News - Page 55 of 125 - Tennessee Coalition for Open Government

20 Sep, 2017

State agencies urged by committee chair to allow photos of public records

By Deborah Fisher|2017-09-21T08:24:06-05:00September 20, 2017|Categories: Legislature, Public Records|Tags: legislature, Office of Open Records Counsel, photos of public records, State Rep. Jeremy Faison, State Sen. Mike Bell|2 Comments

(Updated 9-21-17 with quotes from the meeting, and more background on the development of the Model Public Records policy that allows government entities to ban photography.) Three state agencies were instructed to re-examine their public records policies that prohibit citizens from taking photos of public records during a meeting of the Joint Government Operations Committee meeting today. State Sen. Mike Bell, R-Riceville State Sen. Mike Bell, R-Riceville, the Senate chairman of the committee, asked the Comptroller's Office, the Tennessee Department of Transportation and the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency to review their policies to allow citizens to use technology, like their cell phone, to take photos of public records. [...]

17 Sep, 2017

Two counties fail to give adequate public notice of meetings; changes needed

By Deborah Fisher|2017-09-17T18:20:32-05:00September 17, 2017|Categories: adequate public notice|Tags: Greene County, Linda Noe, Loudon County, public notice, Richard Truitt, US Nitrogen|0 Comments

In recent weeks, governing bodies in two counties in East Tennessee failed to adequately notify the public of meetings in which they were taking up issues of high public interest. The lack of adequate public notice of meetings is a violation of the Open Meetings Act. The failure of local government entities to follow the law suggests either an irresponsible lack of understanding of the law or a willful flouting of it in an effort to exclude the public from knowing about government business. Both are egregious. The first example was in Loudon County when members of the Loudon County Board of Education were called to a special meeting on [...]

17 Sep, 2017

Newspaper probe of economic development reveals big gaps in transparency, accountability

By Deborah Fisher|2017-09-17T18:12:37-05:00September 17, 2017|Categories: economic development|Tags: economic development, Mike Reicher, The Tennessean|0 Comments

The state's four largest newspapers published an examination of local and state economic development programs and came up with this answer: Are Tennessee job subsidies a success? Secrecy makes it nearly impossible to know. Across the country, citizens and some lawmakers have been asking for more accountability and transparency from economic development programs that would show which job subsidies are effective and which are not. This is a pretty cool database that allows you to check on the FastTrack grant program in your county. You can see how many jobs companies in your county promised, and how many they say they have produced. FastTrack grants are one of the [...]

30 Aug, 2017

Memphis, Nashville school boards resist giving student names to charter schools

By Deborah Fisher|2017-08-30T17:52:17-05:00August 30, 2017|Categories: schools|Tags: Candice McQueen, charter schools, Metro Nashville school board, Shelby County School Board, student information|0 Comments

Chalkbeat reports today that the school boards of Memphis and Nashville are resisting an order from state Education Commissioner Candice McQueen to give charter school operators a list of student names, ages and addresses. The school boards think that the charter schools will use the lists to recruit students, which they think is not consistent with a new law governing charter schools. But the new law appears to require the school districts to turn over the lists at no cost to the charter schools. From Chalkbeat's story "Tennessee’s two largest districts defy state order to share student info with charters": Candice McQueen, Tennessee Education Commissioner At issue is [...]

15 Aug, 2017

Tennessee Journal: Museum retreats from new code of ethics in face of legislator attacks

By Deborah Fisher|2017-08-15T15:40:54-05:00August 15, 2017|Categories: Legislature|Tags: state museum board, Tennessee State Museum|0 Comments

The Tennessee Journal did a good writeup on what happened at the Joint Operations Committee Hearing, in which the state museum commission's new code of conduct policy was under scrutiny. From Tom Humphrey with The Tennessee Journal: The chairman of the Tennessee State Museum’s governing board pledged that the panel would reconsider its controversial “code of ethics” in the face of round of strong criticism from state legislators at a hearing Tuesday. “Do you want to take the legislature on?” asked Senate Government Operations Committee Chairman Mike Bell, R-Riceville, addressing Thomas Smith, chairman of the Douglas Henry State Museum Commission at the outset of a hearing. An hour and a [...]