McAllen Chamber meetings are closed to the public

Nothing but complete silence still from the McAllen Chamber of Commerce. Its interim CEO, Blanca Cardenas, has not responded to multiple public information requests (PIRs) submitted via email from The Advance.

Next step is to file a complaint with both the Secretary of State and the AG’s office. If, as expected, nothing comes from that, then the next step is to file a lawsuit against the chamber and its board.

As laid out in a story published last week in The Advance, according to the Secretary of State’s Office, because the McAllen Chamber is a nonprofit corporation on file with the state and receives more than $10,000 from an outside source (the city), then its business should be available for public review.

The McAllen Chamber’s books should also be opened for public consumption, according to the 2019 revised Texas Public Information Act. As mentioned in last week’s story (“McAllen Chamber shuts door to local media access”), the 2019 revision stipulates that since the chamber takes in more than $1 million each year (from the city), it is subject to the Texas Public Information Act.

With regard to its January board meeting, this question came up with regard to another issue related to transparency and public trust, which are mentioned in the chamber’s “Core Values” — are the chamber meetings open to the public?

Depends on whom you ask. The state, or the McAllen Chamber.

According to Texas Open Meeting Act, chambers of commerce are not subject to the Open Meetings Act even if it does receive public funds. No matter the public money spent by the chamber, under the Meetings Act, its board meetings are closed to the public.

Public scrutiny?

If, however, you want to scroll through the chamber’s very own Code of Conduct, in the very first paragraph that deals with the expected conduct of its board members and any possible illegal or unethical business dealings, it reads: “The McAllen Chamber does not permit any activity that fails to stand the closest possible public scrutiny.”

No one has claimed publicly that anyone tied to the chamber has done anything wrong.

Question is, some might ask, according to the McAllen Chamber’s own Code of Conduct, how can there be any “public scrutiny” if the chamber is blocking any and all public scrutiny? Forget “closest possible public scrutiny.” The McAllen Chamber is even blocking email requests.

So far, the McAllen Chamber hasn’t answered any public information requests submitted by this newspaper, including requests for relatively simple documents such as board minutes, audits, budgets, conflict-of-interest forms, and CEO job evaluations.

The McAllen Chamber of Commerce has a board meeting scheduled for mid-January, but the public is not invited.

Canales comments

In the Texas House of Representatives, Terry Canales (D-Dist. 40) is known among his colleagues as a guy who extols the virtues of governmental body transparency.

He has twice won the Transparency Champion Award from the Texas Press Association, and for the past decade, Canales’s name has been attached to the bulk of the transparency legislation that has emanated from the Texas House.

When asked to weigh in on the McAllen Chamber and its unwillingness to respond to a Public Information Request seeking access to chamber records, Canales said:

“Without knowing the full details of the financial structure of the McAllen Chamber of Commerce, they should know that in certain cases they might very well be subject to the Texas Public Information Act. Parts of their organization which are supported in whole or in part by public funds might be subject to public information law. As an organization that is partially funded with City of McAllen taxpayer dollars, there is a strong interest for the people of the city to know how those dollars are spent at the Chamber.”

Canales says that secrecy is of little help to the public.

“If taxpayer dollars are flowing out of cities to nonprofits organizations like chambers that are doing an extensive amount of government work or essentially acting as an arm of the government, the public should be able to see how that money is spent. Unnecessary secrecy only serves to hurt the public's trust in our institutions. Access to information is absolutely essential to the press and general public-at-large, as this information is the greatest tool the public can use to hold our elected officials accountable.”