March 17, 2006
From
the Nimby News Archives
Reviewing
the TOMA case we found the following May 19, 2005 column,
from which we publish these excerpts.
“Moving
Forward”
By
Jack D. McNamara
"All
around our happy village we hear that “the system worked” in the
dismissed Alpine City Council prosecutions. We must “move forward.” Odd
that we hear it from those same parties who from December 2004 to May
Day 2005 were most vocal in their outrage toward the Alpine City
Council majority. Indeed, we are all in favor of “moving forward” on a
constitutional challenge to the Texas Open Meetings Act (TOMA) as it
was applied here in Brewsterland.
The
indictments of two Alpine City Council members have been dismissed.
.
. .
The
case might easily have been resolved with guilty pleas because the
offense charged is a misdemeanor. A $100 fine and an apology is often
the resolution of like cases in Texas. Sorry we decided the paving
contract at morning coffee rather than an open meeting. Or as is often
the case (recently in Cedar Park, for example) the offending public
officials agree to undergo “Training” and the criminal prosecution is
dropped.
In this case however the defendants not only protested loud and long
that they were not guilty, they lawyered up with the best defense
counsel in Texas. They took the Texas Open Meetings Act head on and
said if the facts in this case were a violation, the TOMA was
unconstitutional.
.
. .
This
sequence substantiated the impression that the grand jury was after
Rangra and Elms, the two council members up for reelection in May
(2005).
The grand jury immediately indicted Rangra and Elms for violating the
Texas Open Meetings Act. The alleged evidence was two emails dated
October 21 and October 22 concerning the councils’ selection of an
engineer for the rehabilitation of the city’s water distribution system.
Two emails out of 107 provided to Nancy DeWitt by Sul Ross — this was a
very slim evidentiary reed on which to base a prosecution enveloped by
a toxic political fog. Elms’ email, which she released immediately to
the public, described the engineers’ abilities, her preference, and the
need to act now. She asked Rangra to arrange a city council meeting.
Rangra agreed and his email discussed calling a meeting. He also
immediately released his offending email to the public.
.
. .
This
was a political prosecution contrived by Mrs Nancy DeWitt in order to
get reelected. She succeeded. (And then promptly resigned-editor note).
The prosecutor and the grand jury fell for her ploy. The Alpine City
Council members did nothing except their duty according to their oaths
of office."
(The
entire
column was published by the Big Bend Sentinel of Marfa, Texas May 19,
2005.)
____________________
Today I
happened to re-read
Texas Attorney General Opinion No. JC-0307 of November 20, 2000. The
second paragraph leads off:
"We conclude that a person who acts independently to urge individual
members of a commissioners court to place an item on the commissioner
court's agenda or vote a certain way on an item on the agenda does not
commit an offense even if he or she informs members of other members'
views on the matter."
Perhaps the DA will tell us how the Alpine case differs from that
statement?
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