School board meetings used to be known for meetings as long and dry as a summer in the West Texas region of Trans-Pecos. Instead, some school board meetings lately are as filled with thunder and lightning as an Upper Coast rainy season. The cause of the fireworks:...
Texas Municipal Law Blog
Big legal win for small tribe over Texas
The population of Texas is nearly 30 million, while the population of the Alabama-Coushatta Tribe of Texas is about 500. When David topples Goliath, even if it’s in a federal courtroom, it makes news. The small tribe recently prevailed over the second most populous...
Texas city in legal battle over funding for new city hall
Amarillo has been mentioned in songs by a wide range of musical artists, including Nat King Cole and Bob Dylan, and by George Strait, Jason Aldean and Neil Sedaka, among others. It seems unlikely that an ongoing Amarillo legal battle will ever be the subject of song,...
Texas county planning today to avoid tomorrow’s floods
It’s about a 50-mile drive northeast to get from downtown Houston to Liberty County. Like many other Texas areas battered four years ago by Hurricane Harvey, Liberty County is working on improvements that will prepare it for any extreme weather tomorrow might bring....
Texas city and firefighters’ union in yearslong pay dispute
One of the more difficult tasks that fall to Texas municipal officials is the negotiation of contracts with police and fire unions. Widespread calls for police reform following the killing last year of George Floyd have complicated often-contentious negotiations with...
TECQ issues boil-water notice for Texas city
Back in the day, coal miners used to carry a canary in a cage with them as they tunneled deep into the earth. The small bird functioned as a warning system. If the bird collapsed, miners knew it was time to flee before they were also overwhelmed by odorless toxic...
Tug of war over Texas online sales tax
A simple change to the sales tax sourcing rule by the Texas Comptroller will go into effect later this year. Comptroller’s Rule 3.334 will redirect sales tax revenue from online purchases. Instead of going to the seller’s place of business, the revenue will go to the...
Is access to public information being deliberately slowed in Texas?
Though Gov. Gregg Abbott has declared that Texas is 100 percent open and functioning “without any restrictions or limitations or requirements,” not everyone is convinced. Various news sources report that there has been delayed access to public records via the Texas...
Texas city to help other municipalities learn from its drought survival
It started back in 2010 and lasted five years. The extreme drought that put a dry, dusty chokehold on Wichita Falls forced a number of changes in the lives of its residents. None of the changes were harder to swallow than the switch to Direct Potable Reuse (DPR) – a...
Texas cities looking at monetizing data to generate new revenue
It’s commonplace for city governments eager to serve constituents to face funding challenges. But the extraordinary challenges presented by a year-plus of pandemic are compelling cities to look for new revenue streams to meet today’s and tomorrow’s needs. The North...
