KATY, Texas (Covering Katy News) — Documents obtained through an open records request show Mayor Dusty Thiele held multiple closed-door meetings with each Katy City Council member about Katy Market Days' future and Houston attorney James Fallon say those meetings violate the state's Open Meetings Act and may constitute criminal behavior.
The operators of Katy Market Days, downtown business owners Betsy and Harry Proctor, say City Administrator Byron Hebert also participated in the meetings, which ended their 30-year tenure as the festival's founders and organizers.
"If they intend to take the festival from the Proctors in a manner that violates the Open Meetings Act, it's a criminal action and deserves injunctive relief," Fallon said.
Fallon has become very familiar with the open meetings act through his work challenging school districts, defending teachers and education professionals.
Injunctive relief, according to Fallon, could include a judge stopping the city's plans to create a similar festival that would replace Market Days in 2025 until a court of law can examine the legality of Thiele and Hebert's actions, which have also been supported publicly by Council Member Rory Robertson.
Fallon points to Texas law, which "prohibits discussion about an item of public business among a quorum of a governmental body through a series of communications."
The law is not unknown to public officials; in fact, the Texas Attorney General's Office is so intent on government officials following the law that it created the Open Meetings Act Handbook and posted it online for quick and easy reference by government officials like Thiele, Hebert, and Robertson. It is a well-known guide that has existed online for years and is updated regularly to reflect any changes in the law. The violation Fallon refers to is on the third paragraph of page 22 under the heading "Discussions Among a Quorum through a Series of Communications."
"It is a criminal offense for a member of a governmental body to knowingly engage 'in at least one communication among a series of communications that each occur outside of a meeting' and that 'concern an issue within the jurisdiction of the governmental body in which the members engaging in the individual communications constitute fewer than a quorum of members but the members engaging in the series of communications constitute a quorum of members.'"- Texas Attorney General's Office Open Meeting's Handbook
Covering Katy has confirmed that Mayor Thiele held a series of closed-door meetings where he discussed Market Days, an item of public business. Every member of the city council took part in these meetings about the same subject, and Fallon says there was a quorum in total, meaning the city council was required to hold their discussion in public, not behind closed doors.
The Evidence
In a Sept. 11, 2024, email from Thiele's Executive Assistant Kathy Jo Stewart to the Proctors, she said:
"As we stated in our meeting with you and Harry on Aug. 13, 2024, we were going to have to schedule a meeting with each council member and then get back to you. We had a meeting with our last council member on Sept. 6, 2024, at 4:00 p.m. We are still discussing their comments."
City of Katy
The letter which confirms that Mayor Thiele met with members of City Council individually, outside of public view, to talk about Katy Market Days.
Fallon believes the issue is worthy of litigation.
"When they (Thiele and Hebert) talk to the council members with the intention of taking control of Market Days), they risk having their new festival enjoined by a judge," Fallon said.
The Mayor has decline to speak with Covering Katy about the Market Days controversy but the the letter from his Executive Assistant raises questions about whether secret meetings at Katy City Hall are standard operating procedure.
Also Read: Hidden from Public View: The quiet end of Katy Market Days