fees Archives - Page 4 of 8 - Tennessee Coalition for Open Government

16 Sep, 2015

Knoxville: Proposed records fee met with public backlash

By Deborah Fisher|2015-09-17T08:15:27-05:00September 16, 2015|Categories: fees|Tags: fees for public records|0 Comments

WATE-TV's coverage of the Knoxville public hearing on the proposal to charge fees to inspect public records. The Knoxville News Sentinel reported that almost all of the 30-plus speakers at the public hearing on fee proposal held in Knoxville spoke against it. The room was packed with more than 80 people, some standing along the walls. Extra chairs were brought in. See news stories about the hearings: WATE (video): Should you have to pay for public records that your tax dollars have already paid for? Knoxville News Sentinel: Proposed records fee met with public backlash WBIR: Room packed with opinions on possible fees for public records An excerpt from the [...]

10 Sep, 2015

Knox County mayor opposes new public records fees

By Deborah Fisher|2015-09-10T19:06:45-05:00September 10, 2015|Categories: fees|Tags: fees for public records, Knox County, Michael Grider, Office of Open Records Counsel, Tim Burchett|0 Comments

Knox County Mayor Tim Burchett Knox County Mayor Tim Burchett filed comments with the Office of Open Records Counsel today, expressing opposition to charging taxpayers to inspect public documents, saying it would be a step backward. Burchett wrote: As a former state senator, I had the opportunity to sponsor bills updating and strengthening portions of the current Open Records Act. As a legislator, my focus was – and remains today – on ensuring openness and transparency in government. Accountability begins with access, and true accountability means reducing, not increasing, obstacles to access public records. Charging taxpayers for exercising their right to merely inspect the very documents their taxes [...]

31 Aug, 2015

TCOG answers state’s 5 questions on charging fees for public records

By Deborah Fisher|2016-03-10T08:51:27-06:00August 31, 2015|Categories: fees, Office of Open Records Counsel, Tennessee Coalition for Open Government|Tags: Advisory Committee on Open Government, fees for public records, Office of Open Records Counsel, redactions, Schedule of Reasonable Charges|0 Comments

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 [...]

28 Aug, 2015

TCOG plans comment for public records hearings: New fees would choke off citizen oversight

By Deborah Fisher|2015-08-30T03:24:20-05:00August 28, 2015|Categories: fees, Tennessee Coalition for Open Government|Tags: Ann Butterworth, Office of Open Records Counsel, public hearings, TCOG news, Tennessee School Boards Association|0 Comments

The Office of Open Records Counsel is conducting public records hearings in Knoxville, Nashville and Jackson in September to ask the question: Should the Tennessee Public Records Act permit the government to charge citizens to inspect public records? The Tennessee Coalition for Open Government believes that charging citizens to view public records would make it easier for some government officials to block citizen access to records. We believe that the result of a change in Tennessee law would be immediate: Some citizens would no longer be able to view public records because they could not afford to pay the fees. The change would roll back Tennessee’s legal tradition of favoring [...]

25 Aug, 2015

A peek at what’s ahead for the public records hearings

By Deborah Fisher|2015-08-25T08:02:36-05:00August 25, 2015|Categories: fees|Tags: fees for public records, Louden County, Mayor Rollen "Buddy" Bradshaw, Office of Open Records Counsel, public hearings|1 Comment

In three weeks, the Office of Open Records Counsel will hold the first of three public hearings on consecutive days in Knoxville, Nashville and Jackson to get comments on whether the law should be changed so that citizens can be charged to inspect records. Louden County mayor Rollen “Buddy” Bradshaw told the News-Herald in Lenoir City in a Sunday story that he plans to attend the Knoxville hearing on Sept. 16 and advocate for fees. He cited a records request from a citizen that cost "$8,000-$9,000 in attorney fees, additional labor costs and other expenses" -- expenses he thinks the citizen should have to pay. The citizen who made the public [...]