The Knoxville News Sentinel reports on proposed legislation that will allow public universities in Tennessee to keep confidential money paid to student athletes as part of potential new revenue sharing deals. The bill requires total annualized aggregated amounts to be available, but no specific individual payments.
A proposed bill would allow industrial development boards to skip public hearings on new development projects when they "amend" their plans. This also means they would not have to publish two-week advance notice before voting on the amended plans. Industrial development boards are used to subsidize private development projects by capturing property and sales taxes to help pay for the project, usually through tax increment financing zones or payment-in-lieu of taxes agreements. The elimination of public hearings is part of a larger bill that appears designed to spur new housing by expanding the definition of what types of projects can be funded through the capture of property and sales taxes.
Certain local and state government employees, including law enforcement and court staff, would be allowed to require government agencies to redact their home addresses and other information from all public records under a bill proposed in the Tennessee Legislature.
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.
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.
