Elisha Hodge Archives - Page 2 of 3 - Tennessee Coalition for Open Government

18 Aug, 2014

Tennessee Open Meetings Act more than a checklist

By Deborah Fisher|2014-09-10T09:06:40-05:00August 18, 2014|Categories: Open Meetings|Tags: Eddie Overholt, Elisha Hodge, Greene County, OORC, Tennessee Open Meetings Act|1 Comment

It’s not every day that a citizen gets cuffed, arrested and ejected from a public meeting in Tennessee. But that’s what happened, famously, to Eddie Overholt in Greene County last month where he faces charges of disrupting a public meeting and resisting arrest. I say famously because Overholt’s arrest, and the events leading up to it, were captured on video that has gone viral through Facebook and has appeared on national and international news sites, including Russia Today. Deborah FisherTCOG Executive Director His crime? He asked members of the Industrial Development Board of Greeneville and Greene County to speak louder so citizens could hear. The furor has lessons [...]

6 Aug, 2014

Eddie Overholt, Industrial Development Boards and their problem with Sunshine laws

By Deborah Fisher|2019-09-11T18:50:08-05:00August 6, 2014|Categories: Open Meetings|Tags: Eddie Overholt, Elisha Hodge, Greene County, industrial development board, OORC, open meetings violation|2 Comments

Last month, a Hamilton County judge ruled that Chattanooga's industrial development board violated the Open Meetings Act in a decision to give tax money to a developer to build a golf course community on a mountain. This month, Office of Open Records Counsel Elisha Hodge warned the chairman of the Greene County Industrial Development Board, Alan Broyles, that an inaudible meeting violates the state's Open Meetings Act. Hodge said she listened and watched a video of Greene County Industrial Development Board's July 18 meeting where citizen Eddie Overholt was famously cuffed and arrested for asking the board to speak up. Hodge said she could not hear portions of the meeting even though [...]

5 Aug, 2014

Open Records Counsel tells Greene County mayor citizens must be able hear at meetings

By Deborah Fisher|2014-09-10T09:06:10-05:00August 5, 2014|Categories: Open Meetings|Tags: Alan Broyles, economic development, Elisha Hodge, Greene County, industrial development board, OORC, Tennessee Open Meetings Act|0 Comments

The state's Open Records Counsel warned Greene County Mayor Alan Broyles in a letter Monday that the law requires citizens to be able to hear deliberations and decisions at public meetings, and the Greene County Industrial Development Board which he chairs should consult with its attorney after 59 citizen complaints over a July 18 meeting. Elisha Hodge, state of Tennessee's Office of Open Records Counsel While her letter made clear that an inaudible public meeting would be in violation of the Tennessee Open Meetings Act, she chose not to address the arrest of citizen Eddie Overholt, who was kicked out of the July meeting, cuffed and charged with [...]

4 Aug, 2014

Open Records Counsel: Chattanooga utility EPB wrongly demanded fees to view public records

By Deborah Fisher|2015-04-28T11:34:23-05:00August 4, 2014|Categories: fees|Tags: Chattanooga, Elisha Hodge, EPB, fees for public records, Grant Konvalinka & Harrison, John Anderson, OORC, Times Free Press|0 Comments

The city-owned utility of Chattanooga charged a University of Tennessee-Chattanooga student $1,767 to view its public records on advertising spending -- an amount that the state's Open Records Counsel said is not in line with the law. Despite counsel Elisha Hodge telling Electric Power Board of Chattanooga (EPB) that it could not charge labor fees to compile records for a citizen to inspect, the utility stood by its decision in a story in the Chattanooga Times Free Press and tried to justify its action by saying the student was working with a national think tank. Ethan Greene, a student at University of Tennessee-Chattanooga Student Ethan Greene on March 24 requested [...]

14 Apr, 2014

Does the public have a right to see police incident reports?

By Deborah Fisher|2017-01-06T15:27:02-06:00April 14, 2014|Categories: Attorney General Opinions, crime records, Office of Open Records Counsel|Tags: AG opinion, crime records, Elisha Hodge, incident reports, OORC|2 Comments

A city editor called me recently, wanting to know what records his local police department was required to make public. Seems like a simple question, but in Tennessee, it has become anything but that. The city editor’s staff was dealing with a new public information officer at the police department who was declining to turn over some incident reports because of their sensitive nature. The newspaper had a good relationship with the police chief and knew his track record was to be as transparent as possible about crime in the community. The city editor hopes the matter is now resolved, with the police chief’s guidance that incident reports should not [...]