But in a victory for open-records advocates, the Texas Attorney General ruled last week that the contract is a public record.

The San Antonio Express-News published the contract’s details Friday in a story by City Hall reporter Josh Baugh. Readers learned for the first time that the San Antonio Tricentennial Commission, a nonprofit entity set up by the city of San Antonio, paid REO Speedwagon $232,500.

Why, you might ask, was obtaining this contract so difficult? Why did it take months to see the light of day?

After all, the Texas Public Information Act clearly states that contracts with government agencies are public records. No tax dollars went to REO Speedwagon, but the Tricentennial Commission serves as an arm of the city. For years, contracts between companies and government agencies were routinely released to the public.

But a June 19, 2015 ruling by the Texas Supreme Court changed all that.

Boeing vs. the Attorney General

In a San Antonio court case involving Boeing and the Port Authority of San Antonio, Boeing was trying to stymie the release of its rental contract with the port authority to a former Boeing employee.

Boeing argued that it had standing to challenge the release of the contract, and that its public release would provide an advantage to competitors. Over the span of a decade, trial and appellate courts had ruled against Boeing.

But the company appealed to the Texas Supreme Court and the justices agreed with Boeing — opening the door for groups such as REO Speedwagon to try the same strategy to keep government contracts out of the public eye.

“Everything from school bus finances to power plant construction costs to a university’s beer marketing agreement have been kept off limits because of the Boeing ruling,” wrote Kelley Shannon, the executive director of the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas, in a November 2017 post decrying the court decision.

Read more: Open records quiz: Can officials question your motives when you file an open records request?

Companies and agencies trying to censor records under the Boeing decision have cited the court ruling 1,500 times, Shannon wrote:

The city of Austin recently used the ruling in an effort to keep secret the names of finalists in its city manager search, saying it didn’t want to give competing cities a hiring advantage. After public pressure and a lawsuit by the Austin American-Statesman, the city said it would soon release the finalists’ names. The Statesman has already figured out several candidates’ names and reported them.

In the Rio Grande Valley, the Agua Special Utility District attempted to use the Boeing ruling as a reason to keep secret nearly $500,000 in severance payments it made to two former employees.

The continuing poster child case for the Boeing problem is the city of McAllen’s refusal to say how much taxpayer money it paid to entertainer Enrique Iglesias to perform in a holiday festival.

Clearly, there’s deep erosion occurring in the Texas Public Information Act. Texas needs to re-examine its commitment to the people’s right to know.

So how did REO Speedwagon’s contract end up getting published?

REO Speedwagon’s contract in San Antonio

A company that wants to keep a contract secret still has to make its case with the Attorney General’s office. In this March 19 letter, the Texas Attorney General ruled that REO Speedwagon’s contract was a public document because Creative Artists Agency, the firm that represents the band, hadn’t made a strong argument to keep the contract out of the public realm:

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“We find that CAA has failed to demonstrate the release of its information would result in substantial harm to its competitive position,” the letter states. A business must show “specific factual evidence that substantial competitive injury would result from release” of the sought records.

Until Texas lawmakers pass legislation to undo the damage from the Boeing decision, the REO Speedwagon case demonstrates there’s still a sliver of hope for anyone who hopes to learn how government agencies are spending their money. A company can still fail to sway the Attorney General’s office.

But it can easily go the other way.

Pat Benatar, another 1980s rocker who also performed at the New Year’s Eve gala, signed a contract with the Tricentennial Commission, just like REO Speedwagon. But we still don’t know how much money she received.

Benatar’s people made a more compelling argument to withhold the contract, according to the Attorney General’s letter, and her contract didn’t have to be released.

Total heartbreaker.

The post REO Speedwagon can’t fight you reading this $232,500 contract anymore appeared first on John Tedesco.

Instead of focusing on the intricacies of open-records laws, David Cuillier and Charles Davis write about the social dynamics between people who ask for records, and the gatekeepers who decide whether to release them. Cuillier says:

It’s crucial to understand the constraints agencies work under to be more effective in getting what you need. Those folks don’t come to work with horns and cloven hooves. There is a whole bureaucratic world that thinks differently than requesters. Understand that world, and you’ll navigate around it much better.

One technique the pair discuss on their blog is checking the job postings at government agencies to understand the agency’s attitude towards open government.

Related: Sign up for blog updates from John Tedesco

By coincidence, the same week I learned about this open-records blog, there was local news about BexarMet’s ousted gatekeeper T.J. Connolly, who pleaded guilty to campaign-finance violations. We had written many stories about Connolly, one of which detailed his efforts to delay an open-records request at BexarMet. “I want to be as uncooperative as possible … without being obvious,” Connolly wrote to BexarMet officials.

How did we learn about these stonewalling tactics? After Connolly and his supporters left the agency, we asked for their e-mails under the Texas Public Information Act. Under the new leadership at BexarMet, the agency was eager to appear more open, and handed over thousands of e-mails.

So the authors of The Art of Access are making a very important point: The culture of an agency plays a huge part in determining how much access you get.

The post New book and blog: The Art of Access appeared first on John Tedesco.

Inner-city Councilwoman Mary Alice Cisneros was put on the defensive this week after revelations that she’s pushing the sale of two downtown cultural icons, Market Square and La Villita, to the politically connected Cortez family.

The proposal was presented Thursday in a closed-door City Council session and was greeted with strenuous objections by Cisneros’ colleagues, several said.

“We had a presentation of an interested party looking to purchase the square and La Villita, and a majority of us said, ‘No way,’” Councilwoman Lourdes Galvan said. “The gem of our history and culture is simply not for sale.”

Related: A tough year for the mainstream media. But is watchdog journalism really dead?

The story put Cisneros on the hot seat and she later said the deal was dead.

I found one of her comments interesting:

Cisneros acknowledged Friday that she had discussed a project with representatives of the Cortez family, but said only: “Whatever you are telling me I heard, if I heard it, was in executive session and should not be up for public discussion.”

This comment leaves the impression that public officials are barred from discussing what happens at government meetings when they go behind closed doors to discuss legal matters and other sensitive topics.

Actually, Cisneros and other officials are perfectly free to talk about what happens in executive session. That’s according to a 1989 opinion from then-Attorney General Jim Mattox.

Mattox had been asked whether the Texas Open Meetings Act prohibits public officials from publicly talking about closed-door meetings. State Sen. Kent A. Caperton feared that prohibiting that kind of talk would be a violation of free speech.

Related: How to share news tips with an investigative reporter

Mattox determined that the law only prevents officials from releasing documents related to the topics discussed in executive sessions. “It does not prohibit persons who are present at the executive session from afterwards talking about the subject matter of the session,” Mattox wrote in the opinion.

So if you want answers about a topic that interests you, wave a copy of this AG opinion anytime a public official tries to tell you she can’t talk about closed-door meetings.

The post La Villita for sale: Can Texas officials talk about closed-door meetings? appeared first on John Tedesco.