The Office of the Attorney General (OAG) responded to a public information request made by inForney.com for information regarding complaints filed against the City of Forney, City Manager Brian Brooks, and several City Council members.
inForney.com's information request was made on May 1, 2013. On May 10, 2013, the OAG released several documents concerning an official oppression complaint against City Manager Brian Brooks which also included a complaint for non-compliance of the Public Information Act (PIA) against the City of Forney. The OAG also responded with a letter advising the OAG would be seeking the exception of further information from public release.
“The OAG has reviewed its files and has located information responsive to your request. The OAG is releasing the attached documents to you. The OAG believes remaining information responsive to your request is excepted from required public disclosure, and we have requested a ruling from the Open Records Division of the OAG pursuant to Government Code § 552.301,” stated the response from the OAG.
Official oppression and non-compliance of the PIA
On September 20, 2012, Denise Bell, owner of the Forney Post, filed an open records request with the City of Forney for three separate emails she claimed were sent by City Manager Brian Brooks used to intimidate City of Forney employees from having any form of relationship with Bell. Bell also requested an “explanation” for the discriminatory actions she alleged Brooks took against the Post.
On October 4, 2012, the city's attorney, Jeff Moore, responded to the request with an attached “media communications” memo and stated, “Attached is a media communication which is responsive to your request. This concludes this matter.”
Bell, dissatisfied with the fulfillment of her request from the city, forwarded the information to the OAG and asked the office to review the request. The OAG received that request on October 15, 2012, and assigned the complaint a case number. On November 1, 2012, the OAG then requested City of Forney Secretary Dorothy Brooks to comply with the request and/or request an attorney general's decision requesting the exception of information.
On November 6, 2012, secretary Brooks responded to the OAG's request by completing a “PIA Request Certification From Governmental Body” form which states, “Ms. Bell was provided one document which may not have been responsive to her request because the document/email was not sent to all City of Forney employees. This document provided to Ms. Bell set out the City's media policy. In her complaint to your office, Ms. Bell indicates her open records request sought 'three separate emails written by Mr. Brooks and addressed to all City of Forney employees.' I am not aware of and have not been able to locate any emails sent by Mr. Brooks 'to all City of Forney employees' regarding the matters described in her complaint."
On November 14, 2012, eight days after receiving a response from secretary Brooks, the OAG responded to complainant Bell stating, “The city informs us in the enclosed correspondence that it has made available to you all information responsive to your request. When a governmental body represents to this office it has made available all existing responsive information, we must accept its statement … Accordingly, we will close our file on this matter.”
The OAG did not respond to, or address, the requested “explanation” from the complainant as a matter of non-compliance nor as an act of official oppression in the documents supplied in the request made by inForney.com which were received on May 10, 2013.
After a request for comment by inForney.com, City Manager Brian Brooks said, “The FIOA requires a city to produce documents pursuant to a request. The act does not require or allow for the city to create a document that did not already exist simply to fulfill a request.”
Although the OAG informed the complainant the matter was closed in November of 2012, Ms. Bell wrote a series of editorials in the Post just prior to the May 2013 elections that City Manager Brian Brooks was, in fact, under investigation for official oppression.
Pending criminal investigation
In the letter response to inForney.com's information request from the OAG on May 10, 2013, Public Information Coordinator Jordan Hale requested an exception of information from the OAG's Open Records Division stating the release of information would “interfere with the detection, investigation, or prosecution of a crime.”
On July 3, 2013, the OAG's Records Division replied with a “letter ruling” stating, “In this instance, the OAG argues release of further information, which relates to a pending criminal investigation by its Law Enforcement and Criminal Prosecutions Divisions, will compromise the investigation.”
The Attorney General’s Office did not specify any details of the mentioned criminal investigation in the July 3rd letter. When contacted by inForney.com to determine the nature of the "pending criminal investigation", if any, a spokesperson with the Texas Rangers office said he, "could not confirm or deny any involvement in any specific investigation, whether ongoing or not, whatsoever." When requested in May of 2013, the spokesperson with the Texas Rangers said their office was not currently investigating corruption charges against the Forney City Council or its members.
Similar to the AOG's policy of not being able to confirm or deny any ongoing investigation, City Manager Brian Brooks also could not comment any further on the matter.
Editor's Note: Typically, a public information request not containing any newsworthy information would not be published. However, given the recent editorials in the Post, inForney.com has chosen to present the findings of its own public information requests. inForney.com will continue to report on this story when any further information becomes available.