New challenge to Texas Open Meetings Act in the works

On Oct. 14, the Pflugerville City Council approved a resolution supporting and joining in a yet-to-be-filed suit challenging the criminal provisions of the Texas Open Meetings Act. On Sept. 10, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed for mootness Rangra, et al. v. Brown, et al., a challenge to TOMA, because plaintiff Avinash Rangra is no longer on the Alpine City Council. The Texas Office of the Attorney General, which represented the defendants, had argued that Rangra no longer has standing to bring such a suit. A grand jury indicted Rangra and another former council member in 2005 for allegedly violating TOMA by exchanging e-mails in which they discussed requesting a meeting on a city matter. Then-District Attorney Frank Brown subsequently dismissed the indictments. Pflugerville City Attorney Floyd Akers says council members in the small town, located near Austin, are concerned about the “chilling effect” TOMA’s criminal provisions have on free speech. “The real purpose of the act is to expose corruption,” Akers says. The problem, he says, is that a council member can be accused of violating the law for speaking at a meeting attended by other council members. According to the resolution passed by the Pflugerville council members, they plan to join the City of Alpine in filing the suit. Alpine solo Rod Ponton says that he and Dick DeGuerin, a partner in Houston’s DeGuerin & Dickson, are talking to officials in several cities about filing a new suit. Ponton and DeGuerin had represented the plaintiffs in Rangra. “Dick DeGuerin and I aren’t quitters,” Ponton says. OAG spokesman Jerry Strickland did not immediately return a telephone call for comment.
-- Mary Alice Robbins