Waco
– McLennan County Commissioners rubber stamped a proposal to oppose
automated information technology in District Court records by funding
the clerks' three-day visit to a Lake Travis resort hotel for a
day-and-a-half conference.
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| McLennan County District Clerk Karen Matkin |
District
Clerk Karen Matkin is president of a statewide professional
organization of district clerks, who she says should oppose
digitizing petitions and pleadings in criminal and civil lawsuits for
online dissemination. They will meet at Horseshoe Bay, but Ms. Matkin
and members of her staff will stay on to play for an additional two
nights at taxpayer expense.
Her
reason?
Local
control of records, something Ms. Matkin, a former criminal
prosecutor for the McLennan County Criminal District Attorney's
office, thinks should be of paramount importance to the people who ride herd
on public information generated by attorneys' filings of legal
instruments in the Texas District Court system.
In
a legislative alert, Ms. Matkin wrote:
“This
is an alert concerning SB 753 and HB 981. This is the bill requiring
clerks to provide an electronic copy of the index and charge only
what the cost is as established under the Public Information Act.
These bills are wrong on a number of levels. The first is that the
District Clerks should be able to control their own records. It is
classic interference by state government in the activities of local
office holders. Under the rules concerning judicial documents the
clerks are required to allow the public to examine the Court’s
docket. Public access is not the issue. The intent of the bill is to
force the bulk sale of indexes by clerks. This means that records
that cost the taxpayers millions to develop will be sold for a
pittance. The way the bill is currently written there is a serious
question of whether clerks will be forced to digitize older records
at a cost of millions of dollars, currently unnecessary four (sic) our
purposes, only to sell them for a small sum.”
At
the same time, the Court approved with little discussion and no
opposition the transfer of funds of more than $800,000 from
“contingencies” to funding the care and feeding of “overflow”
prisoners at a privately-operated, for-profit jail built and
maintained at taxpayer expense. Originally budgeted for a $1 million
expense through the year, the bean counters predict that, as in
previous years, the price will run to hundreds of percentage points
more, thus throwing the budget into a huge deficit.
In
the same raft of items in the contingency agenda, the Court approved
an across the board increase in Sheriff's fees of 150 percent for
some items such as “Citation by Posting” and by 20 percent for
“Writs of Garnishment,” attachment, and possession.
County
officials raised the local tax rate for 2013-14 by a little more than
a nickel per $100 assessed valuation as a result.
The
reason? According to the County Auditor, the deficit has eaten away
at the prudent cash reserves of the corporation of McLennan County,
to the point that the debt is otherwise unsustainable.
One
may view documents attached to these actions by clicking here.
Why
is all that of importance to taxpayers and the general public?
Certain
decisions are made out of the scrutiny of the public that eventually
wind up costing huge amounts of money in runaway debt service on
tax-free municipal revenue bonds issued without voter approval as an
economic development project of the county government.
The
information that may be thus obtained often tells a much more
complete story of expensive developments in local policy.
The
story of how McLennan County, Texas, came to purchase the
construction, maintenance and operation of the Jack Harwell Detention
Center in what was represented as a for-profit jail through the
services of CEC, Inc., a New Jersey-based corporation, comes to mind.
Had
it not been for a certain lawsuit alleging a “breach of fiduciary
trust” filed in Harris County, taxpayers may never have learned of
the exact methods used to award the construction contract to an
affiliated corporation, Hale-Mills Construction of Houston.
Accurate
Air Conditioning complained that their employee, an estimator, was
given exclusive access to plans and the construction site through the
cooperation of then County Judge Jim Lewis and certain jail officials
of the McLennan County Sheriff's Office.
Though
the defendant, who had by then formed his own air conditioning
company, countered the claim by objecting, depositions taken from
Judge Lewis, then County Commissioner Joe Mashek, and a high-ranking
member of the Sheriff's Department revealed exactly how other bidders
were prevented from getting timely information that would have helped
them prepare a competitive bid.
As
a result of this exclusive arrangement, the man's former employer
complained, other bidders were prevented from bidding, and so, due to
the lack of information, they didn't even bother to try.
The
parties wound up settling out of court in a take nothing agreement
that was entered as having occurred due to lack of prosecution. The
case was passed.
How
does one obtain that information? You look it up on the internet, for
free. The Harris County District Clerk's office has digitized its
cases at what Ms. Matkin calls huge expense. Anyone, anywhere, can
look it up at any time, simply because the records belong to the
people, not the public officials who would like to keep them as
obscure as possible.
One
may read a more complete report on the matter by clicking here.
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