October 1, 2013 Councilmembers Violate Open Meetings Act at Kingsport Retreat

The City Council held a special workshop or "retreat" at the luxurious Meadowview Convention Center in Kingsport on Friday, September 13, and Saturday, September 14. Six councilmembers attended the retreat. [Mayor Thomas was present briefly on Friday but left and did not return.]

It appears that the six councilmembers attending the Kingsport retreat violated the Open Meetings Act by discussing, deliberating, and actually making a decision to give City Administrator Tony Cox a $7,000 increase to his deferred compensation package.

When you hold a "special" called meeting or workshop, there are special requirements for the public notice that is provided. The notice must include the agenda for the meeting and each item that will be deliberated on or on which a decision will be made.

According to the September 6, 2013, public notice for this special workshop/retreat, the council was going to Kingsport to work on "strategic planning" with MTAS facilitator Pat Hardy. 

Apparently, they did more than just strategize in Kingsport. In this video taken at the Finance Committee meeting on September 17, 2013, Councilmember Gary Chesney, who is chairman of the Finance Committee, admits that the six councilmembers discussed and deliberated and reached a decision on additional compensation for the City Administrator--even though this was not an agenda item on the public notice for the special workshop meeting.

You might ask whether council could have amended the published agenda to add the deferred compensation item for discussion and deliberation. The short answer is "no." A special called meeting is just that---it is called for a special and specific purpose. The public must be notified of the purpose or purposes and no other item(s) may be considered. [At a regular meeting, agendas typically can be amended to add items but special called meetings are different]

There is another irony to this violation of the open meetings act. Chesney has recently been posting on his City Hall website about being a "firm believer" in Tennessee's Sunshine laws. (1) The Open Meetings Act which calls for open meetings and adequate public notice of those meetings, and (2) the Public Records Act which requires that public records be available to the public. 

Click here to see what Mr. Chesney had to say about Tennessee's Sunshine laws right before he violated the Open Meetings Act as admitted in the video. 

Mr. Chesney was not alone in this violation. Councilmembers Kay Senter, Paul LeBel, Chris Bivens, Bob Garrett, and Dennis Alvis were present in Kingsport as well and, according to Chesney, all discussed and "agreed" on the additional compensation.

Today, the full council will try to "cure" this particular violation by taking up the deferred compensation issue at its regular council meeting.

[As a sidenote, I find Mr. Chesney's City Hall website very informative. I recently commended him at a public meeting for taking the time to post about city business and meetings. I wish other councilmembers would do the same and, as always, I continue to ask that the council put its council packets online so that the public can see the contracts, the resolutions, the ordinances, and background information for council actions]

April 22, 2009 More Questions on the "Joint Meeting" That Was Announced But Didn't Take Place

Well, things just get curiouser and curiouser.

The Tribune reported on Sunday, April 19, that there would be a joint work session meeting of the Hamblen County Commission and School Board on Monday, April 20, at 6:00 PM. That joint work session didn't happen.

Yesterday, the Tribune reported that County Commission Chair Stancil Ford and County Mayor David Purkey told Director of Schools Dale Lynch "last week" that the county commission wouldn't be attending. Click on Tribune for yesterday's explanation of why the joint meeting that was a front-page story on April 19th didn't happen. [And if the Tribune links above aren't working, call the Tribune 581-5630. For some reason, they are very quick to take down links to their stories.]

Here are the unanswered questions. If county commission cancelled out of the joint meeting "last week," why in the world did the Tribune go ahead and announce on April 19 that the joint meeting was still taking place on April 20? If the County Mayor and Commission Chair Stancil Ford told Dr. Lynch that commissioners would not be attending, why didn't the Tribune report that on April 19?

I know the county has trouble providing notice of meetings to the public. Now, it looks like the county, the school board, and the press are just plain confused about what's going on.

April 21, 2009 Open Meetings Act in Hamblen County: Now Meetings Are Announced That Aren't Taking Place!

On Sunday, the Tribune announced in a front-article that "Hamblen County commissioners and school board members will meet in a work session Monday to continue their discussion on the future of the school building program."

According to the paper, the work session was set for 6:00 PM in the old East High library.

The only commissioner present for the "commission-school board work session" was Ricky Bruce.

We've gone from no public notice of meetings to front-page notice of meetings that don't take place! [The "green" link to the Tribune's Sunday front-page notice of the meeting is working now but don't expect it to work for very long--for some reason, the Tribune doesn't leave permanent links up to its stories. My "blue" blog link is still good.]

The rumor is that the county called or attempted to call the meeting off last Friday, but the school board/Tribune either didn't get the message or ignored it and went ahead and announced the meeting in the paper.

At the "joint" meeting, Dr. Lynch discussed the commission's refusal to fund purchase of the McCorkle property on 25E for a new East High. He then passed out info to Board members and the press and discussed properties that could be purchased around the existing East High.

City Administrator Jim Crumley has apparently given the following estimated sales prices to Lynch: Talley-Ward could be sold to the school system for $810,000; Long-Reel track for $505,000; and King Park for $160,000.

Lynch said other private properties available have an estimated purchase price of around $692,000.

Then talk of one high school v. two came up. School Board Chair Janice Haun said she opposed one high school. Carolyn Spoone Holt (Commissioner Joe Spoone's sister) said most parents want two high schools.

Clint Harrison said he had never heard of one high school until recently, and added that one high school should not be built just to save money.

Carolyn Wolfenbarger said she was "adamantly" against one high school.

Former Morristown High and West High School teacher Coach Gene Quarles talked at length about maintaining two high schools and said he could see the benefits of a third high school in order to keep the population of each high school at around 900 students.

He said that some of those behind one high school are driven by a desire to have the top athletic program rather than a top education program.

March 7, 2009 After Lawsuit Is Filed, Ethics Committee Wants To Correct Its Violation of Tennessee Open Meetings Act

In a previous post, I reported that the Hamblen County Ethics Committee violated the Tennessee Open Meetings Act (TOMA) by not providing notice to the "public" of its December 15, 2008, "public" meeting.

Commissioner Joe Swann, who is chairman of the Ethics Committee, Commissioner Stancil Ford, a member of the Ethics Committee, and Rusty Cantwell, attorney for the Ethics Committee, were put on notice of this violation during the public comments portion of the January 22 meeting of the Hamblen County Commission.

Fortunately, the TOMA provides a very simple way to fix such a violation--- just "re-do" the meeting with adequate notice to the public and then re-consider and fully deliberate again on the public business in a true public meeting. On January 22, the Ethics Committee was requested to re-do its December 15 meeting with proper notice to the public.

Unfortunately, the Ethics Committee chose to deny the violation and ignored the request to correct the situation. With the Ethics Committee stonewalling and refusing to remedy its violation, the only way left to enforce the Open Meetings Act was for a citizen to file suit against the violators.

After waiting weeks and weeks for the Ethics Committee to do the easy thing, the right thing, the "ethical" thing---call another meeting with proper notice to the public---Gwen Holden filed a citizen's suit against the Ethics Committee and its five members on February 17, 2009. I represent Ms. Holden.

After being served with Ms. Holden's lawsuit, the Ethics Committee rather suddenly decided that a "re-do" meeting sounded pretty good after all. The Ethics Committee "re-do" meeting to correct its violation of the Open Meetings Act is set for Wednesday, March 11, at 4:00 pm in the West Wing Conference Room in the basement of the new portion of the Courthouse.

The March 11 agenda includes review of the disciplinary actions taken by Mayor David Purkey against county employees Paul King and Frank Parker who were indicted for felony theft (Parker and King) and felony misconduct (Parker) in May 2008.

Government at its best. The Ethics Committee violates the law. Refuses to admit that it did anything wrong. Ignores a simple request to fix the violation with a "re-do" meeting. Then, after its bluff is called and a lawsuit is filed, suddenly the Ethics Committee thinks that a "re-do" sounds great after all!

It is ironic that a violation such as this would involve the Ethics Committee.

It is unfortunate that the Ethics Committee, faced with an obvious violation of the Open Meetings Act, got its back up and refused to admit the violation and simply correct it. This could have been taken care of right away--at no-cost to the taxpayers--if the Ethics Committee had said 'oops, we're sorry and we're going to fix this right now with a proper meeting with adequate public notice.'

Now, the Ethics Committee and its members will ask the taxpayers of Hamblen County to pay the legal fees that the Ethics Committee has incurred for a lawsuit that they caused by their refusal to correct their Open Meetings violation at the start.

The good news, however, is that Ethics Chairman Joe Swann and the other members of the Ethics Committee have seen the light ("Sunshine") and are now aware that you really can't have a "public" meeting without letting the public know about it.

Hopefully, other local governmental bodies will also be careful to make sure that the public is informed about their meetings.

The Open Meetings and Open Records Acts are Tennessee's Sunshine Laws and help protect and preserve the public's right to know what the government is doing. Visit the website of the Tennessee Coalition for Open Government.

[3/8/09 Special thanks to Taxing Tennessee for mentioning and linking to this post! Click Taxing Tennessee to see the complete website.]

February 10, 2009 Ethics Committee Violates the Sunshine Law--No Notice to the Public of its December 15 "Public" Meeting

Oops, they did it again--another county government meeting without notice to the public.

THEN: The Commission held a special meeting in May 2007 to appoint the Ethics Committee and did not provide public notice of the meeting. See my post here and the opinion of the county attorney that informing the press about a meeting meets the requirements of "adequate public notice"---even when the press doesn't mention the meeting to the public.

NOW: The Ethics Committee, which rarely meets, has held a special meeting (December 2008) without providing public notice of the meeting. What irony! The Ethics Committee is appointed in a meeting without notice to the public--- and then the Ethics Committee itself meets without notice to the public.

Tennessee's Open Meetings Act (TOMA) is one of our Sunshine Laws. The purpose of TOMA is to make sure that the public's business takes place in the "sunshine" with "adequate public notice" of any meetings.

Tennessee Code 8-44-103 requires Notice of public meetings. —

(a) Notice of Regular Meetings. Any such governmental body which holds a meeting previously scheduled by statute, ordinance, or resolution shall give adequate public notice of such meeting.

(b) Notice of Special Meetings. Any such governmental body which holds a meeting not previously scheduled by statute, ordinance, or resolution, or for which notice is not already provided by law, shall give adequate public notice of such meeting.

(c) The notice requirements of this part are in addition to, and not in substitution of, any other notice required by law.

Notice of the special December 15 Ethics Committee meeting was provided to a limited number of people---Ethics Committee members, commissioners, the county attorney, and the press but these were the only people who were notified.

So there's not really a question of whether there was adequate notice to the public. There was NO notice to the public.

[And strangely, the notice that was provided to the press and to the Ethics Committee didn't even mention why there was a special meeting or what it was about.]

As it turned out from reports after the meeting, the Committee considered the "resign or be ousted" letter sent by Mayor David Purkey to then-Constable Paul King, discussed and got county attorney Rusty Cantwell's opinion on the actions taken by Purkey in regard to Paul King and Frank Parker, and then took a vote supporting the "resign or be ousted" letter.

The Parker-King saga at Cherokee Park is a lengthy one of theft, lies, pre-trial diversion, and plea deals, culminating in both keeping their county jobs but with demotions and/or transfers. Of course, it was their boss County Mayor David Purkey who made the decision to keep them on the county payroll and he just happened to be the #1 character reference for both men.

But I digress. Back to the Sunshine Law.

At the January 22 meeting of the full Commission, I spoke to the county attorney before the meeting to point out that there was no notice to the public of the December 15 Ethics meeting. The county attorney repeated his previous opinion that notifying the press is all the county must do. In other words, we tell the press and if the press doesn't pass the word along to the public, then too bad, so sad.

During the visitor's comments portion of the commission meeting, I spoke to the full commission about the apparent violation of the Open Meetings Act, pointing out that the law requires "adequate public notice" and that this is the second meeting that I know of where a limited number of people are notified, but there is NO notice to the public at all.

Actions taken at a meeting in violation of the Sunshine Law may be declared void, but there is a very easy way to correct the violation, and that's what I asked the Ethics Committee to do. Hold a new meeting--with notice to the public and with full deliberation and re-consideration of the actions taken. Problem solved.

After two weeks passed and the commission had not responded to my request for a re-do of the Ethics Committee meeting, I contacted Chairman Stancil Ford to see what, if anything, the county intended to do. Ford stated that he had talked with the county attorney and that the county attorney continues to maintain that notifying the press is all the law requires. Ford suggested that I call the chairman of the Ethics Committee Joe Swann, which I did, and discuss my concerns with Joe.

Joe Swann told me that he had also talked with the county attorney. Swann informed me that the county attorney maintains that there is no violation of the open meetings act and that notice to the press meets the requirements of the law. He was firm in stating that there would be no re-do of the meeting.

I shared with him that it is my opinion that at least two "public" meetings of county government have been held without any notification to the "public." While I fully agreed that there has been "adequate press notice," I believe that the law clearly and in plain words requires "adequate public notice."

In the two instances mentioned, no one has to spend much time bickering over whether "adequate" notice to the public was given, because there was NO public notice at all. Let the Sunshine in.