Mystery council person

Last week a wire service story on certain Texas towns filing a lawsuit against the Open Meetings Act, created a small mystery as to who the Sugar Land official was that joined the lawsuit.

Initially a couple of the stories indicated Sugar Land had joined the lawsuit. Doug Adolph said there was some confusion because of the reports. “The city of Sugar Land is not involved in the lawsuit,” he noted.

Adolph knew one of the Sugar Land city council members had joined in to fight the Open Meetings Act, but he didn’t know which one.

Well, enter Russell Jones, who fessed up that he was the mystery council member who joined with other officials and cities in Texas to fight portions of the Open Meetings Act.

Those opposed to the section, say the act violates elected officials First Amendment rights to free speech by preventing elected officials from speaking in public or private on issues facing the public.

Basically, the act prohibits a quorum of a governmental body from meeting in secret. That law has been around for generations. But with the advent of new modes of communication, such as Twitter, Face book, and e-mail, the rules have become a bit more complex. The lawsuit seeks to exclude social networking and e-mails from the Open Meetings Act.

Anyhow, Russell is the one person in Sugar Land that decided to fight the law.

Merry Christmas to all!

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