TEXAS \u2014 State leaders are taking another look at the Texas Open Meetings Act, nearly 60 years after the Legislature created it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, the Texas House Select Committee on Governmental Oversight will discuss the authority of local governments to hold meetings outside the defined area that the local body serves.<\/p>\n
Last year, Bastrop Mayor Ishmael Harris and the City Council traveled more than 170 miles to Rockport for what he said was a working retreat to help create camaraderie while discussing city issues.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The criticism then was nothing compared to the uproar he said he\u2019s seeing this year over leaders traveling more than 100 miles away to work on city issues at a working retreat in Fredericksburg.<\/p>\n
For Harris, the bonding created during the working retreat is what it\u2019s all about, where there were light-hearted moments between city officials that he felt were a long time coming.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith me being elected last year, there were some relationships on council that needed to be worked on. There was just getting familiarized with everyone. We had a whole, whole lot going on in our city,\u201d Harris said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
For one, he made history as Bastrop\u2019s first Black mayor when he was elected last year in a runoff election, taking over the former mayor\u2019s remaining term. He was then reelected for a full term this May.<\/p>\n
So, he wanted to bring back a tradition that he believed had made a difference in uniting his council in the past.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to say about 90% of the stuff that we talked about and discussed in our retreat last year we have accomplished this year. And I truly believe that everything went as smooth as it did within council and within the different departments, because we were able to sit together and really plan out,\u201d said Harris.<\/p>\n
During this year\u2019s two-day working retreat in Fredericksburg, he said the council talked through heavy topics like data centers, Flock cameras, the city budget and more. But he didn\u2019t expect to see the visceral reactions coming from all sides online, criticizing the decision of the location.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Texas state Rep. Stan Gerdes, R-Smithville, chimed in on X.<\/p>\n
He said meetings like these are subject to the Open Meetings Act and that he would file legislation to require city council meetings to be held in the city they represent.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cReally, it would have been nice to have a phone call. Right? You\u2019re our state rep. We look for you to represent us, but how can you represent us if you don\u2019t communicate with the mayor of the city that you represent? To truly find out what is going on. I\u2019m not sure where, you know, he got his information, but I\u2019m sure if contact would have been made with me, I could have provided some more clarity,\u201d said Harris.<\/p>\n
Spectrum News reached out repeatedly to Gerdes and didn\u2019t receive a response.<\/p>\n
Southern Methodist University political science professor Matthew Wilson weighed in on the situation.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is not a violation of the open meetings law as it currently exists. Now, the Legislature could change or amend the open meetings law in order to prevent things like this from happening in the future. But this is not, as it stands, a legal violation,\u201d said Wilson.<\/p>\n
The state House committee will meet and hear public testimony regarding the Texas Open Meetings Act and other issues. Spectrum News asked Harris if there would be a retreat next year.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf the legislation doesn\u2019t stop, yes, I would like to have another retreat. Like, I truly think those are successful,\u201d said Harris.<\/p>\n
On Nov. 9, bill filing opens for the upcoming legislative session in 2027, and Harris will be watching to see if his annual retreats are affected.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Bastrop isn\u2019t alone in sometimes moving its meetings.<\/p>\n
Spectrum News found at least one other example in Kaufman County in North Texas.<\/p>\n
We confirmed its Municipal Utility District No. 11 Board of Directors has been meeting in Dallas County every other month since 2021. That\u2019s more than 40 miles from the county.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Spectrum News reached out to the attorneys for the district to find out why. The call was never returned.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TEXAS \u2014 State leaders are taking another look at the Texas Open Meetings Act, nearly 60 years after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":418201,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[1657,1658,132,134,133,8455,1570,102,138,223,287,82,27,1569,835],"class_list":["post-418200","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-app-latest-local-state-politics-stories","tag-app-local-state-politics","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news","tag-blessing-iwuchukwu","tag-ctv","tag-dallas","tag-el-paso","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-san-antonio","tag-texas","tag-texas-what-you-need-to-know","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=418200"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418200\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/418201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=418200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=418200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=418200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}