Lovelace v. LTISD: An Open Records War
January 17th, 2008 at 12:06 pm
The Lake Travis Independent School District and a local couple are waging an all-out, take-no-prisoners, opens records war. The theaters of this war have ranged from district court to the Third Court of Appeals to the Texas Legislature, and the impact of this fight could further change Texas’ open records law, and possibly not for the better.
As the Lake Travis Cavaliers were enjoying a championship season in 2007, their school board and Superintendent Dr. Rocky Kirk were appealing a decision by a Travis County district court to dismiss the district’s lawsuit against David and Melissa Lovelace.
The Lovelaces have requested thousands of documents from the district in accordance with Texas open records law, starting with documents related to their child, and continuing with documents relating to the entire district (like the entire pay schedule for all teachers and administrators — just an inkling of the data sought and published and maintained on the Lovelaces’ blog, ltisd.info).
There’s more data on this site, lots and lots and lots more data.
LTISD says the 3,000-plus requests filed by the Lovelaces in the last few years amount to an “attack” on the school system. LTISD says it has spent $700,000 fighting requests from the Lovelaces.
Dr. Kirk’s statement, published on the LTISD web site just after the decision, gives the school district’s perspective:
Specifically, the Court stated, “The District pled facts [sic] sufficient to show that the Lovelaces’ conduct unreasonably interfered with the public right of District taxpayers to a public education for their children and that the excessive drains on District staff times and resources had affected all or a considerable part of the District community.”
Lovelace says it’s the other way around. He says it’s his own government that launched an attack on his family.
“Wait a minute,” Lovelace told me. “I got sued by my own government — without doing anything wrong — and I don’t have any redress.”
The decision from Texas’ Third Court of Appeals came down Nov. 29. The court’s decision ruled the district’s lawsuit out of bounds — while LTISD continued to assert that the Lovelaces’ open records requests were an attempt to “attack, harass, and besiege” the district — an attack worthy of governmental intervention, according to the school district — in fact, worthy of intervention from Texas judges on behalf of LTISD and against David and Melissa Lovelace, who have a child in the Lake Travis school system.
Former Travis County Judge Bill Aleshire, is representing Lovelace along with Jennifer Riggs and Jason Ray.
Aleshire said this week that LTISD’s lawsuit should never have been filed.
“There is no such cause of action,” says Aleshire. “What this all amounted to was an attack by the government on parents who were just trying to get information,” he said. “Just because somebody wants a lot of information doesn’t mean they’re wrong.”
Aleshire says he understands that some may view the Lovelaces’ requests as asking for “just deliberately voluminous information… David got accused of that, and it’s absolutely false.” He says the Lovelaces took it upon themselves to demand information from an inefficient bureaucracy.
“They resist handling open records requests in a reasonable and efficient manner, attack any taxpayer (like the Lovelaces) who stands up to them, and innovate new ways to make it harder for the constituents to see what’s going on,” Aleshire said.
“I go way back,” Aleshire told me. “And I’m outraged by what the school district has done.”
The Lovelaces have spent $20-30,000 fighting LTISD. The district’s people point to the fact that the Third Court refused to force the district to pay the Lovelaces’ attorney’s fees and court costs as partial evidence of the court’s sympathy.
LTISD Communications Director Mario Alvarado says the district has complied and is complying with Texas’ public information law.
“We get many requests, and we try to comply,” Alvarado told me. “We’ve done all that we can do.” He said the Lovelaces’ requests have included everything but the district’s kitchen sink, including “financial information, personnel items, construction information, bond information…”
I asked David Lovelace why he didn’t just move — you know, Central Texas is a big place, and if it was a matter of getting the best education for your child, why not just move? He answered calmly, with a hint of outrage.
“Why should I move?” he said. “I’m not the one with the problem… I couldn’t have just given up.”
I asked Dr. Kirk to talk about the case, but he said he had nothing to add to the district’s public position. LTISD says they have accepted the Third Court’s direction to find legislative relief, and all parties expect to see Kirk and the district’s lawyers and lobbyists arguing on LTISD’s behalf to further constrict the state’s open records rules.
Lovelace points out that 35 percent of the traffic on his site comes from IP addresses associated with LTISD schools. Yep. That’s right. Who’s reading these public documents? Lake Travis teachers, students, and parents — all hungry for data they can’t get from the school district.
January 18th, 2008 at 3:13 pm
If LTISD doesn’t want to spend so much money on attorney’s fees, why don’t they just turn over the info and stop fighting every records request they get from the Lovelaces? It is much cheaper to comply with the Open Records Act than to fight it every step of the way.
January 19th, 2008 at 7:11 am
I live in the LTISD district. The school district has wasted hundreds of thousands of dollars in their legal vendetta against the Lovelaces.
And they waste money in many places. They built a five million dollar indoor multi-purpose facility…but apparently only the football team gets to use it…not the Band and other student groups. They pay Superintendent Kirk over $200,000 per year…more than what Eanes pays its superintendent.
The district has not one but two high dollar law firms who routinely charge over $250 per hour for harassing the Lovelaces and lobbying the State legislature. LTISD refuses to post its checks online so the taxpayers and parents can see where its tax dollars are being spent. What a travesty.
January 19th, 2008 at 1:46 pm
Both sides are at fault in this mess. It takes two to tango and make this mess.
LTISD did not hand over information in a timely manner. They were initially dismissive to the Lovelace’s thus they created their own nightmare.
The Lovelace’s were ridiculous in open recording everthing from football to the cafeteria budget. They abused the law. Remember they did this in another school district so they obviously have a problem.
LTISd also has problems. Anyone who blames just one side has blinders on.
All of this has resulted in my tax dollars being pissed away and time and effort that could have gone somewhere else.
The saddest part of all this is that LTISD managed to get their high paid lobbyist to get the state law changed and everyone suffers because of this war between LTISd and the Lovelace’s.
Why does LTISd even have a paid lobbyist - that is wrong!
Shame on both sides for letting it get so far.
Shame on the legislature for changing the law to protect the record holer and make it more difficult for the requestor.
And in the end has anyone really won? NO! Tell that to our LTISD tecachers when they have to spend their own money on classroom supplies.
This is PATHETIC!
January 20th, 2008 at 4:30 pm
“legal eagle” says “Remember they did this in another school district so they obviously have a problem.”
What other district have they done this to?
I am aware of the battle that is going on and can tell you that “legal eagle” is wrong, but what does the truth have to do with good fiction?
February 2nd, 2008 at 7:32 pm
Public school districts want our property taxes and hefty donations. They battle transparency and accountability because they do not want the public to be informed and authentically involved. District administrators and board members spend our tax dollars to battle our children’s rights and our rights, too. Like LTISD, Eanes ISD retains many private law firms and lobbyists. The Eanes ISD lobbyist doesn’t even have a contract (as required by law) and he just emails the superintendent asking for (and receiving!) thousands of dollars. Sweet deal.
Public school districts make it very difficult, expensive and sometimes impossible to obtain public information that should be readily available online at no cost. One good example is the check register. Eanes ISD and LTISD both purchased BoardBook from TASB and could easily post the check register online at no additional cost. These public school districts spend our tax dollars not to provide, but to HIDE public information. Until we have true transparency, school districts are not accountable and children suffer.
The real problem is the abuse of power by public school district administrators. Teachers and parents risk retaliation if we ask too many questions or voice opinions that differ from the administrator/board position. Unfortunately, children can also be the target of the retaliation. This is especially true for children with special needs who are especially vulnerable.
As long as our tax dollars can be spent with no limit to retain aggressive private attorneys to battle the rights of taxpayers, parents and children, the harm will continue. An industry has grown up around denying rights to special needs children and protecting athletics over academics and the private attorneys and private “education” organizations such as TASB are laughing all the way to the bank.
Visit my website to learn more: http://www.keepeanesinformed.com. Don’t miss the “Connecting the Dots” page and the “Private Law Firms” page.
Dianna Pharr
http://www.keepeanesinformed.com
February 24th, 2009 at 8:27 am
“Lovelace points out that 35 percent of the traffic on his site comes from IP addresses associated with LTISD schools. Yep. That’s right. Who’s reading these public documents? Lake Travis teachers, students, and parents — all hungry for data they can’t get from the school district.”
Really!? 35% percent? I would expect it to be near 90% if they were all “hungry for data they can’t get from the school district”.
And how does the Observer know the intent of visitors to his website?
This is not journalism: This is a hit piece on the district.
June 30th, 2009 at 2:22 pm
Lake Travis ISD is run by a evil dictator! Bet ya Cole you are one of the Evil Dictators lemmings that are under the control of his puppet strings.
September 11th, 2009 at 1:38 pm
Hmmm. I wonder if we as tax payers can sue Lovelace for wasting money that should be spent on our children, but is instead being spent for his idea of revenge. It is a joke that someone is so consumed with anger that they will make an entire community pay the price. Mr. Lovelace, I DO NOT want MY tax dollars used to supply you with ridiculous amounts of information.