March 19, 2010

Mr. Tom Tracy

Assistant General Counsel

University of Houston System

311 E Cullen Building

Houston, Texas 77204-2028

OR2010-03916

Dear Mr. Tracy:

You ask whether certain information is subject to required public disclosure under the Public Information Act (the "Act"), chapter 552 of the Government Code. Your request was assigned ID# 374396.

The University of Houston (the "university") received a request for the bidding results for a specified request for proposals. You take no position on the public availability of the requested information. You believe, however, that this request for information may implicate the proprietary interests of third parties. ⁽¹⁾ You inform us that the interested parties were notified of this request for information and of their right to submit arguments to this office as to why the requested information should not be released. See Gov't Code § 552.305(d); Open Records Decision No. 542 (1990) (statutory predecessor to Gov't Code § 552.305 permitted governmental body to rely on interested third party to raise and explain applicability of exception to disclosure under certain circumstances). We have reviewed the information you submitted. We also have considered the comments we received from the requestor. See Gov't Code § 552.304 (any person may submit written comments stating why information at issue in request for attorney general decision should or should not be released).

An interested third party is allowed ten business days from the date of its receipt of the governmental body's notice under section 552.305 of the Government Code to submit its reasons, if any, as to why information relating to the third party should not be released. See id. § 552.305(d)(2)(B). As of the date of this decision, this office has received no correspondence from any of the third parties that were notified. Therefore, because none of the third parties has demonstrated that any of the information at issue is proprietary for the purposes of the Act, the university may not withhold any of the submitted information on that basis. See id. § 552.110(a)-(b); Open Records Decision Nos. 552 at 5 (1990), 661 at 5-6 (1999). Thus, as the university does not claim an exception to disclosure, the submitted information must be released.

This letter ruling is limited to the particular information at issue in this request and limited to the facts as presented to us; therefore, this ruling must not be relied upon as a previous determination regarding any other information or any other circumstances.

This ruling triggers important deadlines regarding the rights and responsibilities of the governmental body and of the requestor. For more information concerning those rights and responsibilities, please visit our website at http://www.oag.state.tx.us/open/index_orl.php, or call the Office of the Attorney General's Open Government Hotline, toll free, at (877) 673-6839. Questions concerning the allowable charges for providing public information under the Act must be directed to the Cost Rules Administrator of the Office of the Attorney General, toll free, at (888) 672-6787.

Sincerely,

James W. Morris, III

Assistant Attorney General

Open Records Division

JWM/cc

Ref: ID# 374396

Enc: Submitted documents

c: Requestor

(w/o enclosures)

Mr. Mark Tuttle

Commercial Access

2833 Westside

Pasadena, Texas 77502

(w/o enclosures)

Mr. John Curtiss

ProTech Access

4401 South Pinemont # 204

Houston, Texas 77041

(w/o enclosures)

Mr. Matt Kattman

T2 Systems, Inc.

7835 Woodland Drive Suite 250

Knoxville, Tennessee 37950

(w/o enclosures)

Mr. Derek Frantz

Texas Technical Services, Inc.

10405 Rockley Road

Houston, Texas 77099

(w/o enclosures)

Footnotes

1. You inform us that the interested third parties concerned are Commercial Access; ProTech Access; T2 Systems, Inc.; and Texas Technical Services, Inc.

POST OFFICE BOX 12548, AUSTIN, TEXAS 78711-2548 TEL: (512) 463-2100 WEB: WWW.OAG.STATE.TX.US
An Equal Employment Opportunity Employer