Rep. Elaine Davis

24 Mar, 2025

Comptroller’s Report: DA’s Conference has been violating Open Meetings law

By |2025-03-24T15:31:46-05:00March 24, 2025|Categories: adequate public notice, Legislature, minutes, Open Meetings|Tags: , , |0 Comments

Just days after the District Attorneys General Conference pushed a bill through committee to exempt many of their meetings from the Open Meetings Act, a Comptroller's audit of the DA's General Conference was released that found that the conference and its committees have largely been violating the open meetings act. The Open Meetings Act requires governing bodies, including governing bodies created by the Legislature, such as the district attorney general's conference, to give adequate public notice of meetings and record and maintain minutes. However, the DA's Conference gave public notice for only a handful of its meetings from 2021 to 2023. For example, its executive committee met 30 times but [...]

16 Jan, 2025

Davis, Lowe seek to expand public comment law

By |2025-01-16T08:33:49-06:00January 16, 2025|Categories: Legislature, public comment|Tags: , |0 Comments

A pair of lawmakers are seeking to expand public comment periods to require governing bodies to allow comment on items that are not on the agenda but germane to the governing body's work. The lawmakers — state Rep. Elaine Davis of Knoxville and state Sen. Adam Lowe of Calhoun — passed the first public comment requirement bill in 2023. Davis said this would allow members of the public to let the governing body know of issues that they may not be aware of.

24 May, 2023

New laws require local government to provide agenda, public comment periods

By |2023-05-24T11:54:07-05:00May 24, 2023|Categories: Legislature, meeting agenda, public comment|Tags: , , , , , , |1 Comment

The General Assembly made two major changes to the Open Meetings Act this year. One new law requires that county and city legislative bodies provide an agenda 48 hours in advance of the meeting. The agenda must "reasonably describe" each agenda item. The other requires all governing bodies set aside a period for public comment, allowing citizens to speak about items on the agenda.

15 Mar, 2023

Bill would allow governmental bodies to post meeting notices on website

By |2023-03-15T12:51:54-05:00March 15, 2023|Categories: adequate public notice, Legislature|Tags: , , , |0 Comments

A bill that allows governing bodies to post notice of their meetings on their websites passed a House committee, but not before pushback on a provision that requires the governing body to also mail or email the meeting notices to citizens who request it.

3 Mar, 2023

Proposed public comment law passes key House Committee

By |2023-03-03T11:56:33-06:00March 3, 2023|Categories: Legislature|Tags: , , |0 Comments

The bill would require governing bodies to set aside a time for public comment at all governing body meetings except those in which there are no actionable items on the agenda and those in which the governing body is conducting a disciplinary hearing. The bill also allows a governing body to set time limits and require the person to give advance notice of their wish to speak.

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