

I was at the Somervell County annex today because I had heard some signs telling people they could not record in the building had been put up. Of course, Somervell County Commissioners Court cannot tell people like me who frequently records the meetings, that they cannot record them or they would be violating the Texas Open Meetings Act (See Section 551.023) and at the other end, although Commissioners record their executive session meetings, the public cannot listen or attend unless specifically invited.
The annex is a public building, paid for and maintained by….. the taxpayers. First up, if Somervell County Commissioners Court thought they had a valid reason to stick notices about not recording on the wall, surely there should have been a public agenda item indicating that so that the public could hear and weigh in. There was not. Second, there was not a law or legal reason on this sign (compare to the gun laws on the front of the building which cite which code is being followed to restrict guns from coming in).
The offices are public offices and public spaces. Anyone should be able to video record or audio record an elected official. If an official doesn’t like that, he or she can leave the situation; at the same time I think it is entirely fair to alert the person being recorded instead of being sneaky. This presumes that the public elected officials are adults with agency to consider their circumstances as opposed to having someone else force some arbitrary rule on them. And, you know, if a door is closed and you’re not invited in, then whatever is happening behind closed doors is not your business (realizing that elected officials also have to be very scrupulous about not violating the Texas Open Meetings Act law). And maybe if an elected official is concerned about being recorded, they should exercise some restraint and be careful about what they say (Like, don’t call someone a nasty name like Trump does) But they cannot abrogate your first amendment rights to record them if you want. Another way to look at this is that elected officials are accountable to us, and it looks like this was done to try to subtly intimidate those who want to freely speak and meet with their elected officials. If that were so, the question is why?
Let’s say that you did decide to bring your cell phone, which is a recording device, into a meeting in one of these rooms. You would be perfectly legal to do it in Texas (one party consent state). And, under the first amendment, because you are in a public space, your rights to do so are also in effect (would be different if you were in a privately owned place). Side note that you can also record cops, even though sometimes they don’t like you do it. With this type of sign, which appears to me to be not only a bad idea but illegal, might some misguided person from Somervell County court try to arrest you for criminal trespassing for going beyond that the *point* they say it’s okay? Not saying they would be that stupid, but definitely would be opening up themselves for a lawsuit which the taxpayers would have to cough up money for.
I did not see every office with these signs but the ones I saw were in the election office, the commissioners office, the juvenile officer office, HR office, and in front of the badge-secured section of the building where the auditor, treasurer and county attorney were. I asked Wade Busch where the heck these came from, and he didn’t know. I said, well, they had to be from somebody and someplace. Note that he himself did not put it on the wall because, being a thoughtful guy, had questions about it.




So I wondered where this even came from, since it certainly was not brought up in court, where theoretically, the public could have weighed in to say what a bad idea this is. I walked around to see all the places the sign was and the person in the juvenile office told me the sign came from Trey Brown. It was lunchtime so Trey was not in; I have sent him an email asking him what legal references he is using to do this and will update when I get a reply (I also cc’d Danny Chambers on this).
Side note that some years ago I wanted to do a petition in front of the library. Really anyone can do that, what you can’t do is block the sidewalk. Then-County Attorney Andy Lucas told me I could not do it because the library belonged to Somervell County. I was astonished and told him, the library is a public library and belongs to everyone and it is unconstitutional to try to prevent me from doing a petition. I further told him he would have to come and arrest me. The next day he told me that I was able to do that. OF COURSE!!!! (I did not need his permission as a citizen who appreciates the constitution)
Point is that I find it hard to believe, actually, that this was Trey Brown’s idea. I mean, why would a county attorney decide to try to stifle first amendment rights? Will wait though to hear his legal justification. Meantime, it’s more that peculiar that these signs just up and showed up, with the purpose of trying to curtail free speech in *some* offices at the annex.
P.S. Sent an email without any reply since on Thursday

Yesterday (Monday), I did an open records request to Trey
