March 14, 2012

Mr. Vic Ramirez

Associate General Counsel

Lower Colorado River Authority

P.O. Box 220

Austin, Texas 78767-0220

OR2012-03795

Dear Mr. Ramirez:

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# 448187.

The Lower Colorado River Authority (the "LCRA") received a request for bids for the West Lake Hills Wastewater Collection system filed during a specified period of time. You claim that the submitted information is excepted from disclosure under section 552.104 of the Government Code. Additionally, you state release of this information may implicate the proprietary interests of California Water Service Group ("CWSG"); The Coalition of Central Texas Utilities Development Corporation; Corix Infrastructure, Inc.; Liberty Water Co.; and Texas Community Utility Partnership, which you notified of the request and of their rights to submit arguments to this office as to why the submitted information should not be released. ⁽¹⁾ We have received comments from a representative of CWSG. We have considered the submitted arguments and reviewed the submitted representative sample of information. ⁽²⁾

You inform us the submitted information was the subject of a previous request for a ruling for information, as a result of which this office issued Open Records Letter No. 2011-19061 (2011). In that decision, we determined the LCRA may withhold the responses to the requests for proposal and negotiations with potential buyers under section 552.104 of the Government Code. You state the law, facts, or circumstances on which the prior ruling was based have not changed. Thus, we conclude the LCRA must continue to rely on Open Records Letter No. 2011-19061 as a previous determination and withhold or release the previously ruled upon information in accordance with that prior ruling. See Open Records Decision No. 673 (2001) (so long as law, facts, and circumstances on which prior ruling was based have not changed, first type of previous determination exists where requested information is precisely same information as was addressed in a prior attorney general ruling, ruling is addressed to same governmental body, and ruling concludes that information is or is not excepted from disclosure).

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,

Jonathan Miles

Assistant Attorney General

Open Records Division

JM/em

Ref: ID# 448187

Enc. Submitted documents

c: Requestor

(w/o enclosures)

Ms. Susan Denmon Banowsky

Vinson & Elkins

2801 Via Fortuna, Suite 100

Austin, Texas 78746-7568

(w/o enclosures)

Mr. Gary Hampton

Texas Community Utility Partnership

P.O. Box 90398

Austin, Texas 78709

(w/o enclosures)

Mr. Pix Howell

Coalition of Central Texas Utilities Development Corporation

200 West Willis Street

Leander, Texas 78641

(w/o enclosures)

Mr. John Shaw

Corix Infrastructure, Inc.

1188 West Georgia Street, Suite 1160

Vancouver, British Columbia

Canada V6E 4A2

(w/o enclosures)

Mr. Ed Pamatat

Liberty Water Co.

2845 Bristol Circle

Oakville, Ontario

Canada L6H 7H7

(w/o enclosures)

Footnotes

1. 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 in certain circumstances).

2. We assume that the "representative sample" of records submitted to this office is truly representative of the requested records as a whole. See Open Records Decision Nos. 499 (1988), 497 (1988). This open records letter does not reach, and therefore does not authorize the withholding of, any other requested records to the extent that those records contain substantially different types of information than that submitted to this office.

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