Denton Record-Chronicle (Denton, Tex.), Vol. 113, No. 19, Ed. 1 Sunday, August 21, 2016 Page: 4 of 38
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LOCAL/STATE
4A
Sunday, August 21, 2016
Denton Record-Chronicle
State law requires public meeting videos
cross Dallas-Fort Worth,
you can now sit at your
kitchen table and watch
many city council or school
board meetings on your smart-
phone, computer or tablet. It’s
open government at its rawest.
Unfiltered streaming video. I
know this because a sharp 17-
year-old Coppell High School
senior verifies that this is true.
Let me explain.
This year, a new state law re-
quires larger cities, school dis-
tricts, counties and transit au-
thorities to videotape their pub-
lic meetings and post them on
their government websites.
How does a Coppell High se-
nior play into this major state-
wide government improve-
ment? Sakshi Venkatraman is
executive news editor of the stu-
dent newspaper, The Sidekick.
She also is the first-ever Watch-
dog Desk summer intern.
Sakshi seems a bit shy at first,
but don’t be fooled. Get her talk-
ing about Instagram and Snap-
chat and she comes alive. The
first task I asked her to do was
organize email addresses of
readers who support The
Watchdog’s campaign to fix elec-
counties with more than
125,000 people. Dallas Area
Rapid Transit is included, too.
During her internship,
Sakshi spent weeks creating a
spreadsheet. One by one, she
checked the websites of 131 cit-
ies, 40 school districts and five
counties. She was looking for vi-
olators. Which governments, for
whatever reason, ignored the
new law?
Her findings are surprising.
“It was a pretty arduous un-
dertaking,” Sakshi says. “I spent
weeks going through almost
200 websites to determine if cit-
ies and school districts were fol-
lowing House Bill 283. Mean-
while, I also was being assigned
other stories by my editor.
“I definitely think it was
worth it, though. As journalists,
it’s our job to hold institutions
accountable for their action, or
lack thereof.... The minutes and
agenda packets don’t convey the
full reality of the human interac-
tion that happens during these
meetings.”
Smart kid.
I would add that recorded
public meetings available free to
everyone is not only useful to
costs. DART spokesman Mor-
gan Lyons this week tells me the
agency hired an outside compa-
ny on a two-year contract to re-
cord meetings with six cameras
and store the recordings. The
price? Not more than $130,000.
Dart to DART. Sakshi says
even she — expert Instagram-
mer and Snapchatter that she is
— could do it a lot cheaper.
And now, the results of all her
A
ABOUT THIS COLUMN
The Watchdog Desk works for you to shine light on questionable practices
in business and government. We welcome your story ideas and tips.
Contact The Watchdog
Email: watchdog@dallasnews.com
Call: 214-977-2952
Write: Dave Lieber, P.0. Box 655237, Dallas, TX 75265
Dave Lieber
THE WATCHDOG
journalists but also to you, sit-
ting at the kitchen table in paja-
mas.
most city councils recorded and
posted their meetings, but that
statewide, only 29 percent of
school districts and 17 percent of
counties did.
In the 2017 session, he wants
to pass another bill to lower the
population limits so that smaller
jurisdictions must record and
post their meeting videos, too.
He dismisses criticism that
it’s expensive. Pointing a camera
at a board and then uploading
videos to a free YouTube channel
costs next to nothing, Fallon
says. He’s right.
When his bill was in debate
last year, DART told lawmakers
that it would require $50,000 in
startup costs and $100,000 an-
nually to handle recordings and
postings.
Fallon urged The Watchdog
to check with DART for actual
tricity shopping.
About 250 people stepped
forward to offer help in The
Watchdog’s planned quest for
electricity reforms in the 2017
Legislature.
After she compiled a spread-
sheet, I gave her a bigger assign-
ment — one I dreaded because
of its time-consuming nature.
But it would be perfect for the
executive news editor of The
Sidekick (circulation 900).
work.
“I actually found that every
government that fell within the
population requirements com-
plied with the law,” Sakshi says.
“In fact, many cities and school
districts, like Coppell, complied
with the law even when their
population didn’t make it a re-
quirement. It was pretty surpris-
Back story
The new law is the baby of
state Rep. Pat Fallon, R-Frisco.
In the 2015 session, Fallon
baby-sat his bill through the
House for approval. Then, in a
rare move, he visited the Senate
and pushed for it there, too.
Why did he care?
Before he was elected to the
Legislature, Fallon, then a Frisco
City Council member, used old
meeting videotapes to prove an
important point that ultimately
saved taxpayers money, he said.
But when he tried to research a
school district, he found the
meetings weren’t recorded.
After he was elected to the
House in 2012, he learned that
mg.
In the Dallas-Fort Worth ar-
ea, that’s 22 cities, 15 school dis-
tricts and four counties required
to do it — and they all are. No
violators. This is very good news.
“I’m elated,” Fallon says. “It’s a
story with a happy ending.”
Check out your government’s
meeting videos sometime. See
your tax dollars at work — in
Who is recording?
The new law requires that
videos of regular public meet-
ings be posted by home-rule cit-
ies with populations greater
than 50,000, school districts
with more than 10,000 students
and commissioners courts in
your pajamas.
Judge: Convictions should
be reversed in ’92 slayings
INDICTMENTS
The following people were indicted by a Denton
County grand jury Thursday at the Denton
County Courts Building. Listed are those indicted,
their age, charges and the law enforcement
agency that made the arrest:
Roanoke police
■ Joseph Linton, 26, aggravated assault, Carroll-
ton police
■ Wesley Antee, 27, aggravated assault, contin-
uous violence against the family, Corinth police
■ Lee Lentsch, 37, aggravated assault, Denton
police
■ Hikivious Moore, 25, assault family violence,
Denton police
■ Justin Fullingim, 29, assault family violence,
Sanger police
■ Laqjuana Williams, 38, harassment of public
servant, Flower Mound police
■ James Cottle, 76, continuous sexual abuse of
young child, Lewisville police
■ Jacobo Perez, 35, continuous sexual abuse of
young child, Lewisville police
■ James Smith, 31, possession of a controlled
substance, Denton police
■ Scott Weaver, 52, two counts of possession of
a controlled substance, Denton police
■ Matthew Wyszynski, 24, credit card abuse,
Denton police
■ Ciera Cruz, 37, aggravated assault, Little Elm
police
■ Agustin Roman, 20, aggravated assault,
assault against public servant, Little Elm police
■ Estelle Aument, 23, possession of a controlled
substance, The Colony police
■ Joshua Cardwell, 26, possession of a con-
trolled substance, The Colony police
■ Austin Gibson, 19, possession of a controlled
substance, The Colony police
■ Robert Flowlett, 29, evading arrest, The
Colony police
■ Christopher Rucker, 23, possession of marijua-
na, The Colony police
■ David Stocking, 27, theft, The Colony police
■ Luis Dominguez, 18, possession of a controlled
substance, Lewisville police
■ Jamarius Edwards, 25, possession of a con-
trolled substance, Lewisville police; possession
of a controlled substance with intent to deliver,
Denton County Sheriff's Office
■ Tammy McAlister, 32, possession of a con-
trolled substance, Lewisville police
■ Fahd Opanuga, 48, fraudulent use or possession
of identifying information, Lewisville police
■ Tyrone Parham, 42, two counts of possession
of a controlled substance, Lewisville police
■ Allegra Townsend, 23, two counts of pos-
session of a controlled substance, Lewisville police
■ John Burke, 22, harassment of public servant,
University of North Texas police
WACO (AP) — A Central Texas man
serving a life prison sentence for a dou-
ble slaying in 1992 is innocent, as are
three co-defendants no longer in pris-
on, a state judge has found.
Retired District Judge George Allen
ruled Friday that Richard Bryan Kuss-
maul, 45, should be free. His three co-
defendants each received 20-year sen-
tences and have already been released.
DNA evidence not available two de-
cades ago shows the four weren’t involved
in the fatal shootings of 17-year-old Leslie
Murphy and 14-year-old Stephen Neigh-
bors at a home near Moody, south of Wa-
co, Allen said in a four-page opinion.
Allen’s recommendation now goes
to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals
for a final decision. The state’s top crim-
inal appeals court had ordered a hear-
ing held last month to look into the
men’s claims they were innocent.
“The evidence just seemed over-
whelming, with the DNA evidence hav-
ing excluded these men from any con-
tact whatsoever with these people,”
Kussmaul’s lawyer, David Sheppard,
told the Waco Tribune-Herald.
Allen presided over the trial where
Kussmaul was convicted of murder. His
three co-defendants, James Edward
Long, Michael Dewayne Shelton and
James Wayne Pitts Jr., were convicted
of sexual assault.
Atthehearinglast month, Long Shel-
ton and Pitts all testified they gave false
testimony against Kussmaul because a
prosecutor promised them probation.
■ Johnnie Medina Jr., a.k.a. Johnny Medina Jr.,
59, driving while intoxicated, Lewisville police
■ Zachary Owens, 20, aggravated assault,
Argyle police
■ Sergio Pacheco, 31, assault family violence,
Carrollton police
■ Bradley Andrews, 45, assault family violence,
Corinth police
■ Christopher Dillard, 35, assault family violence,
Denton police
■ Carlos Sanchez, 28, assault family violence,
Denton police
■ Zachary Wright, 19, possession of a controlled
substance, Denton police
■ Dustin Gibson, 32, assault family violence,
Krum police
■ Michael Bornot, 23, injury to an elderly in-
dividual, Lewisville police
■ Joshua Sutton, 29, assault family violence,
Little Elm police
■ Nathan Roberts, 28, assault family violence,
^0 380 A$
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Parks, Scott K. Denton Record-Chronicle (Denton, Tex.), Vol. 113, No. 19, Ed. 1 Sunday, August 21, 2016, newspaper, August 21, 2016; Denton, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1127342/m1/4/: accessed June 23, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; .