Category Archives: Local Governmental Entities
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 »
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 »
Balancing Freedoms: Texas Open Carry Gun Law and Public Meetings
While the First and Second Amendments provide our constitutional rights to free speech and to bear arms, there is legal leeway for a Texas municipality to bar the open carry of handguns in a public meeting of city council. As of January 1, 2016, Texas gun laws provide concealed handgun license owners to openly… Read More »
Citizens Should Engage Public Officials with Ideas to Better Their City
I recently went on a trip to San Francisco to visit a friend of nearly 20 years. While on a hike to the Golden Gate Bridge, she remarked that one of the abandoned buildings we came across on the hike should be turned into restroom facilities. The building needed a little TLC, but otherwise… Read More »
My Mayor Has Super Powers?
Texas law sets out various powers of mayors and city council. However, what super powers does a mayor have in an emergency or disaster? There are three types of city governments allowed under the Texas Constitution: (1) Special law cities created by the Republic of Texas; (2) general law cities operating under the general… Read More »