Nashville Scene Archives - Tennessee Coalition for Open Government

14 Jul, 2017

New museum director says it will start providing meeting agendas to reporters

By Deborah Fisher|2023-04-11T10:58:20-05:00July 14, 2017|Categories: Open Meetings|Tags: agenda packets, agendas, Ashley Howell, Nashville Scene, Tennessee State Museum|0 Comments

The new executive director of the Tennessee State Museum said on Friday that it will start proactively providing to media members copies of meeting agendas and agenda packets after an incident on Monday in which a Nashville Scene reporter covering a museum commission meeting was prevented from seeing such materials. Tennessee State Museum Director Ashley Howell “In the future, the Tennessee State Museum will proactively provide all members of the media copies of agendas and accompanying materials for each Commission meeting in keeping with the practice of most state agencies," said executive director Ashley Howell in a statement and through a phone call. "The museum’s management values transparency, [...]

Judge rules Fall Creek Falls privatization records should be released

By Deborah Fisher|2020-05-09T13:21:01-05:00June 27, 2017|Categories: exemptions, public records lawsuits Tennessee|Tags: Bill Young, Fall Creek Falls, Janet Kleinfelter, John Williams, Katherine Dix, Nashville Scene, privatization, public records lawsuit, request for proposals|0 Comments

In a win for government transparency, Davidson County Chancellor Bill Young ruled today that government records requested by the Nashville Scene regarding the privatization of Fall Creek Falls State Park should be released and are not covered by an exemption in the Tennessee Public Records Act. Davidson County Chancellor Bill Young Under the exemption, proposals for professional services and related records are open for public inspection only after the state has finished evaluating the proposals. However, in this case, no proposals were received by the state’s May 1 deadline from businesses who wanted to operate the state park. The state argued that this meant any government records related [...]

After three years and a lawsuit, records from TSSAA finally made public

By Deborah Fisher|2020-02-23T10:11:13-06:00December 1, 2014|Categories: functional equivalent, public records lawsuits Tennessee|Tags: functional equivalent, Nashville Scene, Southcomm, Steve Cavendish, TSSAA|0 Comments

The Nashville Scene finally received records sought three years ago from the Tennessee Secondary School Athletics Association as part of an investigation into rule-breaking by an elite private school in Nashville. When the TSSAA refused to turn over details about rule violations regarding tuition assistance for athletes at Montgomery Bell Academy, the now-defunct City Paper in Nashville sued and won. City Paper was owned by Southcomm Inc.; Southcomm also owns the Nashville Scene. Steve Cavendish, now news editor for the Nashville Scene and former editor at the City Paper, wrote that the TSSAA finally turned over the records in November after the Tennessee Supreme Court declined to take the TSSAA's appeal [...]