Bastrop, TX (August 10, 2022) —
Recently, a person or persons posted statements on their Instagram account, BastropTxConservatives, using the name of Bastrop County Conservatives, thereby creating confusion with regard to the source of the statements. This is not a Bastrop County Conservatives account and the postings in question were not from Bastrop County Conservatives.
The account tagged locally owned businesses in our downtown district, and encouraged boycotting of these businesses, using divisive speech. Mel Cooper, one of the founding members of Bastrop County Conservatives, stated “The statements posted on this other Instagram account were not from our group and do not conform with our views or values.
“Confusion was created at the time of the initial postings as the Instagram landing page for BastropTxConservatives was captioned “Bastrop County Conservatives”. We advised the account that the Bastrop County Conservatives name was registered with the State of Texas as a political organization (a “PAC”) and is also registered with Bastrop County. We asked that they remove our name from their Instagram page to avoid further damage to our reputation.
“In response to our request to remove our name from their page, they changed their caption to “Bastrop Conservatives”, another name Bastrop County Conservatives has registered with the County. It is extremely troubling that someone intentionally used our organization’s legal name, thereby creating this confusion, and is now using another name that is not only similar to that of our organization, but a name we have registered with the County. We will be reaching out to them shortly regarding this latest caption.”
Mr. Cooper went on to say, “Again, the Instagram account making the divisive posts is BastropTxConservatives. The Bastrop County Conservatives Instagram account is BastropCountyConservatives and has no relation to the former. We apologize for any confusion this has caused and we are working to address this matter.”