A Jeffersonian In East Texas

Any reluctance on the part of our public officials to be completely transparent and forthright causes the public to question. After all these are “public” officials! How any secrecy on the part of the commissioners court, or other public officials could be seen as advancing the causes they espouse is beyond comprehension. Surely they must know this.

With that in mind, what other reasons could be set forth for such questionable activities? (Yes, they are questionable, and the participants knew this at the time, or they would not have sought counsel on the question of open meetings. It comes across  like “How far can we go, and what can we get away with and still be beyond prosecution?”) The issue seems to be a reasonably simple one, with a very easy and simple face saving mechanism like: “Yes, we did this in secret, but we thought that we were within the boundaries of the law at the time. We now see that we were wrong, and would like to make it straight and avoid this in the future.” That would be the simple, humble, easy, and dare I say(?), endearing solution. The fact that it has not been done leads people to believe that something else is going on.

Either the participants don’t understand the law, and the lack of trust and the level of opposition to such opaque proceedings, or there is another skeleton or two in the closet. Those are about the only options. One is based on ignorance of the law, and arrogance toward it and of the peoples opposition to being kept in the dark. The other is based arrogance toward the law and the people, and fear of having those skeletons jump out.

In case you didn’t notice, the common factor is arrogance!

In a move that strikes everyone as being bizarre, Smith county commissioners are filing suit against the State Attorney Generals office in an attempt to keep the Smith county jail plans a secret.

Their reasons? Ostensibly, to keep the jail details from falling into the hands of criminals who might be planning some future jail break! The facts are a little more complicated.

If, as attorney Ken Good believes,  “A fully completed and detailed architectural drawing submitted to the Texas Commission on Jail Standards before the plan was even made public would demonstrate that Judge Baker and Commissioner Fleming violated the law.” , it would mean that the county commissioners involved had in fact, violated the open meetings act, and would be subject to civil and criminal penalties. This would seem to be the real reason for filling suit against the AG.