A flaw in the process for pursuing open meetings violations has been illustrated by a case in Cameron County of inadequate notice for a San Benito meeting, the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas reports.
The Valley Morning Star had this summary of the case:
The Cameron County District Attorney’s Office has refused to prosecute a case filed by the Valley Morning Star accusing San Benito officials of violating the Texas Open Meetings Act, officials said Wednesday.
The Star filed the complaint in April accusing city commissioners of failing to disclose the nature of a discussion they held in a closed meeting on April 12.
As the foundation points out in the story and in its blog post, DAs are unlikely to scamper to prosecute open meetings cases because they tend to run on law-and-order platforms of putting violent offenders behind bars.
One more interesting snippet from the story: In a conversation with an assistant county lawyer charged with researching the case, the foundation lawyer got the distinct impression that she was unfamiliar with the Open Meetings Act. It's certainly hard to know where to go from that point, if the officials who would have enforcement responsibility of sunshine laws don't fully understand the laws themselves.
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