FortBendNow.com

Concerned over the possibility of violating the Texas Open Meetings Act, new Fort Bend County Precinct 1 Commissioner Richard Morrison has ordered his staff not to attend Thursday meetings held to discuss Commissioners Court agendas.

The meetings have been attended by top staffers for county commissioners for more than a decade, are run by a member of County Judge Bob Hebert’s staff, sometimes include staffers for other departments and, on occasion, a commissioner or other elected official.

“I have questions from my constituents whether it violates the Open Meetings Act,” Morrison said of the meetings. He said he’s ordered his chief of staff, James Wenzel, and other staffers not to attend, “to avoid any appearance of impropriety.” When those staffers worked for Morrison’s predecessor, Tom Stavinoha, they attended regularly.

Morrison said he was told by members of County Attorney Roy Cordes Jr.’s office that the meetings are conducted in such a way that they don’t violate the Open Meeting Act, but Morrison said he is seeking guidance that he can share with his staff so that they understand what to do and not do during the meetings to avoid violating the law.

Morrison said county attorney staffers informed him the meetings are intended to provide county staff members with an opportunity to go over the usually lengthy agenda for each Commissioners Court session with an eye toward “administrative completeness.” Cordes’ staff told him “they’re not there to look at policy.”

But some political observers and retired county employees have long suggested that the kind of give-and-take deliberations required to come to agreement on 80, 90 or sometimes more than 100 separate agenda items are being conducted on Thursdays. Thus the meetings have been referred to as “Junior Commissioners Court.”

Cordes could not immediately be reached for comment Friday afternoon, but later said his staff members attend the sessions in part to make sure open-meeting laws are followed. He also said his office will formalize procedure for the meetings (see related story).

Hebert was out of the office and couldn’t be reached Friday afternoon for comment.

Precinct 2 Commissioner Grady Prestage said he has attended one or two of the Thursday meetings – but not for years, and his staff never or almost never attends. Prestage didn’t attribute this to concern over the Open Meetings Act, but rather the “inconvenience” of driving from Precinct 2 offices in the Missouri City area to a county building in Richmond.

“It’s a briefing held on agenda items, up to the minute,” he said of the Thursday sessions. “Questions get answered,” such as where funding will come from for a particular agenda item expense.

Prestage said the meetings began in the mid 1990s, when new state law had been created involving the legal concept of “taking,” or reducing the value of a business through some type of action. Then chaired by the county attorney, the meetings were meant to comb through the Commissioners Court agenda to make sure no action was forthcoming that could be construed to run afoul of the new legislative regulations.

But at some point, “I think it morphed into a meeting to insure that all the information is available so we can make decisions” efficiently during Tuesday Commissioners Court sessions, Prestage said.

Morrison said he doesn’t believe commissioners’ chiefs of staff decide for their bosses how particular agenda items will be voted on. He said he’s already aware of many agenda items long before the Thursday sessions, because agenda item requests by the individual commissioners are circulated in commissioners’ information packets.

However, Morrison said he worries that after some controversial decision by the Commissioners Court – such as changing the tax rate – some person or business with significant money at stake could institute legal action and elicit testimony from staff members who attend the Thursday sessions, which might suggest to a court that the Open Meetings Act had been breached. Under such circumstances, action taken in a subsequent open Commissioners Court session conceivably could be voided.

“That’s exactly my concern,” Morrison said.