Even if you are a supporter of Houston Mayor Annise Parker, you should be very unhappy with the way her administration is delaying release of information requested through the Texas Public Information Act until after the election tomorrow.
Sunday’s Houston Chronicle featured a piece by reporter Mike Morris on ReBuild Houston and the different views of it by Parker and one of her challengers, Ben Hall. It is a well written article and I’ll leave it to you to decide if it is slanted one way or another.
I was copied on an email that citizen activist (and Ben Hall supporter) Tom Bazan sent to the Chronicle’s Viewpoints and Morris.
It is dreadful that the local newspaper, clearly in the tank for the Mayor, fails to mention the fact that the Mayor’s administration has “stonewalled” the release of any detailed spending information in order to continue to dupe the voters until after the election.
Again, I’ll leave it up to you to decide if the Chronicle has been slanted in this race. But Tom’s email did remind me of his PIA, which he filed on October 1st and copied me. Here is a list of what he was asking for:
- provide access and/or copies to any documents studying the average amount the drainage fee would cost Houstonians, including those that supported Mayor Parker’s contention regarding the average charge homeowners would pay if the drainage fee proposition was approved;
- provide documents showing how the drainage fees collected have been disbursed since their passage by Mayor Parker or the COH, including, but not limited to the Rebuild Houston Fund 2310;
- provide documents showing the amount of drainage fees that have been used to pay for wages or salaries of any city employees since the passage of the drainage fee proposition;
- provide copies of Mayor Parker’s emails referencing in any way the drainage fee proposition before its passage; and,
- provide copies of Mayor Parker’s emails relating to the solicitation of campaign contributions for her re-election campaigns since she has been mayor.
On 10/22, he received copy of a letter from City Attorney Jeffery Giles to Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott seeking an opinion on releasing certain of the documents. Here is the opening paragraph:
This is a follow-up to my letter dated October 15, 2013. See Exhibit 1A. We note the previous letter was mislabeled with GC No. 20900. Please refer to GC No. 20910 in any future correspondence concerning this request. The City of Houston (the “City”) received the above referenced request on October 1, 2013. See Exhibit 1. The City will make information responsive to items 2 and 3 of the request available to the requestor for review. The City does not possess information responsive to items 1 or 5 of the request. By copy of this letter, the City is informing the requestor that the City believes a portion of the requested information (Exhibit 2) is excepted from public disclosure under sections 552.103 and 552.107 of the Government Code. Because the information responsive to item 4 of the request is voluminous, a representative sample has been provided for your review. See Exhibit 2.
Parsing that, we see that the city is telling Tom that they do not have any information on items 1 and 5, that they will make items 2 and 3 available to him, and they want to prohibit him from reviewing the Mayor’s emails related to item 4.
How is it possible that the city has nothing to offer on item 1? Did not a single city employee analyze the proposed rain tax and give the mayor an estimate of the average charge homeowners would pay? That is hard to believe. Did she just pull a number out of thin air?
As for item 4, the letter to the attorney general says that the information is excluded because of two current lawsuits against the city related to the tax. Mr. Giles states in the letter that the two plaintiffs would likely use the information against the city if it were made public. Hmm. Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?
As for items 2 and 3, great news! Mr. Giles said on 10/22, 21 days after the request, that Tom could review that information. Awesome. So, I asked Tom what he found.
Turns out that the city hasn’t allowed him to review it yet. Today is November 4, over a month since his request. Hmm.
Why are they delaying release of this information? Hmm. There is an election tomorrow. Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?
BTW, most of the members of the media have Tom’s request and the city’s delay.
Why wouldn’t they report about it? Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?
Kudos to Tom Bazan for fighting for his candidate. You might think bias in the media doesn’t exist. You might think that an administration helping an incumbent is okay because that’s just the way it is. Just remember this: next time, it might be your candidate.
What will you think then? Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?
Tom Bazan is such a fighter. He consistently works to protect the tax payer. Sounds likea cover up to me!