Yearly Archives: 2016
The City Attorney, Politics and Keeping out of the Bed of Strange Bedfellows
I am a City Attorney first and foremost. Today, I want to tell you what a City Attorney is not. The City Attorney is not a politician or elected official. That role is reserved for the Mayor and members of the City Council (i.e. the governing body). The City Attorney is not a policy maker…. Read More »
Urban Chickens: How Not to Get Flocked
A city council I represent recently deadlocked on whether to allow chickens to be raised by homeowners within the city limits. This was not a rural city but one that abuts Houston’s city limits. Amazingly, raising urban chickens has developed in to a cottage (dare I say coop) industry where for the price of… Read More »
A Primer on How a City in Texas May Conduct a Real Property Sale
For what must be centuries now, law professors, practitioners, and courts have analogized property rights as a bundle of sticks, with each stick representing a specific right which may be separated from the others, sometimes willingly and sometimes not. One such stick in particular is the right to alienate the property—that is, the right… Read More »
Demolition Plan: The Power of Cities To Destroy Buildings
How does a city deal with an abandoned building creating problems for neighbors? The Texas Local Government Code authorizes cities to abate nuisances created by substandard buildings if they establish and follow certain procedures. However, in 2012, the Texas Supreme Court ruled that the Texas Constitution requires an “independent court review” of a city’s… Read More »
Free Speech and the Texas Open Meetings Act: Wide Open Country
“Do I have to sit here and take this?” After a particular contentious city council meeting over a public golf course, during which insults about making sandwiches where hurled at a councilmember who happened to own a Subway sandwich shop, he asked me that question. Though sandwich making has nothing to do with the… Read More »
Texas Municipalities Await a Hard and Fast Rule Against Releasing Dates of Birth under PIA
The very first section of the Texas Public Information Act (“PIA”) states that “each person is entitled, unless otherwise expressly provided by law, at all times to complete information about the affairs of government and the official acts of public officials and employees.” Our concern at the moment is with the part that says… Read More »
Selling a House in Texas with Lease Options is a Nuanced Process
Selling a house in the state of Texas does not always need to be an outright, simple sales transaction. Still, some people in the market, as either a buyer or seller, wonder if it is even legal to arrange for a rent to own deal for a residential property in this state. The short… Read More »
What Does a City Attorney Do?
What does a City Attorney do? Sounds Kind of Boring! At dinner parties and social gatherings, people often ask, “what do you do for a living?” This is not an easy question to answer. I am a private practice attorney who spends the majority of my day representing multiple public municipalities (i.e., cities) in and around… Read More »
Economic Development or Honey I bought a HEB
Do you think public-private partnerships as an economic development tool is a new 21st century concept? Corporate welfare a creation of the 20th century? Have you ever been to Pittsville, Texas? An economic engine of the late 19th century was the railroad companies. Failure to donate land to bring the railroad to your town… Read More »
Signs of the Times: How Pokémon Poses Municipal Regulation Questions
Pokémon GO has descended upon the masses, and this newest iteration of Nintendo’s classic video game from the 1990s brings the monster catching hysteria to the real world—or at least to the screen of your GPS enabled smartphone. Having been out for only a little over a week, Pokémon GO has players everywhere seeking… Read More »