Taxpayers pay the price for the Odessa Americans frivolous lawsuit
The Odessa American has missed the deadline to file their answer with the Texas Appellate Court by a week in their lawsuit against the City of Odessa, and the court doesn’t appear to be happy about it. On February 23, 2021 the Eleventh District Court of Appeals issued a non compliance letter to the Odessa American for failing to file their brief with the courts. It states, “Compliance with the Court’s deadlines is a serious matter.” It then goes on to say that the court is directing the OA to have their brief filed no later than March 5, 2021. All told, the OA has stalled and avoided showing the court proof of their claims for 57 days. I am proud of our new Mayor and council for standing up for the truth and for serving the people. Freedom of the press and transparency should never be confused with sham lawsuits. The Odessa American has been Misleading the public for more than a year by claiming the City of Odessa was illegally withholding public information from the OA and the public. They claim the City redacts or blacks out too much information on police reports and that the OA must file public information requests to receive public information. Actually, the City’s disclosure of information is governed by the Texas Public Information Act which is overseen by the Texas Attorney General. Information that must be redacted is defined by Texas Law. Texas law also governs how information must be requested. Furthermore they claim that the City of Odessa takes too long to respond to public information requests. The two cases noted in the OA lawsuit were responded to in 1 day for one, 6 days for the other- well within the 10 day period prescribed by Texas law. If given unredacted information the OA claims they would never publish information they shouldn’t such as the names of minors or sexual/domestic abuse victims. I found several cases in which the OA has printed stories which expose minor victims names and which graphically expose victims of domestic/sexual assault victims. A quick check of the OA website showed stories published on 4/15/2020, 1/31/2021, and 5/2/2017 which exposed protected victim information. The OA also claims that the City is dragging out the lawsuit. While the City has filed one continuance the OA has filed 2 continuances- the last one on January 28, 2021-the same day their court brief was due. The OA claims their lawsuit to be a heroic effort to protect the publics right to know. The truth is the OA has never filed a complaint with the Texas AG’s office against the city, which would be the typical procedure prior to filing a lawsuit. The OA’s motivation appears to be an attempt to sell newspapers and to extort money from the Odessa taxpayers by creating a fake news story. If they want to sell papers, hire a salesperson and run some ads in the Thrifty Nickel, don’t extort money from the taxpayers!