Chattanooga Archives - Tennessee Coalition for Open Government

19 Dec, 2022

Private meetings on Chattanooga redistricting violated open meetings law, lawsuit alleges
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Private meetings on Chattanooga redistricting violated open meetings law, lawsuit alleges

open meetings lawsuits

Private meetings on Chattanooga redistricting violated open meetings law, lawsuit alleges

By Deborah Fisher|2023-01-02T17:00:37-06:00December 19, 2022|Categories: open meetings lawsuits|Tags: Chattanooga, Chattanooga City Council, litigation, private meetings, public notice, redistricting, Times Free Press|2 Comments

A redistricting committee made up of Chattanooga city councilmembers violated the open meetings act when it convened privately to make decisions and deliberate on the city's new voting district maps, a lawsuit alleges. The lawsuit by the Chattanooga Times Free Press also alleges that councilmembers violated the open meetings act when the city's executive staff, at the request of the redistricting committee, met individually with council members to decide on the contours of each of their new districts.

20 Nov, 2017

Would your school board vote on a capital plan without public notice?

By Deborah Fisher|2023-04-11T10:59:34-05:00November 20, 2017|Categories: adequate public notice|Tags: adequate public notice, agendas, Chattanooga, Elisha Hodge, Hamilton County Board of Education, Hamilton County superintendent Bryan Johnson, Memphis Publishing Co. v. City of Memphis, Office of Open Records Counsel, school boards, Souder v. Health Partners|0 Comments

If there’s one type of governing body that generates the most open meetings questions to my help line, it’s school boards. So let’s put ourselves in the shoes of a school board member for a moment and consider the following scenario. I hope it will provide you some ideas the next time you ask a school board candidate where he or she stands on government transparency. Instead of allowing the stock answer, “I’m pro-transparency,” how would your potential school board member react in this situation? Four months ago, the school board hires a new superintendent. He immediately faces a list of overdue capital improvement projects. Some schools need extensive repair [...]

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 [...]

5 May, 2016

Chattanooga police agree to release crime, other police data

By Deborah Fisher|2016-05-05T19:15:50-05:00May 5, 2016|Categories: Tennessee Coalition for Open Government|Tags: Chattanooga, crime records, open data, police shootings|1 Comment

Something good on the police data front. From the Chattanooga Times Free Press today: Police are considering posting information online about officer-involved shootings, assaults on officers, use-of-force incidents and complaints so that anyone can access it without filing open records requests. Chattanooga Police Department Chief of Staff David Roddy The department is one of 53 jurisdictions across the country that have committed to Obama's Police Data Initiative, which aims to increase transparency, trust and accountability through the release of data. The initiative was created in 2015 after a report by the president's Task Force on 21st Century Policing. Police already provide some data through the Chattanooga Public Library's [...]

31 Mar, 2016

Why can’t I access public records in Tennessee? A particular problem for “border” journalists

By Deborah Fisher|2016-03-31T14:56:29-05:00March 31, 2016|Categories: requests|Tags: Chattanooga, non-residents, public records requests|0 Comments

A freelance journalist who lives near Chattanooga "literally two blocks" from the state line gives her perspective on the city's policy to deny her access to public records because she lives in Georgia. She makes a good case for why that policy doesn't make sense. See Cari Wade Gervin's column in Chattanooga Times Free Press: Expand access to records to all citizens Tennessee state law provides a right of access to citizens of the state of all public records. That doesn't mean government entities cannot provide public records to non-residents, they just don't have to. That position was upheld in 2013 in a Virginia case by the U. S. Supreme [...]