PSRB Meeting Report, October 28, 2005:
Mr. Brad Bacom resigned from the Board and Mr. Eric Jarvis, Attorney, was not present.
In attendance, among others, was Mr. Keith Oakley, lobbyist for SB 165.
The Board passed several motions recommending that the Supreme Court make drastic
changes to the current certification program. Among the most troubling motion was the
recommendation for yearly training/continuing education. Every Board member present
agreed that anywhere from four to eight additional hours of training per year is
necessary for private process servers. One Board member indicated that you can
"never have too much" training and Chairman Weeks stated that it was his personal
opinion that all process servers need yearly training/continuing education. Constable
Ron Hickman suggested that everyone be required to retake training and/or reapply
because of all the servers that were grand-fathered in. This is not what process servers
signed on for. The current renewal period and training requirement and renewal is
every THREE years; let's work to keep it that way. Any less would only serve the
training industry's special interests. It's unclear what information the Board thinks
process servers are going to forget in twelve months time. TPW views a yearly training
requirement as nothing short of punishment.
The biggest concern regards the Board's recommended "Rules of Professional Conduct
(RPC) of Certified Private Process Servers (CPPS)" and the fact that they plan to
enforce each and every one with disciplinary actions that would put the careers of
process servers as risk. This proposal is more stringent than rules governing private
investigators, notaries public, holders of a concealed handgun license, certified court
reporters and many other industries. Some of the rules look as though they came
straight from SB 165 and some resemble rules that can be found within the Texas
Department of Licensing and Regulation (TDLR) code. Chairman Weeks indicated that
there was little relevant public comment on this issue. Please review the
"Recommended Rules" and return to this page.
Between February and July of 2005, the Supreme Court requested public comments on
its proposed certification program; TPW has a copy of all the comments. That was the
time to let the Court know what you think should be in the certification program. The
large majority of the comments received asked the Supreme Court to enact the
certification program as worded. Before they were appointed to the Board, all Board
members had a chance to comment during that time as did anyone else. There were no
comments submitted that made the kind of outlandish recommendations that the Board
is now making to the Court. This effort to completely change the certification program is
reminiscent of the old "Bait and Switch" scam. All those who supported the Supreme
Court's certification program supported it because of how it was written, NOT because it
could be changed at a later time. Now, in the middle of the game, the Board wants to
change the rules. Why did so few Board members make any public comments between
February and July? Why didn't they suggest all these changes then, when the Supreme
Court was asking? We now have another chance to let the PSRB know that process
servers still support the certification program as worded with no major changes.
This most recent meeting of the PSRB confirms what TPW has been warning. The
PSRB intends to regulate private process servers more heavily than are private
investigators, court reporters, notaries public, CHL holders, etc. They want to change
certification into a license and it is already apparent by their activities that they purport
to be a regulatory commission. (The Supreme Court created the PSRB merely to
approve or reject applications for certification based on the rules the Court has already
defined.) If the Court were to adopt all the Board's recommendations, the certification
program would cease to be "certification". Add an id. card and it will be transformed into
a "licensing" program. Further evidence is the fact that Mr. Keith Oakley was in
attendance at this meeting. Could this be the TPSA dollars still hard at work planning
for another attempt to license the industry next session? Furthermore, before the
certification program took effect in July of 2005, the TPSA leadership conducted a letter
writing campaign urging its members to submit public comments to the Supreme Court.
The instructions were to ask the Justices to enact the certification program AS
WORDED. Why now is Chairman Weeks spearheading such drastic changes?