Nueces County filed a lawsuit Monday against the Corpus Christi Housing Authority, seeking to void controversial tax exemption deals for apartment complexes and the employment contract of former CEO Gary Allsup, alleging both were approved in violation of the Texas Open Meetings Act.
The lawsuit, filed in Nueces County District Court, alleges that the CCHA’s deliberately used vague meeting agendas to conceal from the public that it was approving transactions that would remove approximately $350 million in property value from local tax rolls.
“But despite the fact that the CCHA’s actions involved areas of heightened public interest—tax free treatment for private interests and lavish compensation packages for a public employee—the CCHA took each of these actions based on generic notices and meeting agenda items that would in no way inform the public of the actions being considered, much less the significant financial implications of its actions,” the petition states…