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A proposed amendment to Elgin’s city charter has raised concerns among local media and transparency advocates — including the Courier’s own president and CEO.
Daniel Philhower, owner of Granite Media Partners Inc., told City Council Oct. 21 he sees Proposition L as “vague and open to interpretation.” The amendment to Elgin’s city charter — one of 14 — will appear on the Nov. 4 ballot and could affect how residents receive public information, media officials said.
“As it is written now, it is very narrow,” Philhower said.
According to the ballot language, Prop L is “an amendment to the city of Elgin Charter requiring initiative ordinances adopted or approved by the electors to be published on the city’s website instead of the official newspaper of the city.”
The Courier is Elgin’s official paper of record and a repository under law for government notices.
City officials in a YouTube podcast, however, said the city still intends to follow Texas law and publish required notices in its paper of record, but also stressed that more and more people are going online to get their information.
Philhower said the language of the amendment could lead to confusion and inconsistencies in how public notices are shared.
Proposition L is part of a Home Rule Charter Amendment Election intended to modernize sections of Elgin’s governing document. But critics — including the Texas Press Association, which represents newspapers across the state — warn the change could set a precedent for narrowing public access to civic information.
A letter to the city from Haynes & Boone, attorneys representing TPA, called public notice an evolving area of the law, but emphasized its foundation in long-standing constitutional and statutory provisions. The letter stated that public notice requirements exist “for the purpose of maintaining an informed citizenry” and warned that shifting exclusively to digital publication could undermine that purpose.
If approved, Proposition L would mark a significant change in how Elgin communicates official actions to the public, according to Philhower.
“Dipping your toe into the possibility of changing the way we do public notices … it’s just not a road that we want to go down,” Philhower said.
The CEO also noted the newspaper and its digital platforms, including local TV screens, have a greater reach than most government sites, and added the price of placing a public notice is affordable.
Thomas Edwards, Granite’s executive editor, also expressed a concern.
“Although we recognize Prop L as a narrowly defined measure, the language ‘instead of the official newspaper of the city’ gives us pause and makes us wonder if this is a slippery slope,” Edwards said. “I know the leaders of Elgin believe in transparency and open government, but this proposition seems murky.”
Council members under city rules could not respond to Philhower because Prop L was not an agenda item.
However, in the “78621 Live Podcast,” city spokeswoman Stacey Osborne and Mayor Theresa McShan discussed all 14 propositions on the ballot, including Proposition L.
Osborne said the measure does not stop the city from publishing public information in a newspaper as required by law, but does reflect people’s changing habits to access information.
“It used to be that the … city newspaper is pretty much where people got their information, but of course now … almost everyone gets their information on the web,” Osborne said as McShan nodded. “There are still some legal requirements for us to publish in a newspaper and we’ll continue to do that.”
According to Osborne, that includes big notices, ordinances, legals from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and similar state organizations.
However Prop L, she added in the podcast, “… absolves us from having to do it for —.”
“— Everything,” McShan said.
