West Texas gas board holds impromptu closed meeting
A public utility board in West Texas convenes a public meeting, posted as such, then when the meeting is over asks the public to leave and retreats into closed session. That’s what transpired last week at a meeting of the Southwest Texas Municipal Gas Corporation, according to a story by Big Bend Now.
The newspaper has taken issue with the fact the gas board did not list the closed session on its agenda or cite an emergency reason for closing the meeting.
“A governmental body must give the public advance notice of the subjects it will consider in an open meeting or a closed executive session,” according to the Attorney General’s Open Meetings Handbook.
The panel members and the board’s own lawyer disagreed about whether the closed session was a violation of the state’s open meetings law.
When asked, “Do you believe the gas board acted in violation of the (Texas Open Meetings Act)?”, Marfa Mayor and gas board vice president Dan Dunlap insisted, “The gas board is not subject to the (Act). We try to abide by the spirit of the open meetings act as much as we can, but we are a non- profit corporation, we are not a governmental body. We don’t use any taxpayer money which would be the one thing that would make you have to live with the (Act)”.
But SWTMG’s own attorney, Bill Fowler disagrees.
“(The gas board) is a non-profit corporation that is owned and controlled by two municipalities. It is a municipal gas utility under the Texas Railroad Commission and under their by-laws it says they will follow the (Open Meetings Act),” Fowler said.
The gas company is operated by the city council members of Alpine and Marfa, which appears to make it a public body. The respective councils also routinely discuss gas company business.
And it looks like the pending dissolution of the utility is already providing more fodder for transparency hawks in West Texas. The agenda for the Alpine City Council meeting Tuesday called for an executive session to discuss the gas corporation’s fate. But the session couldn’t get a second vote and wasn’t held after two council members said the discussion should be held in the open.
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Contact Steve Miller at 832-303-9420 or stevemiller@texaswatchdog.org.
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Photo of ‘closed’ sign by flickr user ell brown, used via a Creative Commons license.
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