Chancellor Ellen Hobbs Lyle

28 Sep, 2020

AG’s office did not serve the public interest in seeking loophole to Open Meetings Act

By |2020-10-09T15:16:28-05:00September 28, 2020|Categories: Open Meetings, open meetings lawsuits, Tennessee Coalition for Open Government|Tags: , , , , |0 Comments

A Davidson County chancellor took much-needed action last week. She gave public accountability a boost and set the Attorney General’s Office straight on the Open Meetings Act. Chancellor Ellen Hobbs Lyle ruled on Friday that the Tennessee Registry of Election Finance violated the Open Meetings Act by holding an email vote — outside a public meeting and without public notice — to approve a settlement with a lawmaker, substantially reducing his outstanding fines.  The finance board did this with advice of the Attorney General’s Office. So what happened here? Earlier this year, the Attorney General’s Office advised the Registry’s executive director how to get a vote — without a public [...]

25 Sep, 2020

Judge: Registry of Election Finance board violated Open Meetings Act with secret vote by email

By |2020-10-09T15:15:18-05:00September 25, 2020|Categories: Open Meetings, open meetings lawsuits, Tennessee Coalition for Open Government|Tags: , , , , , |0 Comments

Chancellor Ellen Hobbs Lyle ruled today that the Registry of Election Finance violated the Open Meetings Act when it voted by email outside of a public meeting to accept a settlement to reduce the fines of a state lawmaker. (See final order.) Chancellor Ellen Hobbs Lyle The board's executive director, Bill Young, has said that he followed the process outlined by the Attorney General's Office in coordinating the email vote of the six-member election finance board. In addition to voting outside the public eye by email, there was no public notice of the meeting. The lawsuit was filed by several news media organizations and Tennessee Coalition for Open Government in [...]

25 Sep, 2020

Chancellor to hear arguments in open meetings case against election finance board at 10 a.m. today

By |2020-09-25T09:59:17-05:00September 25, 2020|Categories: Open Meetings, open meetings lawsuits, Tennessee Coalition for Open Government|Tags: , , , , , |0 Comments

Chancellor Ellen Lyle is scheduled to hear arguments today in an open meetings lawsuit filed by several news media organizations and Tennessee Coalition for Open Government against the Tennessee Registry of Election Finance. Attorney Paul McAdoo The plaintiffs argue in The Associated Press, et al., v. The Tennessee Registry of Election Finance that the election finance board violated the open meetings law when it voted on reducing $65,000 in civil penalties that it had levied against Rep. Joe Towns, D-Memphis. The penalties had accumulated over two years as Towns repeatedly failed to file campaign finance disclosures required by law. The board took the vote by email to settle the penalties [...]

27 Jun, 2020

Judge: Nashville board violated Open Meetings Act by failing to provide adequate notice of soccer stadium vote

By |2020-06-29T10:55:50-05:00June 27, 2020|Categories: adequate public notice, Open Meetings, open meetings lawsuits|Tags: , , , , , |0 Comments

Artist rendering of planned soccer stadium in Nashville. A Nashville judge said the Nashville sports authority board violated the Open Meetings Act when it did not provide adequate notice of the meeting in which it approved a $192 million construction management project for the stadium. A Davidson County chancellor ruled that Nashville government violated the Open Meetings Act in 2018 by failing to provide adequate notice of a Metro Sports Authority board meeting in which a $192 million construction contract was signed for a soccer stadium. Chancellor Ellen Hobbs Lyle in her June 25 order ruled the action taken in approving the contract with Mortenson/Messer Construction Company is void and [...]

16 Dec, 2019

BlueCross BlueShield, Cigna, Optum file reverse public records suits to stop release of price information

By |2019-12-17T09:50:17-06:00December 16, 2019|Categories: public records lawsuits Tennessee|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , |1 Comment

Three large health care companies who contract with the state to administer the state's employee health care plan have filed lawsuits to prevent the Department of Finance and Administration from releasing payment information. They claim the release would reveal confidential price information that they have negotiated with health care providers for certain medical and health procedures -- information that they say is proprietary though the state pays the bills through its self-funded plan. Releasing healthcare price information violates Sherman Act, companies claim Laurie Lee is executive director of Benefits Administration in the state Department of Finance and Administration. Her office was preparing to release information about the state's health plan [...]

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