Amarillo City Council, the Amarillo Independent School District Board of Trustees, and the Potter County Commissioners’ Court are set to meet this afternoon at AmTech in a joint meeting to discuss declining enrollment in the school district. However, while both the city and school district posted notices of the meetings online early in the day on Friday, it appears that Potter County may have failed to post their online notice more than 72 hours in advance on today’s 4:00 pm meeting.

A notice is available on the Potter County website, though the notice isn’t posted where the county usually posts meeting notices. Instead, it is posted near the bottom of the homepage of the website. The attached document includes a section meant to note when it was posted, but this was not filled out. The file’s metadata suggests it was posted at 6:26 pm on Friday, April 26th. When asked if the file was indeed posted between 6 pm and 7 pm, County Judge Nancy Tanner’s office told The Amarillo Pioneer that it “probably” was posted at that time.

According to the Texas Open Meetings Act, notice of a meeting must be physically posted “at least 72 hours before the scheduled time of the meeting.” Additionally, counties that maintain a website must also post notices there. While the statute does not explicitly state the online posting must also be made at least 72 hours in advance, the law does state that the online posting must be made “concurrently.”

The 72 hour deadline to post notice of the meeting was Friday, April 26th at 4:00 pm.

The County Judge’s office did claim the notice was physically posted in the Potter County Courthouse building on either “Tuesday or Wednesday” of last week. The Amarillo Pioneer can confirm that the notice is posted there. However, we cannot at this time independently verify when it was posted. Like the online posting, the portion noting when it was posted was left blank.

To read more about the planned meeting, click here.