Office of the Attorney General, 102519 TXAGO, RQ-0313-KP

• Case Date: October 25, 2019
• Court: Texas

Office of the Attorney General No. RQ-0313-KP Texas Attorney General Opinion October 25, 2019          Office of the Attorney General          P.O. Box 12548          Austin, Texas 78711-2548          RE: Open Meetings           Received Date: Nov 07, 2019           Received Date: Oct, 29, 2019          Dear Deputy Attorney General:          The Texas Legislature recently added Section 551.007 to the Texas Government Code. The new amendment requires Blanco County to permit public comment during Commissioners Court on items that are on the agenda. Subsection (b) of the amendment provides:          A governmental body shall allow each member of the public who desires to address the body regarding an item on an agenda for an open meeting of the body to address the body regarding the item at the meeting before or during the body's consideration of the item.          Subsection (c) provides:          A governmental body may adopt reasonable rules regarding the public's right to address the body under this section, including rules that limit the total amount of time that a member of the public may address the body on a given item.          At a recent Commissioners Court meeting, the Commissioners Court permitted public comments at the beginning of the meeting. The Commissioners limited public comments to three minutes per person. One member of the public wanted to comment on 17 of the 21 items. He argued that the subsection (b) required the Commissioners to allow him to discuss each agenda item immediately prior to discussion of that item. It was the County's opinion that subsection (b) did not require that and that allowing the public to interrupt Court 17 different times would be disruptive to the...