Transparency

By Odessa American Originally published Oct. 20, 2023 The Odessa American’s almost four-year battle with the City of Odessa over public records access is over, as the Texas Supreme Court on Friday declined to take up the OA’s appeal of an appellate court decision in March to dismiss the lawsuit. AIM Media Texas LLC attorney John Bussian said the Odessa American “went the distance" — in its case that is a lot like the one against Uvalde— to try to hold the City to the requirement in the Texas public records law that the government ‘promptly’ turn over public records, rather [...]

By Skye Seipp Austin American-Statesman Originally published Aug. 24, 2023 If you file an open records request with the Austin Police Department, you might have to wait significantly longer to receive that information than if you sought records from another city department. An audit found the Police Department has a backlog of nearly 20,000 public information requests, largely because its staff to handle these requests is 20 times smaller than that of the city's — even though the Police Department receives double the number of requests per year compared with the city. These findings were presented to the Austin City Council [...]