Editor’s note: This story has been updated with a new statement from a City of Austin spokesperson.

The Austin City Council violated the Texas Open Meetings Act when it placed a list of charter changes on the Nov. 5 general election ballot, according to a lawsuit filed Monday.

The lawsuit was filed in Travis County’s 98th District Court by attorneys representing Save Our Springs Alliance, a nonprofit environmental organization, its executive director Bill Bunch, and Joe Riddell, a former attorney in the Texas Attorney General’s Office.

The motion seeks to invalidate the City Council’s approval of putting the charter amendments on the ballot. Since Monday is the last day an election can be ordered, the 13 charter amendments the City Council approved last week would not make it onto the ballot this year if a judge rules in the group’s favor.

The lawsuit alleges that the city’s governing body violated both the public participation and public notice requirements of the law when it approved the election at a hearing last Wednesday because all of the proposed changes were combined into one agenda item rather than addressed individually. This limited the amount of time a person could speak about the changes and there was not enough public notice of what the changes would change, the lawsuit says.

“The Austin City Council is becoming lawless, and this lawsuit is another example of their arrogant disregard for transparency. Mayor Watson and the majority of the City Council are undermining democracy by violating the Texas Open Meetings Act,” said Bill Aleshire, a former Travis County judge and attorney for the plaintiffs, in a press release.

Bunch has had success in the past in suing the mayor and city council of Austin for violations of the Texas Open Meetings Act.

“After a lengthy and arduous charter amendment process that included numerous opportunities for public participation, we are aware of the lawsuit filed today by SOS challenging the August 14 charter amendment election ordinance,” Austin city spokesman David Ochsner said in a statement to the American-Statesman. “The city stands by the process used.”

The City Charter is a comprehensive legal document containing the rules and regulations of the City of Austin. The proposed charter changes include increasing the required signature threshold to recall a City Council member from 10% of registered voters in the Council member’s district to 15%, empowering the City Council to appoint and fire the City Attorney, and requiring that initiative and citizen-initiated charter elections occur in the November general election in even-numbered years.

This article originally appeared in the Austin American-Statesman: Lawsuit seeks to remove Austin Charter changes from Nov. 5 ballot