In 2021 Lubbock County’s online access to court records vanished. After a tense public discussion in June, the county might fix it in the next two weeks.
County Clerk Kelly Pinion kicked up the sense of urgency when she publicly claimed Lubbock County was out of compliance with state open records laws, which we covered here.
In response, Mike Dalby, commissioner for Precinct 1, gathered officials for a meeting in the first week of July and again on Tuesday to hash out problems that stopped public access in the first place.
“They were still in the testing phase,” Dalby said of Tuesday’s meeting.
“We’ve searched high and low. We’ve entered all the data that we know to enter and – for the lack of better terms – we’ve tried to break the system and expose the weaknesses. And they couldn’t find anything.”
Not finding something is important. The online portal was shut down nearly four years ago when the county switched computer systems from KiCorp to Tyler Technologies. Private data showed up online. That included personal data and even graphic photographs used as evidence in court cases.
The county shut down the online portal. Even the in-house public-record computers inside the courthouse were shut down.
But it never was fixed.
“We have no public access. Staff does. The public does not,” Pinion told commissioners last month.
The public can come to the courthouse and ask her staff to find something. But that’s as close to access as the public gets, she said.
Two weeks to the next step
The county’s department heads are testing the computer system behind the scenes and will meet again in two weeks. If everything works, the public access portal on the county’s website will be restored, Dalby said.
County Judge Curtis Parrish said, “We are very close.”
“This was a long time coming and there’s still probably going to be issues here and there. And I think we all recognize that,” Parrish said.
“I appreciate everybody’s patience while we worked through all these issues. They were big – I mean – we’re talking millions and millions of points of data,” Parrish said.
Parrish said of Dalby, “I really give him a lot of credit.”
“Since he’s a new commissioner, he doesn’t have the last five years to see where we’re at. So he wanted to get everybody in the same room so he could hear collectively from everybody,” Parrish said.
Dalby said, “I don’t like sitting around and just talking about problems. I don’t care what happened 10 years ago or five years ago. I couldn’t care less. We are here now and it’s our duty to figure out a solution and move forward.”
