City may act against lawyer who filed suit

City attorney threatens to ask judge to hold another attorney in contempt.

Bastrop’s city attorney threatened in a letter last week to ask a district court to hold another attorney in contempt after filing a lawsuit against the city alleging officials violated the Texas Open Meetings Act four years ago when they decided to cancel a development contract.

Attorney Bill Aleshire filed the lawsuit against Bastrop on April 3 on behalf of Pine Forest resident Paul Burt.

The suit claims the city violated the Open Meetings Act on May 28, 2013, when council members canceled a development agreement with Pine Forest Investments Group LLC to develop the neighborhood along Texas 71 known as Unit 6.

The lawsuit says the City Council discussed the development agreement in executive session even though it was not properly posted to the agenda. According to Section 551.041 of the Open Meetings Act, all subjects of public meetings must be clearly listed for the public to read. Nowhere on the May 2013 agenda is the word Pine Forest mentioned, the suit says.

For relief, Burt has asked a judge to void the vote that occurred that day, as well as disclose tape recordings and a certified agenda of the executive session where members met to discuss the development agreement.

In an emailed response, Bastrop City Attorney David Bragg said the lawsuit violates an injunction handed down by District Judge Carson Campbell in September that prohibits Pine Forest Investments from taking any action to enforce the real estate contract and development agreement it had regarding Unit 6.

Campbell declared that contract “null and void” last year, after the city, Bastrop County and the Bastrop school district spent $800,000 fighting the investment group for development rights to the land.

Bragg said in his email he would be forced to “file a motion for contempt” if Aleshire did not withdraw the lawsuit since he said those issues already had been decided by the courts.

However, Aleshire said the Open Meetings Act violation had never been litigated and that Burt’s lawsuit had nothing to do with enforcing the voided Pine Forest Investments contract.

“This case is solely about the council acting on a matter it did not list on its agenda,” Aleshire said in an email. “If the city, and (Council Member) Willie DeLaRosa in particular, cannot admit that the council cannot deliberate or act on subjects that are not listed on their agenda, then transparency and trust in that government will be lost. And the more the Bastrop council resists being held accountable for such a flagrant violation of the Open Meetings Act, the more attention the taxpayers of Bastrop need to pay.”