New Texas Law Mandates Broadcast of City Commission Public Comment Online

Danya Perez-Hernandez

A filler story in Sunday's Brownsville Herald datelined McAllen caught my eye.  While the story had Brownsville implications, there was no effort to remodel the story for this city's readers.  I doubt that Brownsville Herald editor Ryan Henry even read the story.

The original story, written by Danya Perez-Hernandez for The Monitor, reported how, beginning January 1, 2016, Texas cities with a population of 50,000 or more would be required to place their city government meetings online within 7 days of the meeting, preserving the video for two years:

Access to the decisions of elected government officials is about to get easier as some counties, cities and school districts are now required by law to make video recordings of public meetings available online.

House Bill 283 was signed into law in June 2015 and became effective Jan. 1. It requires school districts with an enrollment of 10,000 students or more, municipalities with a population of 50,000 or more, and counties with a population of 125,000 to record audio and video of board, city council and           commissioner court meetings and make these available online.

Currently, Brownsville makes its City Commission meeting available on Brownsville TV Channel 12 with the videos eventually finding their way to the City of Brownsville website.  The one inexcusable exception to that policy is the Public Comment section of City Commission meetings.  As per city policy, the viewpoints of taxpayers are NOT broadcast on Channel 12 and not included in the City Commission videos on the city's website.

City Attorney Mark Sossi

The genesis of the non-broadcast of public comments policy may well reside with City Attorney Mark Sossi, although then Mayor Pat Ahumada, along with the City Commission, were complicit. When a taxpayer mentioned via letter in 2010, then another referred in public comment the impropriety of the City of Brownsville engaging the law firm of Willette & Guerra, the very firm winning a $167,323 judgement for theft of funds by Mark Sossi, the city attorney concocted one of his notorious, but suspect legal opinions, pronouncing the broadcast of public comments a dangerous practice, opening up the city to litigation.  Obviously, he was simply covering his ass.

Mayor Tony Martinez

The dumbass practice of recording and preserving every precious syllable of the mayor and commissioners, but throwing the switch the instant a taxpayer stepped up to the public comment podium continued into the Tony Martinez regime.  Many thought that first term Martinez would quickly revert to a more democratic philosophy then his predecessor in dealing with public comment.  Most were shocked when they heard his words on the subject.  Mayor Martinez now said something that 91% of the electorate who voted to change mayors hoped they would never hear: 

"I'd like to continue doing things the way the previous administration did them. It's been working pretty good so far. I don't want to change that."

Former City Commissioner Zamora

In 2011 City Commissioner Melissa Zamora put the broadcast of public comments back on the agenda.  That attempt to restore some semblance of democratic principles to the city commission was thwarted by Martinez and Sossi.

Here are this blog's comments, August 12, 2011, the day after Commissioner Melissa Zamora tried to reinstate the broadcast of public comment:

"Melissa Hernandez-Zamora seemed dumbstruck when City Attorney Sossi stood up to give opposition testimony concerning the broadcast of public comment item she had placed on the agenda. It was obvious that Commissioner Zamora had not been advised of the behind-the-scenes manipulation by Mayor Martinez and his eager cohort Sossi. Sossi, afterall, had the most to lose from public comment broadcast since it was comments about his questionable ethics that triggered the ban in the first place. As Zamora got her bearings, Martinez waved Sossi the "go ahead". Sossi made no attempt in his feeble, highschoolish power point to express a legal opinion. There was no mention of free speech, the first amendment, the constitution or even the phony liability issues he has pretended previously. Those might have been worthy legal issues. Instead he expressed only viewpoints, unscientific at best, but most likely simply wrong. With a straight face he used a pie chart to illustrate the greater "diversity" of commenters since the ban, not even having the honesty to acknowledge that many of those new participants were speaking out against the anti-democratic ban. He also railed against grandstanding as he grandstanded.

With the passing of House Bill 283, with its mandate that City Commission meetings be uploaded to the internet, even YouTube, we were curious if public comment was covered by this new law and sent that question to the Texas Office of the Attorney General. That call was returned this morning.  

"I believe I understand your question.  If public comment is part of a City Commission meeting, then, yes, that part of the meeting, as well as all others, must be shared on the internet.  That is what this law mandates.  It does not require this of meetings before January 1, 2016, just those afterward."

So, there we have it.  Unless the Martinez, Sossi tandem tries to circumvent the law, public comment will be accessible to all Brownsville taxpayers via the internet.  With the difficulty of making two separate city commission videos, one for Channel 12 and one for the City of Brownsville website, we should reasonably see the broadcast of public comment on the public television outlet as well.