Denton Record-Chronicle (Denton, Tex.), Vol. 113, No. 223, Ed. 1 Monday, March 13, 2017 Page: 1 of 16
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INSIDE TODAY
ALSO INSIDE
Villanova earns No. 1 overall seed in NCAA tourney / Sports, IB
Immigrants across country
train for deportation
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UNT softball completes weekend sweep of UTEP / Sports, IB
Denton Record-Chronicle
An edition of JJaUa^Portmtg JfaU#
DentonRC.com
Vol. 113, No. 223 /16 pages, 3 sections
Monday, March 13, 2017
One dollar
Denton, Texas
Denials
of record
requests
increase
TWISTING TALES
A
ft
i
By Terri Langford
The Dallas Morning News
When Texans ask state and local offi-
cials for public records detailing their
operations, more and more the answer
is no.
mS
N
The reason why is in dispute — in
part because of the lack of some public
records.
Checks cut by a school board, tapes
of 911 emergency calls and text messag-
es between city council members are
among the materials that are, in theory,
publicly available.
A quirk of the Texas open records
law, adopted almost 45 years ago, says
that when officials deny the public the
right to see something, they usually
have to run that decision by the state at-
torney general’s office.
The Dallas Morning News exam-
ined data on denials as part of an annu-
al project known as Sunshine Week,
which the American Society of News
Editors started in 2005. News organi-
zations across the country report on the
health of the nation’s open records laws,
focusing on ways to improve govern-
ment transparency.
In Texas, the number of record-re-
quest denials has soared. In 2001, gov-
ernments forwarded 6,149 denied re-
cord requests to the attorney general’s
office for review and received a ruling
from Austin. That number jumped to
27,383 in 2015. Much of the increase
has occurred in the last decade.
The overall number of denials is ac-
tually larger than the data indicate.
More than 80 agencies and local gov-
ernments have received permission
from the attorney general to automat-
ically deny certain kinds of requests,
such as those that reveal a person’s birth
date.
I
i
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* 'I
Photos by Tomas Gonzalez/DRC
Carolina Quiroga-Stultz, a storyteller who shares myths, legends and mysteries from Central and South America in Spanish and English, tells a
fairytale Sunday at the last concert of the 32nd annual Texas Storytelling Festival.
32nd annual Texas Storytelling Festival comes to an end
By Harrison Long
Staff Writer
hlong@ dentonrc.com
The 32nd annual Texas Storytelling
Festival met Thursday through Sunday
in Denton, giving its featured speakers
— and those entirely new to the craft —
a chance to share their tales and per-
spectives on a wealth of subjects.
“This place is like Brigadoon,” fea-
tured storyteller and experienced ora-
tor Delores Hydock said. “It appears
only for a moment, but is magical all
the same.”
Organized by the Tejas Storytelling
Association, based in Denton, the fes-
tival has been a community staple
since its inception in the mid 1980s.
“It started as a project by Finley
Stewart, who was a UNT student at
the time,” said Jay Stailey, artistic di-
rector for the festival for the second
year in a row. “[Working with the festi-
val] has been a great experience, Den-
ton is a town that is really receptive to
events such as this.”
Addressing a crowd gathered on
Sunday for the final event of the festi-
val, appropriately dubbed “Sacred
-V
- ^
Some experts say the prevailing atti-
tude among governments in Texas has
turned from a presumption that re-
cords should almost always be available
to a belief that officials should release as
little as possible.
“I think more governments have be-
come more desirous of withholding in-
formation — many of them out there
have a knee-jerk reaction,” said Kelley
Shannon, executive director of the
Freedom of Information Foundation of
Texas, which is largely supported by
journalism organizations.
— *
LV-
.4
!i
Yvonne Healy, who specializes in Irish tales and lore, tells a story Sunday at the last concert of the 32nd annual
Texas Storytelling Festival.
See STORYTELLING on 5A
See RECORDS on 5A
Trump voters to lose the most from GOP plan
STATE
TODAY
IN DENTON
Get ready for busier floor
sessions. Rules prohib-
iting the Legislature from
approving most bills
beyond “emergency
items” directed by the
governor expired Friday
Page 2A
Trump in November.
Most affected by the Republi-
can health care plan would be
parts of Alaska, Arizona, Nebras-
ka, Tennessee and Oklahoma,
where insurance subsidies have
been crucial in making high-price
insurance affordable. All five
states went for Trump. Also hit
hard would be parts of swing
states that backed Trump, includ-
ing Pennsylvania, North Carolina
and Michigan.
Older, low-income residents of
some parts of California, includ-
ing rural counties in the northern
part of the state, could also see
substantial losses, the data show.
Meanwhile, higher-income,
younger Americans — many of
whom five in urban areas won by
Democrat Hillary Clinton —
stand to get more assistance in the
Republican legislation.
Faring best would be the na-
tion’s wealthiest residents, who
would get a substantial tax cut
with the elimination under the
House bill of two levies on high-
income taxpayers. Those taxes —
on individuals making more than
Access under bill
to hit lower-income
voters in rural areas
* 4
i
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\.4
By Noam N. Levey
Tribune Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON (TNS) -
Americans who swept President
Donald Trump to victory — lower-
income, older voters in conserva-
tive, rural parts of the country —
stand to lose the most in federal
health care aid under a Republi-
can plan to repeal and replace the
Affordable Care Act, according to
a Los Angeles Times analysis of
county voting and tax credit data.
Among those hit the hardest un-
der the House bill are 60-year-olds
with annual incomes of $30,000.
In nearly 1,500 counties nation-
wide, such a person stands to lose
more than $6,000 a year in federal
insurance subsidies. Ninety percent
of those counties backed Trump,
the analysis shows.
And 68 of the 70 counties
where these consumers would suf-
fer the largest losses supported
M
A morning shower or
two then afternoon sun
High: 66
Low: 45
Three-day forecast, 2A
t
{
NATIONAL
Two days before Attorney
General Jeff Sessions or-
dered dozens of the coun-
try’s top federal prosecutors
to clean out their desks, he
gave those political appoin-
tees a pep talk during a
conference call.
FIND IT INSIDE
J. Scott Applewhite/AP file photo
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., con-
fers with staff counsel during a Feb. 28 markup session on the
Protecting Access to Care Act on Capitol Hill in Washington.
ic
CLASSIFIED
6C
COMICS
3C, 6C
CROSSWORDS
2C
DEAR ABBY
5A
DEATHS
Page 3A
4A
OPINION
$200,000 and couples making even if Barack Obama’s health
more than $250,000 — were in- care law is repealed,
eluded in the Affordable Care Act
to help offset the cost of assisting political liability for Republican
lawmakers, some of whom can ill
The disproportionate effect of afford to alienate the party’s elec-
the House Republican plan toral base at a time when Trump
threatens to undercut one of remains deeply unpopular.
Trump’s core promises that he -
would take care of all Americans See HEALTH CARE on 5A
IB
SPORTS
5C
TELEVISION
It could also become a serious
2A
WEATHER
INTERNATIONAL
lower-income Americans.
Turkish President Recep
Tayyip Erdogan intensi-
fied his dispute with
European nations Sunday
Page 6A
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Parks, Scott K. Denton Record-Chronicle (Denton, Tex.), Vol. 113, No. 223, Ed. 1 Monday, March 13, 2017, newspaper, March 13, 2017; Denton, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1131823/m1/1/: accessed June 25, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; .