Save Our Springs Alliance sues City Council over Open Meetings Act

As he threatened to do at last week’s City Council meeting, Save Our Springs Alliance Executive Director Bill Bunch has sued the city, the mayor and Council for alleged violations of the Texas Open Meetings Act, the Austin City Charter and Council’s own procedures for allowing the public to speak. The suit was filed in Travis County District Court.

Bunch and SOS, which is dedicated to protecting Barton Springs and the Edwards Aquifer, sued the various defendants April 5 over alleged Open Meetings Act violations and amended the suit on Thursday to include allegations about the city’s regulations and the City Charter. He told the Austin Monitor on Thursday he is “trying to get an emergency hearing before next week’s meeting.” At such a hearing, Bunch would seek a temporary restraining order and a permanent injunction “to remedy defendants’ violations of law as to the April 4, 2024 consent agenda and to prohibit additional and future violations of the Texas Open Meetings Act and the Austin City Charter.”

At last week’s meeting, Bunch signed up to speak on four consent agenda items. When he started to speak, Bunch asked Mayor Kirk Watson whether he would have two minutes to speak on each of the items. In making the request, Bunch referred to the requirements of the Texas Open Meetings Act. Watson refused his request and deducted the time Bunch had used in protesting the mayor’s interpretation of the rules. Bunch then had one minute and one second to address the four items he intended to speak on.

At the time, Bunch made clear that he intended to sue over Council’s interpretation of the Open Meetings Act. In the past, Council has allowed each speaker three minutes to speak on each item. He noted in a conversation with the Monitor that under the current rules, there would have been no all-night meeting in 1990 on the Barton Creek PUD, Jim Bob Moffett’s failed attempt to develop and despoil Barton Springs. That meeting essentially launched the Save Our Springs movement.

Bunch’s lawsuit requests that the court grant injunctions prohibiting Council from restricting public speakers’ time, “regardless of the number of posted items that a speaker has registered to address and/or based on a practice that is not contained in a duly adopted ordinance of the City Council. For temporary relief, prior to Council acting by ordinance to correct its ongoing violations of the City Charter, the plaintiffs are requesting the court to order the Council to allow public speakers a minimum of three minutes to speak on each item for which the speaker has properly registered to speak to the Council.”

Plaintiffs contend that the defendants have been in violation of the City Charter since 2017.

A city spokesperson told the Monitor: “We believe the council is following the Texas Open Meetings Act by allowing the public to speak on all matters before the council acts. In addition to speaking at a council meeting, (either in person or by telephone), there are multiple ways for members of the public to make their opinion known to council: conversations with individual council members in person or by phone calls, and individual or group emails, letters.”

The lawsuit also requests that the court void all actions taken at the April 4 meeting that were on the consent agenda or the addendum to that agenda. “In the alternative plaintiffs request that the Council’s actions to approve Consent Agenda items 6, 23 and 43 be voided.” Item 6 was a $3 million contract with HDR Engineering Inc. for a study to determine where the water utility might locate an additional new pump station and reservoir. Bunch spoke against the item.

He opposed item 23, described as a contract for a land stewardship program with American YouthWorks for up to five years for a total contract amount not to exceed $13,482,000. He also opposed item 43, which set a public hearing to consider an ordinance amending the Land Development Code to “create a new zoning district for a density bonus … and establish boundaries for the new zoning district located in the vicinity commonly known as the South Central Waterfront.”

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