Tennessee Coalition for Open Government Archives - Page 13 of 21

5 Oct, 2017

Building transparency in government tops agenda at NFOIC summit

By Deborah Fisher|2017-10-05T10:40:07-05:00October 5, 2017|Categories: Tennessee Coalition for Open Government|Tags: NFOIC summit, TCOG event|0 Comments

The National Freedom of Information summit agenda includes multiple sessions on efforts to build transparency in government. Sessions on state-level research, how to build sustainable citizen coalitions, and FOI litigation will take place at the NFOIC summit on Friday and Saturday, Oct. 13-14 in Nashville at the John Seigenthaler Center at Vanderbilt University. Jameel Jaffer, director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, is the keynote speaker for the Saturday luncheon, which is sponsored by the Charles Koch Institute. Registration for the summit is open to anyone, and can be done here. Registration fees for working press and students are waived or discounted (see registration form options). Tennessee [...]

4 Oct, 2017

TCOG urges Office of Open Records Counsel to update guidance on taking photos of public records

By Deborah Fisher|2017-10-04T07:18:04-05:00October 4, 2017|Categories: Office of Open Records Counsel, Public Records, Tennessee Coalition for Open Government|Tags: Adam Yeomans, Advisory Committee on Open Government, Lee Pope, Office of Open Records Counsel, photos of public records|0 Comments

Tennessee Coalition for Open Government has urged the Office of Open Records Counsel to update its Model Public Records Policy and take quick action to stem a growing problem of government entities who are preventing citizens from taking photos of government records. See a copy of the TCOG's letter here: Taking photos of public records - Letter to Office of Open Records Counsel, 10-3-17. The letter was sent to Open Records Counsel Lee Pope from Adam Yeomans, who is vice president of TCOG's board of directors and its representative on the Advisory Committee on Open Government. The advisory committee is a 14-member group appointed by the Comptroller that provides advice to [...]

15 Aug, 2017

TCOG raises serious concerns about museum commission’s restrictive speech policy

By Deborah Fisher|2017-08-16T16:12:07-05:00August 15, 2017|Categories: Tennessee Coalition for Open Government|Tags: Henry Walker, state museum board, State Rep. Jeremy Faison, State Sen. Mike Bell, Tennessee State Museum, Victor Ashe|1 Comment

The Joint Government Operations Committee held a public hearing today on the Douglas Henry State Museum Commission's new restrictive speech policy for its commissioners. Below are comments I delivered as TCOG's executive director outlining why the policy is at odds with open government, the Tennessee Constitution and the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. My comments were part of the public comments part of the hearing, which followed about an hour of questions from members of the joint committee, led by its two chairmen state Sen. Mike Bell and state Rep. Jeremy Faison. Almost all of the lawmakers expressed deep concern about the commission's new policy and how it came about. [...]

3 Aug, 2017

Sumner County School Board blames the Office of Open Records Counsel for bad advice

By Deborah Fisher|2018-11-16T15:13:59-06:00August 3, 2017|Categories: public records lawsuits Tennessee, Tennessee Coalition for Open Government|Tags: attorneys' fees, Elisha Hodge, Jim Fuqua, Ken Jakes, Office of Open Records Counsel, Sumner County School Board|0 Comments

The Sumner County Board of Education blames the Office of Open Records Counsel for bad advice that led it on a journey of spending almost $250,000 of taxpayer money to defend, then appeal, a public records lawsuit that it lost. From The Tennessean: "We are disappointed that the court decided that the board’s former policy did not comply with a 2008 version of Tennessee’s public records statute, especially because the Office of Open Records Counsel, which has the legal duty to interpret the act, informed the board that its policy was lawful and that its response to Mr. Jakes’ request was appropriate under the law," a statement reads. "The board [...]

21 Apr, 2017

No tax-supported entity should get secrecy in spending

By Deborah Fisher|2017-04-24T17:28:29-05:00April 21, 2017|Categories: Tennessee Coalition for Open Government|Tags: Chattanooga, convention and visitors bureau, functional equivalent, Hamilton County Commission, hotel/motel sales tax, private entities, Tim Boyd|0 Comments

A shadowy situation has emerged in Chattanooga with an organization that manages millions of taxpayer dollars with no transparency and such a surprising disregard for accountability that one wonders what it would take to wake up elected officials who are supposedly in charge. Welcome to the Chattanooga Area Convention and Visitors Bureau, whose lawyer threatened to sue the county after a commissioner dared to shed a little sunlight on how it spends tax dollars. The Chattanooga CVB is on track to get $7.8 million in hotel/motel tax this year via a pass-through arrangement with the Hamilton County government. The Chattanooga CVB gets almost all of its funds from [...]