October 13, 2012 Comptroller Justin Wilson Proposes Waiving First $25 in Fees for Public Records Requests Submitted to His Office

State Comptroller Justin Wilson has proposed waiving the first $25 in fees for public records requests to his office. Wilson's proposal was unanimously recommended for adoption by the Joint Government Operations Committees last week.  Click here. 


TENNESSEE STATE COMPTROLLER JUSTIN WILSON

 

Frank Gibson, former director of Tennessee Coalition on Open Government (TCOG), praised the decision. TCOG promotes transparency in government.

 

The move is apparently motivated by a desire to promote open government and concerns about efficiency. 
 

Wilson may choose to waive all fees on a case-by-case basis. "I'm absolutely in favor of open records, but I don't want it to be abused," Wilson said. "If there are excessive requests, you need to pay for it."

 

While the Public Records Act does not require local and state governments to charge citizens for  access to public records, many governmental entities have adopted rules on assessing fees for copies of documents. 

 

"The public feels like it is already paying to collect, store and provide records," Gibson said. "Fee waivers are a way to recognize that sentiment."

 

The proposed waiver is being adopted by and only applies to the Comptroller's Office. 

 

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.]

October 3, 2007 Knox Sunshine Verdict: 12-0 For the People

Twelve jurors gave a BIG victory to Tennessee citizens and to open government advocates yesterday. The plaintiffs in court were the Knoxville News-Sentinel and nine citizens. The defendant was the Knox County Commission.

At issue in the trial was Tennessee's Open Meetings Act which states in part: "...the policy of this state [is] that the formation of public policy and decisions is public business and shall not be conducted in secret." TCA 8-44-101.

The Knoxville News-Sentinel and the nine citizens sued Knox County Commissioners for violations of Tennessee's Open Meetings Act (TOMA) in a January 31, 2007, special meeting of the Commission and in actions and conduct prior to that meeting. At the meeting, commissioners appointed 8 new commissioners and 4 new countywide officials (trustee, county clerk, sheriff, and register of deeds) to replace the officials then in office.

Why were 12 officials suddenly being replaced? These 12 officials were term-limited by a Knox County Charter provision that had been approved by Knox County voters in 1994 but that been ignored for 12 years.

When a 2006 Knox case involving term-limited officials reached the Tennessee Supreme Court, the Court issued a ruling in January 2007 that the term limit provisions of the Knox charter were valid and that the 12 officials who were then holding office were in fact term-limited and should be removed from office and replaced.

Yesterday, 12 citizens said that Knox County Commissioners violated both the letter of Tennessee's Open Meetings Law as well as the spirit of the law during the process of appointing replacements for the term-limited officials.

The jurors decided that numerous violations of the law occurred during private meetings of commissioners that took place during numerous recesses at the January 31, 2007, meeting and that other violations occurred during private meetings and deliberations that took place prior to the January 31 meeting.

The ball is in the Chancellor's court now (pun intended). Chancellor Fansler will fashion a remedy for what happened. He has wide latitude in this regard, and you can be sure that Knox County and other public bodies and citizens across the state are watching with deep interest.

Some of the options he has are (1) Order a re-do of the meeting to make the appointments in an open meeting with all deliberations made publicly; (2) issue an injunction that prohibits future "Sunshine" violations and requires that commission report on its compliance to the court.

In a very complex case, each of these options raises its own unique set of issues.

If a "re-do" is ordered, are the eight old term-limited commissioners brought back to vote again on the appointments? Will the re-do really be a new and open consideration of all interested individuals or will it just be a rubber-stamp appointment of the same people again?

If Fansler orders a re-do, will Josh Jordan, son of term-limited commissioner Diane Jordan and himself a former drug-dealer, again be appointed to replace his mother? Will Sharon Cawood, wife of term-limited commissioner Mark Cawood, again be appointed to replace her husband? Will Chuck Bolus, who testified under oath that he suddenly decided to be sworn in early on January 31 but has no recollection at all of how an oath of office suddenly and miraculously appeared in his hand that day, be appointed again?

I am very pleased with the verdict. The News-Sentinel and the nine citizens have given their time and have spent considerable sums of money to clarify the Sunshine Law and to support open and accountable government in Knox County.

The Tennessee Coalition for Open Government has praised the decision while recognizing that Tennessee's Sunshine Laws (Open Meetings law and Open Records law) are not very strong.

The Coalition, of which the News-Sentinel is a member, wants to strengthen these laws when the Tennessee General Assembly meets in 2008. However, the Coalition's efforts are being opposed by city and county officials and by organizations that represent city and county officials.

These city and county officials and their member associations want to weaken Tennessee's Sunshine laws by providing for more "exceptions" that would prevent citizen access to public records and that would allow officials to meet privately in groups and reach agreements prior to public discussion and sometimes even prior to the public's awareness that a topic is under consideration (the "meeting before the meeting").

If city and county officials get their way in weakening the Sunshine Laws, then the Tennessee General Assembly will need to re-write the introduction to the Open Meetings Act as follows: "...the policy of this state [is] that the formation of public policy and decisions is NONE OF THE PUBLIC'S BUSINESS AND IS TO BE CONDUCTED IN SECRET."