Thanks to a Port Corpus Christi committee, not even Keanu Reeves will be able to figure out the matrix.

Corpus Christi's matrix appeared briefly on a dry-erase board and, according to eyewitnesses, was said to be nearly as complicated as the classic 1999 sci-fi movie featuring Reeves as the intrepid anti-hero, Neo. Then, in a few broad strokes of an eraser, the matrix was gone.

The Corpus Christi Caller-Times is calling the erasure a not-so-special effect. The newspaper's story questions whether the port committee skirted the Texas Public Information Act by discussing the merits of five companies bidding to buy and redevelop the port's Naval Station Ingleside property, ranking them in a matrix on a dry-erase board and erasing them during meetings in late July.

Joe Larsen, a First Amendment lawyer with the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas, told the paper government agencies have increasingly turned to methods that insure they leave no written record that could be retrieved by a citizen under the Public Information Act.

John LaRue, executive director for the port, insisted the use of the eraser board was not intended to deny the public a glimpse of its matrix. Instead, it was a way for the committee to keep straight evaluations it was making after discussions with representatives of each of the companies.