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But freedom of information attorney Bill Aleshire of the Austin firm Aleshire Law says specific details — such as that a gathering took place at 123 ABC St. at 4:56 p.m. on date X — may not be necessary to determine whether a crime occurred. The law could have been broken even without a physical gathering.

The trustees are accused of having reached an illegal consensus in February to terminate the employment of then-superintendent Garth Olivier.

Board minutes show that there was no published agenda item or recorded vote before board chairman Mark Bain and trustee Chad Hajovsky walked into then-superintendent Garth Oliver’s office on Feb. 2 and informed him that he was being fired and his last day of work would be two weeks later.

Oliver was placed on paid administrative leave and the board met on February 21 and accepted his “retirement” with a severance package of $175,000 “based on terms discussed in closed session and approved by the board chairman.”

It was never explained what Bain’s CEO needed or was allowed to approve beyond the retirement/resignation agreement approved by the board.

The subsequent convening of a meeting to confirm a decision already taken does not remove the original breach of the Open Meetings Act.

“The original complaint (from Feb. 8) was a comprehensive investigation … there was no information about when, where or how, who was there,” Srubar said. “I’m not saying there wasn’t a meeting.”

The key to whether trustees met illegally, in person or otherwise, is whether each individual trustee was aware that he or she was seeking the opinion of the majority, Aleshire said.

If so, it does not necessarily have to have happened at a single, specific time and place.

“This shows a misunderstanding of the law,” Aleshire said.

Aleshire has been practicing law since 2001 and previously worked as a staff attorney in the Texas Legislature in the 1970s, including as an administrative assistant when the House introduced the Texas Open Records Act (now the Texas Public Information Act). Among other roles, he served as a Travis County judge from 1987 to 1998. Since opening his own firm in 2015, he has focused his practice on government accountability and public policy.

“I don’t know if they asked every board member as part of the criminal investigation if they knew (a consensus was reached),” Aleshire said. “It could have been a meeting, phone calls, text messages, emails, Facebook, Snapchat or some other private messaging system.”

The newspaper, then known as El Campo Leader-News, filed a public records request on Feb. 7, demanding access to all information, including emails and text messages. The state says even public officials are required to archive them using their own cell phones or other devices.

Following a ruling, the newspaper was informed in a letter from the Attorney General of Texas that no such copies existed.

If such items existed and were later destroyed by individual board members or employees, it would be a violation of the records retention and management rules, Aleshire said.

The Sheriff’s Department had initially asked the Texas Attorney General’s Office of Criminal Investigation to review the case, but on March 25 declined to hand the case back to local authorities.

The Sheriff’s Department focused only on evidence related to the complaint of an unlawful assembly.

“The detective worked on the case for months and spent hours conducting interviews, issuing subpoenas for school records and obtaining court orders for school records,” Srubar said.

“Throughout the investigation, the case was referred to the Wharton County District Attorney’s Office multiple times, including on Wednesday. After a thorough investigation, it was determined that the original complaint was without merit,” he added.

Anyone with information about a specific event or method by which the board reached consensus should come forward.

“It would almost have to have been a whistleblower,” Aleshire said, adding that not everyone involved in the decision may have broken the law. “If it was a series of phone calls, it’s not a wrongdoing on the part of those who didn’t know (that a board consensus had been reached),” he said.

Neither Bain nor Havosky responded to Leader-Journal’s requests for comment.

Look for more stories in the Leader Journal next week.