If the video footage from the Tyre Nichols beating in Memphis tells us anything, it’s that we need to keep protecting the tools that allow public accountability for corruption.
A citizen's lawsuit against the city of Athens and its city manager takes aim at multiple potential violations of the open meetings and public records laws, including overcharging for copies and failing to keep minutes of meetings involving a suspension of the city manager.
One of the few bills that passed in the final days before the Tennessee General Assembly recessed in March was a bill that corrected a mistake in the drafting of a public records exemption in 2002. State Sen. Rusty Crowe, R-Johnson City The legislation, signed into law by Gov. Bill Lee on March 25 and effective immediately, deletes the language "subsection (a)" where it appears in T.C.A. § 10-7-504 (a)(20) and replaces it with "subdivision (a)(20)". The exemption deals with confidentiality of municipal utility records. The bill clarified that the provisions in this particular subdivision only apply to the municipal utility records made confidential in subdivision T.C.A. § 10-7-504 (a)(20) [...]
The Office of Open Records Counsel is posing five questions about charging fees for public records at upcoming hearings Sept. 15-17 in Knoxville, Nashville and Jackson. Open Records Counsel Ann Butterworth is gathering comments in advance of making a recommendation in January on whether the law should be changed to allow governments to charge citizens to look at public records. Following are TCOG's responses to the five questions. 1. Should the TPRA (Tennessee Public Records Act) permit record custodians to charge for inspection of public records? No. New fees would choke off citizen access to a wide swath of public records. Plain and simple, we believe that allowing government to [...]
The city of Hendersonville has gotten quite a bit of practice in recent months in dealing with open records requests. By all accounts, it has been fulfilling voluminous public records requests from media and citizens who are scrutinizing city management. In this story published by the Hendersonville Star News this week, reporter Tena Lee quotes city staff explaining why some documents the newspaper requested were improperly redacted, removing the names of job references. Here's an excerpt from her story: Two separate applications of former employee Trace Buerkett, who resigned Oct. 25, show the names of his personal references were redacted. Personnel Director Kaye Palmer said the references likely were city employees, [...]
