Despite another adverse court ruling, mayoral candidate Tommy Adkisson hasn’t conceded defeat in his legal battle to prevent disclosure of official-business emails in his private email account.

Yet Adkisson admits that he’s grown tired of his five-year struggle and hinted he might finally release the requested emails, though they could be disappointing to his antagonizers.

“Boy, are they going to be let down,” Adkisson said during taping of a KLRN-TV mayoral forum to be broadcast Friday at 8 p.m. as part of “Texas Week with Rick Casey.”

“Frankly, I’m looking to resolve this. I’ve got bigger fish to fry,” he said.

Casey questioned Adkisson about a series of judicial rulings — spurred by a San Antonio Express-News open records request and lawsuit — that require him to release emails discussing toll-road policy. When the case originated in 2010, Adkisson was a Bexar County commissioner also leading the Metropolitan Planning Organization.

On March 6, a state appellate court refused to rehear Adkisson’s plea to reverse a lower court ruling against him. He and his attorney have not indicated whether they’ll take the case to the Texas Supreme Court.

“The attorney general said you were wrong. A district court said you were wrong. An appeals court ruled against you. The courts actually said that you were so off-base that you have to pay the Express-News legal fees,” Casey said during Tuesday’s taping. “Is there any chance that voters will get to see those emails before the (May 9) election?”

Without a yes or no response, Adkisson reiterated that his stance was intended “to reduce the unbridled effort to toll a whole lot of the roads in Bexar County and San Antonio.”

Adkisson said “the Express-News had a different view of it, and this was one way to try to diminish my fight. And I was undeterred because I felt like they were trying to intimidate me.”

Adkisson claimed he was fighting for all public officials who are susceptible to the public “reaching into their personal emails.”

“It’s a Fourth Amendment (search and seizure) question ultimately, but you know, I don’t have time to debate and discuss the Fourth Amendment forever,” Adkisson said.

Amid Adkisson’s legal fight, state lawmakers changed the Public Information Act in 2013 to clarify that official communications on private email accounts and cellphones are public information. However, the new law does not apply in Adkisson’s case.

When the newspaper requested the records in 2010, the county sought a ruling from the attorney general’s office to withhold them, but the attorney general ruled that the emails were public information.

Adkisson and the county then sued the attorney general in an attempt to keep the emails from being released. Hearst Corp., which owns the Express-News, intervened in the case.

The county and Adkisson lost a trial court decision, then appealed. The 3rd Court of Appeals’ ruling last month stated that the emails were public information. The appellate court also ruled that county taxpayers — not Adkisson — had to pay nearly $28,000 in legal fees paid by Hearst and the attorney general’s office.

“Tommy said that he would pay the legal fees,” said an unhappy County Judge Nelson Wolff, who opposed the county’s decision to join the lawsuit.

Wolff and his son, Kevin, had voted against joining the lawsuit as a plaintiff, but lost in a 3-2 vote by the Commissioners Court. Adkisson cast the tie-breaking vote.

Wolff said he’s waiting to hear from Adkisson about whether he wants to appeal again, this time to the Texas Supreme Court.

If the county chooses to drop out of the case, it’s unclear whether Adkisson could appeal on his own.

“I don’t have those answers yet,” said George Hyde, a lawyer who represents Adkisson and the county in the open-records case. Hyde said he’s been asked to explore options and update the county.

jgonzalez@express-news.net

Twitter: @johnwgonzalez