The Tennessee Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case in which a lower court judge refused to unseal court records in a test of the First Amendment right of access by the public to court proceedings and court documents.
The Tennessee Valley Authority has refused to release documents about its grants to cryptocurrency companies, including one in Knoxville, and is now fighting a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit from a journalist and UT professor over it. TVA claims that releasing how much it gave the company in economic incentives would reveal its own trade secrets and violate the privacy rights of the employees in the companies that received the grants.
The House and Senate have unanimously approved a bill that will improve the timeliness and clarity of the agendas of local legislative bodies. The bill now heads to the governor's desk and will become law once signed. The bill requires that agendas be available to the public 48 hours in advance of the meeting and that they "reasonably describe matters to be deliberated and acted upon during the meeting." Several lawmakers signed onto the bill. Tennessee Coalition for Open Government brought the bill to the legislative sponsors after a series of court opinions saying that no agenda was required by the Open Meetings Act.
It’s hard for citizens to get the information they need about proposed developments in a manner timely enough to make a difference to protect their own property value and interests.
The proposed bill that would create the Megasite Authority of West Tennessee with the power to approve a half-billion dollar grant to Ford Motor Co. offers another coveted power: megasecrecy.
