After a public records lawsuit by Knoxville TV station WBIR, the University of Tennessee has turned over unredacted copies of operating agreements and other documents for a partnership that runs Oak Ridge National Laboratory and paid $60,000 to cover WBIR's attorneys fees and litigation costs.
Victor Ashe of Knoxville has been named as TCOG's representative on the Advisory Committee on Open Government along with four other new members.
The records of a new Tennessee centralized immigration enforcement division will largely be secret from the public under an exemption added to a bill in its lightening-speed path to its approval.
The governor's voucher bill, called the Education Freedom Scholarship Act, would provide money, beginning next year at $7,075, for students in private schools to use toward their education. But the bill is not like the pilot voucher plan that the governor started a few years back in Davidson, Shelby and, later, Hamilton counties. And it has no requirements for measuring outcomes, such as how many vouchers go to children already in private schools.
Public comment periods would be eliminated at county commission and city council meetings for applications for new property developments if the proposed development substantially complies with previously reviewed zoning regulations or maps under a bill introduced this week.
