I've seen and heard a lot of people doing crazy things to withhold public records, but what I read this morning may just take the cake as the craziest one of all: A city government in Texas wants to keep confidential -- get this -- its policy on public records.

The setting for this insanity, however, does not surprise me at all: Corpus Christi. Is pollution from the refineries so bad down there that it has turned to mush the brains of the people at City Hall?

The city previously coughed up its public information policy back in January -- it only took 'em 15 days to do so. And the city previously tried to withhold city elected officials' home addresses from their ethics disclosure forms after Texas Watchdog sought copies of the forms -- the state attorney general eventually told the city they could not redact the addresses.

If there is a good part about this Corpus Christi craziness, it's the work of the Caller-Times newspaper dogging the city on these issues, particularly local government reporter Sara Foley, a former Galveston reporter of whose watchdog work I am a big fan.

You might remember this Caller-Times story from the summer:

Corpus Christi’s legal department fought to withhold information readily available on the city’s Web site.

City legal staff members also sought to withhold information requested about companies seeking to do business with the city, when the companies had no objection to the information being released.

In those instances and several others, the state Attorney General told the city it had to release the information. Rulings often came weeks or months after requests were submitted for information at City Hall under the Texas Public Information Act.

And another Foley story from just this past weekend:

The city isn’t releasing copies of the bids submitted for Memorial Coliseum redevelopment, though one developer gave the city extra copies to distribute to interested residents.

So, Corpus readers out there, what has gotten into your elected leaders? Is this really how you wanted them to run your city when you elected them? Are you really OK with them withholding basic public information? Please feel free to comment below.

[ad#ad1forposts]