Let me start where most of these columns are going to start: with something that actually happened, in a meeting our editor actually covered, that should not have happened the way it did.
At the last Rotan City Council meeting, the council moved into a discussion about installing protective bollards at the RV park hookups so people would stop backing into the electrical pedestals. Reasonable thing to discuss. Reasonable thing to fix.
Then, somewhere between minute twenty and minute twenty-one of the recording, this happened: 'I'll make a motion to do this H brace style.' 'Second. All in favor?'
That was an attempted vote. If carried through, it would have been council action authorizing public money for work at a city facility.
Our editor stopped them and asked what the motion was for. The answer was that it was under 'City Park' on the agenda. The pushback from our side was straightforward: hiring a contractor to install bollards at the RV park hookups is not 'City Park.' It's spending money on a specific project. The mayor offered to table it 'to make you happy.'
Our editor's reply is the line I want every elected official in this circulation area to read twice: 'It's not about making me happy. It's just simply following the notification rules.'
After that, the council backed off. The item will be on the agenda, properly, for next month.
I do not know about you, but I am tired of shaking my head at officials who are either willfully or carelessly ignoring the law. People, there are laws and rules for a reason. They are there to protect you and the citizens you serve.
It is time to stop being 'offended' every time we call attention to something that is not done correctly or legally. We are not going to stop. No one learns without making mistakes, but it is getting out of hand. I predict the AG is going to start wondering why he is getting so many emails that end in @dmchronicle.com.
We live in a world where the full text of the Texas Open Meetings Act is three keystrokes and a search bar away. It is time to start using them. There is no shortage of training material that some officials clearly have not read. I will get to that in future columns.
And that is exactly why this column now exists.
WHAT AN AGENDA IS SUPPOSED TO DO
An agenda is not a meeting reminder. It is not a courtesy. It is not a list officials get to interpret however it suits them on a Tuesday night.
An agenda is the public's heads-up. It is how a parent, a landowner, a business owner, an employee, or a voter decides whether they should show up before a decision is made.
Texas Government Code Section 551.041 says it plainly. A governmental body shall give written notice of the date, hour, place, and subject of each meeting. Four things. The first three are easy. The fourth — subject — is the one that gets fudged.
Two Texas Supreme Court cases define what “subject” really requires. In City of San Antonio v. Fourth Court of Appeals, 820 S.W.2d 762 (Tex. 1991), the court established the basic test: does the notice tell the general public what will actually be considered? If not, it is insufficient. In Cox Enterprises, Inc. v. Board of Trustees, 706 S.W.2d 956 (Tex. 1986), the court went further: the Open Meetings Act requires full disclosure of the subject matter, and the level of detail required depends on the importance of the matter to the public. The bigger the public interest, the more specific the notice has to be.
In Cox itself, the school board posted 'Personnel' for what was actually the selection of a new superintendent. The court said that wasn't enough. The court also said 'Litigation' wouldn't have been enough for a major desegregation lawsuit that had been chewing up the district's time for years.
Plain English: a label is not a subject.
THE VAGUE WORDS THAT HIDE REAL BUSINESS
These are not always illegal. Context matters. But every one of them is a yellow flag, and citizens should slow down when they see them.
'Personnel.' Fine for routine staff matters. Not fine when the real subject is a superintendent contract, a police chief, a city manager, a principal, or any other public-facing position the community would expect notice of.
'Litigation.' A body doesn't have to publish its trial strategy. It does have to tell the public the subject of the case, especially when the case is significant or already public.
'Old business,' 'new business,' 'other business,' 'regular business.' These are not subjects. They are filler. The Texas Municipal League's own guidance — and decades of attorney general opinions — treat these as insufficient. 'Executive session' plus a list of statute numbers. In October 2024, Attorney General Opinion KP-0475 confirmed the obvious: a body cannot satisfy the notice requirement just by reserving the right to go into closed session under listed sections of the Act. It still has to identify the subject.
'Public comment.' Generally fine when citizens bring up whatever they bring up. But here is the line that matters: the body cannot deliberate or take action on a topic raised in public comment if that topic is not separately posted on the agenda.
'Discussion.' Looks innocent. Becomes a problem when the body's own custom is to write 'discussion/action' any time action might be taken. A San Antonio appeals court actually examined that pattern and ruled the inconsistency mattered. (River Road Neighborhood Ass'n v. South Texas Sports, 1986.)
'City Park.' Not a recognized legal category. But functionally, this is what happened in Rotan. A two-word location label was going to be used to cover hiring a contractor to install bollards. Two words is not a subject. A reasonable resident reading 'City Park' on the agenda would not know the council was about to spend money on a specific RV park improvement that night.
WHAT A BETTER NOTICE ACTUALLY LOOKS LIKE
The fix is not hard. It does not require a city to publish confidential legal advice. It does not require a school district to post a personnel file. It just requires that the agenda tell the public what is actually being considered.
WHAT CITIZENS — AND EDITORS — CAN ACTUALLY DO
Read the agenda before the meeting. Circle anything vague. Pull up the backup packet if it's posted. Sometimes the packet says what the agenda doesn't.
Speak up before the vote, not after. Once a body votes, the question becomes whether a court will undo it. Section 551.141 says an action taken in violation of the Open Meetings Act is voidable — which does not mean automatically erased. It means a judge may invalidate it depending on the facts. That is a longer, harder, more expensive road than just objecting at the right moment.
Here is a script anyone can use. Stay calm. Be specific. Cite the case. Preserve the record.
'Mr. or Madam Chair, before action is taken, I want to raise a concern for the record. The notice describes this item only as [exact wording]. It does not identify the specific subject of the deliberation. Under Cox Enterprises v. Board of Trustees, the public is entitled to more specific notice when the matter is of public interest. I respectfully request that final action be deferred until the item is posted with adequate notice.'
Keep the record. Save the agenda. Save your notes. Save the recording or minutes if you can get them. If the body still acts and the issue matters, talk to a qualified attorney or contact the county attorney or criminal district attorney’s office. The Attorney General’s Open Government Hotline at (877) 6736839 can answer questions about the Open Meetings Act, but criminal enforcement goes through your county attorney or criminal district attorney. Or call us.
WHY THIS MATTERS IN A PLACE THIS SIZE
I have been told, more than once, that small-county governments do things differently. That if you actually applied the Open Meetings Act in counties or cities or schools , nothing would ever get done..
I disagree. And so does the law. The Open Meetings Act does not have a population threshold. It does not have a 'we've all known each other since high school' exception. It does not say a council can skip the subject line on the agenda because the people in the room already know what's being discussed. The point of the agenda is the people who aren't in the room — yet.
Vague agendas are how decisions get made before the public realizes a decision is being made. A school board hire. A police termination. A land deal. A budget cut. A spending vote at the RV park. By the time most folks find out what happened, the action is taken, the check is being written, and the only remaining question is whether anyone has the time, money, or stomach to fight it later.
The fix is small. Write the agenda so it tells the truth about the meeting. Identify the subject. Don't hide a spending decision under a location label.
That's not a hostile request. That's the law.
WHAT TO EXPECT FROM THIS COLUMN
This is the first installment of Raising Hell. Respectfully, Of course. — a Field Guide for all of us. I am writing it because I am tired of watching elected and appointed officials duck, dodge, skip, fade, or flat-out ignore the laws, and I am tired of citizens not having a plain-language manual for what those rules actually say.
The next column will cover when and where notices have to be posted — including the new '72-hour rule/3 business days', the courthouse-vs-website question, and what changed under H.B. 1522 in the 89th Legislature. After that, public comment rights. After that, executive session. After that, public information requests, because that's its own swamp. I have a lot of stories for this column.
I am not a lawyer, and this column is educational information, not legal advice. If you have a specific situation, talk to a qualified attorney or contact your county attorney or criminal district attorney’s office. The Attorney General’s Open Government Hotline at (877) 673-6839 can also answer general questions about the Open Meetings Act.
But I am a publisher in a town where one city council was about to spend public money under a two-word agenda label, and the only thing that stopped it was an editor in the room who knew the law. This was not the first time nor the only government body this has happened to either.
That should not be the only thing standing between a community and a flawed agenda. But, that’s what we are here for and why The 4th Estate matters. Accountability.
That's why this column exists. If you like this and want to support this mission we invite you to check out. www.the4thestate.shop We are grateful to everyone who has called, stopped by, or reached out over the years with questions about government accountability and open meetings law. You are not just readers. You are part of the Fourth Estate too. And that is exactly why we do this job.