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City Council Meeting Minutes May 19, 2020 <br />Sec. 552.001. POLICY; CONSTRUCTION. (a) Under the fundamental <br />philosophy of the American constitutional form of representative government <br />that adheres to the principle that government is the servant and not the master <br />of the people, it is the policy of this state that each person is entitled, unless <br />otherwise expressly provided by law, at all times to complete information <br />about the affairs of government and the official acts of public officials and <br />employees. The people, in delegating authority, do not give their public <br />servants the right to decide what is good for the people to know and what is <br />not good for them to know. The people insist on remaining informed so that <br />they may retain control over the instruments they have created. The <br />provisions of this chapter shall be liberally construed to implement this policy. <br />(b) This chapter shall be liberally construed in favor of granting a request for <br />information. I am hoping that as we compare what is said in this introduction, <br />that you consider that the proposed restructuring of the records policy is too <br />streamlined and cuts out oversight in the records destruction which in the <br />proposal will relegate the decisions of individual records to the individual <br />department records manager. The proposed changes will also give one person, <br />the Records Management Officer, the authority to make policy regarding <br />records and destruction as opposed to the Records Management Committee <br />being the policy authority. In my time on the Ethics Review Commission, we <br />discussed the importance of records being a public interest. So, my proposal <br />would be to align our ordinance with the the Texas Government Code 552 <br />introduction and not relegate the authority to the Records Management <br />Officer an by proxy the city manager, but to keep the authority of policy <br />recommendations at the Records Committee and include a voting majority of <br />public members on that Records Committee. Records are a public interest and <br />concern when public decisions are being made and public monies and <br />resources are being spent. Thank you all for your service on City Council." <br />Matthew Lewis: <br />Thank you for your leadership during this challenging time. MoveSM submits <br />this public comment as a moment of reflection on the state of the largest <br />portion of public space in our cities -our streets -and the attached petition as a <br />call to action to create more safe human spaces on them, especially during this <br />time of required physical distancing. One of the "silver linings" of this awful <br />pandemic is that fewer cars have been on the road. You've likely seen the <br />remarkable photos from around the world depicting air quality improvement <br />so dramatic you can actually see it. Unfortunately, you may have also noticed <br />that motorists are driving faster than ever. While the number of car crashes is <br />plummeting due to lower traffic volumes, the rate of the car crashes per mile <br />driven is actually up in many cities as drivers are getting more reckless on wide <br />City of San Marcos Page 3 <br />