends are about to start calling and mailing us, [...]
A rural Texas school district with just 70 students in grades K-12 is facing permanent closure after the state yanked its funding, the Abilene Reporter-Newssays.
The school in question is the Star Independent School District in Mills County. The system will be looking to its neighbors to educate its students after 2010:
“It is heartbreaking because I [...]
Bexar County will begin posting campaign finance reports online, the San Antonio Express-News reports.
Five San Antonio bicycle patrol officers have been reassigned after suggestive photos of them in uniform surfaced on MySpace and were then aired by WOAI.
Open government is big part of our mission here at Texas Watchdog, and our story (and map) today are just our latest project. We’ve posted online the financial disclosure forms for state lawmakers and Houston city council members, and we’ve got more to come.
Here at Thanksgiving, we’re certainly thankful for Texas’ open records law. But many of the exemptions to the law are real turkeys, including one that allows records to be held if they’re deemed “intimate or embarrassing” to the people involved. Texas Watchdog takes a look at some of the public records people have asked to see in Texas lately and what the state attorney general’s office has said about whether they can see them — and we’ve plotted them on a map.
Oops: Blue Cross Blue Shield had wanted a $4.7 million tax break to build a data center in Fort Worth — but then Tarrant County officials found out that the insurance giant owes $5.2 million to the county hospital, the Star-Telegram reports.
Nov. 4 is long gone. So, does it really matter if the voter rolls are all up to date?
When are public officials going to learn to stop sending e-mails that offend others? Better yet, when are they going to learn that racist, sexist and/or sexually suggestive jokes just aren’t funny?
Twenty votes are in doubt and not much is at stake — oh, you know, just the control of the Texas legislature and a good chunk of the direction of the entire state for the next two years — in the court case going on in Dallas County over House District 105.
Tapes and transcripts of phone calls and conversations recorded by Corpus Christi’s police chief have been released to the public, and Chief Bryan Smith says he’ll retire Dec. 19. The Caller-Times has the transcripts and MP3s posted on its Web site.
From the Star-Telegram this morning:
More than a third of criminal records are missing from the online Department of Public Safety database available to the public, a Fort Worth company found in a study.
Even government agencies, which have access to more detailed criminal records to screen teachers, doctors, volunteers and tradespeople, use a DPS system fraught [...]
The Star-Telegram’s Aman Batheja is reporting how we’ve posted the financial disclosure forms for state office holders on our website:
In the movie All the President’s Men, a shadow-cloaked informant famously advises a young reporter to “Follow the money.”
In Texas, doing just that has gotten a little bit easier.
A Houston-based public information advocacy group recently posted the financial disclosure [...]
The University of Texas regents had a closed-door session last week to talk about laying off 3,800 people at the UT-run Galveston medical center. The Texas Daily Newspaper Association has written them to complain that the meeting may have broken the state sunshine law, and the university’s faculty group says it may sue.
From the Houston [...]
Just what did Police Chief Bryan Smith say? And why won’t anyone make the tapes public, some three weeks after the Caller-Times asked for their release?
Dallas County elections officials are gearing up for a review of the 6,000 voters that Texas Watchdog found may be deceased but still listed on the rolls.
In the meantime, the elections department says clerical errors explain many of the 81 instances Texas Watchdog found of people recorded as voting after death.
“It’s not an exact science,” [...]
If justice really isn’t blind, then it might want to cover its eyes for this one: There’s fist-banging, yelling and Biblical pseudonyms being used in this increasingly bizarre case.
As Richard Connelly wrote today on the Houston Press’ Hair Balls blog, “Who the hell pays any attention to what MUD directors do?” In this case, local prosecutors did.
From The Dallas Morning News:
AUSTIN – Two former inspectors for the Texas Education Agency sued the agency Thursday, alleging they were wrongfully fired for trying to investigate fraud and waste in the TEA and certain school districts – and then speaking out when their efforts were blocked.
The lawsuit by James Catazaro and Jim Lyde leveled [...]
In the wake of a dismal election, while facing the prospect of an intraparty civil war, Texas House Republicans certainly have a lot to talk about. But did they need to do it at an exclusive spa, while collecting gobs of corporate cash in return for access?
Republican bigwigs in the House met this week at [...]
The newspaper had pointed out a glaring conflict of interest in the appointment of the committee chairman — and instead of faulting the conflict of interest, the mayor is blaming the newspaper for pointing it out.
Video: Texas Watchdog’s inaugural investigative piece detailed top Bush money-man Stephen Payne’s close relationship with the White House — a relationship the White House took pains to distance itself from. Here is the video of The Times of London sting, featuring Stephen Payne.
