The city of Chattanooga is planning ethics training that would include open meetings and open records after a Friday ruling by a judge that could cost its industrial development board potentially thousands of dollars in legal fees for violating the Sunshine Law, the Chattanooga Times Free Press reported today.
The Times Free Press story about a win by Helen Burns Sharp outlined a string of open meetings and public records complaints against the city of Chattanooga’s various governing entities, including another lawsuit where it had to pay $71,000 in attorney’s fees earlier this year.
The city’s attorney, Wade Hinton, told the news organization that the city is working to adhere to the open government laws. “There is an overall ethics training that includes open meetings and open records as well as the ethics code. Within the next few months we’ll probably start rolling out that training.”
The newspaper reported that Hinton himself may have run afoul of Open Meetings law during a debate over the city’s sound ordinance when he asked council members to fill out multiple choice sheets and return them to him.
You can read more at the Times Free Press story “City loses 2nd round in legal fight over development board violations.”
