State backs San Antonio; scooter bids to stay secret
As expected, the Texas Attorney General’s Office has ruled against the efforts of three news organizations to use the state’s open records law to obtain proposals submitted by nine electric scooter companies seeking twoyear contracts with San Antonio.
The applications in response to the city’s request for proposals, or RFP, contain minutelydetailed business profiles of the scooter companies — some more than 100 pages. They took months to prepare and answer a host of questions from the city on everything from staffing, insurance and user agreements to where the firms would deploy their vehicles.
San Antonio plans to award three contracts sometime this fall to reduce the number of scooter companies now operating under a temporary set of rules, allowing each of the winners to rent up to 1,666 socalled dockless vehicles.
The city opposed efforts by the San Antonio ExpressNews, the Rivard Report and Texas Public Radio to obtain the RFP applications before the awarding of contracts and sent the matter to the Attorney General’s Office for an opinion. That has been standard procedure for the city for many years, said Jeff Coyle, director of government and public affairs.
“I don’t recall the city ever releasing RFPs (to the public) before we award contracts,” Coyle said. “But afterward, we usually do.”
A 2015 decision by the Texas Supreme Court in a case called Boeing Co. vs. Paxton has allowed cities to withhold such documents and others from the public if the companies maintain that the information would give any advantage to competitors, not just a decisive one. The AG’s office has cited the Boeing case more than 1,850 times in keeping records secret, according to the Texas Observer.
Of the nine scooter companies competing for San Antonio contracts, two of them, Lyft and Lime, filed legal arguments citing the Boeing case and asking the AG’s office to not allow their RFP applications to be disclosed, declaring that trade secrets and confidential information were at stake.
The city of San Antonio told the AG’s office that release of the companies’ RFPs prior to awarding the contracts would harm the city’s bargaining position “and its ability to secure the most advantageous contract possible.” The AG ruling agrees with the city’s position and says it may withhold documents.
What’s not clear is where the open records dispute will go after the contracts are handed out.
“I believe the process would start over,” said Coyle, after consulting the city’s legal team. “The AG never did rule on the trade secrets arguments by the companies. So after we award the contract, requestors would submit new (open records requests) for the proposals, and we would again notify the third party companies. How the AG would handle it from there is a question for the AG’s office.”
bselcraig@expressnews.net