Texas House Bill 1522 became effective on September 1, 2025. Among other things, the bill amended provisions concerning budget discussions under the Texas Open Meetings Act, specifically Section 551.043(c). A three business day notice requirement replaced the 72-hour rule for these types of discussions, and the Legislature added specific disclosure requirements when a budget is discussed or adopted: “The notice of a meeting required to be posted under Subsection (a) at which

Apparently, ground beef is all it takes to make Marc Maxwell newsworthy again. Over the past week, the Sulphur Springs News-Telegram and Front Porch News have run the same story about Maxwell securing a donation of meat for the Hopkins County Community Chest, complete with a posed photo op. Here are those links if you haven't seen them yet: Sulphur Springs News-Telegram https://www.facebook.com/share/p/14nHwYcWzMQ/ https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1J8qjTQR67/ Front Porch News

Every time I look into what City Leaders have done on this data center deal, I become even more convinced that they have no understanding of basic risk management practices. Whether it's legal risks (you know, basic laws like the Open Meetings Act), effective counterparty due diligence, reputation risk, or compliance risks, they seem to have no idea how to do anything here that isn't absurdly negligent. One example that everyone knows: Our illustrious City Manager never bothe

Y'all...this is like a person with no income asking to borrow against a mansion they haven't started building yet on land their mama gave them.

The budget confirms a lot of what we thought. Water, sewer, and property taxes are carrying the bulk of the payments on the new debt.

UPDATE: Please checkout part II when you're done. For cities, borrowing to fund investment in economic development is very common and smart—if done right. After all, the money has to come from somewhere to make those kinds of improvements, and it can't all come from the City's main accounts. It's like a business that borrows to expand and pays back the loan with increased revenue from the expansion. When it works, it's a good thing long term. Our city leaders were using some

I got new information, and rolled this post into a new one. Thanks for stopping by. ~ Jack

The system puts the burden on the public to take action while it disadvantages them at the same time.

I don't know if Marc Maxwell lies a lot at City Council meetings, but he sure as hell does on Facebook . I was re-looking at this gem of a post... I added the highlights to the lowlights .....when I noticed Cale McClure had fired this TPIA torpedo in the comments: My first thought is that Nate Smith cannot get out of his own way. The Captain Obvious thing is it shows Maxwell wasn't being honest again. He was already trying to paint an innocent and rosy picture in a way t

The idea that we don't live in a vacuum has never been more true. Our digital footprints get larger as the velocity of data and capabilities of technology increase. Your activity shows up in more places, and there are better machines to put the data together. We're more publicly verifiable than we ever have been. The higher your profile, the more information you give off. The flip side of privacy concerns is that it's pretty easy to check people out to make sure they are

In an earlier post , I discussed how City Manager Marc Maxwell and City Attorney Nate Smith were managers in Greater Sulphur Springs Regional Center LLC, a private EB-5 company whose purpose is to raise capital from foreign investors. I talked about how this creates the appearance of conflicts-of-interest considering they can receive compensation from this entity (in addition to what the City pays them). I sent a TPIA request to the City to obtain organizational docs relate

It's been noted by others that it appears the City Council failed to take up the Matrix Data Center issue prior to Marc Maxwell signing the Letter of Intent with MSB Global in December of 2024. This is understandable. There is no record in any open session minutes, agenda items, executive session notices, or public disclosures of any discussion of the Matrix project,data center, or MSB Global (or any other reasonably related terms) prior to signing the LOI. I even publish

MSB's website lists Kenneth Halvorsen as the Executive Construction Manager (whatever that is). It goes on to yap about him serving as a general contractor for large scale commercial projects in the multi-billion dollar range. There is zero evidence of this. At all. None. (here's my surprised face :-| ) There are no verifiable records, new articles, industry data....nothing. He is not mentioned as a grantee on any Mechanic Lien filing anywhere that I can find. Not in

I'm not sure that this has been brought up elsewhere, but lost somewhere in the major concerns around transparency, conflict-of-interest, etc., is that MSB missed some key organizational compliance details in their rush to hoodwink the City. One of those is that Section 9.001 of the Texas Business Organizations Code requires foreign entities to register in Texas prior to conducting business here (foreign means businesses registered in Not Texas). As a reminder, MSB organize

Certainly not Marc Maxwell or Nate Smith. There's been a lot of banter about how City officials have flirted around with conflict-of-interest issues, transparency, and arm's-length safegaurds. Another example of this is the formation of Greater Sulphur Springs Regional Center, LLC , an EB-5 entity whose purpose is to raise capital from foreign investors. EB-5 is an immigration program where foreign individuals can invest a large sum of money and get a green card, basically.

Looking at MSB Global's "Our Team" page reminded of when I was a kid and I got my first wallet. I had no money or grown-up stuff to put in there, so I crammed it with baseball cards and random junk just to make it seem like I had something legit going on. To whom? I don't know. I'll post more about other things I've uncovered about MSB's stellar team of apparitions, but this dude caught my eye straight away: My guy looks pretty spry for someone with 40 years of experience.

This is the thing that started it all: my delve into the seedy underbelly of the Matrix Project and MSB global. [Also, if you haven't seen the movie Usual Suspects, pause here and come back when you've done yourself that favor. 8.5/10] Marc with a C Maxell, City Manager, gave an interview with Front Porch News in August of 2025. Ostensibly, the purpose of the interview was to address public concerns over the data center project (which, sure, let's use Facebook for this ins