Lubbock County has been out of compliance with Texas public records law for nearly four years, and Monday’s Commissioners Court meeting turned into a finger-pointing Olympics. Clerk Kelly Pinion said public access has been “nonexistent” since 2021, when the county bungled a system switch and yanked records offline after private data was mistakenly exposed. The fix? Supposedly done two years ago. The access? Still offline.
IT Director Isaac Badu told commissioners it would take “ten seconds” to turn the portal back on, but he’s waiting for DA Sunshine Stanek’s green light. Stanek’s office insists they don’t have veto power, but also somehow told IT to shut it down in the first place. Commissioners, meanwhile, seem to only remember the problem when they’re in budget meetings, which probably explains why nothing has been solved since the Trump administration.
Pinion confirmed the public has no way to look up criminal, civil, probate, or guardianship records online—not even a dusty terminal at the courthouse. Instead, her staff manually pulls documents like it’s 1975. Other counties manage to comply with state law, but in Lubbock, you need to beg, wait, and hope someone isn’t on lunch break.
And despite all the shouting, the core issue appears simple: the portal could have been back online for years, but instead, officials have chosen to bicker about who’s responsible while the public remains locked out of records they’re legally entitled to see.
So the system can be flipped on in ten seconds, but Lubbock County has stretched that into four years of excuses. At this point, maybe they’re just training for the bureaucracy speedrun finals.
