A citizen who won a public records lawsuit against the Knox County Sheriff has asked an appeals court for a rehearing on a ruling that vacated the trial court's award of about $58,000 in attorney's fees and expenses.
The deputy attorney general for Tennessee argued in court this week that reports by consultant McKinsey and Co. regarding the re-opening of Tennessee and other government responses during the COVID-19 pandemic are exempt from the public records law because revealing them would open up the executive branch to second-guessing by the public.
In the second public records lawsuit against Gov. Bill Lee's administration in a matter of weeks, Nashville Post journalist Stephen Elliott says that the administration's claim of a "deliberative process privilege" to keep secret a consultant's reports during the COVID-19 pandemic has no basis in state law.
A Nashville citizen has sued the state for refusing to release a government efficiency report prepared by an outside consultant in connection with the state's COVID-19 response. The state's Department of Human Resources claims the analysis by McKinsey and Co. is confidential because it is subject to the "deliberative process privilege" and contains information related to "operational vulnerabilities." The Tennessean has reported the McKinsey analysis, delivered in September 2020, cost the state $1.59 million in taxpayer dollars.
The Knox County Sheriff's Office has filed notice to appeal its loss in a public records case in which the judge found it violated the law in denying access to records requested by a University of Tennessee professor. Chancellor John Weaver in April ordered the sheriff's office to comply with provisions of the public records act governing responses to public records requests and to implement a system to allow public inspection of arrest records. Weaver in December also awarded $78,007 in attorney's fees to the professor who had to bring the lawsuit to force the sheriff's office to turn over records. Knox County Law Director David Buuck's office has filed [...]
