Reptile & Amphibian Forums

We have 150 house members and 31 senators in our current legislature. They all need an email. It will be a ton of copy and paste and you will get very very good at typing in your name phone address and email into each members web page.

But we must leave no stone unturned, and a few hours over the weekend is nothing compared to losing the right to legally collect reptiles in Texas. And if your fingers have not fallen off after that you will need to send a email to the Governor and Lieutenant Governor as well.

Remember anybody who does not do their homework will get detention...

Lance

Also, if you can send a Fax or Letter too..

We need an email based fax server somewhere, that we can all use from home. You can google up "fax service" and find some methods to do that for a flat per month fee. Or maybe some of our herp societies will set that up so we can all access it for this purpose.

Ideas, Ideas, Ideas... We need to keep rolling this thing along.

I'm going to draft letters to rural constituencies that focus more on the limitations to ranchers, etc. I'll touch on the other stuff, but I think that this tactic is best here.

To the person who represents Sweetwater, I'll focus on the round up (and Freer, too - unless that's Gallego).

To persons that represent urban areas, I'll focus on wildlife management concerns and vacation/enthusiast concerns.

Troy

This is the email I received from Freedom Of Information Foundation of Texas.. Maybe it will help some of the other folks out there.

Dear Lance-

You will need to submit a Public Information Act request under the Texas Public Information Act, Chapter 552 of the Texas Government Code to the governmental body that would hold the records you are seeking, in this case, Texas Parks and Wildlife. Then the government agency should turn over the information “promptly” but has up to 10 business days to respond to your request.

By the end of 10 business days the agency must do at least one of the following three things: 1) provide the information requested not subject to any exceptions 2) submit the information the agency believes could be subject to an exception to the AG for an opinion 3) communicate with you as to why it needs additional time to produce the records and give a timeframe as to when they will be available. If the agency has not responded within 10 business days then the information is presumed to be public unless subsequently ruled exempt by the AG.

Send the letter certified to the public information officer of the agency. That way you have the specific date the agency received the request. If you go to our website at http://www.foift.org there is a sample request letter you can use. Be as specific as possible about what you are looking for as this will reduce the amount of time it will take to respond to your request and the cost of your request.

As to the total cost of your request, I can’t tell you how much it will be because it depends on how much responsive information there is to you request. The agency must provide you with an itemized statement if the estimate is going to be more than $40.00 and you will have the right to approve whether or not you want to continue on with the request. You also have the right to view the records as opposed to getting copies which can reduce the costs.

If the agency doesn’t respond in a timely fashion, I would suggest that you contact the AG hotline at 1.877.OPEN.TEX. They can sometimes settle the issue informally. While there are criminal penalties for violations, they are rare. Your only other option is to sue for the records.

I hope this helps. Please let me know if you have anymore questions.

Thanks-

Katherine

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Katherine Garner
Executive Director
Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas
400 S. Record St., Suite 240
Dallas, TX 75202
Phone 214.977.6658 | Fax 214.977.6666

www.foift.org

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From: "Lance Benton"
Date: Thu, 12 Apr 2007 16:30:32 -0500
To:
Subject: How do I get documentation?

I am looking for any correspondence (email, paper etc.) between Texas Parks and Wildlife and few aspects of our Texas legislature.
This would include:
The office Carl Isett
The Committee of Culture, Recreation and Tourism (and its members and chairs – Harvey Hilderbran, Edmund Kuemple, Dawnna Dukes, Mark Homer, Donna Howard, Mike ODay and Larry Phillips)
Or any correspondence from Texas Parks and Wildlife concerning HB 2414 titled “Relating to hunting from public roads or rights-of-way”
This would be for anything dating from the first of 2007 to current.

Anyway, how do I get this and how much will it cost to have copied and sent to me?

Thanks

Lance Benton
817-919-8758

I will try to compile all the House and Senate Reps onto a MS Word document that can be printed onto a standard Avery 5160 style (30 sheets per page) mailing labels.

This way all you need to do is print like 183 copies of your letter, sign them and stuff envelopes. My stickers will address them.

I will try to have that put together this weekend too. What I need help with is somebody to host the document(s) for download somewere, I do not want to mess with it in email. Waiting on me to email everybody one at a time will be a bottleneck I would rather avoid.

Down side, for nearly 200 letters printed and stuffed and stamped it will not be "cheap".

BTW it took a few hours, but emailed all but one Senator (No Email) and three House Representatives (Other Email issues)

Lance

I can put it up on my site:

http://thehibbitts.net/troy/pdfs/

Troy

I am thinking that this could be done in the post office as a bulk mail out because It is all going to one zip code... So do not rush out and by a ton of stamps just yet.

Lance

and I contacted them all.

Troy