{"id":47091,"date":"2025-11-12T22:56:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-12T22:56:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/47091\/"},"modified":"2025-11-12T22:56:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-12T22:56:07","slug":"lubbock-publisher-accuses-lubbock-county-expo-center-of-ignoring-requests-for-public-records-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/47091\/","title":{"rendered":"Lubbock publisher accuses Lubbock County Expo Center of ignoring requests for public records"},"content":{"rendered":"

LUBBOCK, Texas (KCBD) – A Lubbock publisher has filed a petition<\/a> accusing the company in charge of the Lubbock County Expo Center<\/a> of refusing to honor two open records requests.<\/p>\n

The petition says LCEC has violated the Texas Public Information Act<\/a> (TPIA) by ignoring two requests for public records submitted in October.<\/p>\n

Lubbock Lights<\/a> and its publisher, L. Scott Mann, have filed a petition for a writ of mandamus<\/a> against the company, compelling them to provide the records.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis isn\u2019t about politics or personalities \u2014 it\u2019s about the public\u2019s right to know how taxpayer money is being spent,\u201d Mann said in a statement released on Wednesday afternoon.<\/p>\n

The petition asks the court to:<\/p>\n

Compel LCEC to immediately release all requested records;Declare the withheld information public under the Texas Government Code;Prohibit further delay or obstruction of future requests; andAward attorney\u2019s fees and court costs as permitted by law.<\/p>\n

When asked for comment, LCEC Chairman Randy Jordan gave us this statement:<\/p>\n

\u201cLubbock County Expo Center is a 501 C 3. Mr. Mann requested documents through a FOIA. LCEC legal council advised that they would not supply documents under 501 C 3 statute. Some of the documents he (Mann) was requesting are available via the IRS and Secretary of State website.\u201d<\/p>\n

LCEC blames delays on rising construction costs<\/p>\n

Lubbock County voters approved a tax increase to fund<\/a> construction of the Expo Center back in 2018.<\/p>\n

Jordan has previously listed COVID, inflation and a sharp rise in construction costs for the delays. The project will be funded in part by hotel and occupancy taxes, but occupancy was capped at 25 percent during the pandemic.<\/p>\n

Lubbock Expo Center Chairman Randy Jordan gave an update on the board\u2019s latest plans<\/a> for getting the project moving forward during a news conference Wednesday morning.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a plan,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Jordan said that plan will be presented to the county Thursday in hopes the project will be discussed during this month\u2019s commissioner\u2019s court meeting.<\/p>\n

Jordan said the project has an all-in budget of $67 million and that funds come from private donors, rental car taxes and the hotel occupancy tax, not from property taxes.<\/p>\n

LCEC rejects alternate location<\/p>\n

City and county leaders considered an alternate location for the project<\/a> in October but announced that they still plan to build it out on North University, near the X-FAB facility<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Jordan says they now have enough money to begin phase one, but the latest proposal still needs to be approved<\/a> in a bond election.<\/p>\n

No exact timeline has been released, but LCEC expects to have the next steps approved by the end of the month.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2025 KCBD. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LUBBOCK, Texas (KCBD) – A Lubbock publisher has filed a petition accusing the company in charge of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":47073,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[168,170,169],"class_list":["post-47091","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-lubbock","tag-lubbock","tag-lubbock-headlines","tag-lubbock-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47091","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=47091"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47091\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}