City of McAllen sues Texas AG to block records request

McALLEN -- The city's economic development corporation has filed a lawsuit against Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott to block the release of documents Abbot's office deemed public information.

The suit, filed last week in a state district court in Travis County, focuses on a request The Monitor made to the McAllen Economic Development Corp. earlier this summer.

Because state law prohibits the taxpayer-supported corporation from asking the attorney general to reconsider its ruling, officials filed the lawsuit to block the documents' release.

In June, The Monitor requested itineraries of MEDC staff members' trips to Germany.

The request came on the heels of a May news conference in which McAllen Mayor Richard Cortez announced that local officials had met with high-level executives from an auto company and that McAllen was in competition with another city to land a manufacturing plant.

The city has been careful to not name the company considering a plant here.

The development corporation - which receives more than $1.4 million annually in public funding - responded to the Monitor request with a redacted version of the two-page itinerary describing local officials' travels in Germany on April 21-28. Details about meetings were censored, hiding any clues as to which automaker the city has been in talks with.

The development corporation contacted the attorney general's office to clarify whether the itinerary was public information, arguing that parts of it were exempt from public disclosure.

But when the attorney general ruled the document was indeed public information, the development corporation did not release the information to The Monitor and filed the suit.

The development corporation argues the full itinerary is exempt from the public information laws because their release "would cause substantial competitive harm."

"We feel the exemption needs to be enforced," McAllen City Attorney Kevin Pagan said.

City leaders cite a failed attempt to land a Kia Motors Corp. plant here in 2006 as part of their motivation to keep information about the deal quiet this time.

"Those plans fell through in part due to early media leaks identifying the Hyundai Kia Automotive Group as the potential automaker," Deputy City Attorney Ignacio Perez wrote in his initial appeal to the attorney general's office.

The city's attorneys say the location of a new plant is "commercial information" and a "trade secret."

But the attorney general's office does not believe the requested information meets the requirements for exemption from open records laws.

The office wrote that the development corporation has not shown how the release of the information would harm a potential deal. The agency also notes that a third party has not explained how the release of the information could harm a deal either.

Pagan said that, generally speaking, auto companies ask that information about the locations of new plants be kept out of the public discourse.

"They make it clear they don't want information disclosed," Pagan said.

If the information does become public, the auto company could have justification for killing a potential deal, which would hurt the city and residents by preventing the creation of new jobs, Pagan said.

Monitor Editor Steve Fagan said the attorney general's office is the authority on what is and isn't public information and agreed it remains unclear how the release of the itinerary could kill the deal.

Though the development corporation has the right to file suit, it is unlikely a district court would overturn the attorney general's ruling, Monitor attorney Rex Leach said.

The city may have practical reasons for keeping the information private, but that may not be enough for a court, he said.

"From a strictly legal standpoint," Leach said, "it would seem they don't have the kind of specific information the attorney general says is protected by the (state public information) act."

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Ryan Holeywell covers McAllen, PSJA, the Mid-Valley and general assignments for The Monitor. He can be reached at (956) 683-4446.