1997 Texas Legislature Press Bills

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ANTI

• HB273: Exempts from the open records act information that identifies a person as a participant in a neighborhood crime watch program.
• HB625: Closes off access to information submitted to a governmental body by a potential vendor or contractor wishing to prove its status as a historically underutilized business.
• SB454: Creates an open records act exemption for any information developed under an alternative dispute resolution procedure in which a governmental body participated as party or the facilitator.
• SB407: Closes access to information concerning the licensing of facilities that conduct abortions.
• SB609: Makes confidential the drug and medication records maintained by pharmacists.
• HB1324: Makes confidential the information that a telecommunications servicer must provide to a governmental body regarding 911 service, including recordings.
• SB444: Allows local records clerks to destroy after one year the permanent records of a birth, death, or fetal death, if those records have been recorded in the state Bureau of Vital Statistics database.
• HB1667: Makes confidential the performance evaluations of law enforcement officers who supervise defendants placed under community supervision.
• SB1248: Makes confidential reports and records developed by intermediate care facilities for the mentally retarded.
• HB1808: Makes confidential any information collected by a state conservation board or district if it is collected in response to a specific request from a landowner or tenant for technical assistance related to water quality managment or other conservation plans.
• SB1069: Allows for confidential records in the Motor Vehicle Records Disclosure Act.
• HB2328: Allows hospital boards to hold closed meetings for financial planning.
• HB2906: restricts access to draft audits of any governmental body, including institutions of higher education.

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PRO

• HB951: Allows requestors of public records to demand a written statement of the time required to provide the information. It also requires that a bond, not a down payment, be posted for copy orders of more than $100.
• HB1176: Lists information available to the public regarding convictions, deferred ajudication, and sex offender registration maintained by the Department of Public Safety. Also sets fees for copies.
• HB1285: Applies open meetings act to condominium "council of owners" and condo association meetings.
• SB802: Expands the amount of public information available from the Texas Health Care Information Council, as a pro-consumer measure.
• HB1812: Preserves and protects state records and historical data.
• HB1556: Requires state agencies to establish e-mail addresses and use them to communicate with the public.
• SB625: Permits the DPS to release info about juvenile offenders who have escaped from the Texas Youth Commission, including name, physical description, photo, and offense for which they were incarcerated.
• SB66: Requires that a paid public notice of meetings concerning community corrections facilities be published in newspapers before the meeting.
• SB305: Makes Interagency Council of Early Childhood Intervention subject to open records and open meetings act.
• SB381: Adds ajudicated offenses to existing public notice requirements involving sex offenders.

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Source: NewsHound, the newsletter of the Society of Professional Journalists, Austin Pro Chapter